Sources 9

Nursery Buildings

SOURCE TWELVE - OWEN’S ATTITUDE TO HIS WORKERS

“.........The persons under him happen to be white, and are at liberty by law to quit his service, but while they remain in it they are as much under his absolute management as so many negro-slaves. His humour, his vanity, his kindliness of nature lead him to make these human machines as he calls them as happy as he can, and to make a display of their happiness. And he jumps at once to the monstrous conclusion that because he can do this with 2210 persons, who are totally dependent on him, all mankind might be governed with the same facility.........
.........Yet I admire the man, and like him too. And the Yahoos who are bred in our manufacturing towns, and under the administration of our Poor Laws are so much worse than the Chinese breed that he proposes to raise, that I should be glad to see his regulations adopted, as the Leeds people have proposed, for colony of paupers.”

(Extracts from”Journal of a Tour in Scotland”1819, by Robert Southey)

SOURCE THIRTEEN - WORKING CONDITIONS

“In a cotton mill, even in the summer you must have a humid atmosphere or the cotton just won’t run. For instance, if you got a hard frosty morning, I’ve seen us all have to run and carry water from the lade, the mill lade, you know, and throw it on the floor to get moisture into the air. Because cotton just won’t run unless it’s a humid atmosphere."

(Extracts from the New Lanark Oral History Archive)