ANNALS OF OLDHAM No. CII 1825 January – This year began on a Saturday, which was a fine day. Trade of all sorts very brisk, weaving excepted. All kinds of factory business brisk and wages high, but weaving is extremely bad. The prosperity which attended the cotton trade called into being a new order of capitalists, many of whom were destined to hold great power and influence over the future fortunes of Oldham. They were a race of men whose character is worth study, seeing that on their shoulders lay the chief duty of building up the trade of the town. The ideal cotton spinner of this period was perhaps father to Disraeli’s cotton spinner, Mr. Millbank, of whom the world has read in Coningsby. For the last two hundred years there has been scarcely half a century which has not been marked by some great commercial development in this country. We might give instances from the Turkey merchants, the West Indian planters, the Indian Nabobs, the Government loanmongers, the great commercial feature of this period being the development of ideas for the manufacture of cotton by the application of steam and other means, and this has given an impetus to trade not only in this country, but throughout the world, bringing Lancashire to the fore among the counties of England, and England to the fore among other nations, thus evolving a new aristocracy among mankind: I do not say of the star and garter tribe, the effects of whose power, worth, wealth, influence and ingenuity will be felt and acknowledged as long as England subsists as a commercial nation. Among this new aristocracy, I claim a place for the ideal cotton spinner of the past, and this ideal I wish to draw from what knowledge I have of that generation of cotton spinners whose names are associated with the history and progress of Oldham. It would be easy to show how the creation of this new aristocracy was beneficent (for what is an aristocracy worth except for its beneficence?) not only in its means but also in its results. As to its means who shall say that the employment and ample requital of large bodies of workpeople is not beneficent, and as to its results, not only was the town enriched by the acquirement of immense fortunes, but as it has proved, the foundation was laid for a gigantic trade, chiefly in iron and cotton, which has made Oldham the envy of England, if not of the world. |
In treating of this ideal Oldham cotton spinner a note may be made of his descent, early years, education, relations with his workpeople, manner of life, business habits, public spirit, social disposition, and general character. As regards descent, it often happened that master and workpeople were of equally good family. Mediately they were both of a stock of yeomen, bred and born on the soil, - it might have been at one time dependants on the lords of the soil, or it might have been direct descendants from these lords, some ten or eleven of whom held dominion in Oldham, who from civil war and other various causes, becoming reduced, mixed their blood in marriage with others who were lower in the social scale, thus taking root downwards and peopling the neighbourhood with a progeny which had all the merits of good descent without its weaknesses – the blood without the groats. Immediately our ideal cotton spinner was of a poor origin enough. The woollen trade was, at the time of which I speak, dying out in this neighbourhood, or had died out not long before, leaving the majority of our families in the most abject poverty. To show that I am not drawing an imaginary picture, it would be possible to name the founders of several of what are to-day our leading private firms, who were indeed nursed in adversity. In one case the barn has been pointed out to me on a neighbouring hillside where the founder of one of our wealthiest firms hid the first guinea that he had saved. In another case the father of a numerous family of cotton spinners is described as a weaver. In a third case those who have not been long dead who remember one of the founders of one of our largest concerns travelling from house to house selling goods in a “check napkin.” In a fourth case the father of one of our founders wove woollen cloth for a gentleman, whose children would gladly have woven for his children or done anything else to earn an honest livelihood. In a fifth case one of our founders was a milk boy, and in his own words, “followed the tail of a horse till he for shame could follow it no longer.” Engaging with a old spinner, who taught him to piece and spin, but being of respectable family, and having some “go” in him, he borrowed money from his mother, who gave him a start, his employer discharging him at once when he got to hear of his intention, for having the presumption to aspire to cotton spinning. All praise to our ideal. I mean it as no reproach that he had a humble beginning, yea, rather would I claim for him that he was an example of what King Solomon meant when he said, “Seest thou a man diligent in business, he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men:” and I claim it as a lasting honour for Oldham that the founders of its wealth were for most part either working men themselves or the sons of what might be called working men. |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In treating the early days of our past cotton spinner, I may observe that his youth was spent in hard work at the school of experience. As a rule, he had little of what we could call book learning. Of course he could read, cast up figures, and possibly write; these he might learn from some old pensioner who had returned from the wars, and eked out a living by imparting what stock of learning he possessed at the rate of a penny a lesson, which lessons were sometimes given at night after work was done or on the Sunday morning. Such veteran teachers among many others, were Robert of Ailce’s, Samuel o’th’Clark’s, Robert at Green, their pupils being confined to neither age nor sex. Of course the education obtained at these establishments was very meagre in comparison with the education of our youth to-day. It will be seen that an attempt was made even then at the three R’s, and this, with the aid of mother wit, had to serve those who could not afford a better education, even if it had been within reach. The scope of reading at these schools was confined to the New Testament, Aesop’s Fables, the Pleasing Instructor, and perhaps Poor Richard, or the great spelling book. That mighty instructor of the people – the newspaper – being then found only at the public-house or at the meeting house of some political club, except sometimes that a few neighbours would put their halfpennies together to raise the necessary sevenpence. Not but that this education was greatly appreciated, and as far as it went was sound; indeed, it must have been so to have produced the race of men that it did. “Early to bed and early to rise” was the maxim these scholars learnt better than by mere rote.
was a living principle with these men.
received an appropriate interpretation by them, which resulted in many an unblemished life.
had often a home-made supplement appended to it in the words, “And a roving lad saves no brass” – a truism which to Oldhamers needed little proving. It was thus that our former cotton spinner was taught the rules of self control, which he afterwards put into practice with such marvellous success. |
As regards powers of calculation these were acquired more by an intelligent application to business than by a study of arithmetic, “rule of thumb” being applied when eigths and sixteenths of a penny in the price of cotton and yarn were seldom used if not altogether unknown. A rather humorous tale was told me the other day in illustration of this:- A buyer had come up from Manchester, and calling on one of our cotton spinners he bid him a price at some bundles of yarn which were in course of making up, this price being a farthing a pound less than what the cotton spinner was wanting. “Nay, nay,” said the cotton spinner, “I conna reckon to farthings, but I’ll toss up whether it’s to be a halfpenny or nought.” An instance could be given of a large cotton spinner accepting a bill not understanding what a bill was, and not knowing the responsibilities till after the bill became due. In another case an adventurous cotton spinner was made the subject of a doggrel ditty for having established a system of dividing a farthing in his dealings, as will appear from the following, taken from a song entitled “Shoddy Fair,” the author of which died in 1846. I believe this was written of one of my cotton spinning uncles:-
Perhaps, however, that acquirement which is said to make a “precise man” was most neglected, namely, that of writing. If our former cotton spinner could scrawl his name and settle an invoice it seems to have been sufficient. In one notable instance, I have heard of a former cotton spinner who accumulated considerable wealth, had excellent command of his workpeople, and was a complete master of the details of a mill who, like some of our doughty knights of old, could not write his own name. This fact became known by this gentleman being summoned before a judge for some cause or other. He was a fine portly Englishman of such bodily presence as to call forth the judge’s admiration, who, eliciting the fact that the gentleman before him could not write his own name, so changed his countenance towards him, that it is said he gave in the case against him. Not that I would have it supposed that as a rule our former cotton spinner could not write his own name; it only leads me to notice one who was very often the gentleman of the concern, namely the bookkeeper, who, at thirty shillings a week, often maintained an appearance second only to the master himself, and not always second to him; and who, besides dividing the responsibility of the concern with the master, often divided with him the respect of the workpeople as well. |
Page 157
William Rowbottom's Diary as published in the Oldham Standard |
 |
 |
 |
