The Night Shift leaving Cromford Mill, 1771
Cromford Mill is a perplexing place to visit, representing as it does some of the best achievements of the C18, and some of its worst.
Richard Arkwright began to build the original five-storey mill at Cromford in 1771, and it became the first successful cotton-spinning mill worked by waterpower. Applying Enlightenment ideas of reason and rationalism to an industrial process, he created a model for mechanised manufacturing that was pivotal to the development of the Industrial Revolution.
As a member of the Lunar Society, Arkwright was part of an intellectual circle that included Erasmus Darwin, Josiah Wedgwood, James Watt and the painter Joseph Wright of Derby. Wright notably painted both portraits of Arkwright and his family, and the mill. The Midlands was at that time a place of innovation and ideas equalling London.
Arkwright built houses for the workers near the mill, and the expectation was that the whole family would work there, including the children. The ventilation was poor, it was dusty and hot, and the working day was 12 hours on either the day or night shift. Small children were employed to clean under the machines whilst they were working, and crippling accidents occurred frequently amongst the workforce, for which there was no compensation. As a result they lost their livelihood and their home.
The mill ceased in 1840, and in time the other mills along the Derwent River also closed as textiles production moved to South and South East Asia.
