Quarry Bank Mill (also known as Styal Mill) in
Styal,
Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...
, England, is one of the best preserved
textile factories of the Industrial Revolution. Built in 1784, the
cotton mill
A cotton mill is a building that houses spinning (textiles), spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system.
Althou ...
is recorded in the
National Heritage List for England
The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...
as a designated Grade II*
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
.
Quarry Bank Mill was established by
Samuel Greg
Samuel Greg (26 March 1758 – 4 June 1834) was an Irish-born industrialist and entrepreneur of the early Industrial Revolution and a pioneer of the factory system. He built Quarry Bank Mill, which at his retirement was the largest textile mil ...
, and was notable for innovations both in machinery and also in its approach to labour relations, the latter largely as a result of the work of Greg's wife,
Hannah Lightbody. The family took a somewhat paternalistic attitude toward the workers, providing medical care for all and limited education to the children, but all laboured roughly 72 hours per week until 1847 when a new law shortened the hours.
Greg also built housing for his workers, in a large community now known as Styal Estate. Some were conversions of farm houses, or older residences but 42 new cottages, including the Oak Cottages (now Grade II Listed), were built in the 1820s when the mill was being expanded.
[Historical Guide to Styal Village and 13 Oak Cottages, Quarry Bank, Professor Hannah Barker, University of Manchester](_blank)
/ref>
The National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
, which runs the mill and Styal Estate as a museum that is open to the public, calls the site "one of Britain's greatest industrial heritage sites, home to a complete industrial community". According to the Council of Europe
The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...
, the mill with Styal village make up "the most complete and least altered factory colony of the Industrial Revolution. It is of outstanding national and international importance".
Location
Quarry Bank Mill is on the outskirts of Styal in Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...
, abutting and to the south of Manchester Airport
Manchester Airport is an international airport in Ringway, Manchester, England, south-west of Manchester city centre. In 2019, it was the third busiest airport in the United Kingdom in terms of passenger numbers and the busiest of those n ...
.
The mill is on the bank of the River Bollin
The River Bollin is a major tributary of the River Mersey in the north-west of England.
It rises in Macclesfield Forest at the western end of the Peak District, and can be seen in spring form, from the Buxton to Macclesfield road. The stream t ...
which provided water to power the waterwheels. It was connected by road to the Bridgewater Canal
The Bridgewater Canal connects Runcorn, Manchester and Leigh, Greater Manchester, Leigh, in North West England. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester. It was ...
for transporting raw cotton from the port of Liverpool. The site consisted of three farms or folds. Styal railway station opened in 1909, about a kilometre away.
History
Samuel Greg
Samuel Greg (26 March 1758 – 4 June 1834) was an Irish-born industrialist and entrepreneur of the early Industrial Revolution and a pioneer of the factory system. He built Quarry Bank Mill, which at his retirement was the largest textile mil ...
leased land at Quarrell Hole on Pownall Fee from Lord Stamford, who imposed a condition that "none of the surrounding trees should be pruned, felled or lopped"; maintaining the woodland character of the area. One reason for selecting this location was the "suitable head of water provided by the River Bollin and its proximity to the Bridgewater Canal and thus Liverpool". The factory was built in 1784 by Greg to spin
Spin or spinning most often refers to:
* Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning
* Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis
* Spin (propaganda), an intentionally b ...
cotton. When Greg retired in 1832 it was the largest such business in the United Kingdom. The water-powered Georgian mill still produces cotton calico
Calico (; in British usage since 1505) is a heavy plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may also contain unseparated husk parts. The fabric is far coarser than muslin, but less coarse and thick than ...
. The Gregs were careful and pragmatic, paternalistic millowners, and the mill was expanded and changed throughout its history. When Greg's son, Robert Hyde Greg
Robert Hyde Greg (24 September 1795 – 21 February 1875), was an English industrialist, economist, antiquary, and - briefly - a Member of Parliament.
Born in Manchester, he was the son of Samuel Greg and Hannah Lightbody, the creators of Quarr ...
, took over the business, he introduced weaving
Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal th ...
. Samuel Greg died in 1834.
An 1835 report provided these specifics about the mill: "It is driven by an elegant water-wheel, thirty-two feet in diameter, and twenty-four feet broad, equivalent in power to one
hundred and twenty horses"[QUARRY BANK MILL BY ROBERT MURRAY, British Journal of Industrial Medicine, 4 September 1957](_blank)
/ref>
The Mill was attacked during the Plug Plot riots on 10 August 1842.
