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It's only a little over two centuries ago that Richard Arkwright built his first factory for cotton manufacturing in what is now the centre of the city of Manchester. In doing so, he turned the city into the power house and driving force behind the new cotton industry. As the industrial revolution gathered pace, many thousands of people flocked in from the countryside to find work in the new factories, often enduring terrible conditions both at home and at work. The factory owners and Manchester's new middle class accumulated phenomenal wealth on the proceeds.
Arkwright's mill, the building at the heart of this story, helped to revolutionise British society. Built in 1780, today what is left of it lies buried beneath a car park. Time Team had three days to locate and investigate one of the most important historic sites in Britain.
Watched the programme, browsed the web pages? Now try our quick quiz to see how you get on.
Where was Richard Arkwright born?
Manchester
Preston
Leeds
Which of these did Richard Arkwright claim to invent (although all his patents were dismissed in a court case after his death)?
Spinning top
Spinning jenny
Spinning frame
Richard Arkwright was a relatively benign employer compared to some at the time. How old did he insist children should be before working in his factories?
Six
Eight
Ten
What proportion of Richard Arkwright's employees were children?
One quarter
One half
Two thirds
Which of these jobs did Richard Arkwright not do?
Weaver
Barber
Wig maker
Richard Arkwright's first mill was opened at Cromford, in Derbyshire, in 1771. What did Arkwright keep for protection inside the main factory gate?
A loaded cannon
Armed guards
A picture of the king
Answers here.
'John and I don't often agree, but we agree about that water wheel and this anomaly.' Time Team landscape archaeologist Stewart Ainsworth was talking about his efforts with geophysics supremo John Gater to locate the site of the wheel pit that formed the centrepiece of the water-pumping system in Richard Arkwright's first factory. John was deploying his familiar armoury of geophysics surveying equipment with a particular emphasis on ground-penetrating radar to be able to see beneath the multiple layers of tarmac, concrete, brick and stone on the site. And Stewart was making use of his usual array of maps, drawings and other records.
In theory, it should have been a relatively straightforward task to identify the floorplan and what was left of Arkwright's original 1781 factory. Arkwright's factories were built to a regular plan and records from the time of its construction provided the Team with the basic dimensions and layout. Indeed, Phil Harding came down on what appeared to be one of the original Arkwright walls within an hour or two of Time Team starting work on the site. Since the records stated that Arkwright's factory was 30 feet wide, it seemed to be a simple matter of using a tape measure to locate the other walls.
The first difficulty arose when the excavators began to uncover the row of central columns that would have supported the factory roof. It didn't match up with where it should have been in relation to the outer walls. Then it was realised that the fact that a wall had been built with bricks dating from the late 18th century didn't mean that the wall itself dated from that period. Arkwright's factory had been completely burnt down and rebuilt in 1850 and the bricks originally used by Arkwright could have been reused on numerous occasions as the site was developed and altered over the years. To add to the complications, the whole site had been subject to a devastating air raid by the Luftwaffe during the second world war (it has been a car park ever since).
It took the Team virtually the whole three days to sort out exactly what was going on. Phil came up with the idea of dating the walls he excavated not by the bricks that were used in their construction but by the mortar. Like the bricks, this varied over time but would not have been reused at a later date.
Examination of the mortar confirmed that the wall initially uncovered by Phil early on the first day was indeed one of Arkwright's first walls. Further excavation revealed that the row of central columns was also from this first factory but the records from the time, describing the factory as 30 feet wide, were wrong; in fact, the factory was 40 feet wide.
John and Stewart's agreement about the geophysics anomaly also turned out to be wrong: the anomaly was, in fact, a modern drain. But the Team did find something that was described as 'monumental' by Mike Nevell, director of the Manchester University Archaeology Unit, who worked on the dig with Time Team. This was the pit that would have housed one end of the Newcomen steam pumping engine, which Arkwright installed to power his textile machinery.
