Quarry Bank Mill Timeline

1779 -

Samuel Crompton invents the Spinning Mule.

1783 -

Samuel Greg tours Cheshire looking for a site to for a new spinning mill. He chooses Styal, Cheshire.

1784 -

Quarry Bank Mill begins operating.

1785 -

First recorded apprentices.

1789 -

Samuel Greg marries Hannah Lightbody.

1790 -

Samuel Greg builds an Apprentice House and begins to build housing in Styal.

1796 -

Samuel Greg begins to build a house for himself at Quarry Bank.

1796 -

Samuel Greg goes into partnership with, engineer and fellow industrialist, Peter Ewart.

1817 -

Robert Hyde Greg joins his father’s business.

1820 -

Oak cottages, a chapel, school and shop are all built in Styal Village.

1828 -

Freed slave Mary Prince come to England to relate the horrors of slavery in the Caribbean and joins the Anti-Slavery Society.

1832 -

The Great Reform Act introduces wide-ranging changes to the electoral system.

1832 -

John Doherty publishes a radical journal entitled The Voice of the People focussing on the plight of the factory and mill workers and calling for reform. 

April 1833 -

Robert Greg gives evidence to the Royal Commission set up to investigate the employment of children in mills.

June 1833 -

John Doherty speaks at Wibsey Low Moor to a gathering of 100,000 workers supporting the fight for the Ten Hour Movement.

1833 -

The Factory Act- The Ten Hour Movement fails to be passed and children continued to work 12 hour days.

1833 -

The abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire.

1834 -

Samuel Greg interviewed by Factory Commission, regarding the factory’s health regulations. The whole enquiry lasted two years, 1833 -1834.

1834 -

Samuel Greg dies, having never recovered from an attack by a deer on his estate two years earlier.

1836 -

Esther Price and Lucy Garner are punished for running away from Quarry Bank Mill – both are placed in solitary confinement.

1837 -

Queen Victoria ascends to the throne, aged 18.

1847 -

Factory Act: Ten Hour Bill introduced, limiting working hours for women and children.

1847 -

End of Apprentice System at Quarry Bank Mill.

1870 -

Education Act - groundbreaking act that imposes state education for all.

1901 -

Factory Act raises minimum working age to 12 years.