Stardate: 10 May 2019 - The Wheel at the Mill goes round and round....

Many would appreciate that Geoff and I are intuitively mechanical - never happier than working with gears and axles and sprockets and turbines - and so today we visited Cromford, Derbyshire - birthplace of the original water mill that powered and revolutionised England's textile industry for a century from the late 1700s.

Big Ted

As is our custom we arrived much too early for a mill inspection but this gave us time to wander around the nearby canal wharf and meet dear old Ted, the Shire horse who was going to be towing a canal boat loaded with joy-riding elderly people along the now disused canal.

Ted's mum (pictured) said he only does this chore about once a month and doesn't mind it and is otherwise happy to just trot around in his paddock and loll about in his stable at home.

The original Cromford cotton mill (that we visited today) and many others were founded by a largely uneducated but entrepreneurial chap called Richard Arkwright, originally from Preston in Lancashire.  Before setting up the mill he had already made a motza through owning thousands of foot-driven framework knitting machines in Nottingham that the impoverished of that city slaved over in their homes day-in-day-out making gents' and women's hosiery for a pittance in wages.  I know this last bit as I have researched it - I have quite a few Nottingham ancestors who are described as "framework knitters" in the 1851 and 1861 UK censes.  Emigrating to Australia was probably the best thing my great-great grandparents ever did for themselves.

The original Cromford textile factory.  And when I say 'original', I actually mean the first factory ever.  Sir Richard 'Portly' Arkwright (he was a big chap, and knighted by George the Third) was quite famous for his invention of the water mill to power cotton textile production but actually more famous because his idea of employing large numbers of people in one building as a production line had never been done before, ever.  So he effectively 'invented' the factory.  And of course, he was quite the bastard about it - mostly employing women and children because he could pay them cheaper wages than men and also because they all worked 12 hours a day, six days a week.  Terrible accidents, often fatal, happened as a matter of course. Needless to say he became the richest man in England and bragged about it at every opportunity.  In fact he seemed very Clive Palmerish in more ways than one.  I know he was a man of his time but I still can't quite fathom greed.  The old toad even built himself a castle. A talented but very flawed individual is my jaundiced view.

Before handing over to Sprocket Man, will just say that the 'comments' function of the blog is now fully open for blog-related business, as it was originally.  I hope.

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Comparing Arkwright to Clive Palmer is most unfair to Arkwright.  They might be of similar girth, but at least Arkwright always paid his workers.  Just not very much.  But we were told that, as little as they earned, they were still better off than their counterparts who worked on the land.  Life were 'ard in those days, by goom.

This is actually a photo of a photo, the subject being the entire Cromford Mill complex as it looks today.  It seemed like it was the best way to demonstrate its size.  

It started operation in 1771 and finished as a mill in 1840.  There were other mills in the vicinity at this time, many of which were demolished, some as late as the 1950s and 60s, but common sense prevailed at Cromford, and it's now been preserved as a historical record of what it was.  We chose to view it that way anyway, rather than as a monument to Arkright.

This bit emphasises how water was the basis for everything that happened at Cromford.  Earlier attempts at providing power included the use of horses, but water proved far more successful.  It was reliably available in this part of England, showing why it's regarded as the forerunner of the Industrial Revolution.

As Anne says, the real significance of the site is not so much that it was a textile mill, but it was effectively the world's first factory.  The workers arrived for their shift, clocked on, slaved away for 12 hours, and then clocked off and went home [possibly minus a hand or arm - Ed].  This was revolutionary, and when you consider that this remains the model in many workplaces today, this is quite a significant bit of history.  Here endeth the lesson.

Following our informative mill tour, and suitably fed and watered ourselves, we returned to the canal, and were delighted to find ...

... that Ted had not only finished his chores for the day, but was being rewarded for his exertions.  What's more, his shift was far shorter than the Cromford workers back in the day.  Good for you Ted; you deserve it!

Our Cromford visit concluded with a pleasant stroll along the canal path, where we found ample evidence (not pictured) that Ted had been there before us.

All in all, an excellent day.  Informative and educational, modest exercise in bucolic surrounds, and best of all we got to meet Ted!