Operatives Leaving Messrs Pilkington Bros. Works, St Helens (1901)

Shift change at Edwardian Britain's most important glassmakers, at the heart of the Merseyside town.

Some factories are so much the centre of their town that they begin to define it. 'Pilks' wasn't yet the industrial giant it would become, but it was big enough that Mitchell and Kenyon's cameraman needed several different positions to capture just some of its workers outside the factory gates. The smaller children waiting for their families may before long have ended up working there themselves.