A Social History of Fabric Printing in Crayford

digital:works has completed its involvement in the Fabric of Our Town project. Working with Year 6 pupils at St Joseph’s School, Crayford on a film project.

We have been working with the young people to make a film showing Crayford’s history as a mecca for hand block printing and the worker’s involvement in the Chartist Movement. The young people have interviewed historians and  workers of the now defunct factories and filmed demonstrations of the hand block printing process.

The young people have acted the parts of child workers using scripts from original documents dating back to the mid 19th century and have provided the music used in the film. The interviews are illustrated with some wonderful archive images and documents and some special archive footage of the hand block printing processes from the David Evans factory just as it was being superseded by the screen printing process.