AS a young girl Martha Chippindale worked as a humble weaver in a Yeadon Mill - but during her remarkable life she earned national recognition and an MBE for her charitable work.

Such was her fame and the esteem in which she was held that all of the mills in her home town were closed on the day of her funeral in 1926. The townspeople turned out in their thousands to pay their respects to the woman who rose from lowly beginnings to become a Brigadier in the Salvation Army.

Martha’s fascinating story is told in the archives of Aireborough Historical Society, which also give insights into the work of the Salvation Army in this area.

Martha Chippindale was a highly respected woman both in her home town of Yeadon and in London’s East End where she cared for servicemen during the First World War.

At the age of 16 she was a weaver at Murgatroyd’s Moorfield Mill - but she left her job to join the Salvation Army, and went on to win national recognition for her work.

She decided to devote her life to the cause after her father died and she moved to London to train as an officer, going on to become a brigadier.

Martha returned to Yeadon for a holiday at Easter 1926 and died suddenly, aged 59. For her funeral her hometown expressed the high esteem in which she was held by closing all the mills for the day.

Martha was presented with an MBE in 1918 by King George V “for her pioneering work in hostels and clubs for service men and women throughout the country”. That work consisted principally in her caring for injured servicemen in the east end of London.

In 2014 her solid silver medal was put on display at Yeadon Town Hall as part of Aireborough Historical Society’s First World War exhibition.

A newspaper article from 1942, which can be seen on the AHS website, said: "There has just come into my hands a new sixpenny booklet entitled “Salute To A Mill-girl”, a lively biography of Martha Chippindale, who, at 10 was a halftimer in the mill near her home in Yeadon and who, when she died in 1926 was a Brigadier of the Salvation Army, a Member of the Order of the British Empire, the friend to thousands of men and women who had served in the Forces and the heroine of the entire Army in which she had risen to such a high rank.

"Her biographer, Brigadier Frederick Coutts of the Salvation Army, tells how Martha was working at the mill when to the unexciting world of Yeadon came a detachment of the Salvation Army, She was amazed to see an out-size poster announcing the Salvation Army then in its infancy and helped to make it the great and powerful organisation it has now become."

Martha was buried with her bonnet and shawl upon her coffin and buglers came from Pontefract Barracks to sound the Last Post.

The Salvation Army was founded in 1865 by William Booth and his wife Catherine. Salvationism was brought to Yeadon by Major Cadman and his “Hallelujah soldiers”.

The lively meetings, accompanied by music, often attracted new members - but they also attracted disruptive elements.

In 1872 the Wharfedale Observer reported: "A contingent from the Otley Salvation Army visited High Street Lecture Hall in Yeadon for the purposes of holding one of their meetings. On no single previous occasion have the ‘roughs’ of Yeadon shown worse behaviour. Captain Hawker Jones was constantly interrupted and an excited crowd who could not obtain admission were in the streets singing and shouting."