The bell rang, echoing through the cobbled streets in the village of Domford, announcing the start of the day at Arkwright’s Textiles Mill. Light streaked the early morning sky, as ten-year-old Martha shook her younger sister awake.
“Come on, Alice, hurry up. It’s time for work. We mustn’t be late, or Mr Arkwright will stop our wages.”
Alice sat up on her straw bed on the stone floor, rubbing her eyes and yawning. She had barely been able to sleep, worrying about her first day at the cotton mill. Until now, she had worked as a bird scarer in the local fields, earning a few left-over vegetables. Now, she was seven, she was deemed old enough to do proper work. The family needed all the earnings they could get.
Alice knew her three brothers would be finishing a night shift at the mill now, blinking in the morning light and stretching their fingers after spinning all night in the gloomy conditions. As daylight speckled the sky, they would stumble home to eat their breakfast of watery porridge and bread before snatching a few hours of sleep. They’d spend the afternoon tending to the pig, the chickens and the crops in the garden. With any luck, there might be an egg or two to share. They would eat their beans and barley broth, prepared by Martha the night before, then wash it down with a pint of small beer before returning to the mill.
As the local girls stumbled out of Arkwright’s Mill at sunset each evening, after their own thirteen-hour shift, the men and boys would troop in to begin work, working by candlelight or gas lamps throughout the night. Keeping the mill running day and night meant that Mr Arkwright could make double the money of other mill owners in the country.
Alice wondered if her father had remembered it was her first day at the mill. He had been driven out of his work at the local coal mine: the water level had risen, destroying the shafts and the old village industry. He was too old to be useful to the new mill owner, Mr Arkwright, so he had taken work several miles away at another mine. He only walked back home on Sundays to see the children, and make sure they attended Church, and Sunday School for the younger children, as their mother would have wished.
Their mother had died of Smallpox the year before, along with the youngest infant in the family, Billy, and it was only natural for Martha to take on the role of housewife. At ten years old, she was responsible for keeping house for them all, in the small cottage owned by Mr Arkwright.
Martha and Alice pulled on their woollen shifts and coarse linen pinafores, taking it in turns to tie each other’s apron ribbons in a firm bow. Martha kept up a running commentary as the girls dressed. “Now, make sure you do exactly what you’re told, Alice. Don’t you go disgracing us!”
“I won’t, honest,” Alice promised, crossing her heart with fervour.
Martha cut off a slice of bread for them both, which they slathered in dripping before eagerly consuming.
Martha continued her lecture. “We need the extra pennies you can earn, so make sure you work hard. Mr Arkwright will have something to say about it if you don’t, and so will I.”
Alice was more terrified of Martha’s ill opinion than the unknown Mr Arkwright, but nodded solemnly. “I’ll be a good girl, Martha, I will.”
Martha smiled and stroked Alice’s hair into place before putting a cloth cap over the blonde curls, tying it expertly just below her chin so Alice could still breathe in and out. The girls grabbed their woollen shawls and hurried out of the cottage, joining a long trail of other women and children heading off for work at Arkwright’s Mill.
Alice waved to her brothers as they trudged past, but only Thomas, the thirteen-year-old and Alice’s favourite, managed a weary smile in return. Matthew, John and Harry just kept their eyes on the cobbled street, trying not to trip over.
The girls lined up at the Mill door, with hundreds of other waiting women, girls, and boys up to about the age of eleven. At last, the doors opened and they began to stream in.
“Now, follow me, and mind you do as you’re told!” Martha shouted, projecting her voice above the thunderous whirr of the water wheels and clattering machinery.
Alice grabbed the back of Martha’s pinafore, clinging on with determined, if scrawny, fingers. “I’m scared, Martha. I don’t want to go in there.”
Martha whipped round, her small face burning fiercely within the woollen shawl. “Don’t you dare play me up, Alice! If Mr Arkwright catches you slacking, he’ll have your hind, and I’ll let him!”
Alice lurched forward, as if she could already feel Mr Arkwright’s cane across her small bottom. Her huge eyes gazed at the huge room before her, where women and children were already busy at the noisy looms and spinning machines. Wool and cotton fibres filled the air, as if it were snowing, and the sound of hacking coughs filled Alice’s ears. Wooden wheels spun and the sound of water rushed around Alice’s ears, making her feel like she was about to drown.
The younger children in the room were busy replacing empty thread spools with full ones, reaching up to put them back on high spikes. Some children sat on the floor, rethreading needles or shuttles, passing them back to a few elderly women. Alice wondered if they were going blind, like old Mrs Jenson next door, who had disappeared to the workhouse when her eyes stopped working.