The use of the Newcomen engine to drive the machinery directly was unsuccessful and Arkwright reused the pit in a redesigned water system. Under this, an engine was used to pump water between lower and upper ponds on the factory site, pushing water over a water wheel in the centre of the factory. This then drove the textile machinery itself.
Arkwright's factory was the first time someone had tried to use steam to power textile machinery. Within 18 years, Manchester became the biggest mill town in the world boasting around 50 mills; and within just a few decades the methods Arkwright pioneered had spread throughout British industry. The industrial revolution was to transform not just Britain but whole world.
As Mike Nevell commented, 'This site is of national and even international importance. This is where the modern world begins.'
Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third-party sites.
For this programme regular Time Team digger, Raksha Dave, was taken back in time and spent the show as a mill worker. Unfortunately the cameo was squeezed out of the final edit because there was so much else of interest to cover in the time available.
What did you have to do?
I had to dress and work as a cotton mill factory worker for a day. The idea was that I had to experience the whole process of making cotton as well as get first-hand knowledge of the conditions and what the work was like. I was really keen to do this as I have a very close connection to this period – coming from a Lancashire mill town I was force fed a diet of industrial revolution history at school!
What did it feel like?
It was soooo hard! I think just wearing the costume all day was a task in itself, never mind doing all the hard work. I had to wear a corset and several petticoats – that was before the dress and the pinny went on. I also had a mob cap and of course the obligatory clogs. I would just like to point out that I tried to walk on cobbles with the clogs and this was nigh impossible – how did they do this?
As for the work; I will never again complain when it's raining, wet and muddy outside and I'm having to dig in it. I now understand why there was such a high fatality and accident rate within mills. The work is dangerous, boring, repetitive and the conditions are extremely poor. I would probably have been sacked on the first day for looking out of the windows and inability to keep up with the machines. The costume didn't make the job any easier either as I was extremely restricted in the way I could move. Some of the jobs required you to lift heavy machine parts and drop them into another machine without squishing your fingers – let's just say I was extremely happy to still have all my fingers!
Did you get a better understanding of what mill workers had to do?
Yes, absolutely. I managed to do most of the jobs that show the whole process of manufacturing cotton. I started with carding. This was the most strenuous job, which involved lots of heavy lifting and scary machines, but the one I found most enjoyable – probably because I was good at it. I didn't realise that the cotton went through three machines until it was refined enough to spin. The only downside to this job was the amount of cotton dust it produced. Think of a blizzard, but instead of snow it's cotton. It was pointed out to me that a lot of cotton workers died of lung infections due to inhaling cotton dust and that the conditions were ten times worse than I was experiencing.
The next task I had to do was spinning. I got to work on an original Arkwright's Spinning Mule, which was pretty scary. I had to take my clogs off for this job, as it was dangerous to wear them. There are a series of metal runners on the floor for the machine to move in and out to spin the cotton. During the early periods of using the machine there were reports of fires caused by sparks from clogs striking the runners. From that point on, workers ran the machines barefoot.
I have to say that operating these machines is hard and I was utterly useless! All a worker has to do is to make sure that the threads don't break and if they do you have to mend them – this is called 'piecing'. It sounds easier than it is, though, and in fact it's a highly skilled job. It involves you moving in and out with the machine, grabbing the broken thread when the machine is in its closed position and the bobbins aren't moving, and then gently moving out with the machine, ensuring that your thread doesn't break. While the bobbins are spinning and the machine is fully extended you have to grab the broken thread from the spinning bobbin and twist the two broken ends together.
Sounds simple? Absolutely not! I was very close on numerous occasions to piecing the threads together but I have to admit I didn't even get one. After my teacher had laughed at me he did tell me that it took time to master the job. However it was pointed out that I would have been sacked before I got the chance to practise!
The weaving wasn't too bad but yet again I was warned about the dangers of the job – this time not to stand at one end of the machine as the shuttle might fly out and either give me bad concussion or kill me…
Were there any good parts to the job?
