Preston Cotton Martyrs by J S Leigh

The millworkers who shocked a nation.

The working and living conditions for the mill families in Preston in the 19^th century were not unusual for the time. King Cotton reigned and the Cotton Masters ruled. The accommodation was cramped, squalid and insanitary, the pay was pitiful, trade unions were (initially at least) illegal, the hours were punishing and small children laboured alongside the adults, often risking - and losing - their lives around the moving mill machinery. You would have found similar conditions in any mill town in Lancashire at the time.

Preston, however, was not any mill town. Through a combination of history and circumstance the mill workers of Preston were exceptional - and in a series of riots and strikes (or “turn outs” as they were then known) they took on the cotton masters head to head, demanding better pay and conditions in spite of the threat of imprisonment. One of the major bones of contention was that there was no pay parity between the various mill towns. A spinner in Bolton was paid more than a spinner in Preston - and yet they did exactly the same job.

The mill owners’ response to a “turn out” would often be a “lock-out” … whereby those who were willing to work were locked out of the mills along with the strikers. It was a war of attrition and frequently the military had to be called in to control mounting violence.

And all the time, the rest of the country looked on with increasing disquiet.

In 1842, a combination of a trade recession and the rise of Chartism was to trigger the darkest moment in Preston’s history. A minor dispute in a mill in Ashton-under-Lyne became an all-out general strike from the Midlands to Scotland. On the 12^th of August, a meeting at Ainsworth’s Mill in Preston, intended only to discuss an internal dispute, escalated - with some help from Chartist agitators - into a turn-out in support of the other striking workers around the country. Within hours, a group of men - growing in numbers with every moment - was marching through the town forcing mills and factories to close. They didn’t stop until they were satisfied that every major factory and manufacturer in the town was out of operation, at which point the mob - then numbering about 3,000 - dispersed. The local police, unable to cope with the situation, called in outside military assistance and the small company of soldiers stationed at Preston Prison were put on full alert.

The following day the mills re-opened in the hope that the previous day’s events wouldn’t be repeated … but it was a forlorn hope. Large crowds of demonstrators took to the streets again and the military was mobilized. When the stone-throwing rioters met the armed militia at the top of Lune Street, the mayor had to read the Riot Act. He tried to reason with the mob, but to no avail. The order to fire was given …

Four men died.

In 1846, a severe recession gripped the industry and wages were slashed - with the promise that they would be restored when trading conditions improved. By 1849, the business climate was looking up, but the mill owners denied that there had ever been a promise to restore wage levels … and the greatest ever battle between the masters and the workers began. It culminated in the great Preston Lock-out of 1853/54, which Elizabeth Gaskell immortalized the following year in North and South. The cotton masters closed all of the mills in Preston in October of 1853. Strike breakers from Ireland and elsewhere were shipped in, public subscriptions to support the strikers were raised … and both sides refused to yield. The dispute dragged on until 15^th of May 1854, when the workers - almost literally starved into submission - were forced to return to work. It was the longest and most damaging trade dispute in British history.

Jim Leigh’s excellent account of the turbulent history of Preston’s cotton industry, published by Lancashire-based Palatine Books, offers a detailed and thoughtful explanation of the tangled history and background of the disputes as well as a straightforward description of the events as they happened. It’s enlivened by contemporary records, newspaper reports (by no means all on the side of the masters …) and well-chosen black and white illustrations. He covers the period from the early days of the industry, before the coming of steam power, to the Cotton Famine … when the American Civil War, combined with over-production of cotton goods in the preceding years, resulted in mass unemployment, disease and privation on a scale that shocked Victorian England into action.

This is an extraordinary and at times deeply harrowing story clearly told, with passion and intelligence.

Palatine Books. 2008. Paperback. 103pp. ISBN:978-1-874181-45-3.