Connecting environmental data: Bradford, textiles, and river pollution

Short summary

This investigation processed a small sample of documents relating to the history of river pollution in Bradford, and its association with the textile industry. The aim of the investigation was to inquire into how digital tools could be applied to historic environmental data, with a view to demonstrating the value of these methods to environmental histories of industrial heritage. Bradford Beck and surrounding watercourses was chosen as a case study because of the particular connection between the textile industry and water degradation in the nineteenth century, which is particularly well documented in primary source material. The investigation included a collaboration with Friends of Bradford’s Becks, a campaign group based in Bradford, and included two in-person workshops in Bradford in May 2024. As part of the investigation we created a Neo4j database representing the reported pollution in around 60 mills and factories in Bradford and their relationships to each other. Using QGIS and Felt maps, we also produced a set of line vectors showing the changing course of Bradford Beck and its tributaries using historic maps between the 1950s and 1910s. We also prepared a book chapter entitled ‘Towards a natural collection: digital and community histories of river pollution in Bradford’.

Research Questions

• Where does historic environmental data fit into our definition of a ‘national collection’?
• What kind of environmental data is accessible from historical sources?
• How can digital tools be fine-tuned to extract this data?
• Can we map historical environmental data in ways that is meaningful to researchers and other stakeholders?
• Are there any taxonomies/thesauri in existence that are particularly helpful when thinking of environmental data in terms of linkage? Is it possible to create a sample taxonomy for terms relating to river pollution, chemicals, processes, etc.?
• How can CE’s digital and social machine methodologies help community groups in Bradford to access and use information about Bradford’s environmental history?

People

Max Long

Conceptualization, Investigation, Formal Analysis, Data Curation, Software, Writing

Tasha Kitcher

Conceptualization, Investigation, Formal Analysis, Data Curation, Software, Writing, Visualization

Daniel Belteki

Data Curation, Writing

Robert Hellawell

Resources, Investigation, Writing

Nayomi Kasthuri Arachchi

Software

Data sources

• Ordnance Survey Maps from the National Library of Scotland
• Scans of 19th-century river pollution reports from Parliamentary Papers Online
• Historic Environment Records datasets of mills in West Yorkshire
• Vector lines of watercourses in Bradford and West Yorkshire

Investigation methods/ tools/ code/ software :

• OCR: ABBYY Finereader
• ChatGPT
• Neo4j
• QGIS
• Felt maps

Outputs

• Line vectors for watercourses in Bradford and surrounding area
• Felt maps containing watercourses (and some millponds)
• Geolocated tithe maps for Bradford and surrounding area
• Database of mills and their responses to 1871 River Pollution Report (Excel spreadsheet)
• Neo4j database
• Book chapter: ‘Towards a natural collection: digital and community histories of river pollution in Bradford’

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License - CC BY 4.0.