Well I would like to say that I found the whole process fascinating, but if I was being truthful I would have to say no. What an awful job! I only spent a day in Quarry Bank Mill with a minimal amount of machines. The reality of the situation would be working in a dark, deafeningly noisy environment where you were not allowed to talk or have any sort of fun at work. Not to mention the likelihood of losing a limb or dying of lung disease…
What was the worst thing about it?
The worst thing about it was my lunch. Not only did I have to dress up and work like a mill worker, but the evil Time Team crew made me eat a worker's lunch. This consisted of porridge – but not the lovely porridge that you might eat at home, made with milk and a bountiful sprinkle of brown sugar. This was made with water – and cooked so much that it did not resemble porridge so much as a hard gruel! When I asked for a bowl, laughter ensued. I was told that workers did not get a bowl or spoon to eat their porridge. A quantity of porridge was slapped into my right hand and I was told to eat on the job. I have to say that I became suspicious when the crew decided to film over 20 takes of me eating this hideous stuff.
Was it fun, despite all that?
Yes it was fun because I knew I could go home at the end of the day, unlike those poor people who had to work like that for years. It was a great experience, which made me appreciate what people had to go through. It was fun to relive what I had read about in my history classroom.
Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third-party sites.
Raksha Dave spent her day as a mill worker at the Quarry Bank Mill in the National Trust's Styal Country Estate, near Manchester. Quarry Bank Mill, Quarry Bank Road, Styal, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 4LA. Tel: 01625 527468. Website: www.quarrybankmill.org.uk.
As part of the Manchester programme, Time Team excavated the cellars of some workers' houses that once stood on the site. Although these would have been relatively substantial, well-appointed dwellings when they were first built, at around the same time as Arkwright's mill, by the mid-19th century they were squalid, overcrowded slums.
One of the people who were living in Manchester around this time was Friedrich Engels, the co-author, with Karl Marx, of The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848. A few years earlier, he had written The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844. As the son of a German manufacturer, who worked in a Manchester factory as his father's agent, Engels was well placed to record the conditions in which people worked and lived in Manchester at the time.
This is an extract from his book:
Manchester lies at the foot of the southern slope of a range of hills, which stretch hither from Oldham, their last peak … The whole assemblage of buildings [contains] about 400,000 inhabitants, rather more than less. The town itself is peculiarly built, so that a person may live in it for years, and go in and out daily without coming into contact with a working-people's quarter or even with workers, that is, so long as he confines himself to his business or to pleasure walks. This arises chiefly from the fact, that by unconscious tacit agreement, as well as with outspoken conscious determination, the working-people's quarters are sharply separated from the sections of the city reserved for the middle-class…
I may mention just here that the mills almost all adjoin the rivers or the different canals that ramify throughout the city, before I proceed at once to describe the labouring quarters. First of all, there is the old town of Manchester, which lies between the northern boundary of the commercial district and the Irk. Here the streets, even the better ones, are narrow and winding, as Todd Street, Long Millgate, Withy Grove, and Shude Hill, the houses dirty, old, and tumble-down, and the construction of the side streets utterly horrible. Going from the Old Church to Long Millgate, the stroller has at once a row of old-fashioned houses at the right, of which not one has kept its original level; these are remnants of the old pre-manufacturing Manchester, whose former inhabitants have removed with their descendants into better built districts, and have left the houses, which were not good enough for them, to a population strongly mixed with Irish blood. Here one is in an almost undisguised working-men's quarter, for even the shops and beer houses hardly take the trouble to exhibit a trifling degree of cleanliness. But all this is nothing in comparison with the courts and lanes which lie behind, to which access can be gained only through covered passages, in which no two human beings can pass at the same time. Of the irregular cramming together of dwellings in ways which defy all rational plan, of the tangle in which they are crowded literally one upon the other, it is impossible to convey an idea. And it is not the buildings surviving from the old times of Manchester which are to blame for this; the confusion has only recently reached its height when every scrap of space left by the old way of building has been filled up and patched over until not a foot of land is left to be further occupied.
