During the early 1840s, the Admiral Lord Rodney Pub in Waterside, Colne, was perceived by the Authorities to be a centre of intrigue and dissent during the time when Power Looms were introduced into Colne.

Cotton workers felt their livelihoods, as home and manual loom workers were being threatened by automation. In 1840, there was a 52 weeks cotton workers’ strike.

The workers had the support of the radical Manchester Socialist Group, known as the Chartists. Meanwhile, a government spy was placed behind the bar at the pub to follow the plotting of the rebels.

There was a march, from the pub, up Waterside Road to Robert Shaw's premises in Colne Lane - Victoria Mills and his Georgian residency next door [now a new housing development opposite West Street] - to protest against the Power Looms. Robert Shaw was the first and largest Mill owner in Colne to introduce Power Looms.

This situation led to the Riot in Waterside. The Militia was then called from Burnley to Colne, where the Cloth (Piece) Hall was used as a Barracks. It was during this initial disturbance that the local constable, Joseph Halstead, aged 44 years, was isolated and killed in Clayton Street, which stretched up as far as Market Street in those days.

Other historians say the murder took place in Parkinson Place which was situated between St John’s Street and the former Railway Street.

His gravestone erected, as a headstone, in Colne Cemetery reads: "...Barbarously murdered while engaged in his duty as a Special Constable during the riot of 10th August 1840".

The tombstone was moved from its original site in the old Methodist Churchyard in Albert Road.

Richard Boothman, a Weaver, who always pleaded his innocence of the crime, was still convicted as a Chartist murderer.

His original death sentence was commuted to transportation for life.

He was shipped to Tasmania and arrived in Hobart on 13th January 1842.

After two years internment at the notorious Penal Colony at Impression Bay, Boothman was released from his life sentence but banished from returning to Colne (a partial pardon).

Boothman continued to deny responsibility for the crime.

His petitions for his return to England in letters home to relatives failed to win a full reprieve.

He moved to the north of the island and became a successful sheep farmer, dying in Launceston, Tasmania, in 1877.

By the end of the 1840s, Power Looms had become established in most Mills in Colne with very few home hand looms left.

In 1900, there 55 Cotton Mills in Colne with over half of them in Waterside – the age when Cotton was King!