by Florence English

Two thirds of the mill workers were women and children. The mill owner preferred them because they were cheaper and easier to control. Under the Domestic System that was in use before the Industrial Revolution, they had worked in their own homes, at their own pace. In the mills, they had to work at the constant rate of the power driven machines.

Whole families worked in the mill. They laboured from six in the morning until eight at night, with a ten minute break for breakfast, one hour for lunch and twenty minutes for tea. Returning home at night, they were probably too exhausted to bother much with cooking or washing.

Mills needed to be kept hot and damp so that the cotton threads did not snap. That is why Lancashire, and other Pennine areas, were such ideal places to establish so many mills - there was a very wet climate there. Occasionally, if there was a hot dry summer, other means would have to be taken to keep the mills damp. Sometimes they would divert steam from the steam engines into the factory to keep it moist.

One writer visited a Glasgow cotton mill where young women workers, had to stand for twelve hours a day. He described them as pale, thin and barefoot, working in terrible heat and stink. Some of them were pregnant.

Warning signs nailed to the walls told workers that they would receive no compensation for injuries. Mill owners blamed terrible accidents on workers’ carelessness, and refused to fence off the sharp, moving parts of machines. Workers severed fingers, or were ‘scalped’, when their hair became entangled. The moving parts of machines glowed red hot. Many workers suffered burns, and a number of mills were burnt to the ground by sparks.

Weavers supervised two to four looms at a time. The noise was deafening and they had nothing to protect their hearing. One woman claimed she could not sleep at night because the roar of the machines stayed in her head.

A writer observed that the working life of a power loom weaver was passed amid a noise like an express train passing through a tunnel. At Quarry Bank Mill, the machines caused damage to the building itself.

Workers formed trade unions to demand better wages and conditions. In 1853, mill workers in Preston went on strike for thirty six weeks, seeking a ten per cent pay rise. They sold copies of songs to raise funds.