The Industrial Revolution was a revolution in the way goods were produced and in how people worked to produce them. It changed the whole employment structure of Britain and the effects reached out across the world.

This whole world-shaking process of industrialisation began in the cotton industry, and the birth of the cotton factory system took place here in the Peak of Derbyshire at Richard Arkwright’s Cromford Mill. From his first mill, erected in 1771 and powered by a minor stream Arkwright soon grew in confidence to build, in 1783, the magnificent Masson Mills, powered by the River Derwent itself.

The Edinburgh Review in June 1827 stated, “The rapid rise of the cotton manufacture in this country is a subject of astonishment to other nations; and has been justly termed one of the greatest triumphs of enterprise aided by mechanical genius.”?

Why did this industrial development happen here in the Peak rather than in the big cities? There was the readily available water power of course.

Unfortunately the best locations for mills were often on remote Peakland rivers where there was a shortage of local people, especially children, to work the mills. One solution was to employ imported child apprentices, with tragic results.

Another reason may have been that Peakland people, with their lead and stone industries and existing mills, were more ready to accept new industrial development than the home textile workers of the big northern towns.

In 1768 Hargreaves had fled from Lancashire in fear of his life after the spinning machines he had invented were destroyed by angry, unemployed hand spinners. It would not have been a healthy place for Arkwright to open his first factory. If this was part of Arkwright’s thinking it was later proved right by the lack of Luddite activity in the Peak.

Many thanks to Peakland Heritage for providing this information.