A disadvantage of the mill being built here is because of the area being so sparsely populated the work force had to be imported from surrounding areas. Although during the 1790’s there was a ready supply of cheap labour in the form of orphan children from workhouses across the country, but with employing these children, there would have to be accommodation built for them to live in. Samuel Greg employed many children because they were cheap to keep as they didn’t require high paid wages and they were also small enough to fit under machines. Also children in that time didn’t have any rights so if he wanted he could work the children to death. With the amount of children employed my Mr Greg he also had to employ over seers to make sure the children worked hard all day. The more work the children did the more the overseer would get paid.
When I visited Styal Mill, I noticed it was situated in very nice surroundings. It was spacious, very clean, and was totally surrounded in countryside, there was no traffic, and there was very little pollution.
Inside the factory it was very light and the rooms were bright, because of so many windows. This would have made it a bit more pleasant for the workers to work in. Although on a hot summers day, it could well get very hot and humid.
It was very warm inside any way, and it became quite stuffy in some rooms, not a very nice environment to work in for long hours. When one of many machines was turned on as an example of the density of noise the worker worked in, it was extremely loud, and I couldn’t even imagine the noise if all the machines were switched on. According to my research many workers taught themselves how to lip-read, so that during work hours they could enjoy convocations with other employees.
The Apprentice house was built in order to accommodate the orphan children. Approximately 100 children lived in the apprentice house, and many more of them were female rather than male as they were better workers. The superintendents of the house were called Mr and Mrs Shorecroft. These superintendents were employed merely to watch over the children, and make sure no child was out of order.
Within the apprentice house were the facilities to shelter the children and care for the children with their very own private doctor on hand. Some lucky boys got the opportunity to have a basic education.
There was a room for girls and a room for boys.
Both rooms were quite small and full of small beds for them to sleep in. There were 70 beds in one room alone. Each bed situated two children. The mattress was made from straw and they had a single blanket in each bed. This may sound very cruel if you were to do this to a child today, but these children were extremely lucky to have had this privilege. Some children in towns didn’t even have place to sleep at night, and if they were lucky they could share a room with a lot of other people on the bear floor.
By law the minimum age to work was nine, but in Styal they worked at a much younger age. This was due to the parents of the children selling their children to Samuel Greg at a young age so he “owned” them, so he could work them as much as he’d like. Each child had to sign a contract to say that they would work for Mr Greg for at least eight years to receive in return board and lodging, sufficient clothing, some education and religious instruction. If a child did run away the punishment wasn’t too brutal. They were put in solitary confinement for as long as they were away for or fined if they were late. At Styal the punishments were extremely light compared to other mills, there was no physical punishment towards the children. The contract they previously signed was legally binding. There was actually no document evidence to say how long a child had worked there.
At the Styal Apprentice house the children had no privacy. They even had to go to the toilet in front of each other in a potty at the end of the bedroom during the night. They also had no belongings. They never owned anything; the superintendent or the mill owner gave them all they had, and could take it back if they wished.
The children were given a good diet. Most days they had porridge, sometimes three times a day. And also had meat twice a week. There was not much sugar in their diet, and in season they occasionally had some fruit and vegetables.
They had good religious instruction. They never worked on a Sunday, instead they went to church twice a day. Sunday was also the day when they had some time to themselves, they had the choice to do gardening or clean the factory part of the mill and also the boys had a lesson to improve their education, and the girls got taught how to do basic needle work.
If in the event of some child falling unwell, there was a doctor on hand to see to their needs. His name was Dr. Holland. He practiced mostly herbal remedies, which were sometimes grown by the children in the garden. He also used leeches to suck the sickness out of the child through the blood.
From the sound of Styal it sounds like a pleasant place to live and work, but not every mill was like this. The mills based in towns were mostly nothing like this at all. They were very different. Most mills had no education for the children and the punishments were barbaric. Some children had weights attached to their nose and ears if they arrived late. Some children were strapped by the overseer to work harder.
“They are about a foot and a half long and there is a stick at the end; and they beat with is cut into five or six thongs.”
Mark Best, an overseer, describes the straps.
The safety of the children was not very good either, it wasn’t perfect in Styal but there was room for improvement.
“She was caught by her apron, which wrapped around the shaft. She was whirled around and repeatedly forced between the shaft and the carding engine. (Her right leg was found some distance away.)”
Leonard Horner, a factory inspector, describes what happened to a young girl in a textile factory.
The diet of the children in a mill in Nottinghamshire is very different to that of Styal