The south bank of the Irk is here very steep and between 15 and 30 feet high. On this declivitous hillside there are planted three rows of houses, of which the lowest rise directly out of the river, while the front walls of the highest stand on the crest of the hill in Long Millgate. Among them are mills on the river, in short, the method of construction is as crowded and disorderly here as in the lower part of Long Millgate. Right and left a multitude of covered passages lead from the main street into numerous courts, and he who turns in thither gets into a filth and disgusting grime, the equal of which is not to be found – especially in the courts which lead down to the Irk, and which contain unqualifiedly the most horrible dwellings which I have yet beheld. In one of these courts there stands directly at the entrance, at the end of the covered passage, a privy without a door, so dirty that the inhabitants can pass into and out of the court only by passing through foul pools of stagnant urine and excrement. This is the first court on the Irk above Ducie Bridge – in case any one should care to look into it.
Below it on the river there are several tanneries which fill the whole neighbourhood with the stench of animal putrefaction. Below Ducie Bridge the only entrance to most of the houses is by means of narrow, dirty stairs and over heaps of refuse and filth. The first court below Ducie Bridge, known as Allen's Court, was in such a state at the time of the cholera that the sanitary police ordered it evacuated, swept, and disinfected with chloride of lime. Dr Kay gives a terrible description of the state of this court at that time. Since then, it seems to have been partially torn away and rebuilt; at least looking down from Ducie Bridge, the passer-by sees several ruined walls and heaps of debris with some newer houses. The view from this bridge, mercifully concealed from mortals of small stature by a parapet as high as a man, is characteristic for the whole district. At the bottom flows, or rather stagnates, the Irk, a narrow, coal-black, foul-smelling stream, full of debris and refuse, which it deposits on the shallower right bank.
In dry weather, a long string of the most disgusting, blackish-green, slime pools are left standing on this bank, from the depths of which bubbles of miasmatic gas constantly arise and give forth a stench unendurable even on the bridge forty or fifty feet above the surface of the stream. But besides this, the stream itself is checked every few paces by high weirs, behind which slime and refuse accumulate and rot in thick masses. Above the bridge are tanneries, bone mills, and gasworks, from which all drains and refuse find their way into the Irk, which receives further the contents of all the neighbouring sewers and privies. It may be easily imagined, therefore, what sort of residue the stream deposits.
Below the bridge you look upon the piles of debris, the refuse, filth, and offal from the courts on the steep left bank; here each house is packed close behind its neighbour and a piece of each is visible, all black, smoky, crumbling, ancient, with broken panes and window frames. The background is furnished by old barrack-like factory buildings. On the lower right bank stands a long row of houses and mills; the second house being a ruin without a roof, piled with debris; the third stands so low that the lowest floor is uninhabitable, and therefore without windows or doors. Here the background embraces the pauper burial-ground, the station of the Liverpool and Leeds railway, and, in the rear of this, the Workhouse, the 'Poor-Law Bastille' of Manchester, which, like a citadel, looks threateningly down from behind its high walls and parapets on the hilltop, upon the working-people's quarter below.
Above Ducie Bridge, the left bank grows more flat and the right bank steeper, but the condition of the dwellings on both banks grows worse rather than better. He who turns to the left here from the main street, Long Millgate, is lost; he wanders from one court to another, turns countless corners, passes nothing but narrow, filthy nooks and alleys, until after a few minutes he has lost all clue, and knows not whither to turn. Everywhere half or wholly ruined buildings, some of them actually uninhabited, which means a great deal here; rarely a wooden or stone floor to be seen in the houses, almost uniformly broken, ill-fitting windows and doors, and a state of filth! Everywhere heaps of debris, refuse, and offal; standing pools for gutters, and a stench which alone would make it impossible for a human being in any degree civilised to live in such a district.
