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An Early Industrial Community – The Evans' Cotton Mill at Darley Abbey Derbyshire, 1783–1810

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Jean Lindsay
Jean Lindsay
Affiliation:
Aberdeen, Scotland
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Abstract

“Second generation” historical efforts are shedding new light on the beginnings of the textile industry. Even fragmentary records, minutely examined, yield vignettes that may one day be merged to form important new chapters of industry history. The Darley Abbey story reveals rare operational detail and an interesting variant in the British pattern of development.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1960 , pp. 277 - 301
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1960

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References

1 Glover, S., The History and Gazetteer of the County of Derby (2 vols.; Derby, 1833), vol. 2, p. 424Google Scholar.

2 Gregory, T. E., The Westminster Bank Through A Century (2 vols.; London, 1936), vol. 2, pp. 82–83Google Scholar.

3 Curtis, G. J., Memories of a Long Life (London, 1912), p. 70Google Scholar.

4 Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Griggs, E. L. (2 vols.; Oxford, 1956), vol. 1, p. 227Google Scholar.

5 “A Memoir of William Strutt,” p. 11. This typescript, reputed to have been written in the late 1890's by or on behalf of the Hon. Frederick Strutt, is in the Derby Public Library.

6 Letters in the Strutt Collection, Derby Public Library.

7 Letters in the Strutt Collection, Derby. The Peter Nightingale referred to in the letter was the owner of a cotton mill at Lea, two miles from Cromford.

8 Ibid.

9 The London Gazette, Jan. 2–6, 1810, p. 26, and Jan. 9–13, 1810, p. 67.

10 Glover, , History of Derby, vol. 2, p. 350Google Scholar.

11 A sermon preached in Darley Abbey Church, Sept. 15, 1839, by the Rev. W. W. Fowler. A copy of this sermon is in Derby Public Library.

12 Glover, , History of Derby, vol. 2, pp. 16–19Google Scholar.

13 Curtis, Memories of a Long Life, p. 70.

14 The fire at the mill was reported in the Derby Mercury, Dec. 3, 1788, as follows: “Between Two and Three o'clock on Saturday Morning last the Cotton Mill at Darley, near this Town, was discovered to be on fire; all possible assistance was immediately procured in order to extinguish it, but in vain; it had proceeded too far, and in spite of every Exertion, in about three hours, that handsome Building was entirely destroyed.”

15 Factories Inquiry. R. Com. Supp. Rep. Part II, vol. XX (1834), p. 92.

16 The Royal Exchange Insurance Company and the London Assurance Company were the only two which were permitted, under the Bubble Act (1720), to carry on jointstock enterprise in marine insurance. They were incorporated bodies, which issued policies, and made loans to merchants on bottomry, but as their premiums were high, most of the marine insurance, in the eighteenth century, was in the hands of underwriters and insurance brokers. (Ashton, T. S., An Economic History of England: The Eighteenth Century [London, 1955], pp. 132–135Google Scholar.)

17 Factories Inquiry. R. Com. Supp. Rep. Part II, p. 92.

18 Ibid.

19 See Fitton and Wadsworth, The Strutts and the Arkwrights, pp. 265–270, for information about the various kinds of cotton.

20 Ellison, T., The Cotton Trade of Great Britain, including a History of the Liverpool Cotton Market (London, 1886), p. 170Google Scholar.

21 Ibid., pp. 195–196. Waterhouse also did business for John and Samuel Horrocks, Robert Peel and Co., Peel, Yates and Co., Richard Arkwright, and the Strutts. (Dumbell, S., “The Cotton Market in 1799,” Economic History, vol. I [May, 1927], pp. 142–143.Google Scholar)

22 Dumbell, S., Economic Journal, vol. XXXIII (1923), p. 369Google Scholar.

23 Unwin, Hulme, and Taylor, Samuel Oldknow and the Arkwrights, p. 100.

24 G. W. Daniels, “The Cotton Trade During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars,” Transactions of the Manchester Statistical Society (1917–1918), pp. 57–58.

25 See Fitton and Wadsworth, The Strutts and the Arkwrights, p. 306.

26 Many manors and acres of land in different parishes were later given to the house by men of wealth. (Glover, , History of Derby, vol. 2, p. 349Google Scholar.)

27 Ibid., p. 350. In 1709 this house was pulled down by William Wolley who built a new one on the banks of the Derwent. From Wolley the house passed into the hands of Heaths, the Derby bankers; and from them to Robert Holden, who sold it to Walter Evans.

28 Pilkington, J., A View of the Present State of Derbyshire (2 vols.; Derby, 1789), vol. 2, pp. 170–178Google Scholar.

29 Ashton, T. S., The Industrial Revolution, 1760–1830 (Oxford, 1948), pp. 110–111.Google Scholar

30 Pilkington, , A View of Derbyshire, vol. 2, p. 196Google Scholar.

31 Glover, , History of Derby, vol. 2, p. 348Google Scholar.

32 Farey, J., General View of the Agriculture of Derbyshire (3 vols.; London, 1811), vol. 3, p. 499Google Scholar.

33 J. Byng, The Torrington Diaries (1781–1794), “A Tour in the Midlands: 1790,” p. 251. A selection from the tours of the Hon. John Byng (London, 1954). Edited by C. B. Andrews.

34 Possibly the scheme was similar to that of the Strutts'. See Fitton and Wadsworth, The Strutts and the Arkwrights, p. 233.

35 Supp. Rep. Part II, vol. XX (1834), p. 93.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid.