Cotton Spinning

All four of the Malhamdale mills were initially set up to spin cotton into yarn, though
the Malham mill seems to have a very short life and Scalegill only employed a few
workers by the latter half of the 19th centuy, as evidenced in the census. Airton and
Bell Busk mills were both very productive up until the start of the 20th century,
although the Bell Busk mill had turned to spinning silk thread at about the time of the
"Cotton Famine". The local mills were only engaged in spinning cotton into yarn, no
weaving of cloth ever took place in the Dale's mills.

Cotton
Cotton is a most versatile textile fibre and comes from the soft, fluffy fibre
surrounding the seeds of cotton plants. It is these fluffy fibres that help to distribute
the seeds in the wind, that can be drawn out and spun into thread. The genus the plants
belong to is native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the
Americas, Africa, India, and Pakistan and cotton had been known in Northern Europe
since the 14th century, being brought from the Middle East where it was cultivated.
Initially it was mixed either with linen or worsted yarn. By the end of the 16th
century, cotton was being cultivated throughout the warmer regions in Asia and the
Americas, but production used hand spinning and weaving techniques little changed
for centuries. By 1750 some pure cotton cloths were being produced in Britain, but the
Industrial Revolution during the late 18thC was in full swing and rapidly provided the
new tools required to mechanise production and provided Britain with a new and
important manufacturing industry, with cotton textiles soon emerging as a leading
export.
Cotton processing in India declined during British expansion in India during the late
18th and early 19th centuries, the Empire had a captive market and India was
increasingly forced to supply only the raw cotton to Britain and to purchase
manufactured textiles from Britain.
By the 1840s raw cotton came from plantations in the United States because it was
cheaper and stronger, with "King Cotton" quickly becoming the mainstay of the
southern American economy, with cultivating and harvesting cotton becoming the
leading occupation of slaves. During the American Civil War (1861-1865) the Union
blockaded the southern ports making the cotton buyers look to Egypt for supplies.
This is sometimes referred to as the Cotton Famine and many cotton mills closed
leaving people with no work. The lack of American cotton was only one of the causes
of the Cotton Famine, the mills also closed because too cloth much cloth was being
produced before the crisis. It was around this time that Charles Rickards bought Bell
Busk Mill turned it from spinning cotton to silk. Once the Civil War was over,

America again became the main source causing financial problems in Egypt.
The cotton bolls, once harvested from the plants are subjected to Ginning, a
mechanical process using a machine called a Saw Gin to separate the fibres from the
seeds and then the raw cotton is compressed and packed into bales weighing about
500lbs (200kg) at the plantations.

The Spinning Process

A spinning mill employs three main processes to convert these basic fibres into yarn
or thread, to further clean, straighten and align the fibres, and then finally bind them
together by twisting into a thread.
1. Opening and Cleaning
When the bales are opened at the mill, the batches of fibres from a number of similar
types of bale are mixed together. This blending serves to minimise any slight
variations between the bales; this commonly occurs with natural fibres such as cotton.
At this stage the cotton is still quite stiff and still contains some seeds, soil and leaves
which are removed by a combination of mechanical and pneumatic methods. The
process is referred to as Scutching and Willowing and was avery dusty operation. The
cotton is placed on a wire frame in the machine and beaten with parallel blades to
open the fibres of the cotton and help separate the cotton from the waste, which falls
through the wire. The cotton then goes through a revolving spiked drum and powerful
fan is used to separate the fine cotton wool from the waste, the result being a sheet of
fine cotton wool with few impurities left, called lap.

Carding machines.

2. Carding and Drawing

The Carding process is now used to remove as much as possible of the remaining

impurities and to align the cotton fibres ready for further processing. This is achieved
by using a carding drum, a small roller called a stripper takes the cotton from the
worker and feeds it into the carding drum where the fibres pass between the drum and
its cover, both of which are covered with sharp wire teeth. The resulting thin sheet of
fibres then pass through a funnel and rollers, becoming long, loose strands called
slivers or tows, which are collected in tall cylinders.
After carding the soft rope of tow needs to be stretched and thinned using the
processes of drawing and roving. This is done by drawing them between a series of
pairs of rollers, each pair running slightly faster than the one before. This stretches
and consolidates the cotton and makes it thinner and thinner. Once this is done the
cotton is twisted to make it stronger and the result, called Roving, is then wound onto
a bobbin or spindle.

