Bolton ( or locally ) is a town in
Greater Manchester in
North West England. A former
mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since
Flemish weavers settled in the area in the 14th century, introducing a wool and cotton-weaving tradition. The urbanisation and development of the town largely coincided with the introduction of
textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. Bolton was a 19th-century
boomtown, and at its zenith in 1929 its 216
cotton mills and 26 bleaching and dyeing works made it one of the largest and most productive centres of
cotton spinning in the world. The British cotton industry declined sharply after the First World War, and by the 1980s cotton manufacture had virtually ceased in Bolton.