We also know that Samuel looked after his workers in the sense that he bought the nearby village and made house for the workers to live in. These houses were unlike the ones in the city, where they were all ‘back to back’ type houses and suffered from extreme overcrowding. Using source D records of the village showed that on average 8 people lived in each cottage in 1844-1853 and the house were commodious, clean and white washed although up to a hundred people had to share a privy and waste did pile up around the houses. The workers rent was paid off from their wages and was done at an affordable rate. Also in the town Samuel built a chapel, infant school, day school, and Sunday school attached with masters and mistresses. This showed that Samuel not only cared about the people as employers but cared that they could still enjoy there free time and children could be educated and looked after. In the 1820’s a shop was opened in the village and stocked food, household goods, clothing and millinery and a tailor was sent to the shop to fit customers. Workers could also raise their own livestock and then sell it to the shop if they chose to do so. Samuel ran the shop on a co-operative system, which meant that the profits could be shared as well as Samuel himself profiting. Because the village was situated in a rural area families were also able to grow their own food and therefore save money.
In 1790 an apprentice house was built for the working children and this is where children from the age of 9 lived up until they were 18 where they could then decide if they wanted to continue working at the mill or they could leave. Most of the apprentices came from workhouses in Staffordshire, Liverpool, Manchester, Stockport and Macclesfield. When they arrived in Styal they had to prove their age as in 1802 it became the law that no child could work under the age of 9, they also had to be tested for their physical health and would be returned to the workhouse if they weren’t fit. If they were fit then they were bound into an indenture (contract), which basically meant that Samuel owned them and could do what he wanted with them up to the age of 18. Samuel and his wife cared for the children and set up education for the children and paid for the teachers himself, his wife Hannah and her children also taught at the house. The children were taught reading, writing and arithmetic, this also Samuel to give written instructions. They received about 1 lesson a week after work on a Sunday. The children were encouraged with their education if they were bright and interested and prizes were given. There were about 90 children living there and there was space to accommodate 100. There were more girls than boys as girls were seen to be better workers as they were smaller and boys were known as trouble makers and to be bad mannered. The children were taught in groups of between 15-20. Source B tells us that the children were well fed, clothed, educated and lodged under kind management. The girls gathered in Wilmslow church on a Sunday and were seen as lovely, creditable women, who looked better than the children who didn’t live in the apprentice house and they were also better behaved than the other children. Source B also states that as well as the children at the apprentice house being taught educational topics they were also taught sewing and domestic avocations. The health of these children was also very good with the death certificate from the Factory Commissioners being 1:150. This was better that the average of Lancashire.
Although the children in the apprentice house were well looked after they still had a lot of hard work to do and life was far from easy for them. They were out of bed at 5.30 and were in work at 6 until 7 at night. But work for the children wasn’t over then, as they then had to come home and do lots of chores there. They would finally get to bed at about 10 but even that wasn’t that pleasant as they had wooden box beds with usually 2 sleeping in the same bed. The girls would have about 5 buckets left in the room for toilet use and as they had no toilet paper they had to use straw, the buckets were then emptied into cesspits in the morning. Straw was also stuffed and used as mattresses and was only changed once a year and as you had young girls they probably wet the bed and still had to sleep on the same covers. They also had to sleep in the same clothes that they worked in. Although the conditions weren’t that nice they were a lot better than the work houses which they came from and efforts were made such as hanging herbs in the room to make it smell fresh and to keep away insects. The children also had access to doctors, which poor people couldn’t afford.
So the children were well looked after for that period of time as they were well fed, educated and had a roof over there heads, but what about punishment? In some factories corporal punishment was used regularly and resulted in many deaths of children, but Samuel Greg claimed that he didn’t believe in corporal punishment and source A claims this as well, however humiliation was used as a punishment with children having to sit in a corner with a dunces hat on, and there was always the threat of cutting of a girls hair. Dung bells were used and children had to stand holding them. However source C contradicts this with the story of Esther Price. It was said that after Esther went off to Liverpool to see her father, when she was told that she couldn’t go, she was forced into solitary confinement for 5days without fire, light or a bed. She did not spend all her time there as the matron died suddenly and Esther ran out when her door was opened as she had learned that a dead body was lying in the next room to her. Although source D makes the Greg’s to have treated Esther badly it has to be taken into consideration that she was a bad child; she was always in trouble and fighting, she also continued working at the mill after she was 18, which proves that the conditions for children can’t have been terrible.
The working conditions in the mill weren’t very good but this was said for every mill, not just at Styal. Working with cotton the conditions had to be damp, warm and humid, so it obviously wasn’t going to be very nice to work in. Workers had permanent damage to the lungs due to the fibres and dust that they breathed in. Common illnesses also included bronchitis, pneumonia and deafness due to the high level of constant noise. At this time there was also little safety legislation so it wasn’t uncommon to lose a finger or to get your hair caught up in the machines. The hours worked were also very long with little or few breaks but at Styal the workers weren’t punished as they were in for example Liton Mill in Derbyshire, where workers were regularly beaten for slacking at work and even for just talking. But at Styal although work regulations were strict the workers were only fined for their behavior.
I think that overall the Greg’s were good employers as although to us it doesn’t sound that the people who worked there were treated very well; they were compared to how others were being treated in that period of time. The Greg’s had a workforce that respected them and that were loyal to them. They cared for there well being outside of work as they built up the village to accommodate their needs, the children were cared for well and educated better than people in the towns. The diet that the children were fed was good, it included meat once or twice a week, vegetables, bread and milk as well as other things; and they could have as much food as they wanted as long as they had done there chores. Source D shows how the standard of living was good and that was due to the Greg’s caring about their workforce. Although their wages weren’t as good as Manchester the Greg’s made sure that they could afford the rent and by having the village in a rural area they could grow their own food and raise livestock. The Greg’s also split profit from the shop. I think that although there were some bad points to the standards of working and living in Styal compared to other mills at this time and conditions of living in a town at this time, the Greg’s were very good employers and yes they do deserve to have that reputation.
