Persons Working in Cotton Factories around Manchester 1818-19

This dataset (356 KB) provides information on 8225 persons working in 21 cotton factories near Manchester, as well as in two factories in York. Rosters for each factory are printed in the House of Lords Papers, vol. 96 (1818) and vol. 110 (1819). Factory inspectors compiled the rosters in April, 1818, except for the rosters for the Stockport factories (fn 11-16 in table below), which were compiled in March 1819. The dataset consists of comment delimited records for each worker, with text fields enclosed in quotes.

The data has been compiled in electronic form by Douglas Galbi, who used it in several papers on the development of the early factory workforce in England. These papers provide summary statistics from this dataset, other relevant data, and discussion of issues relating to the early factory workforce. See

Galbi, Douglas A., "Child labor and the division of labor in the early English cotton mills," Journal of Population Economics, vol. 10, No. 4 (1997) pp. 357-75.

Galbi, Douglas A., "Economic Change and Sex Discrimination in the Early English Cotton Factories," draft (.pdf file), March, 1994.

Galbi, Douglas A., "Through Eyes in the Storm: Aspects of the Personal History of Women Workers in the Industrial Revolution." Social History vol. 21, no. 2 (1996) pp. 142-59.

The dataset also provides given names that have been used in a study of personalization and effective communication.

Factories Included in the Dataset
fn	Location	Identifier/Owner/Manager	# of workers
11	Stockport	Carr factory of Robert Garside and others	265
12	Stockport	Samuel Grimshaw and others	70
13	Stockport	William Ratcliffe and others	105
14	Stockport	John Lamb and others	112
15	Stockport	T. Garside	123
16	Stockport	Appellis Howard	148
181	Manchester	James Kennedy, Pickford St. Mill	191
182	Manchester	James Kennedy, Great Ancoats St. Mill	328
19	Manchester	Appleton, Ogden, and Son	325
122	Ashton-under-Line	James Heginbottom and Co.	101
1231	Slaithwaite, York	Scholes, Varley, and Co., Waterside Mill	88
1232	Marsden, York	Scholes, Varley, and Co., Holme Mill	65
21	Hulme	John Pooley Jr. and Co.	404
22	Ancoats, Manchester	Jonathan Pollard	467
23	Manchester	Adam and George Murray	1023
24	Manchester	Peter Appleton and Co.	272
25	Manchester	John and Richard Simpson	267
26	Manchester	Benjamin and William Sandford	139
27	Manchester	Thomas Houldsworth	778
28	Manchester	Birly and Hornby, Chorlton Mills	1024
29	Manchester	Peter Ewart and Co.	288
210	Manchester	Ancoats Twist Co.	504
216	Manchester	M’Connell and Kennedy	1126

Field definitions for worker record:

fn: factory number. See table above.

rn: roster position. Indicates the order of worker in the roster.

sex-r: original sex coding (0=male, 1=female, 3=unknown)

gname-r: listed given name

lname: last name

sex: GINAP, version 1, standardized sex.

gname: GINAP, version 1 standardized name

age: age of worker in years

ex: number of years persons has worked in factories

sick: number of days lost from sickness in the past year