Quarry Bank Mill

[poliphilo]

Quarry Bank Mill at Styal was opened in the 1780s and is now a working museum. We went there with Ruth, my sister-in-law. I now know about carding and spinning and weaving and have some idea of the hellishness of factory work in the early years of the industrial revolution. Samuel Greg, the owner of Quarry Bank, was a model employer by the standards of the age, but still expected his child "apprentices"- boys and girls- to work 13 hours a day, six days a week. 

Comments

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

A while back the national historic urban parks in this country decided to restore and preserve as museums the old mills of some of America's mill towns. Lowell Massachusetts has done a great job with their urban industrial historic park, including the making of films about the days of child labor, and the days when mill girls were recruited from nearby farming communities to live in town and work in factories. They have restored the old boarding houses where "young ladies" lived amid strict rules of behavior, etc. Among the displays are photos of actual operations at the time the factories were fairly new. Oh, yes, and some truly heartbreaking stories of the mill children, too.
In the lecture I attended at the Lowell Parks they pointed out that American mills were patterned after the British model of the eighteeenth century. After seeing your photos, I can see it for myself. These photos could have been taken in Lowell, or Lawrence, or any other of the mill towns along major rivers in the northeastern US.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

W.H. Auden said mills were the most distinctive British buildings of the 19th century. I think he had a point. They can be magnificent. A lot of the ones round here have been demolished- something I suspect future generations will regret.