Mule spinning machines.

3. Spinning
Spinning is used to turn the roving into yarn of varying thickness depending on its
final use. This took place on a Mule Spinning machine draws the cotton cord from
spindles between rollers of varying speeds, drawing it out and twisting it into an even
finer thread, before winding the finished yarn onto a bobbin.
Spinning took place in a hot and humid room, which required light clothing and 3
people would operate two machines. In an 1854 survey a worker reported "My work
was to put in the roving on a pair of mules containing 256 spindles. It required three
hands, a spinner, a fore side piecer and a back boy [doffer], to keep that pair of mules
in operation."
Other Processes
The cotton spinning mills also carried out other processes which included checking

the yarn for imperfections and winding it onto large cones sometimes called a
"cheese" if they were for warp threads, or smaller "cops" if they were for weaving
shuttles. Yarns could also be folded and twisted together to make a heavier, stronger
strand such as sewing threads and heavier industrial yarns.
If a mill was involved with a weaving shop, it might also undertake preparation of the
Warp threads, the ones that run the entire length of a piece of cotton cloth, for the
weaving shed. Warping is the process where a large number of warp yarns are wound
onto long rollers called beams, each warp thread an equal distance apart, ready for the
prepared beam to be transferred to the weaving loom.
Occupations
Listed here are the job titles you will encounter when looking at the census entries for
the workers in Malhamdale's cotton spinning mills, with a brief description of what
the job entailed.

Job Title

Beamer

Winds the warp threads onto large rollers

(beams) for loading onto power looms.

Blower
feeder

Feeds the fibres into a willowing machine.

Carder

Carding machine operator.

Cleaner

Operates scutching / willowing machines.

Cotton mixer

Mixes batches of fibres from a number of bales

to minimise variations.

Creeler /
Quiller

Replaces full bobbins with empty ones on a

spinning machine, a job done by children as
young as 8 years old in Malhamdale. (A creel is
the metal spindle or bobbin, otherwise known as
a Quill

Doffer

Unloads full bobbins from a spinning machine

[the same job as a creeler?].

Doubler

Operates a machine used to twist together

strands of cotton roving or sliver.

Drawer

Runs a machine in which several strands of

sliver are combined into one strand and drawn
out so that the combined strands approximate
the weight and size of any one of the original
strands.

Frame tenter Someone who looks after spinning frames.

Half-timer

A child who spent half the day at school and the

other half earning money in a mill. Typically
they would start work at 6am, work in the mill
until 1pm, then go to school until 4pm.

Jack frame
tenter

Operates a machine for lightly twisting the

roving as it leaves the carding machine.

Overlooker

A foreman or overseer.

Piecer

Mends broken threads during spinning.

Roller
Coverer

Recovers and refurbishes the rollers used in

spinning and drawing machines

Rover

Operates a machine used to prepared the carded

fibre lap into rolls of roving, which is the
loosely twisted strand of cotton fibres from the
time it leaves the slubber until it goes through
the spinning frames and becomes yarn.

Scutcher

Runs a machine to clean and separate the usable

cotton fibres from the woody seeds and leaves
in the raw cotton.

Operates a spinning machine. A self-acting

Self-actor
spinning mule could be operated by semi-skilled
minder /
mule spinner personnel.
Slubber

Removes the "slubs" or imperfections in the

roving.

Spinner

Operates spinning machine to make thread,

running one or more usually two spinning

machines facing each other, each with many
spindles.
Stripper

Someone employed to feed cotton into and

remove the rubbish from the carding machines.

Tenter

Someone who looked after something e.g. an

engine tenter looked after a steam engine.

Twister

Runs a machine for twisting yarns and threads

together to make thicker stronger yarn.

Warper

Someone who prepares the warp threads onto

large rollers called beams, ready to load onto the
looms.

Winder

Runs a machine which transfers the thread from

spinning bobbins and winds it onto cardboard
bobbins or cheeses forming a cones of thread.