1.
Leeds and Liverpool Canal
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The Leeds and Liverpool Canal is a canal in Northern England, linking the cities of Leeds and Liverpool. Over a distance of 127 miles, it crosses the Pennines and it has several small branches, and in the early 21st century a new link was constructed into the Liverpool docks system. In the mid-18th century the towns of Yorkshire including Leeds, Wakefield. While the Aire and Calder Navigation improved links to the east for Leeds, Bradford merchants wanted to increase the supply of limestone to make lime for mortar and agriculture using coal from Bradfords collieries and to transport textiles to the Port of Liverpool. On the west coast, traders in the port of Liverpool wanted a cheap supply of coal for their shipping and manufacturing businesses. Inspired by the effectiveness of the wholly artificial navigation, the Bridgewater Canal opened in 1759–60, a canal across the Pennines linking Liverpool and Hull would have obvious trade benefits. A public meeting place at the Sun Inn in Bradford on 2 July 1766 to promote the building of such a canal. John Longbotham was engaged to survey a route, two groups were set up to promote the scheme, one in Liverpool and one in Bradford. A counter-proposal was produced by John Eyes and Richard Melling, improved by P. P, Burdett, which was rejected by the Bradford committee as too expensive, mainly because of the valley crossing at Burnley. In 1768 Brindley gave an estimate of a distance just less than 109 miles built at a cost of £259,777. A commencement ceremony was held at Halsall, north of Liverpool on 5 November 1770, the first section of the canal opened from Bingley to Skipton in 1773. Also completed was the branch to Bradford, on the western side, the section from Liverpool to Newburgh was dug. By the following year the Yorkshire end had been extended to Gargrave, on the western side it reached Wigan by 1781, replacing the earlier and unsatisfactory Douglas Navigation. By now, the funds and further borrowing had all been spent. The war in the American colonies and its made it impossible to continue for more than a decade. By this time planning for the competing Rochdale Canal was under way and it was likely to offer a direct journey to Liverpool via Manchester. The same year John Rennie surveyed a branch of the Rochdale between Todmorden and Burnley, in 1794 an agreement was reached with the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal company to create a link near Red Moss near Horwich. With this in mind in the year, the route was changed again with a further Act
2.
City of Bradford
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The City of Bradford is a local government district of West Yorkshire, England, with the status of a city and metropolitan borough. It is named after its largest settlement, Bradford, but covers a far larger area which includes the towns of Keighley, Shipley, Bingley, Ilkley, Haworth, Silsden and Denholme. Bradford has a population of 528,155, making it the fourth-most populous metropolitan district, the Pendle borough of Lancashire lies to the west, whilst the Craven and Harrogate boroughs of North Yorkshire lie to the north west and north east of the city. Bradford is the 4th largest metropolitan district in the country, the spa town of Ilkley lies further north, whilst the town of Keighley lies to the west. More than half of Bradford’s land is open space, stretching over part of the Airedale and Wharfedale Valleys, across the hills. The Yorkshire Dales and the Peak District are both in close proximity, the City of Bradford has architecture designated as being of special or historic importance, most of which were constructed with local stone, with 5,800 listed buildings and 59 conservation areas. The model village of Saltaire has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, central Bradford rose to prominence during the 19th century as an international centre of textile manufacture, particularly wool. However, Bradford has faced challenges to the rest of the post-industrial area of northern England, including deindustrialisation, housing problems. Bradfords reputation as a base for high technology, scientific and computer-based industries is growing, building on a tradition of innovation, high skill levels. Bradford has experienced significant levels of immigration throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, around the same time there was also an influx of German Jewish migrants to the town, and by 1910 around 1,500 people of German origin resided in the city. In the 1950s there was large immigration from South Asia. Bradford has the second highest proportion in England and Wales outside London, in terms of population, an estimated 101,967 people of South Asian origin reside in the city, representing around 19.9 of the citys population. Bradford was granted the status of a city in 1897, Bradford was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1847, covering the parishes of Bradford, Horton and Manningham. It became a county borough with the passing of the Local Government Act 1888, the county borough was granted city status by Letters Patent in 1897. Bradford was expanded in 1882 to include Allerton, Bolton, Bowling, Heaton, Thornbury, in 1899 it was further expanded by adding North Bierley, Eccleshill, Idle, Thornton, Tong and Wyke. The city played an important part in the history of the Labour Party. A mural on the back of the Priestley Centre For The Arts in Little Germany commemorates the centenary of the founding of the Independent Labour Party in Bradford in 1893, the Bradford Pals were three First World War Pals battalions of Kitcheners Army raised in the city. When the three battalions were taken over by the British Army they were named the 16th, 18th and 20th Battalions
3.
