IT was the worst disaster in Huddersfield’s living memory.

But memorials to the Booth’s factory fire, in which 49 workers died, have been limited to an edifice in Edgerton Cemetery.

Now a campaign has been launched to install a plaque at the site of the tragedy which took place on October 31, 1941.

The fire, at the factory at John William Street, began when an employee put a smoker’s pipe in a raincoat pocket, unaware that the pipe was still smouldering.

The five-storey building, which had been described as a ‘death trap’, was full of wood and glass panels allowing the flames to spread rapidly.

The factory had only one staircase, no evacuation drill and a buzzer system which failed on the fatal morning.

Two of the fire’s victims died after jumping from the upper floors of the building.

The campaign has been launched by Richard Heath, from Heckmondwike.

While Richard was born over a decade after the disaster he was touched by stories from survivors of the fire and the relatives of victims.