Unusual discovery in Perth

May 7 2010 Special feature by Kaye Finlay, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

AN unusual discovery, made during renovations on a house in Perth, has provided a remarkable insight into the pioneers of the Industrial Revolution.

Almost everything we take for granted like mass-produced TVs, clothes, shoes, computers and cookers is thanks to these people.

I’m not talking about famous names like James Watt, the Scottish engineer whose improvements to the steam engine made it the driving force of factories, ships and railways, I mean the likes of Janet Cock, an ordinary woman, who seems to have been among Scotland’s first factory hands.

She and her colleagues were the doers and makers in a local cotton mill – probably Stanley Mills in Perthshire – whose labours transformed the world.

Janet’s is one of many names mentioned in a wages book, dated 1787, found by Phillippa Lowe while doing-up an early 19th century house in Perth, which was closely linked with Stanley’s founders.

With it was another ledger, slightly later, marked “No. 9 Spinning”, clearly linking it to the textiles industry.

The earliest cotton spinning unit at Stanley, the Bell Mill, which is now the heart of our visitor centre, only began operating around this time.

It was an early Scottish example of Sir Richard Arkwright’s factory system. More research is needed to confirm where the books are from.

Stanley or not, they return us to the dawn of Perthshire’s industrial cotton production.

Looking through the wages book one fact that leaps out is that women were paid much less than men. Janet Kennedy was typical, earning 6½d, while Alan McDonald got 1s 6½d.

So who were these people and where were they from? Again, we hope to find out more with future research. But we do know that John Murray, Duke of Atholl, used Stanley Mills to resettle small tenant farmers he wanted to clear from his agricultural lands.

They would be given somewhere at Stanley to build a house and grow vegetables. This, he said, would mean children were no longer a burden to parents but could earn money in the mills.

While we still like all the family to be involved at the mills, the emphasis is now on fun.

On Saturday, May 16, we will again be hosting the annual Festival of the River. There will be a waterwheel challenge for families to race against time to build their own working water wheel, pond dipping with the rangers and craft activities led by artist Hannah Ayre, all of which is free.

There will be 20 per cent off entry to the mills, and visitors will have their own chance to meet a character from the past – Colonel Frank Stewart Sandeman who owned the mills in the 1880s.

A word of warning, the colonel was in favour of child labour and might be on the lookout for young recruits.

l Stanley Mills is 7.4 miles north of Perth off the A9. Call 01738 828268 or see www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/index.htm.