THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. II
In the year 1785 cotton was brought into the Mersey from the United
States of America. Long before that time so-called 'cotton' stuffs had
been made in Cheshire villages. But these fabrics were not really cotton
at all, but a mixture of wool and flax. The flax was brought from
Ireland, and woollen manufacturers tried for a long time to keep it out.
In the parish records of Prestbury you may read of an Act passed in
Charles the Second's reign forbidding any one to be buried in anything
but a woollen shroud.
At first there were no cotton-mills, such as you see now in the populous
towns of East Cheshire. The raw cotton was given out to poor people, who
spun it and wove it in their own cottage homes. Nearly every cottage
became a small factory, the fathers, mothers, and children all taking
part in the work. The machinery was simple and made of wood. The
spinning was done by the women and children in the house, the weaving
by the men in a weaving-shed of one story built in the yard.
As time went on, the machinery was improved by the inventions of clever
men, so that one loom would do as much work as several had done
previously. The workpeople did not like the new machines, for often a
number of people were thrown out of work by them, and frequently the new
spinning and weaving-frames of the inventors were wrecked by a furious
mob.
The earlier and simpler machines, such as the spinning-wheel and the
hand-loom, were worked by hand. But the new discoveries made it possible
for one wheel to turn eighty or a hundred spindles at once by means of
horse-power or a water-wheel, and the hand-loom similarly gave place to
a power-loom. But in remote villages the old-fashioned methods survived,
and even to this day you may still occasionally see a hand-loom at work
in cottages in the highlands of East Cheshire.
Then great factories began to be built, huge buildings of brick and of
many stories, chiefly on the banks of Cheshire streams, or on the
canals, by which the raw cotton could be brought in barges to the very
doors. You may look down from the churchyard of Mottram into the valley
beneath and count a score of them. Steam was applied, and the whole of
the machinery of the factories was driven by this new force. Great towns
sprang up like mushrooms. Hyde and Stalybridge and Dukinfield, from
being tiny villages, soon became great busy hives of the cotton
industry.
The cotton had also to be bleached and the calicoes printed, and mills
for the purpose were built along the streams, whose waters provided the
steam-power which worked the machinery of the mills. From Taxal to
Stockport, along the banks of the now polluted Goyt, is an almost
continuous line of great mills, the bleach-works of Whaley Bridge, the
print-works of Furness Vale and Strines, the cotton-mills of Disley,
Marple, and Mellor. The Mellor mills were built as early as 1790 by
Samuel Oldknow, and were at one time in the hands of Peter Arkwright,
who was one of a famous family of inventors, and who made many changes
in the machinery of his works.
Thus the positions of modern manufacturing towns have not been chosen,
as were those of the towns of the Middle Ages, by their ability to beat
off the attacks of enemies. For war is no longer the principal business
of the inhabitants of Cheshire. The 'cotton' towns have come into being
just in those parts where the conditions are favourable to the cotton
industry. In the first place the climate is damp, owing to the nearness
of the Pennine hills, on which the wet winds from the south-west drop
their moisture; and cotton can only be spun and woven in such a climate,
for a dry climate would make the threads break. Secondly, there is a
plentiful water-supply from the numerous streams that flow from the
hills, and lastly, the towns are close to big coal-fields from which
they may obtain the fuel for the engines that work the machinery of the
mills.
In the pretty model village of Styal, on the banks of the Bollin, is a
house which is still called by the name of 'Prentice House. Here once
lived a number of young girls and boys, orphans many of them, who worked
in the picturesque ivy-clad building, strangely unlike a mill, at Quarry
Bank. They were 'apprenticed', that is, bound to their master for seven
years. During that time they were well fed and clothed by their
employer, and certain times were set apart for learning to read and
write and sew. On Sunday mornings they walked together to the church at
Wilmslow. The girls were dressed in straw bonnets and plain grey
dresses, the boys in fustian coats and breeches of corduroy.
They were kindly treated, but the hours in the mill were long. They rose
at five, and their breakfast of porridge and milk was eaten in the mill.
Half an hour was allowed for dinner, and not until half-past eight did
their long day of toil come to an end. At Christmas prizes were given to
those who had been most obedient and industrious during the year.
The young people of Quarry Bank were on the whole happy in the service
of Samuel Greg their master, but the lot of the apprentices in other
mills was often very different. The harshness and cruelty of some
employers led to the passing of Acts of Parliament which shortened the
hours of labour and fixed severe penalties for ill-treatment. A later
Act forbade altogether the employment of children under a certain age.
[Illustration: STYAL MILL]
In the middle of the eighteenth century the silk industry took root in
Cheshire. We first hear of it in Stockport, where a mill was started for
the winding and throwing[3] of silk. John Clayton, of Stockport, built a
mill at Congleton, and the industry spread rapidly to the neighbouring
villages of Sutton, Rainow, and Bollington.
[3] i.e. twisting the fine threads into yarn. Those who were
engaged in this particular process were called 'throwsters', just
as spinster meant originally one engaged in spinning.
The first silk-mill in Macclesfield, which is now the chief seat of the
silk industry in Cheshire, was opened by Charles Roe in 1756. Roe Street
is named after him. He made a fortune and built Christ Church. Over the
altar you may see his bust in marble, and over it a figure of Genius
with a cogwheel in her hand. In the museum at West Park are some models
of silk-looms.
There was a silk-mill at Knutsford, as the name Silk Mill Street tells
us. In Mobberley also nearly every cottage had its spinning-wheel. The
cottagers fetched the raw silk from Macclesfield and took back the spun
yarn to be woven into pieces at the Macclesfield looms.