Victorian era
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The Victorian era was the period of Queen Victorias reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities. Some scholars date the beginning of the period in terms of sensibilities, the era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period. The later half of the Victorian age roughly coincided with the first part of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe, culturally there was a transition away from the rationalism of the Georgian period and toward romanticism and mysticism with regard to religion, social values, and arts. The end of the saw the Boer War. Domestically, the agenda was increasingly liberal with a number of shifts in the direction of political reform, industrial reform. Two especially important figures in period of British history are the prime ministers Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone. Disraeli, favoured by the queen, was a gregarious Conservative and his rival Gladstone, a Liberal distrusted by the Queen, served more terms and oversaw much of the overall legislative development of the era. The population of England and Wales almost doubled from 16.8 million in 1851 to 30.5 million in 1901, Scotlands population also rose rapidly, from 2.8 million in 1851 to 4.4 million in 1901. However, Irelands population decreased sharply, from 8.2 million in 1841 to less than 4.5 million in 1901, mostly due to the Great Famine. Between 1837 and 1901 about 15 million emigrants departed the UK permanently, in search of a life in the United States, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia. During the early part of the era, politics in the House of Commons involved battles between the two parties, the Whigs/Liberals and the Conservatives. These parties were led by such prominent statesmen as Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, Gladstone, Disraeli, Victoria became queen in 1837 at age 18. Her long reign until 1901 was mainly a time of peace, Britain reached the zenith of its economic, political, diplomatic and cultural power. The era saw the expansion of the second British Empire, Historians have characterised the mid-Victorian era as Britains Golden Years. There was prosperity, as the income per person grew by half. There was peace abroad, and social peace at home, opposition to the new order melted away, says Porter. The Chartist movement peaked as a movement among the working class in 1848, its leaders moved to other pursuits, such as trade unions
4.
Model village
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A model village is a type of mostly self-contained community, built from the late eighteenth century onwards by landowners and industrialists to house their workers. Model is used in the sense of an ideal to which other developments could aspire, the term model village was first used by the Victorians to describe the new settlements created on the rural estates of the landed gentry in the eighteenth century. As landowners sought to improve their estates for aesthetic reasons, new landscapes were created, the Swing Riots of 1830 highlighted poor housing in the countryside, ill health and immorality and landowners had a responsibility to provide cottages with basic sanitation. As the Industrial Revolution took hold, industrialists who built factories in rural locations provided housing for workers clustered around the workplace, an early example of an industrial model village was New Lanark built by Robert Owen. Philanthropic coal owners provided decent accommodation for miners from the nineteenth century. They had four rooms and a pantry, and outside a small garden, others were established by Edward Akroyd at Copley between 1849 and 1853 and Ackroyden 1861-63. Titus Salt built a village at Saltaire. Henry Ripley, owner of Bowling Dyeworks, began construction of Ripley Ville in Bradford in 1866, Industrial communities were established at Prices Village by Prices Patent Candle Company and at Aintree by Hartleys who made jam in 1888. William Levers Port Sunlight had a green and its houses espoused an idealised rural vernacular style. Quaker industrialists, George Cadbury and Rowntrees built model villages by their factories, Cadbury built Bournville between 1898 and 1905 and a second phase from 1914 and New Earswick was built in 1902 for Rowntrees. As coal mining expanded villages were built to house coal miners, in Yorkshire, Grimethorpe, Goldthorpe, Woodlands and Fitzwilliam were built to house workers at the collieries. The architect who designed Woodlands and Creswell Model Villages, Percy B, houfton was influential in the development of the garden city movement. In the 1920s Silver End model village in Essex was built for Francis Henry Crittall and its houses were designed in an art deco-style with flat roofs and Crittall windows. The more recent development of Poundbury, a village in rural Dorset has been supported by the Prince of Wales. In Italys Lombardy region, Crespi d’Adda is a particularly well-preserved model workers village and it was built from scratch, starting in 1878, to provide housing and social services for the workers in a cotton textile factory erected on the banks of the river Adda. The town of Nuevo Baztán outside of Madrid dates from the mercantilist, the first model villages appeared during the Porfirio Diaz regime, the most notable being Metepec and Tlacotalpan. Model villages were built in the United States along the same lines as planned industrial communities, for example at Gwinn, Michigan and Pullman. There were also such agricultural communities as the eighteenth century Davis Bend, boulder City, Nevada was originally built in 1931 for housing for workers who were building Hoover Dam
5.
