Activities
Activities |
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Introduction There are many stages that cotton goes through before cloth is
finally made.
In the Yard Works buildings were set aside for each of these stages.
The text is structured in three parts. Brief introduction to process,
image and description of the process with reference to that image. Each
section relates to the cotton process diagram. Click on each of the stages
of the diagram to reveal a detailed description of that process.
Teacher
Notes for the activities.
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| Cotton is imported |
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Cotton is soft white fibre produced by a plant. The cotton plant was grown on large plantations in America, India and Egypt. When the cotton was ready it was harvested, sieved and packed on the plantations. It was then transported to Britain. The cotton was then bought by cotton spinners and cotton manufacturers like Horrockses to make yarn and cloth. |
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When the cotton arrived at the Yard Works it was wrapped tightly in bales. The cotton bales needed to be opened and mixed.
The
picture shows a man at the Yard Works opening the bales and feeding
the cotton into the machine. Notice how he has several bales open
at once.
Why do you think he does this? |
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When the raw cotton had been mixed it was still quite stiff and contained some sand, seeds and leaves. These were separated from the softer cotton wool using two processes called scutching and willowing.
Crewdson and Company, Preston. The man in the picture is operating a scutching machine. The cotton is placed on a wire frame in the machine and beaten with parallel blades. This process opens the fibres of the cotton and separates the fine 'cotton wool' from the waste, which falls through the wire beneath. Willowing was a similar process done in a machine with a revolving drum, which used air to separate the fine cotton wool from the waste. The cotton wool then formed a sheet, which is rolled to produce what is known as a lap. The lap is shown in the picture being removed from the front of the machine. |
Carding machine made by Platt Brothers and Company Limited Oldham, dated 1893. Black and white print. Factory and photographer unknown. Once the scutching or willowing was finished the sheets of cotton wool needed to be made into long lengths of cotton called slivers. This process was called carding. Carding was originally done by hand using brushes (or cards) that had stiff wires instead of bristles. In the machine, the cotton lap is turned in a large revolving cylinder studded with stiff wires. The picture shows the cotton lap being fed in at one end of the carding machine. As the drum turns it straightens the cotton fibres. The cotton is then drawn together and passed through a funnel and some rollers to produce a sliver (or card end) of cotton, which is like a thick, loose knit rope. The slivers come out of the machine and are collected in tall cylinders. |
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This picture shows the cylinders containing the cotton slivers being fed through a machine called a draw frame. The draw frame pulls the sliver between rollers. Each roller pulls the cotton through faster than the one before it. This stretches the cotton and makes it thinner and thinner. Once this is done the cotton is twisted to make it stronger. Then the cotton is then wound onto a bobbin. |
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Crewdson and Company, Preston. The man in the picture is known as a mule spinner. He is operating a mule spinning machine. The spinning took place in a hot and humid room, which required light clothing. The floor was covered in machine oil and spinners worked barefoot. Three men worked a pair of mules. The machine moved back and forward pullling and twisting the cotton. This action stretched the cotton into thin threads called yarn. The finest yarn was the thinnest. It was also the most expensive as it took longer to make. Once the required yarn was made it was then wound onto a cop. The cops are shown in the picture running along the front of the machine. |
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This picture shows a woman operating a winding machine in Aqueduct Mill in Preston. The machine is winding the yarn from large bobbins onto cops. Once the Yarn has been wound onto the cops they are taken off the machine by the woman and stacked on top of the machine. Imagine how quickly she has to work to change the cops and keep the machine going. |
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The picture shows a warping machine in the Yard Works. The frame holds the number of cones needed for the number of warp threads in the cloth. The machine pulls the yarn from the cones and passes them over and under a set of cylinders so each thread is aligned horizontally onto a beam. The beam is shown at the front of the machine. Up to 500 warp yarns could be wound onto the beam. The beams were then taken off the machine and treated with starch. This was called sizing. Starch is a chemical solution, which was used to make the warp threads stronger during weaving. |
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The
last stage in preparing the warp threads for weaving was drawing
in. This was when the ends of the cotton yarn were threaded through
needles on the loom, which act as guides keeping the threads in
the right order. This was especially important if there was a pattern
to the cloth.
Black
and white print, produced by Elton's photographers for Horrockses, Drawing
in was originally done by hand using a reed hook. This picture
shows a machine in the Yard Works which mechanically threaded the
cotton yarn into the loom.
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This picture shows the power loom which was used in factories after 1830. The loom raised and lowered the warp threads so that the shuttle carrying the weft thread was batted back and forth through the warp threads. Weavers shown in the picture had to look after the looms and renew the yarn in the shuttles. Weavers were mostly women and young girls. A weaving shed was the most dangerous working enviroment in a cotton factory. The yarn sometimes broke sending the shuttles flying in any direction. How old do you think the girls are in the picture? Most of the children shown in this picture were probably half-timers. These were children who worked 6 and a half hours a day and went to school for up to 3 hours each day. Children between 8 and 14 worked in the Yard Works until the 1920's.
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| Finishing |
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A
lot of cotton cloth made in Preston was taken elsewhere to be finished.
Finishing processes included dyeing, bleaching and printing.
Some cotton goods were made by cotton manufacturers themselves.
Horrockses
finished some of the cloth they produced. This picture shows women
in the stitching room at the Yard Works. Here the women stitched
the hems of a variety of products like sheets and towels.
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| Despatch |
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This picture shows the warehouse at the Yard Works with stacks of Horrockses sheets ready for despatch. This warehouse was once the Old Yard Weaving Shed. Before the Second World War Horrockses used to distribute their products from a warehouse in Manchester. Look at the shipping crates and list the places where the cloth was destined to go?
This
picture shows men packing crates in the Export Packing Department
at the Yard Works. Horrockses cloth and the products that they made
from it were sold all over Britain and the world. The cloth was
used to make clothing like shirts and dresses. People used
to buy cloth and make up clothing themselves. Later factories began
to produce ready-made clothing.
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