WHEN Burnley was a cotton heavyweight in the world, many of its female workers earned their pay in the mills.

Indeed the 1921 census shows that out of every 1,000 female workers, 776 worked in the textile industry - and the pattern was repeated in neighbouring towns and across Lancashire.

In 1930 the Daily Dispatch, a national newspaper based in Manchester, introduced the Cotton Queen competition for mill girls in the county.

Each local area had its own queen, who was expected to attend shows and galas, and it was customary for her regalia to be made in the mill where she worked.

She then went on to compete in the national final, for the chance to become Cotton Queen of Great Britain.

In 1932 this title went to Marjorie Knowles, of Nelson, who was then 18 and had been named Burnley Cotton Queen just three weeks earlier.

The ceremony took place in Blackpool, where she was crowned by her predecessor Lois Heath surrounded by her retinue.

All these photographs come from a souvenir album of her reign, which belongs to her niece Pamela Dobson, of Brierfield, and is kept by Burnley Reference Library. Another is at Queen Street mill, in Harle Syke. They show Marjorie attending a variety of events and undertaking tours throughout East Lancashire and the northern cotton towns. One shows her being rapturously welcomed by her workmates at Sharples Warehouses and Co, in Nelson, where she worked.

Pamela believes her aunt worked in the fabric shop, which she thinks was called The Mercantile.

Material for her regalia was specially woven at the mill and, 70 years later, the bright red fabric left over from her fur-trimmed coat is today a pair of curtains hanging at Pamela's home.

One of five children, Marjorie lived in Lime Street, alongside three sisters, Gladys, Renee, and Hilda, and a brother Jack.

She later married a university lecturer and moved abroad, working in the Virgin Isles and New York. She died in Fort Lauderdale in her mid 70s.

l The Daily Dispatch Cotton Queen contests, which began in 1930, appear to have ended at the start of the war.

Other local girls to hold the title included Eva Lord in 1930; Marie Smith in 1931; and Barbara Melvin in 1933 - she had been named Padiham's Cotton Queen the previous year.

Burnley's personality girl' Irene Woodward also became its Cotton Queen in 1934, while a year later Edith Waters took the crown, while Miss C Greenwood became the new Miss Nelson.

Cotton Queen of Padiham 1934 Evelyn Roberts became the Queen of Burnley in 1936, with Janey Tomlinson succeeding a year later.

At the end of 1937, a film called Cotton Queen', starring Stanley Holloway and Will Fyffe, was shown at the Empire in Burnley and attended by a number of local Cotton Queens.

Laura Cowans then took the title in 1938, and Irene Harrison was the last the following year.

The thirties appear to have been the decade for queens, with hospitals, schools, clubs and villages all having their own representatives, while churches also crowned their own May and Rose Queens for their annual processions.