over the countryside and carried out within village households. But now, the costly new machines could be purchased, set up and maintained in the mill. Within the mill all the New words Stapler – A person who ‘staples’ or sorts wool according to its fibre Fuller – A person who ‘fulls’ – that is, gathers – cloth by pleating Carding – The process in which fibres, such as cotton or wool, are prepared prior to spinning Fig. – A Lancashire cotton mill, painted by C.E.
Turner, The Illustrated London News , . The artist said: ‘Seen through the humid atmosphere that makes Lancashire the best cotton-spinning locality in the world, a huge cotton-mill aglow with electricity in the twilight, is a most impressive sight.’ processes were brought together under one roof and management. This allowed a more careful supervision over the production process, a watch over quality, and the regulation of labour, all of which had been difficult to do when production was in the countryside. In the early nineteenth century, factories increasingly became an intimate part of the English landscape.
So visible were the imposing new mills, so magical seemed to be the power of new technology, that contemporaries were dazzled. They concentrated their attention on the mills, almost forgetting the bylanes and the workshops where production still continued. The way in which historians focus on industrialisation rather than on small workshops is a good example of how what we believe today about the past is influenced by what historians choose to notice and what they ignore. Note down one event or aspect of your own life which adults such as your parents or teachers may think is unimportant, but which you believe to be important.