Cotton Mills in the Deane Area

The cotton trade was established in cottages using handlooms in the 1600’s and 1700’s.  The cotton trade prospered and in 1839, Dean Parish, which covered a large area had 16 cotton mills, which were mainly worked by steam engines.  The first steam engines used in cotton mills needed vast amounts of fuel and so mills tended to be located near canal transport and coal mines.

Until the 1960’s Bolton was primarily a cotton town and in 1904 there were over 150 textile concerns operation in the town.  In 1911 the Census Returns record over 36 000 men and women employed in the cotton industry in Bolton.  Many children worked half-time in the cotton mills and also went to school for a few hours each day.  Schooling ended on their 13th birthday and they left without any qualifications.  Photo 12 shows the half-timers at the Albion Towel Mill in Farnworth in 1910, but there would have been very similar scenes in Deane.  Note how young most of the girls look.  The mill owner, Mr. Glass, is stood in the centre at the back of the picture, with a hat on.

Below are some of the mills which have operated in the Deane area:

Deane Mill (silk), Merton Mill (cotton), Bankfield Mill (cotton), Croal Mill (cotton), Lincoln Mill (quilt), Gibralter Mill (cotton), Stanley Mill (cotton), Pikes Lane Mill (cotton), Garfield Mill (cotton) and Deane Road Mill (cotton). 

 

Croal Mill today

Croal Mill, on Blackshaw Lane (off Wigan Road) was built in 1908 for Croal Spinning Co. Ltd. and was a cotton mill until 1967.  Since 1985 it has been used by Littlewoods, the mail order company.  It is six storeys high with a square tower which bears the name ‘Croal’ and a larger round tower.  Behind this mill is the River Croal and also the railway line.

Stanley Mill, on Jackson Street (off Cannon Street) was built in 1868 for Cannon Brothers Ltd. as cotton mills.  Stanley Mill closed in 1971 and was demolished around 1974.  The site was redeveloped and a supermarket with a large car park was built.  This supermarket has belonged to succession of companies including Hillards, Mainstop and Tesco and is now occupied by Kwik Save.

Eagle Mill, on Ramsbottom Street, off Derby Street and College Way was built in 1884 for Joseph Crook and Co.  In 1925 it was taken over by Bolton Eagle Spinning Co. Ltd.  In the 1960’s it was taken over by Holt Hosiery Co. Ltd.  Crooks’ no. 1 mill was destroyed by fire in 1879.  Around 1900 there were large areas of terraced housing off Deane Road, around Stanley Mill, Derby Street Mills, Eagle Mill and Deane Road Mill.  Though many of the mills remain, the old terraces have now been replaced by new terraced housing and flats which have small gardens and garage provision.

Factory Life

Children from working-class families began working ‘half-time’ in the factories when they were very young.  Half-time working was intended to be a preparation for a life-time in the mill.  They left school at 13 to begin full-time work of 55.5 hours per week.

Typically a boy would start work as a ‘little piecer’, that is, an assistant to the spinner (or minder as they were known) and his duties would include picking up the broken ends of yarn of the spinning mules, and cleaning and oiling the machinery.

A young girl would start half-time as a ‘tenter’, that is a weaver’s assistant, learning all the different skills involved.  After a year or two she would be given two looms of her own to work and later she might be promoted to four and then six.  It was very noisy due to the clatter of the looms and this made it necessary to lip-read in order to communicate.  Outside the mill young girls worked in domestic service, the food and drink trade, as shop assistants or dress-makers etc.

Women predominated in ring-spinning which was more automated than the earlier type of spinning on a machine called a mule.  Notice the shiny black clogs worn by the mill girls in the photograph.  Clogs were worn by all working class people, including children.  There were clogs of all kinds; pit clogs, brightly polished clogs for mills girls and special fancy clogs for Sundays with upturned toes.  They had ‘irons’ on the soles to make them last longer and they rang out as they hit the paving stones.  The sound of clogs on the pavement was once a familiar sound in the morning and evening as workers walked to and from the pits and mills.  There were craftsmen called cloggers who made and mended the clogs.

Below is an extract from an account of working class life given by Allen Clarke in ‘The Effects of the Factory System’ written in 1899, when the Lancashire cotton industry reigned supreme.  Allen Clarke was born in 1863 at the height of a recession which was called the ‘cotton famine’.  He began to work at the tender age of eleven as a ‘little piecer’ helping to piece together the broken threads on a gigantic spinning mule.  He was far from satisfied with the working-class lifestyle:

“Everywhere you will find steam hissing and smoke scowling; factories, chimneys, coal pits heads, streams fouled by chemical works.  In 1770 the population of Bolton was about 5 000; it is now twenty times that.....change from a happy hamlet to mighty centre of filth and fume, hundreds of high chimneys belching forth.  People growing up stunted, dying prematurely... have been used to nothing better.  The death rate is much higher in the factory town compared with rural districts.  Often families of a dozen sleep in two rooms.  If a mill girl is lucky she may get a warm cup of tea before starting out of a morning.  Breakfast at work is cup of tea and slice of bread and butter, sitting in a corner in the dust and dirt.  The dinner hour only allows time to gulp food..a repetition of the breakfast menu with perhaps a little meat or jam.”