page_title: Derwent Valley Mills
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Derwent Valley Mills / History
caption_attribution_description: The Derby Silk Mill (Derby Museum of Industry) showcases much of the city and counties rich industrial heritage. It is part of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site - the East Midlands only such heritage site. This particular Mill is the world first Silk Mill, and thus one of the worlds most historically important buildings. Derby City Council recently applied for lottery funding to upgrade the museum however was rejected. This shot is currently impossible to take due to the Cathedral Green landscaping work.
context_page_description: Derwent Valley Mills is a World Heritage Site along the River Derwent in Derbyshire, England, designated in December 2001. It is administered by the Derwent Valley Mills Partnership. The modern factory, or 'mill', system was born here in the 18th century to accommodate the new technology for spinning cotton developed by Richard Arkwright. With advancements in technology, it became possible to produce cotton continuously. The system was adopted throughout the valley, and later spread so that by 1788 there were over 200 Arkwright-type mills in Britain. Arkwright's inventions and system of organising labour was exported to Europe and the United States.
  Water-power was first introduced to England by John Lombe at his silk mill in Derby in 1719, but it was Richard Arkwright who applied water-power to the process of producing cotton in the 1770s. His patent of a water frame allowed cotton to be spun continuously, meaning it could be produced by unskilled workers. Cromford Mill was the site of Arkwright's first mill, with nearby Cromford village significantly expanded for his then-new workforce; this system of production and workers' housing was copied throughout the valley.
context_section_description: In the late 17th century silk making expanded due to demand for silk as part of fashionable garments. In an attempt to increase production through the use of water power, Thomas Cotchett commissioned engineer George Sorocold to build a mill near the centre of Derby on an island in the River Derwent. Although the experiment was unsuccessful, it convinced John Lombe – an employee of Cotchett – that if water power could be perfected there was a market for its produce. He engaged in industrial espionage and gained plans of Italian machines. He patented the design in 1719 and built a five-storey mill 33.5 m × 12 m (110 ft × 39 ft) next to Crotchett's mill. By 1763, 30 years after Lombe's patent had expired, only seven Lombe mills had been built because the silk market was small, but Lombe had introduced a viable form of water powered machinery and had established a template for organised labour that later industrialists would follow.
  As silk was a luxury good, the market was small and easily saturated by machine produced goods. The next innovation in machine produced textiles came in the cotton industry which had a much wider market and produced more affordable goods. Spinning cotton was a more complex process than silk production. The water frame for spinning cotton was developed by Richard Arkwright and patented in 1769. The machines could spin yarn continuously and replaced skilled workers with unskilled supervisors to make sure the machines didn't break. Water frames varied in size from 4 to 96 spindles. For these reasons, the water frame became popular and widespread. In 1771, Richard Arkwright took a lease on land in Cromford. By 1774, his first mill was operational, and in 1776 he began construction of a second mill at Cromford. During this time, he developed machines for pre-spinning and in 1775 took out his second patent. With spinning mechanised, the other processes involved in producing cotton could not keep up and also required mechanisation. He produced a machine for carding, the process which laid out the cotton fibres parallel, however not all his inventions were successful and cleaning the cotton was performed by hand until the 1790s when an effective machine was invented.
  Arkwright sought financial assistance, and Peter Nightingale – a local landowner (and grand uncle of Florence Nightingale) – bought the Cromford Estate for £20,000 (£3 million as of 2019). Nightingale also built Rock House as a residence for Arkwright, overlooking the mill, and gave him a further £2,000 (£250,000) to build the second mill and £1,750 (£220,000) for workers' housing. Between 1777 and 1783, Arkwright and his family built mills at Bakewell, Cressbrook, Rocester, and Wirksworth, spread across Derbyshire and Staffordshire. Jedediah Strutt, who was Arkwright's partner in the first Cromford Mill, built mills at Belper and Milford in 1776–1881. Thomas Evans, a landowner in Darley Abbey, bought a further 7.1 ha (18 acres) in the area around Darley Abbey at a cost of £1,140 (£140,000) and in 1782 built a cotton mill in the village. Arkwright was paid royalties by those who had copied his machines, although some people risked prosecution by engaging in piracy.
  The construction of Masson Mill in Matlock Bath began in 1783, instigated by Arkwright. Contemporaneous with Arkwright's expansionism was the entry of Jedediah Strutt into the cotton spinning industry. Strutt had the advantage that Arkwright had already done all the necessary experimentation with machinery, so he did not have to invest in researching new technology. He established a mill at Belper, about 8 mi (13 km) south of Cromford; it was probably complete in 1781. The site was expanded with the addition of a second mill in 1784. Strutt also built a mill in Milford, about 2 mi (3 km) south of Belper. By 1793, two further mills were added for printing and bleaching. The Strutts estimated that by 1789 they had invested £37,000 (£4,000,000) in theirs mills at Belper and Milford (£26,000 at Belper and £11,000 at Milford), and had a return of £36,000 (£4,000,000) per year.
  Arkwrigh
caption: Lombe's silk mill
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