In the year 1785 cotton was brought into the Mersey from the United States of America. Long before that time so-called 'cotton' stuffs had been made in Cheshire villages. But these fabrics were not really cotton at all, but a mixture of wool and flax. The flax was brought from Ireland, and woollen manufacturers tried for a long time to keep it out. In the parish records of Prestbury you may read of an Act passed in Charles the Second's reign forbidding any one to be buried in anything but a woollen shroud.

At first there were no cotton-mills, such as you see now in the populous towns of East Cheshire. The raw cotton was given out to poor people, who spun it and wove it in their own cottage homes. Nearly every cottage became a small factory, the fathers, mothers, and children all taking part in the work. The machinery was simple and made of wood. The spinning was done by the women and children in the house, the weaving by the men in a weaving-shed of one story built in the yard.

As time went on, the machinery was improved by the inventions of clever men, so that one loom would do as much work as several had done previously. The workpeople did not like the new machines, for often a number of people were thrown out of work by them, and frequently the new spinning and weaving-frames of the inventors were wrecked by a furious mob.

The earlier and simpler machines, such as the spinning-wheel and the hand-loom, were worked by hand. But the new discoveries made it possible for one wheel to turn eighty or a hundred spindles at once by means of horse-power or a water-wheel, and the hand-loom similarly gave place to a power-loom. But in remote villages the old-fashioned methods survived, and even to this day you may still occasionally see a hand-loom at work in cottages in the highlands of East Cheshire.

Then great factories began to be built, huge buildings of brick and of many stories, chiefly on the banks of Cheshire streams, or on the canals, by which the raw cotton could be brought in barges to the very doors. You may look down from the churchyard of Mottram into the valley beneath and count a score of them. Steam was applied, and the whole of the machinery of the factories was driven by this new force. Great towns sprang up like mushrooms. Hyde and Stalybridge and Dukinfield, from being tiny villages, soon became great busy hives of the cotton industry.

The cotton had also to be bleached and the calicoes printed, and mills for the purpose were built along the streams, whose waters provided the steam-power which worked the machinery of the mills. From Taxal to Stockport, along the banks of the now polluted Goyt, is an almost continuous line of great mills, the bleach-works of Whaley Bridge, the print-works of Furness Vale and Strines, the cotton-mills of Disley, Marple, and Mellor. The Mellor mills were built as early as 1790 by Samuel Oldknow, and were at one time in the hands of Peter Arkwright, who was one of a famous family of inventors, and who made many changes in the machinery of his works.

Thus the positions of modern manufacturing towns have not been chosen, as were those of the towns of the Middle Ages, by their ability to beat off the attacks of enemies. For war is no longer the principal business of the inhabitants of Cheshire. The 'cotton' towns have come into being just in those parts where the conditions are favourable to the cotton industry. In the first place the climate is damp, owing to the nearness of the Pennine hills, on which the wet winds from the south-west drop their moisture; and cotton can only be spun and woven in such a climate, for a dry climate would make the threads break. Secondly, there is a plentiful water-supply from the numerous streams that flow from the hills, and lastly, the towns are close to big coal-fields from which they may obtain the fuel for the engines that work the machinery of the mills.

In the pretty model village of Styal, on the banks of the Bollin, is a house which is still called by the name of 'Prentice House. Here once lived a number of young girls and boys, orphans many of them, who worked in the picturesque ivy-clad building, strangely unlike a mill, at Quarry Bank. They were 'apprenticed', that is, bound to their master for seven years. During that time they were well fed and clothed by their employer, and certain times were set apart for learning to read and write and sew. On Sunday mornings they walked together to the church at Wilmslow. The girls were dressed in straw bonnets and plain grey dresses, the boys in fustian coats and breeches of corduroy.

They were kindly treated, but the hours in the mill were long. They rose at five, and their breakfast of porridge and milk was eaten in the mill. Half an hour was allowed for dinner, and not until half-past eight did their long day of toil come to an end. At Christmas prizes were given to those who had been most obedient and industrious during the year.

The young people of Quarry Bank were on the whole happy in the service of Samuel Greg their master, but the lot of the apprentices in other mills was often very different. The harshness and cruelty of some employers led to the passing of Acts of Parliament which shortened the hours of labour and fixed severe penalties for ill-treatment. A later Act forbade altogether the employment of children under a certain age.

Styal Mill