WE ALREADY KNOW that East Lancashire is a fantastic county.
It’s home to some beautiful areas top businesses and some seriously impressive people.
Lancashire has also put its own individual stamp on society, giving the world numerous inventions and products that we wouldn’t have been able to live without- many of these things are still used today.
Here are just 10 things that were invented in East Lancashire- how many did you know about?
Jelly Babies
For more than 50 years, a Lancashire factory exported this sweet treat all over the world- Fryer and Co (Nelson) Ltd, Victory V Factories
Nelson Man, Thomas Fryer, met a travelling confectioner over a pint of beer and they decided to open a small shop in the town making peppermints and lozenges.
Down the years, the company had many notable firsts – it was the first to make jelly babies, slab toffee and decorated tins as sweet packaging.
Jelly babies were originally named ‘unclaimed babies’, so-called after babies left on church steps, and can be traced back to around the 1880s.
The Nori Brick
Also known as the Accrington brick, these are a type of iron-hard engineering bricks and one of the hardest and resistant bricks available.
Whinney Hill Quarry at Clayton-le-Moors was the source of a special kind of clay which made them.
The Empire State Building, Blackpool Tower and the Thiepval memorial to the Missing on the Somme are all built from red Nori bricks.
Legend has it the name of the Nori firm, originally the Iron Brick Company, is iron spelt backwards due to an error.
Cowboy and western movies
If you love a good Western movie filled with cowboys and tense quick draws- then you can thank the town of Blackburn.
The first wild west film was made in the Blackburn borough in 1899 by legendary filmmakers Mitchell and Kenyon.
Kidnapping By Indians It is the first known example of the classic genre and it was filmed four years before The Great Train Robbery, which until 2019 was widely seen as the genre's first film.
The Co-operative movement
The next time you walk into your local co-op, remember that the original prototype came from Rochdale.
In 1844 the Rochdale Pioneers founded the modern cooperative movement in Lancashire.
A group of 28 people working in the Rochdale cotton mills established the first modern cooperative business.
They are widely regarded as the prototype of the modern cooperative society and founders of the cooperative movement.
The workers faced miserable working conditions and low wages, leaving them unable to afford food and household goods. They pooled together their good and decided to sell them; Initially, there were only four items for sale: flour, oatmeal, sugar, and butter.
Since then, the cooperative movement has flourished, extending across the globe and encompassing all sectors of economy.
The Spinning Jenny
The origin of the cotton industry can be traced back to Stanhill village near Oswaldtwistle, where The Spinning Jenny was invented.
James Hargreaves was born here in 1720; he was a carpenter and weaver who invented the Spinning Jenny in 1764 which allowed one man to operate eight spindles at a time.
He is said to have thought of the idea when he observed a spinning wheel that had been accidentally overturned by his daughter, Jenny.
Netlon
The specialised plastic netting which has been used around the world at venues such as the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Hong Kong race track- It is also used in the automotive industry.
It was founded by Dr Brian Mercer from Blackburn back in 1959.
At the time, the product was just known then as Mercer mesh and the machine which produced it had been built by the progressive managing director of Blackburn Pioneer Mill Co, in his workshop, to his own design.
Frank Brian Mercer was born in Blackburn in 1927 and went to Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School.
He took over Pioneer Mill, on the banks of the canal at Mill Hill, at the age of 25.
The jet engine
Coventry-born Sir Frank Whittle is known globally as the man who changed aviation history by inventing the first jet engine.
However, did you know that it was by Rolls Royce at Barnoldswick in 1943 and is of the type used in the RAF's first jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor.
(Photo: Wikimedia Commons/ Uploaded by High Contrast/ Authorbrewbooks from near Seattle, USA)
The Waterloo cotton mill in Clitheroe was also used as a ‘secret base’ for Whittle and the aviation team to work on and design the engine in secret.
Ewbank Sweeper
Did you ever use an Ewbank carpet sweeper?
Accrington man, Richard Kenyon, first developed this carpet cleaner after a visit to America in 1880.
The revolutionary sweeping machine took its name from the Ewbank area of Blackburn where the factory stood.
Throughout the 20th century his floor sweepers went on to sell in their millions and became a favourite throughout homes in Britain in the 50s and 60s.
Interactive white boards
This more modern invention was pioneered by Blackburn-based Promethean.
In 2004, Promethean announced the biggest deal in its history after winning a multi-million-pound contract with the Mexican government to supply its hi-tech teaching system to all the country’s primary schools.
The deal would see its interactive whiteboard technology installed in around 4,000 schools.
Terylene
This is one of the world’s first man-made fibres- and it was developed in Accrington at the Broad Oak Works and patented in 1941.
Lancashire chemists John Rex Whinfield and James Tennant Dixon were the brains behind the invention.
Terelene is mainly used to make plastic bottles and clothing.
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