The Croppers
Site updated 17/5/13
The CROPPERS is essentially a performers club, (singers, musicians, poets, story tellers etc) with 2 or 3 guest nights during the year, one at Christmas time, one to celebrate the club's birthday in July and another somewhere in between.
We are only closed for the Cleckheaton Folk Festival weekend, and Christmas and New Year if they fall near a Friday.
If you can't bring some music,
just bring yourself!
Whether you come to perform or just to listen, you'll find a Friday night visit to The Croppers - Cleckheaton's very own acoustic music club - is a great way to start your weekend.
Apart from an entertaining and varied mix of both folk and popular music styles - plus some humorous poetry - you'll meet some of the friendliest people this side of the Pennines, who'll make you feel welcome the minute you walk through the door.
just bring yourself!
Whether you come to perform or just to listen, you'll find a Friday night visit to The Croppers -
Apart from an entertaining and varied mix of both folk and popular music styles -
Why is it the Croppers?
The Croppers were men who worked cloth. They were highly skilled and quite well paid before new machinery was introduced at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and were then being made redundant because of the new ‘frames’ in the mills which were water powered machines and could be operated manually by an unskilled worker. Annoyed at their rapid loss of status and relative wealth, the increasing numbers of unemployed Croppers soon became Luddite protestors. They became intent on wrecking the frames responsible for their predicament. Soon this method of venting their disapproval had spread into the Northern mill towns and Manchester, Leeds and Bradford found themselves hosting sometimes bloody conflicts between mill owners and the 'Luddites'.
The Croppers were led by the mythical general, 'Ned Ludd'.
The Croppers were men who worked cloth. They were highly skilled and quite well paid before new machinery was introduced at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and were then being made redundant because of the new ‘frames’ in the mills which were water powered machines and could be operated manually by an unskilled worker. Annoyed at their rapid loss of status and relative wealth, the increasing numbers of unemployed Croppers soon became Luddite protestors. They became intent on wrecking the frames responsible for their predicament. Soon this method of venting their disapproval had spread into the Northern mill towns and Manchester, Leeds and Bradford found themselves hosting sometimes bloody conflicts between mill owners and the 'Luddites'.
The Croppers were led by the mythical general, 'Ned Ludd'.
The CROPPERS was started in 1985 by Mary Fellowes and her niece Fran, and joined by Russ Hughes not long afterwards. They performed under the name of BLACK VELVET.
Russ ran the club on his own from late 2006 until December 2011.
Russ ran the club on his own from late 2006 until December 2011.
BLACK VELVET
RUSS
ABOUT THE CROPPERS
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