Piccadilly Mill, also known as Bank Top Mill or Drinkwater's Mill, owned by Peter Drinkwater, was the first

cotton mill A cotton mill is a building that houses spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system. Although some were driven ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

, England, to be directly powered by a

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...

, and the 10th such mill in the world. Construction of the four-storey mill on Auburn Street started in 1789 and its 8 hp

Boulton and Watt Boulton & Watt was an early British engineering and manufacturing firm in the business of designing and making marine and stationary steam engines. Founded in the English West Midlands around Birmingham in 1775 as a partnership between the Engl ...

engine was installed and working by 1 May 1790. Initially the engine drove only the preparatory equipment and spinning was done manually. The millwright was Thomas Lowe, who had worked for William Fairbairn and helped with the planning of two of

Richard Arkwright Sir Richard Arkwright (23 December 1732 – 3 August 1792) was an English inventor and a leading entrepreneur during the early Industrial Revolution. He is credited as the driving force behind the development of the spinning frame, known as ...

's earliest factories. During the early 1790s the mill employed around 500 workers.

Robert Owen Robert Owen (; 14 May 1771 – 17 November 1858) was a Welsh textile manufacturer, philanthropist, political philosopher and social reformer, and a founder of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement, co-operative movement. He strove to ...

was employed as the manager in 1792.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Coord, 53.4787, -2.2333, display=title Textile mills in Manchester Cotton mills in Greater Manchester Former textile mills in the United Kingdom 1790 establishments in England