West Yorkshire
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West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in England. It is an inland and in relative terms upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in moors of the Pennines and has a population of 2.2 million, West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. West Yorkshire consists of five boroughs and shares borders with the counties of Derbyshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, North Yorkshire. In the heart of the county is Leeds Bradford International Airport, West Yorkshire County Council was abolished in 1986 so its five districts became effectively unitary authorities. However, the county, which covers an area of 2,029 square kilometres, continues to exist in law. West Yorkshire includes the West Yorkshire Urban Area, which is the most built-up, West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council inherited the use of West Riding County Hall at Wakefield, opened in 1898, from the West Riding County Council in 1974. Since 1987 it has been the headquarters of Wakefield City Council, the county initially had a two-tier structure of local government with a strategic-level county council and five districts providing most services. In 1986, throughout England the metropolitan county councils were abolished, the functions of the county council were devolved to the boroughs, joint-boards covering fire, police and public transport, and to other special joint arrangements. Organisations such as the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive continue to operate on this basis, although the county council was abolished, West Yorkshire continues to form a metropolitan and ceremonial county with a Lord Lieutenant of West Yorkshire and a High Sheriff. Wakefields Parish Church was raised to cathedral status in 1888 and after the elevation of Wakefield to diocese, Wakefield Council immediately sought city status and this was granted in July 1888. However the industrial revolution, which changed West and South Yorkshire significantly, led to the growth of Leeds and Bradford, Leeds was granted city status in 1893 and Bradford in 1897. The name of Leeds Town Hall reflects the fact that at its opening in 1858 Leeds was not yet a city, the county borders, going anticlockwise from the west, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Derbyshire, South Yorkshire and North Yorkshire. It lies almost entirely on rocks of carboniferous age which form the southern Pennine fringes in the west, in the extreme east of the metropolitan county there are younger deposits of magnesian limestone. The Bradford and Calderdale areas are dominated by the scenery of the slopes of the Pennines, dropping from upland in the west down to the east. There is a conjunction of large scale industry, urban areas. The dense network of roads, canals and railways and urban development, the carboniferous rocks of the Yorkshire coalfield further east have produced a rolling landscape with hills, escarpments and broad valleys. In this landscape there is evidence of both current and former industrial activity. There are numerous derelict or converted mine buildings and recently landscaped former spoil heaps, the scenery is a mixture of built up areas, industrial land with some dereliction, and farmed open country
6.
River Aire
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The River Aire is a major river in Yorkshire, England,148 miles in length. In the Handbook for Leeds and Airedale, it notes that the distance from Malham to Howden is 58 miles direct, part of the river below Leeds is canalised, and is known as the Aire and Calder Navigation. The Aire starts its journey at Malham Tarn, after Cononley, the river enters West Yorkshire where it passes through the former industrial areas of Keighley, Bingley, Saltaire and Shipley. It then passes through Leeds and on to the villages of Swillington, at Castleford is the confluence of the Aire and Calder, just downstream of the confluence was the ford where the ancient British road, used by the Romans, crossed on its way north to York. The river re-enters North Yorkshire near Knottingley and in its lower reaches forms part of the boundary between North Yorkshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire, the River Aire empties into the River Ouse at Airmyn, myn being an old English word for river mouth. The name possibly derived from Common Brittonic *Isara, meaning strong river, still others have claimed that it is actually the name of the battle and not the body of water itself. Between Malham Tarn and Airmyn, the river drops 400 metres, tests have been conducted to authenticate the actual source of the Aire. The tarn at Malham has