Dyeing is an art that Bradford used to do exceptionally well, better, in fact, than anywhere else in the world.

Seventy-five years ago this week, the death occurred of George William Douglas, founder member, chairman and from 1909 until his retirement in 1946, sole managing director of the Bradford Dyers’ Association.

He died at the age of 88 on November 26, 1947 – on the very day that Jowett cars at Idle produced their 10,00th car.

The news of these unrelated events appeared in that day’s Telegraph & Argus (four broadsheet pages, price three-halfpence or 1.5p). These two news items demonstrated, matter-of-factly, that Bradford was a manufacturing powerhouse across a range of light and heavy industry.

George Douglas, educated at Bradford Grammar School and the Yorkshire College in Leeds, spent his entire working life in the textile trade. He entered it as an apprentice to the Bradford merchanting firm of A and S Henry and Co Ltd, where his father was a manager and then a partner.

On leaving the college in 1878, he was taken on by Edward Ripley & Son, whose dye works at East Bowling was reputedly the biggest in the world. It developed its own railway line and coal trucks. The local landscape was dominated by Ripley’s buildings, none of which exist today.

Over the next 60 years, George Douglas was a shaper of the industrial destiny of Bradford, helping to create before the age of 40 the BDA, which brought together the dyeing and finishing processes of 22 firms. He was also a founder member of the Society of Dyers and colourists.

The BDA was set up in December 1898. The 22 businesses, including Edward Ripley & Son, were acquired for the-then enormous sum of £2,870,640. The new business comprised about 90 per cent of the city’s piece-dyeing trade, with a combined workforce of 7,500.

The headquarters was a handsome four-to-five story Yorkshire sandstone building at 39 Well Street, between Church Bank and Currer Street at the foot of Little Germany. The building is still there: it is called Pennine House.

In the words of BDA chairman James Ewing, in a report published in March, 1949, the company was formed “to enable the various firms unitedly to meet the more severe trading conditions that were appearing, by effecting economies and improvements in production through the pooling of technical skill and experience, and the centralisation of administration, purchasing, distributing and accountancy.”

The idea was to stabilise prices by agreement so that in good times and bad all parties involved would make a profit and reliable outlets for finished cloth would be maintained. In effect, the BDA was a cartel. It’s mode of doing business would not be smiled upon by the European Union.

Back in the late 19th century, most elements of the wool textile trade – scouring, spinning, weaving, dyeing, printing – were done separately by different companies. Salts Mill was one of the few examples where most of the processes, including marketing and sales, were carried out in the one factory.

The BDA was an international conglomerate with branches in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Egypt, the United States and Canada. The company was very prestigious.

The Well Street building had a laboratory on the top floor where chemists and technicians worked on the finishing processes that proofed fabrics against fading, shrinking and creasing.

James Ewing wrote: “We were among the forerunners in the finishing of Rayon Goods, and in the introduction to this country of the Dyeing and Finishing of Rayon Crepes, which trade has now assumed such large proportions.

“The speciality finishes which the Association during its lifetime has introduced for Wool, Cotton and Rayon Goods are far too numerous for all but a few to be mentioned here.”

He went on to list nine including Cravenette, which was showerproof; Palmella, a finish for wool tropical suitings resistant to perspiration, washing and sunshine; and Maxifix, a process which made wool fabrics shrink-resistant in washing and in wear.

T&A reader John Pashley, who lives at Baildon, worked for the BDA from 1950 to 1991. He was twice appointed managing director of companies in Lancashire.

He said: “BDA was a world-class company that people have forgotten about. They set the standards for the advancement of textile dyeing and finishing.”

During John’s 40 years with the company he saw the business change as man-made fibres to some degree displaced natural fibres.

“Performance and easy care fabrics were produced more easily. Uses to which synthetic fibres could be put were more various. Polyester, developed by the Calico Printers Association in Manchester and later taken over by the Americans, was used with a blend of cotton to make shirts. Crimpelene, a form of polyester, was used to make ladies dresses.

“BDA were at the forefront of water-proofing, flame-retarding, anti-shrinking, crease-resistant, rot- proofing and moth-proofing for the processing of new fabrics that were coming on to the market – nylon, polyester,” he added.

In 1956, Egypt’s President Nasser sequestrated the assets of BDA’s Alexandria company Beida Dyers which in 1954 had processed 81 million yards of cloth, mainly top-quality shirting fabric.

The works covered 48,000 square yards and employed about 3,000 people. It was very successful. By 1954, 37 per cent of the yardage processed by BDA companies and 50 per cent of its trading profit was from its branches overseas – in Egypt, the United States and Canada.

The company spent more than £3m between 1950-54 on developing a range of synthetic fibres. When Nasser struck a blow for Egyptian nationalism he badly wounded BDA.

Compensation claims totalling £3.25 million were submitted to the Foreign Office in London. But it was 1963 when the claims were settled. BDA got about a third of what it had claimed.

Bradford Dyers’ Association was acquired by Manchester-born clothing entrepreneur Joe Hyman in 1964 and subsumed into his company Viyella International which produced a range of synthetic fabrics. Hyman, backed up by a multi-million pound investment from ICI, also bought other textile companies.

When the Viyella International share and cash offer was made, BDA chairman Mr A Symons sought to justify the deal to shareholders by saying: “Your directors are convinced that by becoming part of a large integrated group we have infinitely greater prospects of assuring the volume of business necessary to maintain our position in the industry, our service to our customers, and the well being of our employees.”

How wrong he was. Viyella’s Manchester-born self-made magnate Joe Hyman had other ideas.

By 1969, Viyella ranked with textile conglomerates ICI and Courtaulds, owning familiar brand names such as Aertex, Clydella and shirt-makers for Marks & Spencer, British Van Heusen. But that was also the year Joe Hyman was ousted as company chairman in a boardroom coup.

ICI bought up Viyella, merging it with Carrington and Dewhirst. After merging with Scottish cotton thread firm Coats Paton, Joe Hyman’s great company became Coats Viyella.

In 2003, the company was taken over by the Guinness Peat group and is now registered as Coats plc, trading under different names in different countries.

Why did Joe Hyman take over BDA in 1964?

John said: “The company was not making the returns that shareholders expected. Joe Hyman promised more. He wasn’t liked in Bradford. He got rid of parts of BDA that weren’t making money and kept the parts which did. He asset-stripped. He was very sharp, very sharp indeed. Very full of himself.

“The first time he came to BDA he went straight to the invoice goods department where all the rejects and faulty fabrics were sold off. He went there because his father (Solly) set in business buying rejects from BDA years before. He was a Job and Fent merchant. Joe Hyman was very astute at picking up companies that had potential.”

At the peak of the BDA, the company had 130 vehicles, dark green with BDA in gold lettering. The livery changed to white, green and mauve of Coats Viyella after the take-over and the amalgamation of Viyella International with the Scottish cotton thread firm Coats Paton.

In September 1981, the last BDA vehicle, an 8.5 ton, ten-year-old Bedford van with 300,000 miles on the clock, was taken out of service. It was the end of the road for George Douglas’s company.