The mill's iron water wheel
A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or buckets ...
, the fourth to be installed, was designed by Thomas Hewes
Thomas Hewes was a millwright, textile machine manufacturer and civil engineer professionally active in England from 1790 to 1830. He was born in Beckenham Kent in
1768.
Early works
He installed the Boulton and Watt steam engine and associated ...
and built between 1816 and 1820. Overhead shafts above the machines were attached to the water wheel by a belt. When the wheel turned, the motion moved the belt and powered the machinery. A beam engine and a horizontal steam engine were subsequently installed to supplement the power. The Hewes wheel broke in 1904 but the River Bollin continued to power the mill through two water turbines. The mill owners bought a Boulton and Watt steam engine in 1810 and a few years later purchased another because the river's water level was low in summer and could interrupt production of cloth during some years. Steam engines could produce power all year round. Today the mill houses the most powerful working waterwheel in Europe, an iron wheel moved from Glasshouses Mill at Pateley Bridge
Pateley Bridge (known locally as Pateley) is a small market town in Nidderdale in the Borough of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it lies on the River Nidd. It is in the Yorkshire Dales an ...
designed by Sir William Fairbairn who had been Hewes' apprentice.
Mill community
The sparse accommodation that existed when the Gregs built the mill was soon exhausted and Greg built plain cottages, including the Oak Cottages which are now Grade II listed; these were rented to his workers. Each house had a parlour, kitchen and two bedrooms (a two-up two-down
Two-up two-down is a type of small house with two rooms on the ground floor and two bedrooms upstairs.
There are many types of terraced houses in the United Kingdom, and these are among the most modest. Those built before 1875, the pre-regulat ...
), an outside privy and a small garden. Rent was deducted from the workers' wages. The area of worker housing became known as Styal Estate.
The Gregs owned a home in Manchester but also built a home near the mill in 1797, called "Quarry Bank House". The building has been Grade II listed since 1975. It was restored in 2017 in a manner that ensured that "all primary features dating from the Greg family’s occupation have been retained", and was opened to visits by the public by the National Trust.
Samuel Greg, like Robert Owen, who built New Lanark
New Lanark is a village on the River Clyde, approximately 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometres) from Lanark, in Lanarkshire, and some southeast of Glasgow, Scotland. It was founded in 1785 and opened in 1786 by David Dale, who built cotton mills and housi ...
, attempted to bring the structured order of a country village to his new industrial centres. He built Oak School to educate the children and the Norcliffe Chapel
Norcliffe Chapel is in the village of Styal, Cheshire, England. It is a Unitarian chapel, and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. The chapel was built in 1822–23 by a mill ow ...
where the villagers worshipped and held a Sunday school
A Sunday school is an educational institution, usually (but not always) Christian in character. Other religions including Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism have also organised Sunday schools in their temples and mosques, particularly in the West.
Su ...
.
At first, Greg converted farm buildings in Styal to house workers. As the mill increased in size, new housing was constructed for the workers. According to the National Trust, in the 1820s, "... new terraced cottages brought a brand new style of architecture and an expanding population ... In the tiny two-up-two-down cottages workers lived in cramped conditions, with as many as 14 people living in one house and tenants sub-letting rooms to other mill workers".
The Gregs also built the village shop and, for roughly five decades, remained the owners.
Medical care for mill workers was provided by staff physicians and surgeons. The mill provided the "earliest recorded occupational health service in this country", according to an article in the British Journal of Industrial Medicine
''Occupational and Environmental Medicine'' is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal which covers research in occupational and environmental medicine. It is published by the BMJ Group and is the official journal of the Faculty of Occupational ...
.
Apprentice system
Quarry Bank Mill employed child apprentices, a system that continued only until 1847. Most were children of families in poverty, living in workhouse
In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse'' ...
s, which sent them to the mill which was "clamouring for cheap labour". At the time, the consensus was that the children were better off in labour than they would have been under 'the step-motherly care of the Poor Law'", according to a reliable source. Initially, the children were brought from Hackney and Chelsea but by 1834 they came mostly from neighbouring parishes or Liverpool poorhouses.
The last child to be indentured started work in 1841. Child labour, constituted over half of the labour force in the early decades of the mill's operation, according to Prof Hannah Barker, chair of Manchester Histories at the University of Manchester
, mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity
, established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...
. "By 1833 apprentices made up only 20% of workforce at Styal, and in 1847 the apprentice system was completely abandoned".
