The Crowthers of Bankdam is the story of a great Yorkshire wool-trade family, as fascinating in their individualites, their matchings, matings and schemings as Galsworthy's Forsytes. It opens in 1854 when Simeon Crowther was the Master of the Bankdam Mills. But Bankdam, though it was destined to become the biggest concern in the Ram Valley, was then only a small mill.

Simeon Crowther had two sons, as different as chalk from cheese. Zebediah was, as someone said, a 'slimy toad'; but Joshua had a ripely Yorkshire sense of humour and a youthful, almost puckish, quality of spirit. The divergence between these two characters marks the beginnings of the feud that so nearly brought Bankdam to ruin.

As the fortunes of the Crowther family are told, scene after scene is stamped in living colours. There is the terror of the mill fire: there is the appalling scene whent he machinery drops through the upper floor, trapping Joshua and countless others in its wreckage; there are family parties, and garden parties; scenes in London in the hectic gaiety of the Great War; and scenes in the Russian Revolution where young Edwin Crowther's career in the Navy takes him.

All through the story is felt the impact of history on industry. But nothing can change Bankdam Mills, and the Crowthers of Bankdam live on in the pages of this grand novel.