NW Cotton Towns Learning Journey

Your guide: John Mortimer, author of "Industrial Lancashire" (1897)

Our itinerary:

Step 1: Liverpool to Manchester; Manchester to Stockport; Stockport to Ashton
Step 2: Ashton to Manchester; Manchester to Oldham; Oldham to Rochdale
Step 3: Rochdale to Bury; Bury to Accrington; Accrington to Blackburn
Step 4: Blackburn to Burnley; Burnley to Clitheroe; Clitheroe to Preston
Step 5: Preston to Wigan via Chorley; Wigan to Bolton
Step 6: Bolton to Salford; Salford to Manchester

Click on the steps below to explore.

North West Cotton Towns Learning Journey Step 1 INTRODUCTION Welcome to our whistle-stop tour of the cotton district! The Lancashire cotton district traces out a square some 35 miles along each side, with Liverpool, Stalybridge, Colne and Preston at each corner. We will travel through the route marked on the map, at various times by water, road and rail. Sometimes we will simply arrive, as if by magic, at our next destination! Since we have limited time together, we will not visit some places, but I will mention them in passing, leaving you free to learn more about these towns in your own time. Remember, it is 1897. The Lancashire cotton industry is in its heyday: let us survey the towns that make cotton great! You can take a break from your journey to learn more about some of the places we will be visiting, by clicking on the "related narratives" at the bottom of the screen. Step 1: Liverpool to Manchester; Manchester to Stockport; Stockport to Ashton LIVERPOOL TO MANCHESTER We begin our tour of the cotton district in Liverpool, gateway to the world. Liverpool buzzes with activity: along the quays are huge cranes for lifting cargoes to and from the ships in dock. We take a ship now along the Manchester Ship Canal, which is 36 miles long and took 16,000 "navvies" six years to build. From Trafford Docks, we proceed into busy Manchester (founded by the Romans in AD78), more a trading than manufacturing town these days: "Manchester is one great warehouse - a reservoir for the production of the whole district." (Grindon, Lancashire, p120). MANCHESTER TO STOCKPORT Now we take a train from Manchester's London Road station, on the line to Crewe (built 1842). We travel over the Stockport Viaduct, looking down on the Mersey Valley. From here Engels noted Stockport was "one of the duskiest, smokiest holes in the whole of the industrial area." Stockport was first a linen town (15th century) producing the famed "Stockport Cloth", then silk (18th century), and now cotton and hatting dominate. Samuel Oldknow started a cotton boom in 1780 that resulted in two-thirds of the population relying on wages from the cotton industry. Children as young as four worked up to 14 hours a day, the only education they received (until 1870) was at the Stockport Sunday School. STOCKPORT TO ASHTON We travel to Ashton now on the Stockport Branch of the Ashton Canal, via Clayton Lock. Canal barges are ideal for transporting heavy loads such as cotton bales and coal. It's slow going. On arrival in Ashton, we see that beyond the canal-side chimneys, the Tame Valley is an area of natural beauty. Many of Ashton's 36,000 people work in cotton, factories of note include Cavendish Mill and the Oxford Mills. Beyond Ashton are Audenshaw, Denton, Droylsden, Dukinfield, Hyde, Mossley, Mottram and radical Stalybridge, its first cotton mill built in 1796 by Neddy Hall.

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