Now something new was happening in the North at the end of the 18th century and it was attracting the interest of the rest of the country as well as from further afield.
These visitors marvelled at the new technology, shuddered at the awful conditions and to use that much used phrase confidently proclaimed they had seen the future and it worked.
Their observations have been collected, repackaged and represented in numerous books about the period but there are still plenty who have lain forgotten.
So here is the first of a series representing the experiences of the less familiar starting with an unknown tourist from Worcestershire who made his way across the North West in 1792.
On the way he encountered bad food, dangerous roads, dubious resting places but also the wonders of that new technology.
“Friday morning went to Ashton-under-Lyne to see Mills & Machine for Carding & Spinning of Cotton; which is very curious & Surprising to see The Spinning Mules & Jennys, as they call ‘em, Spin 144 threads at once, & will spin one Pound of Cotton to so fine a thread that it will reach – according to Calculation -168,000 Yards or 95 miles &½.
Then its weav’d into Aprons, Handkerchiefs, & c.
Likewise saw the Iron works where they Cast Iron Rolls & Cylinders & Bore thro ; an Iron Pipe, the same as we Bore a Pump.
It goes by Water, & the Wheels as Large as our Mill wheels-all Cast Iron Except the Water wheel. They likewise turn Large Iron work in a Lathe, the same as our Carpenters turn a Piece of Wood.
Very wet this Afternoon.”
Picture; Ashton-Under-Lyne, from the Map of the inland navigation canals and rail roads with the situations of the various mineral productions throughout Great Britain from actual surveys projected on the basis of the trigonometrical survey made by the order of the honourable the Board of Ordnance, John Walker, Richard Nicholson and Joseph Priestley, 1830, and detail of the town centre from the OS map for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives. Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/
*A Tourist’s Diary, Countryman sees the Sights, Mills Quays, and Prisons, from ‘A Journey to Manchester and Liverpool from Broadway’ 1792, published in the Manchester Guardian, July 16. 1936
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| Just 40 years after our tourist visited Ashton |
Their observations have been collected, repackaged and represented in numerous books about the period but there are still plenty who have lain forgotten.
So here is the first of a series representing the experiences of the less familiar starting with an unknown tourist from Worcestershire who made his way across the North West in 1792.
 |
| And by 1853 this was the centre of Ashton |
“Friday morning went to Ashton-under-Lyne to see Mills & Machine for Carding & Spinning of Cotton; which is very curious & Surprising to see The Spinning Mules & Jennys, as they call ‘em, Spin 144 threads at once, & will spin one Pound of Cotton to so fine a thread that it will reach – according to Calculation -168,000 Yards or 95 miles &½.
Then its weav’d into Aprons, Handkerchiefs, & c.
Likewise saw the Iron works where they Cast Iron Rolls & Cylinders & Bore thro ; an Iron Pipe, the same as we Bore a Pump.
It goes by Water, & the Wheels as Large as our Mill wheels-all Cast Iron Except the Water wheel. They likewise turn Large Iron work in a Lathe, the same as our Carpenters turn a Piece of Wood.
Very wet this Afternoon.”
Picture; Ashton-Under-Lyne, from the Map of the inland navigation canals and rail roads with the situations of the various mineral productions throughout Great Britain from actual surveys projected on the basis of the trigonometrical survey made by the order of the honourable the Board of Ordnance, John Walker, Richard Nicholson and Joseph Priestley, 1830, and detail of the town centre from the OS map for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives. Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/
*A Tourist’s Diary, Countryman sees the Sights, Mills Quays, and Prisons, from ‘A Journey to Manchester and Liverpool from Broadway’ 1792, published in the Manchester Guardian, July 16. 1936
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