The Mills

From 1750 onwards Scotland’s and England’s populations began to grow rapidly, from 10.7 million to over 27.4 million people by 1850. The rapidly rising population meant that village industries could no longer supply all the needed goods. Clothing is a good example. Previously all clothing manufacture took place using handlooms. Examples of these include the Flying Shuttle invented by John Kay in 1733, which speeded up the process of weaving. Unfortunately for the burgeoning populations of Scotland and England the process was not fast enough.

The demand for other products was also rising steeply, prompting a change in methods of production. It is during this time that we see the start of the Industrial Revolution. The focus changes from village industry to much larger scale production, in factories and mills. With new inventions like Sir Richard Arkwright’s Water Frame coming to the fore, large scale production of cotton and linen was possible. Mills sprang up all over Scotland, from the county of Sutherland down to Glasgow. Scotland had always been a centre for textile production, the industry having survived the unstable period during the Treaty of Union in 1707. During the 1730’s it was set to expand.

So great was the speed of expansion it put strains on the labour markets of the villages and cities around which the new mills were established. Children provided both plentiful and cheap labour. Children were not required by law to attend school, thus many children worked very long hours to supplement their parents meagre incomes. Little or no training was required to operate the machines. Frequently, though, children were used to do menial tasks like the bobbin winders, children who spun the rough thread onto bobbins and took them to the creel frames. Often children would be employed to dash beneath machinery picking up threads that had dropped from the thread- making process. The lives of these children were fraught with danger for little reward and they were often beaten and malnourished. Working hours were long and a working family might often go hungry if one of them didn’t get paid.