Collection: Ronald S Fitzgerald Collection

Description

Ronald S Fitzgerald is a specialist industrial investigator, former Keeper of Industrial Archaeology at Leeds Industrial Museum and active in the Bradford Model Engineering Society. During the early/mid 1990s Ronald Fitzgerald deposited a number of reference prints and measured drawings with the NMR.

The collection comprises b/w photographs and measured drawings of various industrial sites. It can be separated into three components:

1.‘Structural Perspectives’ Photographs- 105 photographic prints originating from ‘Structural Perspectives’, Fitzgerald’s own company specializing in the recording of industrial sites, this material focuses on West Yorkshire textile mills and Coburg Dock, Liverpool. Included are: •Water Lane Mills, Leeds (36 b/w prints) •Dean Clough Mills, Halifax (30 b/w prints) •Lee Bank Mills, Northowram, Calderdale (28 b/w prints) •Coburg Dock, Liverpool (11 b/w prints – including 3 photographic copies of measured drawings dating from 1876)

2.‘Structural Perspectives’ Measured Drawings – 4 measured drawings originating from ‘Structural Perspectives’, Fitzgerald’s own company specializing in the recording of industrial sites, this component comprises: •Dean Clough Mills, Halifax (4 measured drawings)

3.Mills on the River Mersey at Stockport - 465 photographic prints.

This part of the collection is recorded in the documentation as showing the former Liverpool Road Station, Manchester but is a detailed record of derelict mills fronting onto the River Mersey in central Stockport including interior and exterior views. All the photographs relate to a very limited geographical area and include Kingston Mill on Chester Gate (extant); Travis Brook Mill (demolished 1975) and India Mills on Travis Street (demolished). The vast majority of views show Travis Brook Mill (aka Orrell’s Mill) and were taken circa 1975, immediately prior to demolition of this mill.

Archival History

Provenance : Specialist industrial investigator, former Keeper of Industrial Archaelogy at Leeds Industrial Museum

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