Arkwright of Cromford

A major player in the formation of the English Sewing Cotton Company was Sir Richard Arkwright and Company. Arkwright, being the grandaddy of mechanised cotton processing, had to be acknowledged in this combine. 

The early history of the Preston born Sir Richard was covered alongside that of Jedadiah Strutt earlier on this blog. The two worked together in Derbyshire, opening the mills along the Derwent Valley. In 1780 their partnership was amicably dissolved and Arkwright took the mills at Cromford and Matlock Bath (Masson) as his share. He continued working apace and by 1789 he had added mills at Wirksworth, Chorley and New Lanark. Arkwright died in 1792, but his son stepped into his shoes and filled them admirably. When the ESCC was formed in 1897, it remained a family concern and was famous for producing crochet and sewing cotton.

The mill at Cromford had closed around 1840 due to problems with the water supply, but Masson Mills around the corner at Matlock Bath was to remain a major part of the ESCC. Employing over 500 people it produced cotton and rayon doubling for the weaving, knitting and braiding trades. Until 1928, the power for the looms came via a waterwheel in the rapid River Derwent. It closed in 1991.

Waterwheel at Cromford Mill

Living in north Derbyshire the mills at Cromford and Matlock Bath are my locals and I have visited often. Both are open to the public and have museums attached. Despite Cromford Mills being a cradle of all I hold dear, I'm not a fan of the place - I prefer to walk along the Cromford Canal. I find the mill yard bleak and foreboding. Masson Mills was a shopping outlet until Covid finished that period of its history off. I liked it in there a little better and I think that the building itself is easier on the eye, brighter somehow.  However, a friend of a friend used to work there...and I hear that the haunting is terrible....



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