The Mayor of rochdale in 1914 was one Councillor Redfern J.P. - he also happened to be the secretary of the Operative Spinners Association.
He visited Garfield Mill along with 4 of his colleagues on the morning of Tuesday 6th January 1914, Mr A. Holland - the President of the Spinners, and two members of the Master Cotton Spinners Association, Mr Robert Stott and Mr H. Bleakley who was also the manger of Arkwright Mill.
They were making a courtesy visit to Garfield.
Arriving around 10am they decided it would be beneficial to go through the entire mill and see its workings, they began their visit on the 5th floor, deciding to get to the top via the mills hoist.
The hoist tenter loaded the four men onto the hoist platform and took them to the top encountering no problems at all, once on the top floor for some unknown reason the platform failed to remain stationary and began to slowly run back down the ground, with the men still aboard.
One of the party shouted for someone to grab a bar that crossed the top of the lift that the winding ropes were attached to, all the men complied with the instruction. The hoist platform continued its decent, at first the speed of the lift wasn't too great but as it gathered momentum it became much faster.
Fortunately the ropes held and didn't break, the cage crashed into the floor of the shaft, closely followed by the four men whose speed had been checked by the counter weights travelling upwards.
They ended up in a heap on the shaft floor.
The Mayor injured his right hand and received numerous cuts and bruises, all the men suffered from shock, especially Robert Stott who was an elderly gentleman.
The men continued with their tour of the mill and suffered no lasting effects from their hoist experience !
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