Incidentally, Braxfield, as Lord Justice Clerk, presided in at the trials of the leading Scottish Friends of the People, a group that advocated moderate parliamentary reform as a means of preserving the British constitution, including the Radical lawyer and great Scottish patriot Thomas Muir — The large mills, four in all, were constructed by the river's edge, and water to drive a series of massive wheels was diverted from the Clyde by tunnel and aqueduct.
Beyond the mill complex Dale created a model industrial community with a planned village providing housing, school, kirk or church and other social facilities for its workers.
So Dale's investment was substantial, making New Lanark one of the largest plants of its kind. Examine Figure 3 above, the earliest representation of New Lanark, then view the introductory section of the video given below.
Describe the location and layout of the mills and community. The mills are by the edge of the Clyde at a point where the head of water was at its optimum for driving the machinery.
The mill races from four of the wheels can be seen in the engraving. Because of the constricted nature of the site the housing is ranged behind, some stretching uphill to the left and some the earliest, we think beyond the mills to the right.
Apart from the costly technical and engineering difficulties involved in such a massive project, assembling a large and suitable labour force initially perhaps comprising people was a difficulty that Dale and later Owen shared with many other mill owners. Accordingly large families were recruited from other parts of Scotland and, as was the norm, both women and children were employed.
In truth a large proportion of the labour force maybe as much as half were children, some being orphans apprenticed from the institutions or parishes of Glasgow and Edinburgh. The men worked as tradesmen or overseers, or, if they lacked skills, as labourers. There was also a distinctive and substantial cohort of Gaelic-speaking migrants from the Scottish Highlands, some of whom Dale had rescued from a storm-bound emigrant ship bound for North America, and others he had enticed to New Lanark from localities as far apart as Argyll or Caithness by offers of employment and housing.
By the early s New Lanark, deep in its valley by the Clyde, had a densely packed population of about , half of whom were either children or teenagers, the majority employed in the mills. Apart from assembling and training the labour force, the maintenance of time-discipline in the works and of order in the community must have presented major problems.
Although an astute businessman, Dale was also a pious individual, head of a Dissenting Presbyterian sect, and his regime was reported as paternalist. By the standards of the time he and his resident managers provided decent working conditions and seem to have been particularly attentive to the accommodation, clothing, health and diet of the child apprentices Donnachie and Hewitt, , pp. Whoever inherited the community Dale had established would have a sound foundation on which to build, quite apart from the success of the business, by modern values probably a multimillion pound enterprise even before Owen and his Manchester partners assumed management.
We shall learn more about the early history of New Lanark and view other features on the video later in the course. But for the moment this brief description of New Lanark highlights some of the major difficulties of industrialisation and the social problems the economic transformation engendered. Review the preceding section and identify some of the key problems that industrialisation seemed to generate. There were major architectural and engineering problems in building the new factories, but these were soluble with large amounts of capital investment on which, with good management and luck, substantial returns were possible.
Perhaps more acute were the difficulties of assembling, retaining and controlling a large labour force. This often involved in-migration to new localities, over quite long distances and from different linguistic, cultural and religious backgrounds likely to generate tension in the new communities. Housing had to be constructed very quickly. High densities, rudimentary water supply and poor sanitation threatened health and promoted disease.
Factory masters were also concerned about preventing immorality, drunkenness and crime among workers. I would not have expected you to get all of this, or necessarily to put it all in the same order, but you can see that the growth of New Lanark and other factory communities brought many of the social changes — and problems — that accompanied industrialisation generally.
There were already major concerns about a whole host of issues, including population growth, urbanisation, health and disease, crime and policing, children's employment, adult unemployment, poverty and popular education. Anyone with the answers to these problems was certain to command attention from governments wrestling with the costs of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
These conflicts hit the pockets of the landowners and industrialists through taxation, even though some were profiting handsomely from improved agriculture and the new manufacturing. There were also worries, widespread among the middle and upper classes, about increasing poverty and social unrest. And, as with slavery, many if not all of these issues challenged the enlightened and humane, who believed in social progress.
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This image may not be subjected to any form of reproduction including transmission, performance, display, rental, or storage in any retrieval system without the written consent of National Galleries of Scotland.