The first children apprentices lived in lodgings in the neighbourhood then in 1790 Greg built the Apprentice House near the factory. Greg believed he could get the best out of his workers by treating them fairly. He hired a superintendent to attend to their care and morals and members of the Greg family and external tutors gave them lessons.
Some of the work was dangerous, with fingers sometimes being severed by the machines. Samuel Greg employed Peter Holland, father of the Royal Physician Sir Henry Holland, 1st Baronet
Sir Henry Holland, 1st Baronet, FRS (27 October 1788 – 27 October 1873) was a British physician and travel writer.
Early life
Born in Knutsford, Cheshire, Holland was the son of the physician Peter Holland (1766–1853) and his wife Mary ...
and uncle of Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many st ...
, as mill doctor. Holland was responsible for the health of the children and other workers, and was the first doctor to be employed in such a capacity.
Life for the children was not ideal of course. Hours were long: 12 hours per day, six days a week, according to documents from 1794. Time for play was allowed only on Sunday afternoons. Still, their "diet appears to have been a relatively good one", according to Professor Barker's research, and some education was provided. (The Gregs were Unitarians who believed in educating their workers, including Sunday School for both sexes.) Initially, schooling was provided only for boys, for an hour on three evenings of the week, at most; by 1833 the mill claimed that girls were also getting some education on Sunday afternoons. A comparative study of child mill workers of the era by Katrina Honeyman indicated that "those at Quarry Bank were treated 'better than average', but that the Gregs were not amongst the best employers in the country".
A former director of the Quarry Bank Mill, and author of a book about Hannah Greg, provided this summary of child labour, based on extensive research.Over half of Samuel Greg’s workforce were poor and orphaned children ... the children were given good medical care by the Greg family doctor, and education in writing and maths three nights a week ... although the child workers were not subjected to corporal punishment, bad behaviour brought overtime, threats that girls would have their heads shaved or young workers being locked in a room for days on a porridge-only diet".
20th and 21st century
The estate and mill were eventually inherited by Robert Hyde Greg and then by Alexander Carlton Greg, who donated the site in 1939 to the National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
. The mill continued in production until 1959. According to the historic listing, the 32 ft. diameter waterwheel was replaced by two turbines in 1904. Some restoration was completed in 1969.[Quarry Bank Mill](_blank)
/ref>
In 2006 the National Trust acquired Quarry Bank House and its gardens and, in 2010, the gardener's house and the upper gardens.[National Trust Magazine, Spring 2013] In 2013 the mill received 130,000 visitors. In 2013, the trust launched an appeal to raise £1.4 million to restore a worker's cottage, a shop and the Greg's glasshouses and digitise records relating to Gregs and the mill workers.[BBC News: Project to restore Quarry Bank Mill in Cheshire]
(accessed 12 February 2013)
During 2015–2020, the Quarry Bank Project improved the site for visitors with a £9.4 million restoration. "New areas have been restored and for the first time ever visitors can now explore the complete industrial heritage site at Quarry Bank". A promotional video published by the Trust depicts scenes and activities that visitors can experience.
Architecture
Quarry Bank is an example of an early, rural, cotton-spinning mill that was initially dependent on water power. The first mill was built by Samuel Greg and John Massey in 1784. Its design was functional and unadorned, growing out of the pragmatism of the men who felt no need to make a bold architectural statement. It was a four-storey mill measuring by , with an attached staircase, counting house and warehouse. It was designed to use water frame
The water frame is a spinning frame that is powered by a water-wheel. Water frames in general have existed since Ancient Egypt times. Richard Arkwright, who patented the technology in 1769, designed a model for the production of cotton thread; ...
s which had just come out of patent, and the increased supply of cotton caused by the cessation of the American War of Independence
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
. The water wheel was at the north end of the mill.
The mill was extended in 1796 when it was doubled in length and a fifth floor added. A second wheel was built at the southern end. The mill was extended between 1817 and 1820 and a mansard-roofed wing extended part of the 1796 building forward beneath which the wheel was installed. The new building kept the 1784 detailing with respect to line and windows. The 1784 mill ran 2425 spindles, after 1805 with the new wheel it ran 3452 spindles.
