Quarry Bank Water Wheel and cultural context

Our visit to Quarry Bank Mill today was very interesting – the demonstrations of machinery were fascinating.

This image of the Water Wheel that drove the machinery on the Quarry Bank cotton mill is striking.

I loved the references to the tv series ‘The Mill’ screened in 2013 but what surprised me was the evocative quotes in the displays.

“Who does not consider the use of machinery as one of the greatest evils there ever was in this country? Who should not rejoice at a return to the simple ways of work that allowed people to be healthy, happy and contented? “ The Union and Co-operative Intelligencier, 1832.

This is an appealing plea that has resonance with concerns about current technologies but smacks of ‘blowing in the wind’.

Hannah Greg, the mill-owner’s wife was a very interesting woman clearly concerned about the welfare of the workers. She drew up a Catechism of Safety and Health that seems eminently sensible:
“Question
What quality is it necessary to possess before you can either save yourself from danger or be of use to others?
Answer
Presence of mind
Question
What is presence of mind?
Answer
The triumph of reason over the passions of surprise and fear, or instant attention to he means of escape, instead of submitting to terror …

Her advice on the education of daughters is particularly heart-warming:
“My advice and instruction (in relation to the education of daughters) will be …. In the notion of their being individual and rational and immortal beings” Hannah Greg, from Spencer

And this comment is apposite for feminists:
“Nature has, perhaps, made the sexes mentally equal, but fortune and man, seem to have established an oppression which degrades woman from her natural situation” Hannah Greg, from A Collection of maxims, observations &c, 1799.

Of course, we have to realise that Hannah’s comfortable life depended on the labour of mill workers in Cheshire, the income from slave plantations and the existence of the infamous triangular trade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade

However it seems that she had some awareness of how things were away from home, at least:
“Surely in Ireland, in India and in Africa the English name must be for ever odious – expressive of injustice, arrogance and cruelty.” Letter from Hannah Greg, 1798