Alice felt something nudging her ankle and looked down to see a small boy, even smaller than herself, lying under a loom. He was gathering old threads and fluff as the machinery thrashed above him.
Martha grabbed Alice’s elbow, marching her over towards a tall man wearing a top hat and waistcoat, at the far end of the room.
“Mr Arkwright?” Alice breathed, trembling as he gazed down at her with a cold sneer.
“I’m the foreman, Mr Spikes,” he shouted, his voice booming above the machinery. He gazed at her from her cap down to her bare toes, frowning. “You’re very small.”
Alice could not think how to reply to this obvious statement, so she kept silent.
“Is she a simpleton?” Mr Spikes frowned, turning to Martha.
“No, Sir,” Martha replied. She pinched Alice’s elbow. “This is Alice, my sister. She’s just shy, that’s all. She’ll be a hard worker, you’ll see.”
“Mmm. We will see. Mr Arkwright can’t spare money for simpletons. We’ll call today her apprenticeship. No wages while she learns the ways of the mill.”
Martha nodded, stepping on Alice’s toes to stop her from making any reply.
Mr Spikes pointed to the floor under the nearest loom. “She can start there as a mule scavenger. And remember, if I’m displeased, then Mr Arkwright will know of it too.”
“Of course, Mr Spikes. Thank you, Mr Spikes,” Martha said.
Alice looked at her in amazement. Since when had Martha been so obedient?
As soon as the man had walked away, Martha sighed and gave Alice a frustrated push. “You great ninny,” she said. “No wages today for you. What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t thinking of anything!” Alice said, her lip trembling.
“Don’t start your mithering. Right, listen to me. Your job is to crawl under the machines to collect the fluff and material. Gather it in a pile at the side there.” Martha pushed Alice forward and then grabbed her hand in hers. “Keep your cap on, it will stop your hair getting caught, and Alice…” Martha paused.
“Yes?”
“Mind your fingers under there. Last week, a girl lost four of hers, all from not paying attention. Mr Arkwright was ever so cross because they had to stop the machine.”
“Lost her fingers?” Alice squeaked, instantly balling hers into a fist. She wondered why Mr Arkwright had been so cross. In Alice’s mind, the girl had more of a right to be cross than him. She shook her head in confusion as the thunderous banging machines echoed in her ears. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to like this work at all.
***
That Sunday, comforted by her father’s close embrace, she chattered on about all the friends she’d made under the machinery, and the pennies she had earned.
“We’re not allowed to talk, because Mr Arkwright doesn’t like us talking on his time,” she explained solemnly.
“You can’t hear a word in there anyway.” Matthew, the eldest of the children at seventeen, scowled. “You know we’ll all go deaf in that mill, don’t you?”
“Hold your tongue, Matthew,” Father said. “You’ll frighten the bairn. Go on Alice, what were you saying?”
“Mr Arkwright told Mr Spikes to give me some pennies after all. I must have done my job properly.”
“Course you did,” Father smiled. “I’m proud of you, lass.”
“I want to save up for one of those hats, like Mrs Arkwright has. I saw her wearing a big one in Church this morning.”
“Save up?” Harry spluttered. “Alice, you’re moonstruck!”
Martha shook her head, laughing ruefully. “Silly goose; your pennies will help pay the rent and buy food for the family, same as the rest of us,” she scolded.
Matthew drank his beer and poked the fire moodily. “We work all week and our wages go straight back to old Arkwright,” he grumbled. “He even pays us in his own coinage now.”
“What’s that you’re saying now, our Matthew?” Father asked, his head raised, as if ready for battle.
“It’s true,” Harry inserted. “Mr Arkwright pays us with his own coins now, with his mark stamped on them. We can only spend the coins in his shops.”
Father stared into the fire, while all the children waited for his response. When he turned back to them, his tired face sagged like an old man’s, although in truth, he had only just turned forty.
“Now, you listen to me. We’re lucky we’ve got Mr Arkwright to look after this village. What would happen to us without that mill, without this cottage to live in? We should be grateful to Mr Arkwright, and that’s an end to it.”
Matthew subsided onto the wooden bench, frowning down at his empty beer bottle. Martha, Thomas, John and Harry were satisfied, as ever, with their father’s decisions.
Alice smiled. She believed her father whole-heartedly. Mr Arkwright looked after the whole village, and would look after her too, if she continued to work hard at the mill.