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Born on 14-5-1771 Died 17-11-1858
Robert Owen was born on the 14th of May 1771 at Newtown in Wales.
He started his working life at the age of 10 years, when his father sent him to work in a large drapers in Lincolnshire, after he had worked there for three years, he moved to London, again working in a drapers. At the age of 16 years, Robert moved to Manchester whilst working he heard about the success Richard Arkwright, and at the age of 19 years Robert Owen started manufacturing spinning mules, Robert was in partnership with a John Jones who was an engineer. Robert established a reputation as a manufacturer of fine yarn, selling as far afield as London and Scotland. Sadly the business only lasted a short time, and in 1792 when Robert was 21 years old, he started work as a manager of a large spinning factory, this was Bank Top Mill in Manchester owned by Peter Drinkwater, he worked well here and went on to oversee another of Drinkwater's mills located at Northwich in Cheshire. During his time at the mills, Robert became highly successful as a production and personnel manager, with a reputation for efficiency and innovation. During his time working at these mills he met lots of businessmen, one of these was a David Dale, who owned the Chorlton Twist Company, which was in New Lanark, Scotland. It was now 1795 and Robert started working for this company based at New Lanark, which was owned by David Dale, The mills employed about 1,500 workers, many of them women and children. Robert Owen became close friends with David Dale and in 1799 Robert married Caroline, who was David Dales daughter.
As time went on, Owen managed to get enough financial backing to be able to buy the four factories at New Lanark that David Dale owned, the cost was £60,000.
The Chorlton Twist Company rapidly expanded, and yet he was not only interested in making money, as he had ideas of creating a brand new type of community at New Lanark. Owen used to say that people were naturally good, but they were corrupted by the harsh way in which they were treated, such as many receiving physical punishment in both schools and when working in the factories. With this in mind he banned any physical punishment at the New Lanark mills and schools.
New Lanark had a large number of houses which were built close to the mills, yet there was no school, so Owen ordered that a school be built alongside these houses and mills where over 2,000 people lived and worked. Owen called this new school building the Institute for the Formation of Character, which contained schools, public halls, community rooms, and a nursery school. As he thought that education was very important in developing the type of person that he wanted. He also stopped any child under the age of ten from working in the mills, as well as reducing there hours to a maximum of 10 hours a day. When Owen took over the mills at New Lanark, there were children as young as five working up to 13 hours a day in the mills. After the school was built, he made sure that the young children went to the nursery and infant school. The older children who were working in the mills, also had to attend the school to receive education for part of the day.
Robert hoped that other factory owners would follow suit on these idea's regarding the young children, and to help in getting the word around, Robert Owen wrote books, which included - A New View Of Society, which he wrote in 1814. Owen pushed for laws limiting child labour and reducing the working day, but he was unsuccessful for the most part.
This Picture shows The New Lanark Community
Then in 1816, Robert Owen met Sir Robert Peel at the House of Commons and put forward his idea's on factory reform. Owen also stated to Peel that seventeen years ago, a number of individuals, with myself, purchased the New Lanark establishment from Mr. Dale. I found that there were 500 children, who had been taken from poor-houses, chiefly in Edinburgh, and those children were generally from the age of five and six, to seven to eight. The hours at that time were thirteen. Although these children were well fed their limbs were very generally deformed, their growth was stunted, and although one of the best schoolmasters was engaged to instruct these children regularly every night, in general they made very slow progress, even in learning the common alphabet. I came to the conclusion that the children were injured by being taken into the mills at this early age, and employed for so many hours; therefore, as soon as I had it in my power, I adopted regulations to put an end to a system which appeared to me to be so injurious.
Robert Owen also gave speeches around Britain on this subject and also of his experiments at New Lanark, the lack of response disappointed Owen. It was now 1825, and he decided to try and establish a similar type of community in America. He managed to purchase an area in Indiana, this cost him £30,000, he then established a community there and called it New Harmony, Robert placed one of his sons in charge of this new venture.
Roberts children had all moved to the New Harmony community in America, but Robert had decided to stay in England, helping many reform groups.
The new venture at New Harmony did not work out for Owen, and on the 26th May 1827 Owen pulled out of New Harmony, although he did revisit in 1828 and 1844. In 1828 Owen also sold his share of the New Lanark Textile Mills and Community.
Roberts wife died in 1831, after which time he became active in the trade union movement in England and continued to expound his views at every opportunity. Regarding the unions, he proposed that they should unite, and it was in 1834 that the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union was formed. There were many strikes, and the employers staged lock-outs, these actions weakened the unions financially. Robert Owen tried to get some co operation between the unions and the employers, yet the employees demanded to fight for their rights. The union finally collapsed in 1834, this brought down many of the small co operative shops. Robert was disheartened that this could mark the end to the mass labour movement which had grown around him.
Yet this was not quite the case, as the Rochdale Pioneers in Lancashire started a co operative movement, and this was the seed that grew into the modern Co-Operative movement.
Robert Owen remained active all his life, and was even giving speeches up until a few days before his death. although he was by now a very weak man. It was on the 17th of November 1858, that he died in Newtown, Wales, his birthplace.
He was a great man, and during his life, he organised infants schools. He secured the reduction of the hours of labour for women and children in factories.
Here are a few Links that I am sure you will find of interest.
http://www.newlanark.org/index2.shtml
Welcome to the website for New Lanark World Heritage Site, a beautifully restored 18th century cotton mill village in Southern Scotland, close to the Falls of Clyde and around an hour from Edinburgh and Glasgow.
On this website you will find details of our award-winning Visitor Centre & Hotel in the village, which is one of Scotland's top attractions, welcoming over 400,000 visitors every year from all over the world.
http://www.aboutscotland.co.uk/water/clydenl.html
The Falls of the Clyde, New Lanark Mills
http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/kade/newharmony/home.html
Historic New Harmony, Indiana.
New Harmony is the site of two of America's great utopian communities.
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