Cotton Textiles In Preston

Richard Coulthard

Cotton Textiles In Preston

Preston was ruled by the textile industry. I can tell this by the picture of Preston skyline. Factory chimdys and the odd church dominated the skyline. Overall I could see that there were roughly 22 – 24 factory chimdys. The picture was taken by penwortham hill in 1990. If I were to go there now I would see hardly any mills there now that are still working, most would be closed down or knocked down. The outskirts of Preston even had mills. Factories often were often put on the edge of a dock so that transport was made easier. As time went by fewer and fewer people worked in mills, dropping from 10 to 4 in 20 years. This chart tough doesn’t show the years in between. Plus this only shows what men were doing and not women. Women mostly worked in the mills and not men. The number of mills dropped and so did the amount of workers. But not all in the same area. All the photos agree that the mills disappeared.

I wonder why this happened? Properly reasons due to the World War 1 the men went to wars there were labor shortages. They ended up having ships blown up by German u-bouts as they tried to cross to England. Cotton cloth exports dropped sharply. World war 1 brought even more problems. Countries stopped buying cloth from England. This made English farmers run out of money. The foreign countries begin to grow their own cotton goods then they started to sell it to the English market. This meant England lost their own home market. While this was going on other countries were making new and better machines. Preston mills weren’t big enough to produce enough cotton to compete with other companies in foreign countries.

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One of the results in this decline is that I can see that mills had been knocked down over years gone by. I can tell this from the photographs that I took. The dates show from the photos of Preston dated 1968 to 1992 and I can also see from Preston between the wars that it has been happening all 20th centaury. For example 1962 Southgate mill and 1932 Broomfield mill. The rate of mills that were demolished increased a lot during world war1. Mills are still being knocked down in November 2000. Statistics show that the mills dropped from 55 in 1951 to 42 in 1978. Looking at a map of Preston in 1978 I can see that the mills were evenly spread out. The population of Preston drops from 119,243 to 113,341 in the space of ten years. Most families were leaving because of a money shortage, so they were leaving to find work else were. Because of a shortage in people, mills didn’t need as many. I can tell this from the amount of cotton produced. In 1950 there were 1,091,296 people it then dropped to 479,532 in 1962. Market share was lost; this meant England lost their own home market. While this was going on other countries were making new and better machines. Preston mills weren’t big enough to produce enough cotton to compete with other companies in foreign countries. I can see that in 1927 the export dropped from 3,634 million linear meters to 875 million 1949 then to 146 million in 1978.

One of the results in this decline is that I can see that mills had been knocked down over the years gone. The dates show from photos of Preston dated 1968 to 1992 and I can also see from Preston between the wars that it has been happening all 20th centaury for example 1962 Southgate mill and 1932 Broomfield mill. The rate of mills that were demolished increased a lot during World War 1. Mills are still being knocked down today e.g. steam mill was demolished in November 2000. Statistics show that the number of mills dropped from 55 in 1951 to 42 in 1978. Looking at a map of Preston from 1978 I can see that the mills were evenly spread out. The population of Preston drops from 1951 119,243 to 1961 113,341. Most families are leaving because of a money shortage so they are going to find other work. Because of a shortage of people mills didn’t need as many spinning and looms. I can also see that by 1950 there were 1,091,296 to 479,532 in 1962. The amount of cotton produced dropped because there were less people buying cotton. There was a sudden drop in the amount of cotton that is produced in England. Dropping from 2,207 in 1950 to 1,876 in 1955. This becomes a national problem when the amount drops. So they brought in the cotton duties act of 1932. This meant that imports had to pay a tax to sell their product in England. But this did not solve the problem of foreign countries selling cotton in England. Next came the cotton industry act which was meant to put over 200 new machines in mills plus they wanted to increase the capacity.

Different people reacted in different ways to the decline. The southern parts of Preston, which was dominated by the john, and Samuel horrocks, had a large centenary mill that dominated Preston but their links with the town ended in 1988 during the cotton famine. There was the import duties act of 1932, which improved an import duty of 10%. But this failed when people were let in for fees. The second act, the cotton industry act of1959, which aimed to reduce the capacity by at least 30%. But a tax was put on spindles so there would be more money going to the government but his made 200 businesses go bankrupt. The cotton-spinning act of 1948 gave subsidies to buy new machines. The progress was made but still companies were reluctant to adopt new machines.

People were leaving Preston to find new jobs I can tell this by the amount of people that left Preston in 10 years 5902 people left Preston. People were now doing new jobs such as woodwork and chemical workers. In 1931 10% of male worked on textile mills. In 1951 4% of males worked in mills. That’s a 6% decline.

The council tried to think of new ways to use the mills such as mail order work hours. Most people turned to timber and furniture for there mills. I think Preston adapted well to these changes they found new ways to earn money and keep Preston alive.