Cottonopolis
Manchester’s cotton empire
- The Pre-Factory System
- The Rise of the Cotton Mill
- Selling Cotton
- Working conditions
- Additional Resources
The Pre-Factory System
Textile production in Lancashire predated the factory system by centuries. Most cloth was made from wool or linen or a mixture of both; cotton cloth was not produced until the last decades of the 18th century.
This was a domestic system of production. Spinners and weavers worked at home or in small workshops. The key agent was an entrepreneur or middleman, who supplied raw cotton or more likely yarn to these workers, who then produced cloth. Samuel Oldknow (1756–1828) was one of the most important of these entrepreneurs. He was highly successful in organising this ‘putting out’ system, and it enabled him to produce muslins ( fine cotton cloth) which could compete with Indian imports. He sold much of his produce to the London market.
Oldknow was not only skilled at co-ordinating production, but also had an expert knowledge of distribution and sales. He owned large warehouses in Manchester and Anderton, which distributed to the rest of the country. Oldknow later ran spinning factories in the Stockport area, using new technologies, in order to increase production of yarn, although he still relied on outworkers for weaving. He was supported financially in this by the instigator of the textile factory, Sir Richard Arkwright.
The Rise of the Cotton Mill
Factory organisation developed rapidly in early 19th century once steam power could be used to power machinery. This allowed textile mills to be constructed at sites other than those which could supply running water for power, which had often been at more remote locations in the region.
Now cotton mills came to Manchester. Some of these like McConnel and Kennedy’s eight-storey mills were monumental edifices, employing over a thousand operatives. Most Manchester mills were more modest. A volume held at the John Rylands Library “Plans of all the Spinning Factories within the township of Manchester”, produced in 1820s, shows that most mills were small-scale affairs. Some mills were multi-occupancy, with several different firms operating on the site. Most mills were located in Ancoats, close to the canals or along the banks of the Medlock river in the vicinity of Oxford Road.
Manchester’s mills did not grow much larger as the century progressed. The cotton industry avoided concentration (fewer, larger firms) and instead opted for specialisation, often based on geographical location. Manchester, although known for fine spinning, never became a specialist centre in the way that the satellite towns of Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale and Ashton did.
Selling Cotton
Manchester’s distinctive role in the cotton industry was to act as a commercial hub. Its role lay more in exchange and distribution of cotton, rather than its production.
Cotton yarn and cloth produced in the Lancashire cotton towns was transported to Manchester for sale. Marketing and selling cotton was largely in the hands of merchants based in the city. They operated from large warehouses, many to be found in the Princess St./Portland St. area of the city. Some of these merchants sold to the home market, but an increasing proportion of cotton output was sold abroad. Indeed, most of the revenue generated by cotton products came from the export market. Export merchants known also as “shippers”, had an expert knowledge of niche foreign markets. A significant number of merchants were drawn from Manchester’s German, Jewish, Armenian and communities.
The Royal Exchange sat almost literally at the heart of Cottonopolis. It was the world centre for cotton dealing (although it handled only the export trade). In 1913, over 10,000 dealers were registered, and the Exchange Floor could hold several thousand people at one time. Cotton dealing continued there until 1968.
Most spinning and weaving firms relied on middlemen to sell their products. These merchants, known also as “shippers”, had an expert knowledge of niche markets, many of them abroad. A significant number of merchants came from Manchester’s German, Jewish, and Greek communities.
Working conditions
The working life of mill workers varied considerably according to the branch of the industry they worked. Women workers formed the majority of the workforce in weaving and the cardroom (where cotton was prepared for spinning). Mule spinning was an almost exclusively male occupation, based on teams of a spinner, piecer and little piecer. Ring spinning, which became important in the twentieth century tended to employ women workers, but it did not displace mule spinning until the post-1945 period. The allied bleaching, dyeing and printing trades were dominated by male workers.
This photograph taken at Rylands’ Gidlow mill in Wigan is unusual in showing female mule spinners. Rylands was one of very few firms to employ women workers in this way.
Workers in the industry gradually became unionised, and in the late 19th century strikes and lockouts were frequent. Unions remained small and craft-based. The employment of young people continued for much longer in other industries. Children in their early teens worked as “half timers” i.e. half their time in work and half at school. This system enjoyed some support from the workers and unions themselves, as a valuable supplement to family income and this lasted until the inter-war period.
Hours in the mill were long — up to sixty hours, six days a week into the twentieth century. Conditions in the mill could be unpleasant — a damp humid atmosphere, ubiquitous cotton dust and machine noise. Accidents were frequent — in part, because there was a habit of cleaning moving machinery. Facilities in the mill could be basic — canteens were not common until the Second World War and employers often curtailed meal breaks to keep machines running (a practice known as ‘time cribbing’).
Additional Resources
Mary Rose ed., The Lancashire Cotton Industry: A History Since 1700 (1996)
Douglas Farnie, The English Cotton Industry and the World Market 1815–1896 (Oxford 1979)
John Singleton, Lancashire on the Scrapheap: the Cotton Industry, 1945–70 (Oxford 1991)
Related Blog Posts
“Samuel Hird and Lancashire mill life” https://rylandscollections.com/2017/02/24/samuel-hird-and-lancashire-mill-life/
Images reproduced with the permission of The John Rylands University Librarian and Director of the University of Manchester Library. All images used on this page are licenced via CC-BY-NC-SA, for further information about each image, please follow the link in the caption description.
