<p>Cotton was Britain's largest industry for more than a century and its principal source of wealth during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. This book tells the story of the cotton industry from its spectacular growth during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to its devasting decline in the twentieth century. The impact of the British cotton trade was enormous. Goods mass-produced in busy factories undercut all competition, and the industry became the first to make the whole world its market. Cotton inaugurated a new way of life for the thousands who flocked to the mill towns of Lancashire, and there the world's first industrial society produced a remarkably wide range of social, religious and political movements. The development of the processes used to transform raw cotton into finished goods is also well illustrated.</p>

The Cotton Industry (Shire Library)

History

Aspin, Chris

Europe

Shire

Most places in Britain have had some connection with the woollen industry. For several hundred years, it was Britain's principal source of wealth and provided more jobs than all the other industries put together. The country's fortunes were largely dependent on the wool trade. The English language has been enriched by many phrases derived from the trade - 'dyed in the wool', 'spinning a yarn', 'on tenterhooks' - and many thousands of people owe their surnames to ancestors who were websters, weavers, fullers, tuckers, walkers, listers and so on. This book traces the history of wool in Britain from Prehistoric times to the present day and uses many previously unpublished illustrations to illuminate its story.

Woollen Industry (Shire Album 81)

Arts & Photography

Fashion

Shire Publications Ltd.

Surprising Rossendale

Helmshore Local History Society

<p>Haslingden's motto, 'Nothing without labour', is clearly demonstrated in this selection of old and new photographs of the high Pennine town and Helmshore, its picturesque village neighbour in the valley below. Both places were among the sturdy offspring of the Industrial Revolution, which transformed a thinly-populated corner of Lancashire into a thriving manufacturing district, famous for its woollen and cotton goods. This book records the coming and going of the mills, which once dominated the skyline; the switch from railway to motorway; and the changes of the last half century, which have made both Haslingden and Helmshore popular residential areas for people working in Manchester and other large towns. The municipal and spiritual life of the district along with sports and pastimes also feature.</p>

Haslingden and Helmshore Through Time

SIMPSON, John

Photography & Video

Amberley Publishing

Lancashire truly was the first industrial society. Chris Aspin's hugely influential book tells the human side of the story - what effects did the Industrial Revolution have on an essentially rural society? What were conditions really like? What was life like in Lancashire during the tumultuous years of the Industrial Revolution? Using a great deal of previously unpublished material, the author describes the technological and social changes which followed the great eighteenth-century inventions in the cotton trade and portrays a society coping with problems that no other had ever known. The century saw the triumph of steam power and the transformation of a little-known corner of England into the manufacturing centre of the world. It saw, too, the introduction of the factory system, which brought some men un-dreamed of fortunes and degraded thousands more into abject wretchedness. But though life for the great army of industrial workers seemed at times little more than `eating, drinking, sleeping and dying', hope never died and a resolute determination to sweep away harsh and often barbarous living and working conditions gave birth to a whole range of reforming forces. The Cooperative and teetotal movements began in Lancashire; church life powerfully influenced the masses; and Chartism, besides drawing attention to a disjointed society, provided a training for scores of future trade unionists and working-class politicians. No less interesting is the story of middle-class reformers who built model mills, founded the Anti-Corn-Law League, promoted mechanics' institutes and campaigned for a better social system. The sports and pastimes of the age provide an entertaining section of the book. There are chapters on such varied topics as ballooning, wagering, music, cheap trips, seaside holidays, pleasure gardens and games.

The first industrial society: Lancashire, 1750-1850

Carnegie Publishing Ltd

Albert, the Lion and the Monkey

Royd Press

The Golden Valley: When Rossendale led the world

Palatine Books

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