Wills’ Factory

Isabela Jedrzejczyk

The last days of a Newcastle upon Tyne cigarette factory, the photographs taken and collected in May 1986. Text by Amber member Ellin Hare.

The majority of the 600 strong workforce had left Wills’ in December 1985. Those that were left were engaged in the cleaning up process. Some were waiting to qualify for their pensions: some were going to a new distribution depot being established on a trading estate in North Shields; some were still waiting for news of transfers to Bristol or Nottingham. The archive photographs were reprinted from an archive at Turner’s that was produced for Wills’ at the start and peak of the Newcastle factory’s life.

Images either public domain or © Isabela Jedrzejczyk

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