Downloading of this image is strictly for private study only. David Dale, merchant-philanthropist, was the founder of New Lanark and Owen's future father-in-law. View larger image. Figure 3 : Robert Scott, New Lanark , c.
Owen's generous intentions. I was one of those who, at one time, was favourably impressed with many of Mr. Owen's views, and, more especially, with those of a community of property. This notion has a peculiar attraction for the plodding, toiling, ill-remunerated sons and daughters of labour. Just as Thomas Paine was the founder of political ideas among the people of England, Robert Owen was also the founder of social ideas among them. Owen did this at New Lanark, and convinced numerous persons that the improvement of society was possible by wise material means.
There were social ideas in England before the days of Owen, as there were political ideas before the days of Paine; but Owen gave social ideas form and force. At New Lanark he virtually or indirectly supplied to his workpeople, with splendid munificence and practical judgment, all the conditions which gave dignity to labour. Excepting by Godin of Guise, no workmen have ever been so well treated, instructed, and cared for as at New Lanark.
During all the discussions upon Mr. Owen's views, I do not remember notice being taken of Thomas Holcroft, the actor, who might have been cited as a precursor of Mr. Holcroft, mostly self-taught, familiar with hardship, vicissitude, and adventure, became an author, actor, and playwriter of distinction.
He expressed views of remarkable similarity to those of Owen. Holcroft was a friend of political and moral improvement, but he wished it to be gradual and rational, because he believed no other could be effectual. He deplored all provocation and invective. All that he wished was the free and dispassionate discussion of the great principles relating to human happiness, trusting to the power of reason to make itself heard, not doubting the result.
He believed the truth had a natural superiority over error, if truth could only be stated; that if once discovered it must, being left to itself, soon spread and triumph. Actors, apart from their profession, are mostly idealess; and the few who are capable of interest in human affairs outside the stage, are mostly so timid of their popularity that they are acquiescent, often subservient, to conventional ideas. Not so Holcroft. When it was dangerous to have independent theological or social opinions, he was as bold as Owen at a later day.
He did not conceal that he was a Necessarian. He was one of a few moralists who took a chapel in Margaret Street, Cavendish Square, with a view to found an Ethical Church. One of his sayings was this: "The only enemy I encounter is error, and that with no weapon but words. My constant theme has been, 'Let error be taught, not whipped.
Owen's habit of mind and principle are there expressed. Lord Brougham, in his famous address to the Glasgow University in , declared the same principle when he said no man was any more answerable for his belief than for the height of his stature or the colour of his hair. Brougham, being a life-long friend of Owen, had often heard this from him.
Holcroft was born , died Robert Owen was a remarkable instance of a man at once Tory and revolutionary. He held with the government of the few, but, being a philanthropist, he meant that the government of the few should be the government of the good. It cannot be said that he, like Burke, was incapable of conceiving the existence of good social arrangements apart from kings and courts. It may be said that he never thought upon the subject.
He found power in their hands, and he went to them to exercise it in the interests of his "system. He would revolutionize both religion and society—indeed, clear the world out of the way—to make room for his "new views.
Because nothing immediately came of it, it was said he was not believed in. But there is evidence that he was believed in. He was listened to because he proposed that crowned heads should introduce his system into their states, urging that it would ensure contentment and material comfort among their people, and by giving rulers the control and patronage of social life, would secure them in their dignity. Owen's fine temper was owing to his principle.
He always thought of the unseen chain which links every man to his destiny. His fine manners were owing to natural self-possession and to his observation. When a youth behind Mr. McGuffog's counter at Stamford, the chief draper's shop in the town, he "watched the manners and studied the characters of the nobility when they were under the least restraint. His object was to meet a professor and some young students at the London University. Two of them were Mr.
Percy Greg and Mr. Michael Foster, both of whom afterwards became eminent. There were some publicists present, and Mr. Birch, author of the "Philosophy and Religion of Shakspeare," all good conversationalists.
Owen was the best talker of the party. Perhaps it was that they deferred to him, or submitted to him, because of his age and public career; but he displayed more variety and vivacity than they. He spoke naturally as one who had authority. But his courtesy was never suspended by his earnestness.
Owen, being a Welshman, had all the fervour and pertinacity, without the impetuosity of his race. Though he had made his own fortune by insight and energy, his fine manners came by instinct. He was successively a draper's counterman, a clerk, a manager, a trader and manufacturer; but he kept himself free from the hurry and unrest of manner which the eagerness of gain and the solicitude of loss, impart to the commercial class, and which mark the difference between their manners and those of gentlemen.