Weaving sheds were added in 1836 and 1838 and they were of two storeys and housed 305 looms. Before the 1830s, spinning mills produced cotton, that was put-out
In baseball statistics, a putout (denoted by ''PO'' or ''Types of batted balls in baseball, fly out'' when appropriate) is awarded to a defensive player who (generally while in secure possession of the ball) records an out (baseball), out by one ...
to hand-loom
A loom is a device used to weaving, weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the Warp (weaving), warp threads under tension (mechanics), tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape o ...
weavers who worked in their own homes or small loom shop
A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but t ...
s, like the one Greg owned at Eyam
Eyam () is an English village and civil parish in the Derbyshire Dales that lies within the Peak District National Park. There is evidence of early occupation by Ancient Britons on the surrounding moors and lead was mined in the area by the R ...
. Hand-loom weaving continued in parallel to power loom
A power loom is a mechanized loom, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. The first power loom was designed in 1786 by Edmund Cartwright and first built that same year. ...
weaving throughout the 19th century. Around 1830 the power loom became sufficiently viable for independent weaving shed
A weaving shed is a distinctive type of mill developed in the early 1800s in Lancashire, :Derbyshire and Yorkshire to accommodate the new power looms weaving cotton, silk, woollen and worsted. A weaving shed can be a stand-alone mill, or a ...
s to be set up, and for larger owners to add weaving sheds to their spinning mills. A weaving shed needed the correct light and humidity and a floor that was stable enough to withstand the vibration caused by the picking of many looms. Quarry Bank Mill is of national significance in that it used two-storey side-lit buildings rather the a single storey sheds with a saw-tooth roof. The first two-storey shed at Quarry Bank was by . The 1838 building was by to which a storey was added in 1842 for warping and beaming. In the Gregs pragmatic way, looms were purchased gradually.
Water power
The first wheel was a wooden overshot wheel
A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or bucket ...
taking water by means of a long leat from upstream on the River Bollin. The second wheel built by Peter Ewart in 1801 was wooden. To increase power he dammed the Bollin and took water into the mill directly, the tailrace
A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or bucket ...
leaving the river below the dam. The third wheel of 1807 was a replacement for one of the wooden wheels. It is believed it was a suspension wheel, in diameter made from iron to the design of Thomas Hewes
Thomas Hewes was a millwright, textile machine manufacturer and civil engineer professionally active in England from 1790 to 1830. He was born in Beckenham Kent in
1768.
Early works
He installed the Boulton and Watt steam engine and associated ...
.
The fourth wheel, the ''Great Wheel'' was also designed by Hewes. The challenge was to increase the head of water acting on the wheel while using the same volume of water. It was achieved by sinking the wheel pit to below the level of the river and taking the tail race through a tunnel a kilometre downstream to rejoin the Bollin at Giant's Castle. This gave a head of acting on the diameter suspension wheel- which is wide. The ''Great Wheel'' operated from 1818 to 1871 when the mill pool had silted up, and then to 1904.
In 1905 two water turbines
A water turbine is a rotary machine that converts kinetic energy and potential energy of water into mechanical work.
Water turbines were developed in the 19th century and were widely used for industrial power prior to electrical grids. Now, th ...
built by Gilbert Gilkes and Company were installed to replace the ''Great Wheel''. They used the same head and tail race and operated until 1959. When the mill was restored in 1983, a diameter waterwheel of similar design to that of Hewes by his pupil Sir William Fairbairn
Sir William Fairbairn, 1st Baronet of Ardwick (19 February 1789 – 18 August 1874) was a Scottish civil engineer, structural engineer
Structural engineers analyze, design, plan, and research structural components and structural systems ...
, was moved from Glasshouses Mill in Pateley Bridge
Pateley Bridge (known locally as Pateley) is a small market town in Nidderdale in the Borough of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it lies on the River Nidd. It is in the Yorkshire Dales an ...
and installed to provide power to work the machinery.
Steam power
Water flow from the Bollin was unreliable so an auxiliary steam engine was procured in 1810. It was a 10 hp beam engine
A beam engine is a type of steam engine where a pivoted overhead beam is used to apply the force from a vertical piston to a vertical connecting rod. This configuration, with the engine directly driving a pump, was first used by Thomas Newco ...
from Boulton and Watt
Boulton & Watt was an early British engineering and manufacturing firm in the business of designing and making marine and stationary steam engines. Founded in the English West Midlands around Birmingham in 1775 as a partnership between the Engli ...
. In 1836 with the arrival of power loom
A power loom is a mechanized loom, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. The first power loom was designed in 1786 by Edmund Cartwright and first built that same year. ...
s a second 20 hp Boulton and Watt beam engine was acquired. The first horizontal condensing engine was acquired in 1871. A new engine house was built. In 1906 the 1871 engine was replaced by a second-hand 60 hp engine. The engines no longer exist and the museum has purchased a similar steam engine to display.
