The Strabane factory which once made clothes for the Royal Family

FOR over 150 years, a Strabane factory produced garments of the highest quality – even earning the right to supply the Royal Family. Now largely silent, the Abercorn factory was once a cornerstone of the town’s industrial era, employing hundreds from near and far.

The site’s story begins in 1865 when William Gourlie & Sons opened the factory, along with housing for its workers.

The first homes for managers and staff, known as Factory Row, were built behind the site, followed by additional housing at Gourlieville Terrace.

It was a time of booming growth for Strabane, which by 1870 boasted six factories. Early valuation records from 1864 described the site as a ‘shirt factory, ware rooms, offices and yard’, leased from the Duke of Abercorn and powered by a single eight-horsepower steam engine.

In the years that followed, the factory changed ownership several times. In 1875 it was briefly taken over by Mason Kennedy, then by Messrs J and R Pritchard & Co in 1878. Four years later it was acquired by Scotsmen Stewart & McDonald, who decided to rebuild the site, bringing materials by boat and railway.

A local newspaper recorded how the partners ‘brought their own builders and bricks from Scotland, transporting them to Derry in four ships’.

From there, bricks were carried to Strabane in horse-drawn canal barges to the basin, then wheeled up in iron barrows to the new factory site.

The late 19th century saw a huge boom in shirt manufacturing, reflected in the factory’s expansion. By 1890 it employed 250 workers, some walking more than ten miles a day from as far away as Dunamanagh, Glenmornan and Castlefin.

The turn of the century brought further changes in ownership, with Miriam Stewart and Robert Keady briefly in charge before Gallagher & Egan took over in 1911. Within ten years they had increased the factory’s value to £85 – worth around £8,675 today.

The 1930s, however, brought difficulties.

In 1933 the factory was listed as ‘at rest’ under owner Margaret Gallagher, who was unable to sell it and moved her business to Lifford, saying, “Every such factory in Strabane has either closed up or built abroad in Donegal.”

Worker housing also fell into disrepair; a 1935 inspection described ‘old kitchen type houses in poorish repair’ with no sinks inside and toilets located in the yard.

Several homes were later demolished in the 1950s, while others in Gourlieville Terrace were renovated and enlarged.

In 1941, during the early years of the Second World War, the factory was acquired by the British military under the Defence Acts and used for army stores. This marked the beginning of a period of militaristic contracts.

After the war, business picked up again. In 1966, factory principal HG Porter announced a £30,000 contract to produce pyjamas for the Saudi Arabian military, though he warned of worker shortages that threatened production. New machinery, including the automatic ‘sew-matic’ collar sewing machine, was brought in to modernise operations.

The factory’s greatest accolade came in 1999 when, under Grosvenor Shirts ownership, it was awarded a Royal Warrant – the official mark of a supplier to the Royal Family.

But in 2020, Grosvenor Shirts went into liquidation, blaming high London business rates, and the Strabane site closed for good.

The remaining stock was sold off at a discount and the doors were shut, bringing an end to a 150-year chapter in Strabane’s industrial history.

Today, the once-bustling factory lies mostly silent, with only a few groups operating from sections of the building – a shadow of the site that once sent Strabane-made shirts to customers across the world.