Cotton was THE growth industry of the nineteenth century.

Small communities and then towns grew up around earlier, isolated mills and in the industrial heartlands of Lancashire, whole families became dependent on the industry for their livelihoods.

The early Victorian era saw the emergence of the industrial working class and the associated social problems - cramped, unsanitary housing, poor working conditions and the use of child labour. All these factors led to industrial unrest and ended in a series of parliamentary meaures in 'The Age of Reform' which to some extent regulated the worst employment wrongs.

Today the towns of industrial Lancashire have a totally different look to the nineteenth century. Then a visitor would see blackened buildings shrouded beneath a perpetual smog of factory smoke that must have made for a wretched existence for the inhabitants. The new inventions and new industries may have played a major role in developing the country's economy (and lining the pockets of the mill owners) but for the ordinary workers it was a miserable existence, with long hours and unimaginable working conditions the norm.Thousands had been drawn to the towns by the promise of new jobs and tied factory accommodation, but for most the reality did not live up to the expectations.

The north of England was described by one visitor as a 'pestilential land where rural innocence was sacrificed on the altar of progress'.

Thousands of people on both sides of the Pennines were involved in the spinning and weaving industries and if you have working class ancestors from Lancashire the probability is that someone in the family will have been involved in the industry in some capacity.

There are a number of resources on the internet. One of the most useful sites is www.spinningtheweb.org.uk/ This brings together a collection of 20,000 items from museums and libraries across the region which tell the story of the Lancashire cotton industry.
http://www.cottontimes.co.uk/ gives an overview of the industry and the general impact of the industrial revolution on the lives of the people and the places they lived while http://www.bbc.co.uk/nationonfilm/topics/textiles/background_decline.shtml paints a vivid picture of the decline of the cotton industry in the county and contains a number of links to other useful sites.

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