With all of the Roman, Saxon, Norman, and Medieval castles,
priories, abbeys and such (which a friend annoyingly refers to as "rubble") we sometimes forget that England was the birthplace
of the Industrial Revolution. The
first mills were located by necessity along watercourses and were powered by
water wheels. James Watt’s
invention, the steam engine, changed the world forever. Now factories could be built anywhere
and produce an amazing array of products.
Steamships and steam locomotives could transport the goods far and wide.
Bobbins, those little things sewing thread is wound upon - we would probably call them spools, were
important for cotton and linen thread, wool yarn and copper wire. They were vital for weaving fabrics and
carpets. I never considered where
they came from or how they were made until we visited the Stott Park Bobbin
Mill this afternoon. It was in
operation from 1840 until 1971 and produced millions of wooden bobbins of all
sizes. During the world wars they
switched production to treads for rope ladders on the Liberty ships and wooden
buttons for Royal Navy coats. When
plastic bobbins replaced wood, they even tried making a go of it producing
yo-yos.
The steam engine was the heart of the mill. It powered lathes, saws, drills and all
manner of machines through a series of drive belts all run off a single
shaft. Each could kill a
careless worker in a heartbeat, and after a 12-hour shift there must have been
many careless workers. The machines had no safety features so
hands, fingers, and eyes were always at risk. Some of the jobs were done by children as young as nine.
A side product of the mill was the choking coal smoke, the legacy of
which we are still dealing with.
Even today, the smoke from the chimney blanketed the valley. Mills like Stott Park also gave us some
phrases we still use. A lever was
used to “knock off” the drive belt to a lathe and stop the machine; the origin
of “knock off for the day.” The
pressure in an overheating steam engine was released and “blowing off steam”
came into our language. Smaller
bobbins were coated with wax but the larger ones were varnished, requiring the
use of volatile spirits. Because the
workers became intoxicated, this process was reserved for the final hour of
work on Friday – which was known as the “happy hour.”
