A visit to Styal Mill is the best was to learn about living and working conditions in textile mills in the early Nineteenth century

Another factor influencing the development of industry at the time was the railways. These great machines could carry much more than the previous systems incorporating barges and horse-drawn carriages, trains could tow multiple freight cars, allowing hundreds of times more materials to be carried in one trip. Also the trains were a lot quicker than the alternatives, pulling cars at up to 40 miles per hour - much faster than any horse could pull a cart. Not only did trains move faster, they used a new system of travel by running on rails. This removed the problem of poorly maintained roads and turnpikes and allowed trains to travel on smooth surfaces, which prevented them from being damaged by road defects. As railways came into more use, tracks were laid all over the country and the vast transport network increased.

Styal Mill itself was built by Samuel Greg in 1784 under the old clock tower, on the river Boyne near Manchester. It was placed here for several reasons; the river for a power source, a large area should the mill require expansion and this also allowed the later introduction of weaving sheds in 1839. The only problems with the site were that it was expensive at £16,000 and that there was not a large labor force nearby.