The first houses Richard Arkwright built, the North Street terraces of 1776-77, epitomised the essence of what was to become a pattern for the Derwent Valley factory masters. Children were perceived to be an under-utilised resource in society, and with machinery available which was simple to operate they became the workhorses of the factory system.
Once the factory masters had tied themselves to child labour delivered in family units, rather than the apprentice labour favoured by, for example, the Gregs at Styal Mill, they were inexorably committed to house building and to community development. If their mills were to flourish, the families which migrated to the new factory colonies must also flourish, and this meant providing jobs for those members of the workforce who would not find employment at the mill. Many years later a member of the Strutt family declared this to be the hardest part to deliver, and claimed his family’s mills in Belper would have grown larger but for the difficulty in finding adult male employment in and around the town.
In North Street, Richard Arkwright proposed a neat solution. He would offer employment to the wives and children of the weavers who occupied the houses and in the workshops, on the topmost floor, they would weave his yarn into calico. All the Derwent Valley factory masters did much the same. Peter Nightingale could not have been more explicit when he established his own mill and advertised for labour in 1784.
“Weavers, good Calico weavers may be employed and if they have large families, may be accommodated with houses and have employment for their children”.
Nightingale at Lea, in his lead works, and Evans at Darley Abbey with the paper mill, corn mill and other long established water-powered businesses close to the cotton mills, which employed predominantly adult male labour, used these connections to support their cotton mills. The Strutts employed men on their farms and as carriers and in many other capacities, but they also invested in nailshops and framework knitters’ workshops. As early as 1790 the Strutts had built a nailshop in Belper Lane and were still investing in new nailshops in the 1830s.
The weavers Arkwright
attracted to Cromford were
not limited to those who
found a home in North
Street. There were others working in the loom shop
at
the mill; also at the mill
there is believed to have been space set aside
for framework
knitters. Each of these predominantly male occupations
played their part in insuring the child labour
force was
maintained.
After 1789 with the Cromford estate in their
own hands, the Arkwrights developed the village skilfully
and energetically. The creation of the Market Place gave the settlement
a new focus. Traders were attracted to the Saturday
market Sir Richard established and were offered inducements
tomaintain their attendance. At the end of a year
prizes such as beds, presses, clocks, chairs etc. were awarded
to the bakers, butchers etc. who had attended the market
most consistently.
In due course the settlement the Arkwrights had
planted and nurtured became a viable economic entity. It
continued to grow until c.1840. The cotton mills had by then
reached their height or even started to contract as the
effects of the dispute over the Cromford water supply began
to be felt. It is not known how closely the Arkwrights maintained
a tie between residence in their cottages in Cromford
and work at their mills. As late as 1866 the Strutt rent
books imply a close linkage, rent still being deducted from
the weekly wages. No similar records survive for Cromford
and with the premature decline of Cromford Mill it seems likely
that by 1850 some at least of the Cromford housing would
have been occupied by families who had no connection
with the mills. It is also interesting to note that as
early as 1816 half the Cromford Mill workforce of 725 lived
outside Cromford and therefore in houses which were not
linked to their employer.
Even before he took possession of the Cromford estate, Arkwright had established his reputation as an employer who recognised the need for his new community to foster its own identity, social life and tradition. He is credited with the creation of customs in Cromford similar to those which existed elsewhere in older established settlements.
So, in September each year (and certainly by 1776) there was the annual festival of candle lighting when workmen and children, led by a band and a boy working in a weaver’s loom, paraded from the mills round the village. On their return to the mills they received buns, ale, nuts and fruit. In 1778 on such an occasion, a song was performed “in full chorus amongst thousands of spectators from Matlock Bath and the neighbouring Towns”.
As Sylas Neville observed, Arkwright “by
his conduct appears to be a man of great understanding and
to know the way of making his people do their best. He
not only distributes pecuniary rewards but gives distinguishing dresses to
the most deserving of both sexes, which excites great emulation”.
The Cromford community was also sustained by the
creation of various clubs and friendly societies including
a cow club, but the full range and details of this provision
is unknown. Information is sparse also for the educational
investment in Cromford.
In 1785 a Sunday School was established
which immediately attracted 200 children; subsequently
there was a day school, the precursor of the school erected
in 1832 and which remains open.
The religious life of the community was less well
provided for. The chapel built in 1777 on the edge of Matlock
Bath by Arkwright’s partner Samuel Need, near
the spot which was later to accommodate Masson Mill, was clearly
intended for Matlock Bath’s fashionable visitors rather
than the mill workforce. In any case, its life was cut short
by Need’s death in 1781; and when it did re-open in 1785 it was
soon in the hands of an extreme Calvinist sect serving a small congregation.
It was not until 1797, when Richard Arkwright junior opened Cromford Church
- which his father had planned as a private chapel for Willersley
Castle - that the community’s needs were catered for. The
Church was in these early years pressed into service as an adjunct
of factory discipline. Unlike the Strutts, the Arkwrights
are not known to have encouraged other denominations to establish themselves
in their village. The several Methodist sects with their own chapels, which
prospered in Cromford in the 19th century were all built on land outside
the Arkwright estate.