There are both sorts in the House of Commons. As a rule, you know on sight the members who have made their own fortunes. If you accost them, they are apt to start as though they were arrested. An interview is an encroachment. They do not conceal that they are thinking of their time as they answer you. They look at their minutes as though they were loans, and only part with them if they are likely to bear interest. There are business men in Parliament who are born with the instinct of progress without hurry.
But they are the exception. The principal justification of Mr Owen's pretensions are that he has succeeded in changing, as he calls it, the moral habits of the persons under his employment in a manufactory at Lanark, in Scotland. For all the good he has done in that respect, he deserves the highest thanks.
It is much to be wished, that all who live by the labour of the poor would pay as much attention to their wants and to their interests as Mr Owen did to those under his care at Lanark. But it is very amusing to hear Mr Owen talk of re-moralizing the poor. In one point of view Mr Owen's scheme might be productive of some good. Let him abandon the labourer to his own protection; cease to oppress him, and the poor man would scorn to hold any fictitious dependence upon the rich.
There is but one mode by which man can possess in perpetuity all the happiness which his nature is capable of enjoying, — that is by the union and co-operation of all for the benefit of each. There is but one mode by which man can possess in perpetuity all the happiness which his nature is capable of enjoying, that is by the union and co-operation of all for the benefit of each.
Union and co-operation in war obviously increase the power of the individual a thousand fold. Is there the shadow of a reason why they should not produce equal effects in peace; why the principle of co-operation should not give to men the same superior powers, and advantages, and much greater in the creation, preservation, distribution and enjoyment of wealth?
This great truth which I have now to declare to you, is, that the system on which all the nations of the world are acting is founded in gross deception, in the deepest ignorance or in a mixture of both. That, under no possible modifications of the principles on which it is based, can it ever produce good to man; but that, on the contrary, its practical results must ever be to produce evil continually' - and, consequently, that no really intelligent and honest individual can any longer support it; for, by the constitution of this system, it unavoidably encourages and upholds, as it ever has encouraged and upheld, hypocrisy and deception of every description, and discouraged and opposed truth and sincerity, whenever truth and sincerity were applied permanently to improve the condition of the human race.
It encourages and upholds national vice and corruption to an unlimited extent; whilst to an equal degree it discourages national virtue and honesty. The whole system has not one redeeming quality; its very virtues, as they are termed, are vices of great magnitude.
Its charities, so called, are gross acts of injustice and deception. Its instructions are to rivet ignorance in the mind and, if possible, render it perpetual. It supports, in all manner of extravagance, idleness, presumption, and uselessness; and oppresses, in almost every mode which ingenuity can devise, industry, integrity and usefulness.
It encourages superstition, bigotry and fanaticism; and discourages truth, commonsense and rationality. It generates and cultivates every inferior quality and base passion that human nature can be made to receive; and has so disordered all the human intellects, that they have become universally perplexed and confused, so that man has no just title to be called a reasonable and rational being. It generates violence, robbery and murder, and extols and rewards these vices as the highest of all virtues.
Its laws are founded in gross ignorance of individual man and of human society; they are cruel and unjust in the extreme, and, united with all the superstitions in the world, are calculated only to teach men to call that which is pre-eminently true and good, false and bad; and that which is glaringly false and bad, true and good. In short, to cultivate with great care all that leads to vice and misery in the mass, and to exclude from them, with equal care, all that would direct them to true knowledge and real happiness, which alone, combined, deserve the name of virtue.
In consequence of the dire effects of this wretched system upon the whole of the human race, the population of Great Britain - the most advanced of modern nations in the acquirement of riches, power and happiness - has created and supports a theory and practice of government which is directly opposed to the real well-being and true interests of every individual member of the empire, whatever may be his station, rank or condition - whether subject or sovereign.
And so enormous are the increasing errors of this system now become, that, to uphold it the government is compelled, day by day, to commit acts of the grossest cruelty and injustice, and to call such proceedings laws of justice and of Christian mercy. Under this system, the idle, the useless and the vicious govern the population of the world; whilst the useful and the truly virtuous, as far as such a system will permit men to be virtuous, are by them degraded and oppressed.