been dammed and then allowed to flood, observers have noted that whilst water surged at Aire Head, it also surged at the bottom of Malham Cove. There was a significant difference of 30 minutes between the two surges with Malham Cove being slower to react to the floodwater, the section between Malham Tarn and the confluence of the becks at Aire Head is known as Malhamdale. Thereafter the valley is known as Airedale and encompasses Bradford, and by the time it reaches Leeds, the river is darcy and ðarcy in 963, in the same source. It is Eyr’ in 1135 in The Coucher Book of Selby, eir is given in 1175-7 in one of the Dodsworth Manuscripts in Farrers Early Yorkshire Charters. Air from c.1160 to 1577, Air’ in the thirteenth century, the Aire was forded by a paved way by the Romans at Castleford. The Roman Road connected Doncaster with York and went north through the town near to the church, an Act of Parliament was passed in 1699 to make the river downstream of Leeds navigable with a further act to extend the navigable part of the river upstream to Bingley. This second act formed the basis of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, between the middle part of the nineteenth century to the latter part of the twentieth, the River Aire was devoid of fish life downstream of Shipley due to its pollution. Efforts have been made to return the river to a good wildlife status and fish, there are three power stations alongside the River Aire east of Castleford, Ferrybridge C, Eggborough and Drax. Drax takes its water from the Ouse, but both Ferrybridge and Eggborough draw their water from the Aire. Both of these plants stopped generating in 2016, with Eggborough being a stand-by for capacity problems until March 2017, due to the Aire flowing through the former industrial landscape of West Yorkshire, it had a reputation as being heavily polluted. In 2007, Yorkshire Water carried out improvements to Esholt Sewage Works at a cost of £110 million under the EUs Fresh Water Fish Directive
7.
Bradford
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Bradford /ˈbrædfərd/ is in the Metropolitan Borough of the City of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England, in the foothills of the Pennines 8.6 miles west of Leeds, and 16 miles northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897. Following local government reform in 1974, city status was bestowed upon the metropolitan borough. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Bradford rose to prominence during the 19th century as a centre of textile manufacture. It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution, and amongst the earliest industrialised settlements, the textile sector in Bradford fell into decline from the mid-20th century. However, Bradford has faced challenges to the rest of the post-industrial area of Northern England, including deindustrialisation, social unrest. It was recorded as Bradeford in 1086, after an uprising in 1070, during William the Conquerors Harrying of the North, the manor of Bradford was laid waste and is described as such in the Domesday Book of 1086. It then became part of the Honour of Pontefract given to Ilbert de Lacy for service to the Conqueror, there is evidence of a castle in the time of the Lacys. The manor then passed to the Earl of Lincoln, John of Gaunt, The Crown and, ultimately, by the middle ages Bradford, had become a small town centred on Kirkgate, Westgate and Ivegate. In 1316 there is mention of a mill, a soke mill where all the manor corn was milled. During the Wars of the Roses the inhabitants sided with House of Lancaster, Edward IV granted the right to hold two annual fairs and from this time the town began to prosper. In the reign of Henry VIII Bradford exceeded Leeds as a manufacturing centre, Bradford grew slowly over the next two-hundred years as the woollen trade gained in prominence. During the Civil War the town was garrisoned for the Parliamentarians, Sir Thomas Fairfax took the command of the garrison and marched to meet the Duke of Newcastle but was defeated. The Parliamentarians retreated to Bradford and the Royalists set up headquarters at Bolling Hall from where the town was besieged leading to its surrender, the Civil War caused a decline in industry but after the accession of William and Mary in 1689 prosperity began to return. The launch of manufacturing in the early 18th century marked the start of the development while new canal. In 1801, Bradford was a market town of 6,393 people. Bradford was thus not much bigger than nearby Keighley and was smaller than Halifax. This small town acted as a hub for three nearby townships – Manningham, Bowling and Great and Little Horton, which were separated from the town by countryside
8.
