SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Duffield Printers closed! The company on Kirkstall road that has been trading about 116 years closed on monday making all their staff redundant. Shame for all the people who worked their and I hope they find a job soon. This is just one of a series of printers that have gone over the last three decades, but one of the oldest in the area.

Sparky - is this anything to do with the catastrophic flooding of Kirkstall Road and resultant damage ?? - or purely coincidence ??
The shops on the north side, opposite Woodrups Cycles, are still closed and possibly ruined, including the excellent Milford Place Post Office.

Hi Blakey, It is a co-incidence really. I heard the MD sold all the order books and the 'duffield' name to a rotherham company.
The MD made the upstairs of the building into offices, rented the land to the new subway and had started turning the basement of Airedale house, (the print shop) into offices a couple of years ago. So it was always going to go that way. The floods just gave him a great 'excuse'. It's a shame and there's lots of people , good people, who have lost their jobs. As always, the MD will have come out of it with plenty of £ in the pocket. Such is the way of life IMO.

Sad to hear but it seems the Printing business is hanging on everywhere, a relative of mine who works at a large printers in Seacroft says that it is becoming more difficult and harder to keep getting orders, one reason is the amount of printing done on line also there is so much done in China.
When you think of the days Leeds was the foremost in the country in printing

Leeds was the printing capital of Britain. And printing was seen as a very good career. Sadly the unions got weaker and bosses just screwed the wages down, and soon it was like any other job. Except you were exposed to lots of chemicals. And worked hours that were unsociable to say the least.

Time and time again it is the worker who comes off worst. the big bosses are never too worried. A crying shame for those families; and so close to Christmas too...

Hi all, thanks for the great comments, but first to the local volunteers who came to help, and apologies for being unable to allow them in, the insurance Co rightly insisted on the usual compliance issues (liabilities) when working in hazardous and dangerous environments. For instance as the river rose it caught the 3 phase electrics that charged the water, an over ride threw it out preventing a fire, also my sons who worked to prevent ingress came down with serious stomach infections that have since recovered.

Please read the article in Print Week..

http://www.printweek.com/print-week/new ... -127-years

With precision machines and complex electronics and motors stood in 1m of water for over 12 hours the H&S exec themselves wrote the machines off.

I didn't plan a flood, or any downfall of the company, far from it I was full steam ahead with plans for renewals of equipment.

Please remember i have personally looked after all my employees all my working career, simply ask any of them who worked for me, (and weren't themselves a "negative influence"). as a consequence of the flood i have personally used all my endeavours to get employees placed, so far out of 27 - 23 are in gainful employment - Bluetree, ABco, Team, Acorn, Preprint, PPS, LCC Print, and others are all hosts to great employees of mine, and i helped them in there.

As for "selling" the order book and trade name, I simply did not do that, the gentleman's agreement with BlueTree was to immediately take on as many employees as possible without TUPE, If anyone wants to make an offer for either, they are still available. I made all my people redundant (compliant via ACAS) with full entitlements, i could have bust the company and let them all rot in the hands of the government.

The industry has indeed been in decline, and yes i have made prudent investments in the land and buildings, and yes i will be developing the business centre into the ground floor, but not without immense expense on flood resilience on top of the development. Please remember, I have too a family to provide for and look after..

Contrary to popular belief the insurance will not make me rich, I have another non family shareholder who is working hard at trading the company to a natural end with pride and not going bust which would have been the easy way out.

127 years, 2 world wars, recessions, depressions, technological change, many hundreds of employees over the years - and one flood

I ask you politely to please remember DUFFIELD as a great business with immense REAL contribution and commitment to the community, please remember DUFFIELD PRINTERS with the greatest of respect as the Great Great Great Grandpa of Leeds

Martyn Duffield

oops... Great Great Great Grandpa of PRINT in Leeds

Martyn