Profiting from the slave trade
The Gregs were involved in the triangular trade
Triangular trade or triangle trade is trade between three ports or regions. Triangular trade usually evolves when a region has export commodities that are not required in the region from which its major imports come. It has been used to offset t ...
. Samuel Greg's brother-in-law, Thomas Hodgson, owned a slave ship, his father Thomas Greg and his brother John Greg part owned sugar plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
s on the Caribbean island of Dominica
Dominica ( or ; Kalinago: ; french: Dominique; Dominican Creole French: ), officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of the island. It is geographically ...
. The best documented is Hillsborough Estate, Dominica which Samuel Greg and his brother Thomas inherited in 1795. In 1818 it had 71 male and 68 female slaves.
A research document states that "although amuelGreg did not rely on Caribbean estate earnings to finance entry into cotton spinning, his interest in plantations formed part of a wider family engagement in commerce that included significant slave-related business". "Samuel Greg ... his father Thomas and uncle John had interests in four estates in Dominica and St Vincent, ... while Samuel and his brother Thomas inherited the Hillsborough plantation in Dominica and other estates", according to a news item. The research document also confirms that Samuel Greg's brothers were owners of estates, in the West Indies, where labour was provided by slaves.
In 2020, the National Trust was working on a plan to include coverage about the owners of its properties, including the Quarry Bank Mill, who had links to colonialism and slavery. Visitors will find information about the "histories of slavery and colonialism" at the site.
In popular culture
The relationship between mill owners and employees at Quarry Bank, starting in 1833, was explored in the 2013–2014 television series ''The Mill''. The producers used stories from the archives of the mill; the ten episodes were based on the stories but included some fictional characters.
Some of the exteriors were filmed at the Quarry Bank Mill while others in the city centre of Chester and at Chester Crown Court.
Interiors of the work in the mill were filmed in Manchester because "the real factory floor couldn’t be easily converted from its contemporary function as a museum".
In 2020, some scenes for the ITV series ''Belgravia'' were filmed at the mill.
Galleries
File:Mill Works Houses in Styal - geograph.org.uk - 734134.jpg , Workers cottages
File:Cottages at Styal Village - geograph.org.uk - 1287220.jpg , Workers cottages
Norcliffe Chapel, Styal Village - geograph.org.uk - 394152.jpg , Norcliffe Chapel
Norcliffe Chapel is in the village of Styal, Cheshire, England. It is a Unitarian chapel, and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. The chapel was built in 1822–23 by a mill ow ...
Image:Mule spinning machine at Quarry Bank Mill.jpg, A working Mule spinning machine at Quarry Bank Mill.
File:Inside the water-wheel of Quarry Bank Mill.jpg, A view inside the largest water wheel in the United Kingdom. It is still working today, powering the loom
A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but th ...
s.
The_Water_Wheel_at_Styal_Mill_(geograph_3001546).jpg , The new wheel
File:A_working_Mule_spinning_machine_at_Quarry_Bank_Mill.theora.ogv , A video of the working Mule spinning machine at Quarry Bank Mill
See also
*
* Listed buildings in Wilmslow
* Factory Acts
The Factory Acts were a series of acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to regulate the conditions of industrial employment.
The early Acts concentrated on regulating the hours of work and moral welfare of young children employed ...
* List of textile mills in Cheshire
This is a list of the silk, cotton and other textile mills in Cheshire, England. The first mills were built in the 1760s, in Styal by Samuel Greg using the Arkwright system and were powered by the water of the River Bollin. There were significan ...
* List of watermills in the United Kingdom
The use of water power in Britain was at its peak just before the Industrial Revolution. The need for power was great and steam power had not yet become established. It is estimated that at this time there were well in excess of ten thousand waterm ...
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
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External links
Quarry Bank Mill and Styal Estate information at the National Trust
Wikidata List of paintings at Quarry Bank Mill
National Trust: Collection of primary source documents relating to the Gregs and Quarry Bank Mill
The sound of Quarry Bank Mill on Sound Tourism site
Information and Photos
{{Authority control
Museums in Cheshire
Textile mills in Cheshire
Watermills in Cheshire
Industry museums in England
Textile museums in the United Kingdom
Cotton mills
Cotton industry in England
Former textile mills in the United Kingdom
History of Cheshire
History of the textile industry
National Trust properties in Cheshire
Grade II* listed buildings in Cheshire
Grade II* listed industrial buildings
Tourist attractions in Cheshire
Articles containing video clips
Styal