Textile manufacturing
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Textile manufacturing is a major industry. It is based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, yarn into fabric and these are then dyed or printed, fabricated into clothes. Different types of fibre are used to produce yarn, Cotton remains the most important natural fibre, so is treated in depth. There remains an industry that uses hand techniques to achieve the same results. Cotton is the worlds most important natural fibre, in the year 2007, the global yield was 25 million tons from 35 million hectares cultivated in more than 50 countries. Indian cotton, gossypium arboreum, is finer but the staple is only suitable for hand processing, American cotton, gossypium hirsutum, produces the longer staple needed for machine production. Planting is from September to mid November and the crop is harvested between March and June, the cotton bolls are harvested by stripper harvesters and spindle pickers, that remove the entire boll from the plant. The cotton boll is the seed pod of the cotton plant, ginning The seed cotton goes in to a Cotton gin. The cotton gin separates seeds and removes the trash from the fibre, in a saw gin, circular saws grab the fibre and pull it through a grating that is too narrow for the seeds to pass. A roller gin is used with longer staple cotton, here a leather roller captures the cotton. A knife blade, set close to the roller, detaches the seeds by drawing them through teeth in circular saws, the ginned cotton fibre, known as lint, is then compressed into bales which are about 1.5 m tall and weigh almost 220 kg. Only 33% of the crop is usable lint, commercial cotton is priced by quality, and that broadly relates to the average length of the staple, and the variety of the plant. Longer staple cotton is called Egyptian, medium staple is called American upland, the cotton seed is pressed into a cooking oil. The husks and meal are processed into animal feed, and the stems into paper, ginning, bale-making and transportation is done in the country of origin. Opening and cleaning Cotton mills get the cotton shipped to them in large,500 pound bales, when the cotton comes out of a bale, it is all packed together and still contains vegetable matter. The bale is broken using a machine with large spikes. In order to fluff up the cotton and remove the vegetable matter, the cotton is fed into a machine known as a picker, and gets beaten with a beater bar in order to loosen it up. It is fed through rollers, which serve to remove the vegetable matter
9.
Henry Francis Lockwood
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Henry Francis Lockwood was an influential English architect active in the North of England. Lockwood was from a successful Doncaster family and his grandfather, Joseph Lockwood was twice mayor of Doncaster and part-owner of the limestone quarries at Levitt Hagg, as was his father, also Joseph, who was also a stonemason and builder. He was the uncle of Sir Frank Lockwood QC, and the grandfather of the film actress Margaret Lockwood. Another nephew was Louis Lockwood who was an architect in St. Paul. A more distant cousin was Sir Joseph Flawith Lockwood the Chairman of EMI, Lockwood married his first cousin Emma Dey. Charles Day, who made a fortune through the Day. Their ten children were all named Day as a name, Emma, Charles, Henry, Arthur, Rosa, Horace, Frederick, Florence, Francis. Henry Francis Lockwood was articled in London to Peter Frederick Robinson, in 1834 Lockwood published jointly with Adolphus H Cates, The History and Antiquities of the Fortifications to the City of York. The partnership with Allom ended by mutual consent on 30 December 1843, the architect Cuthbert Brodrick served his articles with Lockwood in Hull, but later declined an offer of a partnership. In 1849 Lockwood formed a partnership with William Mawson, and the year they moved to Bradford where they were later joined by Mawsons brother. Lockwood and Mawson designed some of the most distinguished buildings in Bradford, including St Georges Hall, the Venetian Gothic Wool Exchange, and they also laid out and designed the mill, model town and church at Saltaire, all in an Italianate Classical style. At the time, Saltaire was one of the most important examples of a philanthropic industrial, Lockwood is mentioned in most accounts of Sir Titus Salt and Saltaire. Lockwood and Mawson also submitted designs in competitions, including the contest for the Law Courts in the Strand. After 1871, Lockwood moved to London where he designed the Methodist City Temple at Holborn Viaduct, the Church of St Stephen, Cowbridge Park, East Twickenham, Lockwood and Mawson were also appointed architects for the new buildings at Merchant Taylors School, Crosby. H F Lockwood was the first President of the BSAS when it was founded in 1874, burgess provides a thorough account of Lockwoods career, with a full catalogue of his architecture and an evaluation of its importance. Henry Lockwood and his family lived for years at Nun Wood, Apperley Bridge, Yeadon, but after 1871 moved to Heron Court, Richmond, Surrey. He is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, Emma Lockwood died aged 72 on Christmas Day 1882 Saltaire The Old Police Station, Howden Hull Trinity House
10.
