There was nothing tentative
about Jedediah Strutt’s entry
into cotton spinning on his
own account. Unlike
Richard Arkwright, he came
to the business with
considerable wealth and, by
waiting until Arkwright had
demonstrated the full
potential of his mechanical
inventions and production
systems, he was able to
invest in a full-scale
production unit without
having to embark on his
own expensive research and
development.
It is generally assumed he began building his first mill in Belper in 1776. This is the date accepted by most authorities. However, the evidence of Strutt’s land purchases puts this in doubt. It was not until 1777 that he bought the first parcels of land on which he was to build, and those 10 acres, plus small purchases made a year later, secured for him the entire site on which all the Strutt mills in Belper were to be built.
The river and the adjoining land had never before accommodated a mill at this point. There were no existing weirs or water courses and Strutt had to create his own. A weir was built across the river near the present day railway bridge and a goyt, part of which survives in the River Gardens, which linked it to the mill. It is unlikely the mill could have been ready for use in 1778 as the Strutts told the factory commission in 1834, and the advertisement for children to work in the mills in September 1781 may mark the actual completion date. A second mill was added in 1784 and it was out of the shell of this building that the fire-proof North Mill was created in 1804 after fire had destroyed the earlier structure.
Strutt next turned his attention to Milford where,
in March
1781, he bought Makeney forge and, soon after,
adjoining
property. Later in the same year he bought Hopping
Mill
Meadow, a site which included a fulling
mill.
Advertisements for labour suggest the mill Strutt
built here
was still being constructed as late as 1784.
By 1789 there
were two mills at work on the site, one of which
was a
printing mill. In 1788, the Strutts had expressed
the
intention of taking up bleaching and had turned
to Samuel
Oldknow for advice; it is probable that it was
his expertise in
printing that enabled them to establish their
Milford mill. A
further mill was constructed in 1793.
In 1789 the Strutts valued their investments in the mills at Belper and Milford at £26,000 and £11,000 respectively and claimed a return of £36,000 per annum. No doubt it was this income stream and the proceeds of their hosiery business which drove forward the Strutts’ development of their Belper site. The construction of the West Mill began in 1793 and was still in progress at the end of 1796. It was 61 metres long and, like the Strutts’ earlier fire-proof building in Derby, it made use of brick arches and floors, hollow pot arches in the sixth storey and timber beams supported by iron columns. It was powered by two water wheels, one of 12.2 and the second of 14.6 metres width and diameters of 5.5 and 3.7 metres respectively. The goyt which had serviced the two earlier mills was no longer adequate and it was necessary to build a more substantial weir, dig out the banks of the river, and from the vast acreage of water so created, take a supply from a new cut running close by the North Mill and across the site to the new West Mill. By August 1796, the design and location of the new weir had been sketched on a plan and over the next 12 months, this remarkable structure was completed. Over the same period, the Strutts rebuilt the bridge which had been destroyed by a flood in 1795. The new bridge was completed in 1797.
