Report - Gannex Textile Mill, Elland REPORT

[dweeb]

It really is a crime that this mill is being demolished. Firstly, because so many of the mills in the area have been restored to very handsome buildings, and secondly because Joseph Kagan, the owner of Gannex and Kagan Textiles was a very famous historical figure.

Joseph Kagan - 60 years later to become a peer of the United Kingdom - was born in 1915, the son of Benjamin and Miriam Kagan, who had built up a textile business in Kaunas, Lithuania, and who made a minor fortune by selling to the Kaiser's army grey cloth of a colour which gave maximum camouflage-effect in the conditions of the Russian winter.

Young Joseph, said the future Lord Kagan, could not have got a better technical education than that which was provided at the high school in the Jewish ghetto of Kaunas. Kagan came to England in the summer of 1933, chaperoned by his mother, to do a course in textiles at Leeds University. He was to return to the West Riding several times. However, when Stalin suddenly walked into Lithuania in 1940, Kagan was caught by the Red Army, although his father, by luck of being out of town, managed t o make his escape to England.

He became great friends with Harold Wilson, and became Lord Kagan. He later lost his knighthood for tax fraud and did time inside.

From what I have heard ghe was a bit of a lad. I once read that he came speeding past the house of commons in a sportscar and a passer by said to the guard on the gate "who the hell was that". The guard replied "Oh thats Lord Kagan, he is well known in these parts!"


Demo is underway, but there was still lots to see...

Lord Joseph Kagan