Lost images of our industrial past ........... no 5 the construction of the Petrograd Boot Company

Now I know there will be a story here and more over someone will come back with a full account of the history of the Petrograd Boot Company.

But for now all I have is this picture collected by my friend Sally from a book including many other pictures of Trafford Park from the first half of the last century.

The only other reference comes from the National Archive which took me to the Greater Manchester County Record Office, now with the Manchester Archives at Central Ref and lists  what I guess will be the same image, “Workers, or builders, or both, at the Petrograd Boot Company warehouse (Russian) in Trafford Park during World War I, reference 580/3, negative sheet number K1/29” with a date of 1914-18.

And I guess this may be the same image but of course this short description does not do justice to what will be a fascinating piece of history.

The starting point will have to be a directory for Trafford Park during the war and a visit to the Trafford Local History Centre.

But in the meantime I am full of questions, ranging from who owned the company, was it originally a Russian business and that obvious one did it survive the Revolution?

All of which will have to wait a tad bit longer.

Picture; the construction of the Petrograd Boot Company Trafford Park, during the Great War from the collection of Sally Dervan