Cotton mill
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Although some were driven by animal power, most early mills were built in rural locations near to fast-flowing rivers and streams and had water wheels to power them. The mechanisation of the process in the early factories was instrumental in the growth of the machine tool industry. Limited companies were developed to construct mills, and the floors of the cotton exchange in Manchester. Mills generated employment, drawing workers from rural areas and expanding urban populations. They provided incomes for girls and women, child labour was used in the mills, and the factory system led to organised labour. Poor conditions became the subject of exposés, and in England, the cotton mill, originally a Lancashire phenomenon, was copied in New England and later in the southern states of America. In the 20th century, North West England lost its supremacy to the United States, then to India, in the mid-16th century Manchester was an important manufacturing centre for woollens and linen and market for textiles made elsewhere. The fustian district of Lancashire, from Blackburn to Bolton, west to Wigan and Leigh and south towards Manchester, used flax and raw cotton imported along the Mersey and Irwell Navigation. During the Industrial Revolution cotton manufacture changed from a domestic to an industry, made possible by inventions. The weaving process was the first to be mechanised by the invention of John Kays flying shuttle in 1733, the manually-operated spinning jenny was developed by James Hargreaves in about 1764 speeded up the spinning process. The roller spinning principle of Paul and Bourne became the basis of Richard Arkwrights spinning frame and water frame, the principles of the spinning jenny and water frame were combined by Samuel Crompton in his spinning mule of 1779, but water power was not applied to it until 1792. Many mills were built after Arkwrights patent expired in 1783 and by 1788, the development of cotton mills was linked to the development of the machinery they contained. By 1774,30,000 people in Manchester were employed using the system in cotton manufacture. The first cotton mills were established in the 1740s to house roller spinning machinery invented by Lewis Paul, the machines were the first to spin cotton mechanically without the intervention of human fingers. They were driven by a single power source which allowed the use of larger machinery. The Paul-Wyatt mills spun cotton for several decades but were not very profitable, Richard Arkwright obtained a patent for his water frame spinning machinery in 1769. Arkwrights first mill – powered by horses in Nottingham in 1768 – was similar to Paul and Wyatts first Birmingham mill although by 1772 it had expanded to four storeys and employed 300 workers. Arkwright recruited large, highly disciplined workforces for his mills, managed credit and supplies, by 1782 his annual profits exceeded £40,000, and by 1784 he had opened 10 more mills
11.
New Lanark
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New Lanark is a village on the River Clyde, approximately 1.4 miles from Lanark, in Lanarkshire, and some 40 km southeast of Glasgow, Scotland. It was founded in 1786 by David Dale, who built cotton mills, Dale built the mills there in a brief partnership with the English inventor and entrepreneur Richard Arkwright to take advantage of the water power provided by the only waterfalls on the River Clyde. The New Lanark mills operated until 1968, after a period of decline, the New Lanark Conservation Trust was founded in 1974 to prevent demolition of the village. By 2006 most of the buildings have restored and the village has become a major tourist attraction. It is one of six UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Scotland, the New Lanark cotton mills were founded in 1786 by David Dale in a brief partnership with Richard Arkwright. M. W. Turner and many other artists, the mills used the recently developed water-powered cotton spinning machinery invented by Richard Arkwright. Dale sold the mills, lands and village in the early 19th century for £60,000, payable over 20 years, to a partnership that included his son-in-law Robert Owen. Owen, who became manager in 1800, was an industrialist who carried on his father-in-laws philanthropic approach to industrial working. New Lanark, with its social and welfare programmes, epitomised his Utopian socialism, the New Lanark mills depended upon water power. A dam was constructed on the Clyde above New Lanark and water was drawn off the river to power the mill machinery, the water first travelled through a tunnel, then through an open channel called the lade. It then went to a number of wheels in each mill building. It was not until 1929 that the last waterwheel was replaced by a water turbine, Water power is still used in New Lanark. A new water turbine has been installed in Mill Number Three to provide electricity for the tourist areas of the village, in Owens time some 2,500 people lived at New Lanark, many from the poorhouses of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Although not the grimmest of mills by far, Owen found the conditions unsatisfactory, the mills thrived commercially, but Owens partners were unhappy at the extra expense incurred by his welfare programmes. Unwilling to allow the mills to revert to the old ways of operating, in 1813 the Board forced an auction, hoping to obtain the town and mills at a low price but Owen and a new board that was sympathetic to his reforming ideas won out. New Lanark became celebrated throughout Europe, with many statesmen, reformers and they were astonished to find a clean, healthy industrial environment with a content, vibrant workforce and a prosperous, viable business venture all rolled into one. Owen’s philosophy was contrary to contemporary thinking, but he was able to demonstrate that it was not necessary for an enterprise to treat its workers badly to be profitable. Owen was able to show visitors the village’s excellent housing and amenities, the planning of employment in the mills alongside housing for the workers and services such as a school also makes the settlement iconic in the development of urban planning in the UK
