The Great Western Cotton Factory facts for kids
The Great Western Cotton Factory was a large factory in Barton Hill, Bristol. It opened in 1838. This factory spun cotton into thread and wove it into cloth. The cotton came all the way from America. It was shipped to the port of Liverpool and then brought by water to Bristol. This factory was special because it was the only cotton mill in the south west of England. Most other cotton factories were much further north, in places like Lancashire and Yorkshire.
Contents
How the Factory Started
The Barton Hill area of Bristol used to be a quiet countryside spot. But in the early 1800s, things changed. Workers dug the Bristol Feeder Canal. This canal brought new industries, like the Great Western Cotton Company, to the area. They wanted to use the water for transport.
Building the Business
The factory had strong connections with cotton mills in Manchester and Liverpool. Business people from the north teamed up with sixteen other investors from wealthy Bristol families. By 1864, the company became a limited company. This meant it was owned by many shareholders. Two directors were from Bristol, three from Manchester, one from Liverpool, and one from Eccleshall.
Expert workers, many of them women, came from northern England. They helped start production and operate the special machines. One person described them:
- Hundreds upon hundreds of women and girls, wearing red and white plaid shawls… Many were from the North. They seemed to be chatting happily in a language that was hard to understand.
Money for the Factory
A lot of the money for new businesses in Bristol during the 1800s came from profits from past business activities, including those connected to the Atlantic slave trade. Some money also came from payments given to slave owners after the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 made slavery illegal.
Robert Bright and George Gibbs, who were merchants involved in the slave trade, were original investors in the Great Western Cotton Company. Joseph Bell Clarke, a cotton maker from Manchester, also invested. Other Bristol merchants, bankers, and business people who invested included William Edward Acraman, Alfred John Acraman, Peter Maze, Richard Ricketts, Frederick Ricketts, Henry Bush Thomas Kington the younger, Charles Pinney, Robert Edward Case, Henry Bush, Philip William Skynner Miles, George Henry Ames, Peter Freeland Aiken, James George, Daniel Cave, and Joseph Cookson.
Some of these investors used money they received as compensation for the end of slavery to invest in the factory. For example, Henry Bush invested some of his £7,247 compensation (which would be worth a lot more today) from a plantation in Barbados into the Great Western Cotton Company.
Later in the 1800s, members of the Fry, Miles, and Harford banking families joined the factory's board of directors.
Worker Strikes
The late 1800s saw many strikes and threats of strikes from workers across Bristol. The Great Western Cotton Works had strikes in 1858, 1864, 1865, 1869, 1873, twice in 1875, 1878, 1879, 1882, 1884, 1889, and 1900. These strikes were almost always about workers wanting fair pay or pay increases that matched those in northern England.
Factory Closes
In 1925, the company had to close down. This happened after a difficult economic time called a recession. After that, the Western Viscose Silk Company used the building until 1929. In 1968, the factory building was torn down. Today, only parts of the weaving sheds remain in the Barton Hill Trading Estate on Cotton Mill Lane.
Factory Records
Records about the Great Western Cotton Factory are kept at Bristol Archives. You can find them under the references 13423/1-5 and 12142.