The newly-built extension of the Leeds railway, which crosses the Irk here, has swept away some of these courts and lanes, laying others completely open to view. Immediately under the railway bridge there stands a court, the filth and horrors of which surpass all the others by far, just because it was hitherto so shut off, so secluded that the way to it could not be found without a good deal of trouble. I should never have discovered it myself, without the breaks made by the railway, though I thought I knew this whole region thoroughly. Passing along a rough bank, among stakes and washing-lines, one penetrates into this chaos of small one-storied, one-roomed huts, in most of which there is no artificial floor; kitchen, living and sleeping-room all in one. In such a hole, scarcely five feet long by six broad, I found two beds – and such bedsteads and beds! – which, with a staircase and chimney-place, exactly filled the room. In several others I found absolutely nothing, while the door stood open, and the inhabitants leaned against it. Everywhere before the doors refuse and offal; that any sort of pavement lay underneath could not be seen but only felt, here and there, with the feet. This whole collection of cattle-sheds for human beings was surrounded on two sides by houses and a factory, and on the third by the river, and besides the narrow stair up the bank, a narrow doorway alone led out into another almost equally ill-built, ill-kept labyrinth of dwellings…
If we leave the Irk and penetrate once more on the opposite side from Long Millgate into the midst of the working-men's dwellings, we shall come into a somewhat newer quarter, which stretches from St. Michael's Church to Withy Grove and Shude Hill … Here, as in most of the working-men's quarters of Manchester, the pork-raisers rent the courts and build pig-pens in them. In almost every court one or even several such pens may be found, into which the inhabitants of the court throw all refuse and offal, whence the swine grow fat; and the atmosphere, confined on all four sides, is utterly corrupted by putrefying animal and vegetable substances…
Such is the Old Town of Manchester, and on re-reading my description, I am forced to admit that instead of being exaggerated, it is far from black enough to convey a true impression of the filth, ruin, and uninhabitableness, the defiance of all considerations of cleanliness, ventilation, and health which characterise the construction of this single district, containing at least 20-30,000 inhabitants. And such a district exists in the heart of the second city of England, the first manufacturing city of the world. If any one wishes to see in how little space a human being can move, how little air – and such air! – he can breathe, how little of civilisation he may share and yet live, it is only necessary to travel hither. True, this is the Old Town, and the people of Manchester emphasise the fact whenever any one mentions to them the frightful condition of this Hell upon Earth; but what does that prove? Everything which here arouses horror and indignation is of recent origin, belongs to the industrial epoch.
– From The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 by Friedrich Engels
Further reading
Ironbridge: History and archaeology (Council for British Archaeology, 2000) £28Industrial Archaeology: Principles and practices by Marilyn Palmer and Peter Neaverson (Routledge, 1998) hardback £75.00; paperback £26.00
This book considers how much we can learn about our manufacturing past by using archaeology. The authors discuss how to use documentary evidence and field techniques to discover how ordinary people lived and worked, and how modern landscapes have been shaped by industrial society.
Fieldwork in Industrial Archaeology by Kenneth Major (Batsford, 1975) £3.95
Written by an experienced amateur researcher, this little book suggests exactly how to go about studying the industrial past. Everything from photography techniques to field-survey recording standards is covered.
Industrial England by Michael Stratton and Barrie Trinder (English Heritage/Batsford, 1997) £16.99
Absorbing guide to the changes in the economy and in manufacturing in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and their effects on the English landscape, including glassworks, iron works, coal mines, brick-works, car production plants, tin mines and cotton factories. A fresh and fascinating introduction to this important period. Lots of good pictures and discussions of key sites.