Men of industry, and of good and virtuous habits! This is the last state to which you ought to submit; nor would I advise you to allow the ignorant, the idle, the presumptuous and the vicious, any longer to lord it over the well-being, the lives and happiness, of yourselves and families, when, by three days of such idleness as constitutes the whole of their lives, you would for ever convince each one of these mistaken individuals that you now possess the power to compel them at once to become the abject slaves, and the oppressed portion of society which they have hitherto made you.
Owen's sense of fame lay in his ideas. They formed a world in which he dwelt, and he thought others who saw them would be as enchanted as he was. But others did not see them, and he took no adequate means to enable them to see them.
Owen published nothing else so striking or vigorous. Yet he could speak on the platform impressively and with a dignity and force which commanded the admiration of cultivated adversaries. Like Turner, Owen had an earlier and a later manner. His memoirs - never completed - were written apparently when Robert Fulton's death was recent.
They have incident, historic surprises, and the charm of genuine autobiography; but when he wrote of his principles, he lacked altogether Cobbett's faculty of "talking with the pen," which is the source of literary engagingness. It was said of Montaigne that "his sentences were vascular and alive, and if you pricked them they bled. Owen's, when he wrote on his "System," you lost your needle in the wool. He had the altruistic fervour as strongly as Comte, but Owen was without the artistic instinct of style, which sees an inapt word as a false tint in a picture or as an error in drawing.
His "Lectures on Marriage" he permitted to be printed in a note-taker's unskilful terms, and did not correct them, which subjected him and his adherents also to misapprehension. Everybody knows that love must always be free, and, if left to take its own course, is generally ready to accept the responsibility of its choice. People will put up with the ills they bring upon themselves, but will resent happiness proposed by others; just as a nation will be more content with the bad government of their own contriving than they will be under better laws imposed upon them by foreigners.
Polygamous relations are inconsistent with delicacy or refinement. Miscellaneousness and love are incompatible terms. Love is an absolute preference. Owen regarded affection as essential to chastity; but his deprecation of priestly marriages set many against marriage itself.
This was owing more to the newness of his doctrine in those days, which led to misconception on the part of some, and was wilfully perverted by others. He claimed for the poor facilities of divorce equal to those accorded to the rich.
To some extent this has been conceded by law, which has tended to increase marriage by rendering it less a terror. The new liberty produced license, as all new liberty does; yet the license is not chargeable upon the liberty, nor upon those who advocated it: but upon the reaction from unlimited bondage. Owen's philanthropy was owing to his principles.
Whether wealth is acquired by chance or fraud - as a good deal of wealth is - or owing to inheritance without merit, or to greater capacity than other men have, it is alike the gift of destiny, and Mr.
Owen held that those less fortunate should be assisted to improvement in their condition by the favourites of fate. Seeing that every man would be better than he is were his condition in life devised for his betterment, Owen's advice was not to hate men, but to change the system which makes them what they are or keeps them from moral advancement.
For these reasons he was against all attempts at improvement by violence. Force was not reformation. In his mind reason and better social arrangements were the only remedy. As life is uncertain, it behoves everyone to make preparations for death; I deem it therefore a duty incumbent on me, ere I quit this life, to express in writing, for the satisfaction and guidance of esteemed friends, my feelings and opinions in reference to our common principles.
In the first place, then - I calmly and deliberately declare that I do not believe in the popular notion of an Almighty, All-wise and Benevolent God - possessing intelligence, and conscious of his own operations; because these attributes involve such a mass of absurdities and contradictions, so much cruelty and injustice on His part to the poor and destitute portion of His creatures - that, in my opinion, no rational reflecting mind can, after disinterested investigation, give credence to the existence of such a Being.
Second, I believe death to be an eternal sleep - that I shall never live again in this world, or another, with a consciousness that I am the same identical person that once lived, performed the duties, and exercised the functions of a human being.
Third, I consider priestcraft and superstition the greatest obstacle to human improvement and happiness. During my life I have, to the best of my ability, sincerely and strenuously exposed and opposed them, and die with a firm conviction that Truth, Justice, and Liberty will never be permanently established on earth till every vestige of priestcraft and superstition be utterly destroyed.
