Building the Industrial Revolution. Industrial architecture of the East Midlands. A film for European Architectural Heritage Year - ACE050.2

Animation illustrates the four elements of the factory system: "a robust building, a central source of power, automated production machinery, and a disciplined labour force". Spinning cotton thread by hand; early spinning wheels. Demands of a growing population required a faster method. A "spinning Jenny", invented by James Hargreaves, which enabled sixteen spindles to be handled simultaneously. Improvements in machinery, the "spinning frame" devised by Richard Arkwright, enabled unskilled workers to operate it. Arkwright joined with Jedediah Strutt, in Nottingham, and their business expanded to the point where they set up a water-powered mass production system at Cromford, Derbyshire. Water mill wheels. Engraving of the Lombe brothers’ silk mill at Derby, prototype of many mill buildings; engraving of mechanical functions. Long narrow factory room designed to accommodate large machines and provide ample natural light. Arkwright’s mill at Cromford. Advertisement for jobs there. Carding machine. Engraving of women working on such equipment; a spinning frame, operated by children. Painting of the mill. North Street, part of the workers’ housing built by Arkwright at Cromford; other buildings there. Willersley Castle, Arkwright’s own house. Commentary talks about social improvements made by Arkwright, who fostered the image of workers as "a happy family, labouring for their benevolent employer". Houses, machinery, engravings; VO singing an eighteenth century tribute to Arkwright’s methods at "the cotton mills now at Cromford".