Description
Preston was no ordinary town during the nineteenth century. While king cotton reigned supreme throughout Lancashire, the underlying ills associated with this industry were highlighted starkly there. Child labour, appallingly long hours and pitifully low wages, as well as the constant risk of suffering horrific accidents in the cotton mills, all fostered a deep sense of hostility among the operatives towards the employers. The fast-growing working-class districts of Preston witnessed overcrowded and insanitary housing, disease, poverty and awful wretchedness. Against this backdrop the nascent trade unions and political and social reformers began to challenge the unbridled mastery of the millowners. Trade disputes, confrontations, lockouts, strikes and tragic episodes of violence were the inevitable consequence of this lethal mix of hardship and employer intransigence, and dominated affairs in the town for many years.
- Author: J.S. Leigh
- Binding: paperback
- ISBN: 978-1-874181-45-3
- Pages: 112
- Illustrations: around 40 photographs and maps
- Date of Publication: March 2008
- Dimensions: 234 × 156 mm
Review in Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire –
Leigh’s long chronology and focus on a single town gives this book enduring value … an excellent, painstakingly researched local history. Leigh brings to life the stories of working people who strove for something better and does indeed do justice to the thousands of millworkers “whose memories were never written down”.