lancashire roots moss 6.1 reformat

Lancashire Roots
When Richard Arkwright, an entrepreneur,
businessman and factory owner, built the first
steam textile mill in Manchester, cotton
manufacturing was transformed. The first steamdriven
textile machinery was not successful or
effective, but it laid the foundations for
machinery usage throughout the textile industry
and thus to mass production centres all over England. As the cotton-cradle of
England, Lancashire was particularly affected. Manchester and other Lancashire
towns became the most productive cotton textile centres in the world,
generating an astonishing 32% of global cotton production in 1871. From the
1850s, cotton mills were also opened in suburban parts of the cities and in the
neighbouring counties, called hinterlands or cottonpolis. There were more than
200 cottonpolises in England in the 19 th century. Manchester and other cities
thus became commercial centres, with banks, warehouses, and other services
which were at the disposal to the surrounding cotton towns. Manchester thus
made a shift from the biggest cotton centre to the biggest warehouse centre. The
magnificent Manchester buildings that were erected during the industrial
revolution retain their beauty even today and stand as a reminder of the great
industrial change which took place nearly 200 years ago.
The rapidly changing industrial landscape demanded new transport networks
to facilitate communication between distant areas. The Manchester-Liverpool
railway, opened in 1830, was the first railway to run exclusively on steam
power. It connected the Manchester and Liverpool cottonpolises to the cities,
recognised at the time as a true symbol of progress.
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