Cottoning on to safety

Cotton mill interior

I come from a mill town - Blackburn in Lancashire.

My forebears worked in the local cotton mills so, likely if I had been born earlier, I would have, too.

This week we are studying some of the technology and innovation from the Industrial Revolution and this got me to thinking what my life expectancy would have been, had I been born in these bygone years.

Deafness was a real issue for workers incarcerated in these factories and sign language was a necessity in this hellish noise.

Covered in cotton dust

Children, often relegated to sorting the raw cotton bales, were exposed constantly to the suffocating dust and early onset of  pneumoconiosis, caused by the cotton settling on their lungs.

Cotton and wool made the north of England prosperous and a few mill owners seriously wealthy, but it took far too long before safer working practices were introduced to protect workers from easily preventable environmental dangers.

Makes earning my daily crust look like a walk in the park.