This is a set of clips of cotton mill sounds and oral histories taken from the North West Sound Archive collections.

Sounds of the Lancashire Textile Industry

Did shuttles ever break free? Yes (laughing), I had an instance of that. One broke free and it caught me at the back of the neck. Luckily it were only a glancing blow. I'd to go into the office and I was ... everybody said, "oh they'll give you some brandy." They didn't. They gave me sal volatile, it was terrible. Sal volatile, oh it's a bitter tasting stuff, you know, it's to bring you round after a shock, horrible.

MISCEL/1206/20

A Shuttle Accident

... there was a tackler and he'd only one eye. Millie, Millie Moorhouse's brother, he's dead now, and I think he had his eye knocked out with a shuttle, and I think his son did too! He had a son - Harry Birtwell - who had it ... I don't mean Harry, Millie's brother, Harry's nephew, and I think he had an eye knocked out with something too... 

MISCEL/1206/19

Accidents in the Cotton Industry

... I worked for a man who was a weaver. He was a very good weaver and these people, these good weavers took the young people in and taught them to weave. I think they got paid for it but I'm not sure, and they undertook to have young people, they used to call them tenters, and they undertook to have these young people and to teach them weaving, and we did ... they did teach us. And first of all ... first morning I went in and they put all the looms on and they nearly drove me mad. "Clackety, clackety, clack" and it was awful. But he showed me what to do and he's ... I couldn't hear him though. He had to come and shout in me ear and gradually we learnt to lip read and make signs like a lot of weavers do, and he showed me first of all how to set the looms on. Having learnt that I had to learn how to stop... 

MISCEL/1206/18

Weavers' Lip-Reading

... the thing I remember most was being wakened up in the morning with the clatter of clogs on Robert Street pavement, all the mill workers. That was my alarm clock when I was at school and the great doors of the mill being opened and you could hear the roar of the machinery, you know, and the great steam engines starting, you know, and going full blast. It frightened us as children. We weren't allowed to go close to the doors really, I think the men were frightened of us getting in and doing, you know, getting into trouble. Only at night... 

MISCEL/1206/17

Waking Up In The Morning

...and then there was the knocker-ups. Well we had a bloke in our street, he lived at the bottom end of the street, now he was the knocker-up. You know what a knocker-up is? Well he had a big long pole, and he had wires fastened to it at the top and he used to go round to these houses and he used to rattle on the window with these wires, you know, until he got an answer and then he used to go and do that. Well he'd only get about tuppence a week for doing that, you know. Who paid him? Well the people who lived in the house, you see he used to go round on a Friday night and collect his money you see... 

MISCEL/1206/16

The Knocker-Up

Sound recording of Lancashire looms, the workhorse of the Lancashire textile industry: (a) Multiple looms in weaving shed, at Grane Manufacturing Company, Haslingden; and (b) a single Lancashire loom recorded at Helmshore Textile Museum. 

MISCEL/1206/15

Lancashire Looms

Sound recording of the fly shuttle, invented by John Kay c.1738, which is driven across the loom by the blow of a picker. Recorded at Wilks Mill, Bury. 

Reference number: MISCEL/1206/14

Kay's Flying Shuttle

Recording of Crompton's Spinning Mule

Sound recording of a) spinning jenny, and b) improved spinning jenny, a machine invented by James Hargreaves c.1764, which allows a number of ends of cotton fibres to be spun simultaneously. Recorded at Helmshore Textile Museum. 

MISCEL/1206/12

Spinning Jenny

Sound recording of a roving frame, a machine which reduces slubbing to a finer thread - or roving - making it more regular and even, puts more twist in and winds it onto a smaller tube. From this machine, the material goes to the spinning frame. Recorded at Helmshore Textile Museum.

MISCEL/1206/11


Roving Frame

Sound recording of an Arkwright draw frame, a machine which draws several slivers taken from the card or comber and attenuates (stretches) them to the dimensions of one, blending the slivers together and eliminating irregularities, recorded at Helmshore Textile Museum.

MISCEL/1206/10



Arkwright Draw Frame

Sound recording of an Arkwright carding engine, which ranges the fibres of the opened cotton and removes bits of unripe seeds, neps and other impurities including very short fibres and lint and delivers the cotton in the form of a sliver into cans, recorded at Helmshore Textile Museum. 

MISCEL/1206/9

Arkwright Carding Engine

Sound recording of a condenser, a machine which breaks carded laps into strips and works the strips into card thick yarns, recorded at Helmshore Textile Museum. 

MISCEL/1206/8

Condenser

Sound recording of a breaker carding engine, recorded at Helmshore Textile Museum. 

MISCEL/1206/7

Breaker Card

Sound recording of a breaker, a machine used to break down the hardness of bast fibres.

MISCEL/1206/6


Breaker

Sound recording of hand carding, the separation and alignment of the fibres of raw cotton using tow pads with sharp evenly spaced protruding spikes. Recorded at Helmshore Mill Textile Museum.

MISCEL/1206/5


Hand Carding

Sound recording of line shafting, a system of transferring mechanical power from a steam engine via shafts and pulleys to looms in the weaving shed. From the Grane Manufacturing Company, Haslingden. 

MISCEL/1206/4

Line Shafting

Sound recording of a mill engine starting up and running. The mill engine recorded in this case belonged to the Grane Manufacturing Company, Haslingden.

MISCEL/1206/3



Mill Engine

Mill Hooter

Depicting the sounds of a mill town in the early morning - mill hooters, clogs on cobbles, horses' hooves etc. 

MISCEL/1206/1


Street Sounds

The Greater Manchester Sound Archive is available at Manchester Central Library. The collection includes hundreds of oral histories, radio and music recordings.

You can check the catalogue at http://gmlives.org.uk. If you can't find what you're looking for in the catalogue please email us on archiveslocalstudies@manchester.gov.uk.

Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH) is an ambitious partnership project led by the British Library and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to address the threat facing the UK’s sound heritage. Sounds held on physical formats risk being lost as the carriers degrade over time and the equipment to play them is no longer produced. The project aims to transform access to and preserve the nation’s sound heritage, to create sustainable centres of excellence in digital audio preservation and to involve new audiences in engaging with their audio heritage in innovative ways.

Archives+ at Manchester Central Library is the hub partner for the North West region, which covers Cumbria, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The hub will digitise around 15,000 recordings on 5,000 cassette and open reels held all over the region. The British Library will archive the digital files and provide access to a proportion of them online. The project will recruit volunteers across the region who will spend time learning how to sort, catalogue and promote the region's sound heritage.

We recognise that from time to time material published online may be in breach of copyright laws, contain sensitive personal data, or include content that may be regarded as obscene or defamatory.  If you are concerned that you have found material on our Soundcloud for which you have not given permission, contravenes privacy laws, is obscene or defamatory, or in terms of copyright law is not covered by a limitation or exception, please contact us at archiveslocalstudies@manchester.gov.uk.