Did you know you can spend your own time at Cromford Mills looking at examples of the machines which launched the Factory System?
The machines mechanised the mass production of cotton yarn. Arkwright came to Cromford to use waterpower to drive the world’s first successful cotton spinning mill. Have you wondered why he did not set his mill closer to the River Derwent and use its power? Come and investigate how he engineered the use of less obvious sources.
Do you know how people were employed locally before Sir Richard Arkwright arrived in Cromford?
The traditional industry at Cromford was mining for lead, much of it run by small family concerns with the adult male digging or cutting a narrow shaft to mine the ore and women and children at the surface winding up the buckets of ore and spoil for sorting and washing. It was hard work in the open air and a steady income was not guaranteed. In addition, the family would manage their garden or piece of land for food production or farming and help with harvests and other seasonal work. By the time of the Arkwright period many small mines had reached the water table and became unproductive. Many previously independent miners became waged workers for wealthier mine owners who could afford the costly drainage systems required. Their wives and children were out of work free to provide a cheap labour force for Arkwright.
Did you know the site at Cromford has had a chequered history since cotton spinning ended there?
Its buildings have been reused for many purposes – most significantly as a laundry, a brewery and a chemical factory making fine ground colour. It has been damaged by fires but it remains on the same footprint as when it was built in the 18th century. Browse its story in the restored, though still scarred, mill warehouse where our free exhibition is today. The Arkwright Society, the charity that cares for Cromford Mills, is still restoring and repairing the site today and all your donations help keep the Mills alive.
Did you know that in 1771, 7-year-old children were being offered paid employment at Cromford mill – 13 hour working days, six days a week?
Would this have been a shock to families or a relief to see extra income for the family budget? Take a tour at Cromford Mill and find out more about our history and decide for yourself- but remember children working to support families from a young age was quite common in Arkwright’s time.
Did you know Arkwright did not find instant success?
Arkwright experimented with his new water powered cotton spinning machine in his first mill at Cromford. His success came in stages from the years of experimenting in Lancashire to produce the design for the spinning machine which secured his first patent in 1768; to trialling it powered by horses at Nottingham where, it is reputed his mill was “not to have been brought to work until Christmas 1772“. He was testing it again, this time powered by water at his first mill at Cromford in 1771. It was 1774 when Arkwright and Company, now confident in the commercial viability of its yarn production, successfully petitioned parliament to encourage the cotton industry. This was an industry which they rightly claimed could employ thousands of people to the benefit of the country, if the tax on British printed cotton cloth was reduced compared with that on the imported material.
Do you know what percentage of workers in the mills were children?
Sir Richard Arkwright’s son, Richard, inherited the three mills, two at Cromford, one at Matlock Bath, which his father had established. By 1800, he employed one thousand one hundred and fifty workers, 700 of them were classed as children (61%). But what defined a child? In 1816 Arkwright’s son defined children as workers under the age of 18. At this time he reported that Cromford Mills employed 725 workers, of which 269 were between 10 and 18 (37%).
Do you know that Cromford Mill is part of a World Heritage Site?
World Heritage Site status is granted to places deemed to be of outstanding universal value. Cromford, as part of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site, saw the introduction of a significant stage in human history. Here, in a rural landscape, using new technology in new types of buildings, large scale industrial production and the modern factory system was established and developed. Such a scale of production required unprecedented numbers of workers. The need to house and service them led to the creation of a new cultural landscape, an industrial settlement in a rural setting. In the 19th century, as steam replaced water as a power source, the focus of the industry moved elsewhere leaving the setting of Cromford unchanged.
Did you know women and girls did not work the night shift at Cromford Mill?
The night shift employed fewer numbers than the dayshift and did spinning only. Arkwright junior abandoned the two-shift system soon after his father died. Before then, he gave the figure of 164 boys working at night and described them as earning extravagant wages, being extremely dissipated, and many of them seldom having more than a few hours sleep.
Did you know Cromford Mills is not really a Mill (well maybe)
Welcome to Cromford Factory doesn’t quite have the right ring, does it? But is the name Mill misleading for the Cromford Mill site? Traditionally a mill housed a business staffed by a handful of workers carrying out one powered process such as grinding, crushing, fulling, smelting. But here, with his engineering skills, Arkwright successfully added the disciplined management of hundreds of workers tending a series of powered machines in a sequence to turn a raw material, in this case, short, loose, tangled cotton fibres into a saleable finished product -strong cotton yarn. His ‘mills’ were factories, but that word was not yet common in the English language.
Did you know that until Richard Arkwright introduced machine made cotton yarn the British textile industry could not make a pure cotton cloth?
The cotton yarn produced by hand spinning was strong enough for the weft thread of a fabric only. It was used with a different yarn, linen, wool or silk as the warp. But there was public demand for all cotton cloth which was seen to bleach, print, wash and wear better. It drove many searches and failed attempts to find a way to spin stronger cotton yarn through the middle decades of the 18th century. This encouraged Arkwright to give up his wig making business to concentrate on finding a practical solution to the problem of how to spin a strong cotton yarn.