Mantilla Row is constructed c. In it has one three-apartment house, three two-apartment houses and one one-apartment house, making it the smallest tenememt row in New Lanark. David Dale offers employment and accommodation to the passengers. Mill 3 is completed and acts as the 'Jeanie house' for both common and lightly powered self-acting spinning jennies to William Kelly's patent. Built c. In it contains five two-apartment houses and 20 one-apartment houses with wash-houses in the basement.
Constructed c. In it has one three-apartment house, eight two-apartment houses and 20 one-apartment houses with wash-houses in the basement. Mill 4 is completed and first used as a storeroom, workshop and boarding house for children 'who have no parents'. After it was fitted up as a mule-spinning mill. The large tenement row called New Buildings is constructed over 12 years to replace earlier single-storey cottages on the site.
In it contains a surgery, lavatory and doctor's house in addition to 18 two-apartment houses, four one-apartment houses and halls on the upper floors for Sunday Schools and Gaelic church services. Robert Owen assumes management of New Lanark on the first day of the New Year and begins his 'Great Experiment' of social, moral, educational and workplace reforms.
His partners and workers are at first unsure of his reform. Owen continues to pay his workers despite no production taking place due to an American embargo on the export of raw cotton.
This proves a turning point in attitudes towards Owen and his reforms. The Mechanic's Workshop and Dyeworks originally the brass and iron foundry are added to the village by Robert Owen. These buildings mean New Lanark is near self-suffiient in making its own mchinery, millwright work and structural castings. Nursery Buildings, with its rear turnpike stair projections to allow for dormitories, is constructed to house New Lanark's 'pauper apprentices' then adapted to family dwellings shortly afterwards.
In it contains one three-apartment house, seven two-apartment houses, one one-apartment house and washouses in the basement. A series of 2-storey buildings stradling the tailrace are constructed to be used as a raw and waste cotton stores and picking houses. They stretch from Mill 1 along to Mill 4 but a fire in burns down those behind Mills 3 and 4. The Village Store is established by Owen. It is located on the ground floor of Nursery Buildings and sells quality goods at fair prices.
Workers can elect to be paid in tickets or tokens which can be exchanged for goods at the store. The Counting House acts as Owen's office, giving him oversight of the village and is where villagers collect their 'tickets for wages'.
Faced with hostility and a potential buyout from his new partners, Owen travels to London to find new partners who will support his 'Great Experiment'. His new partners, including John Walker, are predominantly Quakers. Owen opens the centrepiece of his social experiment- The Institute for the Formation of Character, which is used as a social and educational centre for the villagers.
These are printed and used as export labels on packages of cotton. Mill 3 burns down a common occurrence in cotton mills but is rebuilt in with a cast iron frame to help prevent fire. Robert Owen publishes his 'Report to the county of Lanark' in which he argues that reform alone is not enough and that a change of social order is required.
Owen leaves New Lanark for New Harmony, Indiana as he feels he will have more success promoting his ideals on social reform in 'the New World'. It was under the enlightened management of Robert Owen that New Lanark became famous.
Like Robert Owen, the Walkers were humanitarian employers. As members of the Society of The Walkers continue to run a successful business at New Lanark, despite fierce competition from mills in the north of England. They also continue with some of Owen's ideas, mainly maintaining the Institute as a social and educational centre. The Gourock Ropework Compant make a series of alterations to the fabric of the site to help improve and increase production.
These include the extension of Mill 2 and the dismantling of its pitched roof as well as the addition of the Engine House to the side of the Institute to house the HP Petrie Steam Engine. The School for Children is given over to net production and pupils are relocated to a new Board of Education School at the top of the hill.
Villagers petition the Gourock Ropework company for land on which to build a church. An area of hillside opposite Mantilla Row is allocated and the foundation stone of the church is laid by The Hon. The New Lanark Housing Association is formed to restore and refurbish the millworkers' tenements. The interiors of Caithness Row are altered and renovated by architects Ian G. Lindsay and Partners. New Lanark Trust is a Registered Scottish Charity SC which was established in with the aim of restoring and regenerating the former cotton mill village of New Lanark as a living and Metal Extractions take over industrial area for scrap business, School roof collapses.
A working group is set up to consider the future of New Lanark Village. Complete demolition is one consideration. First Civic Trust award for housing restoration at Nursey Buildings and shops.
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