Industry in the Landscape 1700-1900 by Marilyn Palmer and Peter Neaverson (Routledge, 1994) £65
Two hundred years of industry have transformed the British landscape. This volume enables the reader to reconstruct the landscape of past industry. The authors are industrial archaeologists of national standing whose concern is to use surviving material evidence and contemporary sources in order to study the former working conditions of men and women. Comprehensive in coverage, the book examines fuels, metals, clothing, food, building and transport. It makes clear the tangible elements which form the basis for recreation of past landscapes and demonstrates both their function and the context in which they should be considered.
Perspectives on Industrial Archaeology edited by Neil Cossons (Science Museum, 2000) £19.95
Today, we are surrounded by the physical legacy of over two centuries of industrialisation: factories, canals, industrial towns and cities. By the 1950s, some of these relics of early industry began to take on a new significance: they were seen as an archaeological and historical reflection that needed to be captured, by recording and occasionally preservation. Industrial archaeology arose out of a widespread recognition of this need. In this book, distinguished authors review developments in industrial archaeology in Britain from the mid-1950s, when the term first appeared in print, to the present and offer some prospects for the future. Publication coincided with the International Congress on the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage held in Britain in 2000.
Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third-party sites.
Association for Industrial Archaeology
www.industrial-archaeology.org.uk
c/o Isabel Wilson, Liaison Officer
AIA, School of Archaeological Studies
Leicester University
Leicester LE1 7RH
Tel: 0116 252 5337
E-mail: AIA@le.ac.uk
The AIA is the national organisation for people who share an interest in Britain's industrial past. It brings together people who are researching, recording, preserving and presenting the great variety of this country's industrial heritage. Industrial architecture, mineral extraction, heritage-based tourism, power technology, adaptive re-use of industrial buildings and transport history are just some of the themes being investigated by members. Every year the Association monitors over 200 applications to alter or demolish industrial sites and buildings. It works with other amenity groups to protect Britain's heritage and represent Britain on the International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage.
Society for Industrial Archeology
www.ss.mtu.edu/IA/sia.html
Department of Social Sciences
Michigan Technological University
1400 Townsend Drive
Houghton
MI 49931-1295
USA
E-mail: sia@mtu.edu
US equivalent of the British Association for Industrial Archaeology.
Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society
www.glias.org.uk
The Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society (GLIAS) was founded in 1968 to record relics of London's industrial history and to deposit these records with national and local museums, archives and so on; and also to advise local authorities and others on the restoration and preservation of historic industrial buildings and machinery. Its website includes details of its extensive programme of walks and lectures; copies of its bi-monthly newsletter; and information about its award-winning database with images, articles, glossary entries, biographies and company histories.
I A Recordings
www.iarecordings.org
Founded in 1982, I A Recordings is dedicated to recording past and present industry on film and video. As well as detailing its extensive list of videos, it has a special features section covering topics such as the Shropshire Union Canal, Forest of Dean stone firms, Donisthorpe colliery, the John Bradley rolling mill and others. It also has more than 500 links to other industrial archaeology websites, organised by categories such as iron and steel, road and rail, textiles, museums, mills, mining and so on.
Ironbridge Gorge Museums
www.ironbridge.org.uk
The website of the ten museums in the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site, this is as good a starting point as any to get a feel for what industrial archaeology is about. The website includes teaching resources and a range of other background information.
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia: Industrial archaeology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_archaeology
Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, contains several dozen articles on industrial archaeology, on subjects ranging from aqueducts to woollen mills.
Where was Richard Arkwright born?
Preston
Which of these did Richard Arkwright claim to invent (although all his patents were dismissed in a court case after his death)?
Spinning frame
Richard Arkwright was a relatively benign employer compared to some at the time. How old did he insist children should be before working in his factories?
Six
What proportion of Richard Arkwright's employees were children?
Two thirds
Which of these jobs did Richard Arkwright not do?
Weaver
Richard Arkwright's first mill was opened at Cromford, in Derbyshire, in 1771. What did Arkwright keep for protection inside the main factory gate?
A loaded cannon