Mr. Peter Ward Sutcliffe with one of the moulding machines.

From the twentieth of an Express weekly industrial feature "We Can Make It" by Allan Halstead. The series outlines each firm's history and development and tells the story of ordinary people. It was linked with a competition "Unsung Hero '71" with a prize of a holiday in Ireland with a companion. The winner to be announced on 22nd June 1971. To find all this series of articles search the website using the words - unsung hero.

Although Peter Ward & Co, was formed in 1952 by Peter Ward Sutcliffe in some old shops in Trafalgar Street, his father Alwyn Sutcliffe (son of a former mayor of Burnley) had started a business as a Cotton Waste Merchant in Trafalgar Street. Alwyn Sutcliffe bought and sold odds and ends needed in the cotton industry. In the 1940's he bought two braiding machines which plait thin strands together to make a strong rope - in this case, a washing line. When Peter Ward Sutcliffe re-named the firm, they also produced mop heads. In the mid 1960's housing and other buildings on Trafalgar Street were knocked down to create the Trafalgar Flats complex and Peter Ward's relocated to a compact 8,000 sq.ft. factory at Westgate, all on one floor.
The development of PVC packaging allowed Peter Sutcliffe to offer mop heads in an attractive polythene "bag". He also produced plastic-covered clothes lines and more recently introduced a plastic-moulded fitting to replace the old metal socket which connects the cotton mop to the wooden handle. Two other local firms were instrumental in this achievement - Trafalgar Design and Tool Company at Lowerhouse who made the drawings and produced steel moulds for the machines which made the sockets and clips four at a time, and Pollard and Robinson, Padiham engineers, who made the jigs for assembling the sockets and clips. The firm has grown from a two-man business in Trafalgar Street to employing 25 people. They are holders of the Burnley Express Industrial Achievement of the Year Award.