cotton+mill

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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George Robinson is said to have been a Scots migrant who settled at Burwell, near Nottingham, in 1737, but there is no record of his occupation until 1771, when he was noticed as a bleacher. By 1783 he and his son were describing themselves as "merchants and thread manufacturers" as well as bleachers. For their thread, they were using the system of spinning on the waterframe, but it is not known whether they held a licence from Arkwright. Between 1776 and 1791, the firm G.J. \& J.Robinson built a series of six cotton mills with a complex of dams and aqueducts to supply them in the relatively flat land of the Leen valley, near Papplewick, to the north of Nottingham. By careful conservation they were able to obtain considerable power from a very small stream. Castle mill was not only the highest one owned by the Robinsons, but it was also the highest mill on the stream and was fed from a reservoir. The Robinsons might therefore have expected to have enjoyed uninterrupted use of the water, but above them lived Lord Byron in his estate of Newstead Priory. The fifth Lord Byron loved making ornamental ponds on his property so that he could have mock naval battles with his servants, and this tampered with the water supplies so much that the Robinsons found they were unable to work their mills.

In 1785 they decided to order a rotative steam engine from the firm of Boulton \& Watt. It was erected by John Rennie; however, misfortune seemed to dog this engine, for parts went astray to Manchester and when the engine was finally running at the end of February 1786 it was found to be out of alignment so may not have been very successful. At about the same time, the lawsuit against Lord Byron was found in favour of the Robinsons, but the engine continued in use for at least twelve years and was the first of the type which was to power virtually all steamdriven mills until the 1850s to be installed in a textile mill. It was a low-pressure double-acting condensing beam engine, with a vertical cylinder, parallel motion connecting the piston toone end of a rocking beam, and a connecting rod at the other end of the beam turning the flywheel. In this case Watt's sun and planet motion was used in place of a crank.

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SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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David Dale, the son of a grocer, began his working life by herding cattle. His connection with the textile industry started when he was apprenticed to a Paisley weaver. After this he travelled the country buying home-spun linen yarns, which he sold in Glasgow. At about the age of 24 he settled in Glasgow as Clerk to a silk merchant. He then started a business importing fine yarns from France and Holland for weaving good-quality cloths such as cambrics. Dale was to become one of the pre-eminent yarn dealers in Scotland. In 1778 he acquired the first cotton-spinning mill built in Scotland by an English company at Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. In 1784 he met Richard Arkwright, who was touring Scotland, and together they visited the Falls of the Clyde near the town of Lanark. Arkwright immediately recognized the potential of the site for driving water-powered mills. Dale acquired part of the area from Lord Braxfield and in 1785 began to build his first mill there in partnership with Arkwright. The association with Arkwright soon ceased, however, and by c.1795 Dale had erected four mills. Because the location of the mills was remote, he built houses for the workers and then employed pauper children brought from the slums of Edinburgh and Glasgow; at one time there were over 400 of them. Dale's attitude to his workers was benevolent and humane. He tried to provide reasonable working conditions and the mills were well designed with a large workshop in which machinery was constructed. Dale was also a partner in mills at Catrine, Newton Stewart, Spinningdale in Sutherlandshire and some others. In 1785 he established the first Turkey red dye works in Scotland and was in partnership with George Macintosh, the father of Charles Macintosh. Dale manufactured cloth in Glasgow and from 1783 was Agent for the Royal Bank of Scotland, a lucrative position. In 1799 he was persuaded by Robert Owen to sell the New Lanark mills for £60,000 to a Manchester partnership which made Owen the Manager. Owen had married Dale's daughter, Anne Caroline, in 1799. Possibly due in part to poor health, Dale retired in 1800 to Rosebank near Glasgow, having made a large fortune. In 1770 he had withdrawn from the established Church of Scotland and founded a new one called the "Old Independents". He visited the various branches of this Church, as well as convicts in Bridewell prison, to preach. He was also a great benefactor to the poor in Glasgow. He had a taste for music and sang old Scottish songs with great gusto.

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1. factory

2. ( часть металлургического комбината) plant

агломерацио́нная фа́брика — sintering plant

бума́жная фа́брика — paper mill

картона́жная фа́брика — carton factory

конди́терская фа́брика — confectionery

консе́рвная фа́брика — cannery

ме́бельная фа́брика — furniture factory

о́бжиговая фа́брика — roasting plant

обогати́тельная фа́брика — concentrating [dressing] mill

обувна́я фа́брика — shoe [foot-ware] factory

фа́брика приготовле́ния ока́тышей — palletizing plant

пряди́льная фа́брика — spinning mill

таба́чная фа́брика — tobacco processing plant

тка́цкая фа́брика — weaving mill

трикота́жная фа́брика — knitting mill

хлопкопряди́льная фа́брика — cotton spinning mill

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filature [filatyʀ]

   a. ( = usine) mill

   b. ( = surveillance) prendre qn en filature to shadow sb

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1) ( usine) textile mill

2) ( surveillance) tailing [U]

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(= fabrique) mill, (policière) shadowing no pl tailing no pl

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filature nf

1 ( usine) textile mill; filature de coton/soie cotton/silk mill;

2 ( transformation de textiles) spinning; la filature de la laine the spinning of wool;

3 ( surveillance) tailing ¢; prendre qn en filature to shadow sb, to tail○ sb.

[filatyr] nom féminin

1. TEXTILES [opérations] spinning

[usine] (spinning) mill

2. [surveillance] shadowing, tailing

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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Raw cotton arrived in Britain in tightly packed bales. Before spinning, the fibres had to be opened out, and dirt, seeds and bits of plant had to be removed. This was an unpleasant and fatiguing job usually carried out by women and children. By 1800 it could be done by two machines. The first stage in opening was the "willow" and then the cotton was passed through the "scutcher" to open it further and give it a more effective cleaning. These machines reduced the labour of the operation to about one-twentieth of what it had been. The scutching machine was constructed by Snodgrass and first used at Houston's mill in Johnstone, near Paisley, in 1797. It was derived from the threshing machine invented by Andrew Meikle of Phantassie in 1786. In the scutcher, revolving bars beat the cotton to separate the fibres from the trash. As the dirt fell out, the cotton was blown forward by a fan and was rolled up into a lap at the end of the machine. Scutchers were not introduced to Manchester until 1808 or 1809 and further improvements were soon made to them.

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