In 1785, in common with other mill owners, Richard Arkwright established a Sunday School at Cromford (reported in The Edinburgh Advertiser, 15-18 February 1785, p 108b). These schools were not solely for religious instruction, but were where children learned to read and write. Two newspaper accounts published early in 1787, immediately after Arkwright was knighted, provide some interesting detail:
From the Derby Mercury 28 December 1786 to January 4 1787, p 4d
Sir, it is with pleasure we meet with frequent accounts of the success, with which the establishment of Sunday Schools has been attended in different parts of the kingdom, perhaps a short sketch of the commencement and proceedings of one of these useful seminaries at Cromford in this County, maybe acceptable to such of your Readers, as may be friends and supporters of them in other places.
The beginning of January 1785, Sir R.A. (Proprietor of the Cotton Mills) fitted up two rooms for the reception of Sunday Scholars, one for the boys, and the other for the girls; appointed six masters to teach reading & writing; provided proper books of different kinds, such as bibles, testaments & spelling books, with every other necessary article at his own expense. As a further encouragement to learning, and with a view of exciting a becoming emulation amongst the scholars, he has lately purchased a quantity of neat common prayer books, which he distributes in the following manner; to each boy or girl, that has diligently attended the school for six months past, and shall do the same for six to come, a book is given, provided they can repeat the church catechism, can themselves, from the calendar, find the appointed lessons for each Sunday, with the whole course of the church service; and we have the pleasure to say there are numbers now who can do this; and that several can write, a legible hand, read and spell English in a tolerable manner. The present number is 200, which is daily increasing.
These schools are not only open to those who are employed by Sir R.A. but to the inhabitants of Cromford and its environs. Notwithstanding the excellence of this institution, many parents, instead of forwarding their children to school, will rather send them on some trifling errand; or what is more to their shame, find a frivolous excuse for their not coming at all. We are, Sir, your well-wishers and constant readers
PHILANTHROPUS & PHILOCTATUS
Dec. 24, 1786.
From the Leicester Journal 24 February 1787 p 3b
A correspondent who signs himself C.B., who lately made a visit to Matlock, was induced by curiosity to visit the Sunday school established by Sir Richard Arkwright Knt at Cromford, where he saw about 200 girls and boys who attend three or four hours every Sunday morning and afternoon under the direction and care of five masters, who instruct them in spelling, reading and writing etc. Every child is furnished with a prayer-book, bible and spelling book, paper, pens &c. One of the masters (the church being upwards of two miles distant) reads the morning and evening service of the church of England and instructs them in the catechism: to the credit of the masters the greatest decency and decorum is kept up.
The locations of the two rooms fitted out for the Sunday School are not known, but it is possible that, as at the Evans’ mills at Darley Abbey and the Strutts at Belper, these could have been in the attics of the mills.
When the chapel at Cromford was completed in 1797, providing somewhere much closer to go to church than the two-mile walk to Wirksworth, the girls and boys attended church on alternate Sundays and Sunday School on the other Sunday.
Sir Richard Arkwright’s workmen
The end of the Leicester Journal article of 1787 also provides another piece of information – this time about Sir Richard’s workmen.
Sir Richard had very lately distributed his annual bounty, viz. to every married man 1s per year for every year that he had been in the cotton mills – to his wife 5s – to every child unable to work, 1s each; – which proved a very comfortable relief to a great number of poor families.
While much attention is given to the work done by women and children in the mills, the most important members of the Arkwright workforce were his skilled workmen. These men made all of the machinery, modified and adapted it as new refinements were introduced, maintained it, repaired it and kept everything working, round the clock.
These sorts of skills – learned and honed over time – were invaluable and a system of rewards, including an annual bounty which increased with years of service and included other family members, was an appropriate way in which to reward this sort of loyalty.
Various writers commented on Richard Arkwright’s ability to manage his workforce effectively, by encouragement and rewards. While some of these involved festivities for everyone, ‘The bounties let’s sing, that our Master belong’ in the song about Arkwright’s mill reported in 1778 (although the wording could be merely poetic) and Silas Neville’s reference in 1781 to ‘pecuniary rewards’ suggests that the ‘annual bounty’ might have been instituted quite early in the history of the mills.
COTTON SPINNING PRODUCTIVITY cont.
Continuing information about the rate of cotton yarn production, here are some facts & figures you may find interesting/useful.
QUANTITY OF COTTON PER SPINDLE PER YEAR [Peter South]
ln the 1780’s. the Papplewick Water Frames had a rated capacity of 0.125 Ibs per spindle per 12-hour shift or 37 5lbs per year assuming they worked 6 days a week, 50 weeks of the year1. Arkwright licensed in multiples of approximately 1,000 spindles which equates roughly to ten or eleven 96 spindle machines on one floor. The First Mill had one floor and the Second Mill was believed to have two floors of spinning. lf we assume 10 machines this gives a production of 37,500 lbs per year per floor ln Cromford, with its three floors, this would yield 112,500 lbs per year when the mills were in full production.
Every type of yam or thread is classified by its count. For cotton the count is based on the number of 840-yard units in one lb of yarn (a hank). It is hard to know exactly what count Arkwright produced but Hargreaves’ Spinning Jenny reached the low 20 count, replicating the motions of a hand spinner whereas Arkwright, at his pinnacle, could have attained a count of 60!2 The larger the count number. the finer the cotton. If we assume that each spindle was only producing 18 count. which may have been the case early on, then each spindle would produce 18 x 840 x 37.5 which equals 567,000 yards or about 322 miles. A complete floor of 1,000 spindles would produce 322,000 miles and all three floors at Cromford close to 1,000,000 miles of yarn per year.
1 R.C. Allen, British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective
2 S.D. Chapman, The Cotton Industry in the Industrial Revolution
THROSTLE OFFERS IMPROVED PRODUCTIVITY
Studying this table highlights the step-change in yarn production rates offered by developments of the water frame from the late 1820s, which produced the ‘throstle’. The main development was with in terms of a more efficient drivetrain, which allowed the number of spindles per machine to be increased. This new drivetrain arrangement produced the bird-like whistling noise from which the machine derived its name. There were also developments in yarn handling, where translating bobbins spread the newly spun yarn more evenly on the bobbin – which helped reduce the labour required to operate the equipment.
Ref: Economic History Review, 0, 0 (2021), p1-34
More spindles, fewer operators and a faster production rate all combine to enable the ‘throstle’ to produce of the order of 8 times more yarn per worker per day than the ‘best’ waterframe designs they replaced [at equivalent yarn count].
Academic papers recognise the ‘throstle’ as the origins of what today we today call ‘ring- spinning’ machines.