The Social and Educational Reformation in New Lanark

New Lanark, the former cotton spinning village in the valley of the River Clyde near the old town of Lanark, is famous internationally because of its pioneering management, and social and educational experiments led by the publicist, Robert Owen. New Lanark is also an important industrial monument, because of its role as an early center of mass production using state-of-the-art technology at the time in 1785. It was built by David Dale, Owen's father-in-law, a resourceful textile entrepreneur and banker. One reason for the success of New Lanark in the early stages of Industrial Revolution was its geographic location. With the natural, cheap power of the Falls of Clyde to drive its spinning machinery, and a close connection with Glasgow, the industrial center of Scotland, New Lanark was established quickly by David Dale. Although much of the recorded history of New Lanark is about the era when the factory was under Robert Owen's management, from about 1800 to 1825, New Lanark existed and performed well as an extremely efficient textile mill for about 200 years since Dale's era! Therefore, it is interesting to examine its rather long history for a Scottish textile factory

and how it became a suitable laboratory for Owen's social reformation.

Dale's initiative in building the factory in New Lanark was probably driven by the innovative invention of Arkwright, the geographic previlege of the Falls of Clyde, and, most importantly, his commercial and financial connections to Glasgow. The site was laid over several landlords' properties in order to establish the 100-ft-subterranean-passage, into which water from the Falls was routed. Dale had to pay property taxes and an annual rent for using the Falls, but the payment was so little. The first mill was erected in 1786 with locally quarried stones. Few records about this mill were found because it was completely destroyed by fire in 1788, while the second mill was under construction. By the end of the same year, the second mill was completed and the replacement of the first mill was erected a year after. About 1794 there were four giant mills and housing accommodation for over 200 families. The dimensions of these mills were all slightly different; No. 1 and No. 2 were both 154-feet-long, 27-feet-wide, and 60-feet-tall; No. 3 was a little smaller while No. 4 was 156-feet-long, 33-feet-wide and 70-feet-tall. All mills shared the common aspects: "five-storey-building with an attic and a basement, and stairbays with Palladian or neo-classical windows" (Donnachie and Hewitt 54). The uniformity of the buildings probably was designed probably due to economical reason, not communal appearance. Other buildings were built in Dale's period, such as grocery shops, mechanics' shops, a manager's house, and Dale's summer residence. In general, all of New Lanark housing accommodations were built in Dale's period for pragmatic reason, except for the Nursery Buildings, which were erected in Owen's period to coordinate with his social reform. All buildings were built and decorated according to Scottish common style, with slight differences in construction materials, which were gathered locally.

Owen did only minor impacts on the existed architectures in New Lanark, because most of the contributions his made were about modernizing the factory machineries and the utilities of the accommodation of the existed buildings. However, in order to carry out the social and educational reforms, a series of nursery buildings were built according to his plans. Thus these buildings were distinctive in functionalities and structural designs, among the old buildings. A distinction between the nursery buildings and the old ones was the height of the spaces. The lecture rooms were 12-feet-tall while the common height of the old buildings were merely ten feet. The difference seems to be insignificant, however, the 12-feet-spaces enabled that Owen had freedom to provide visual aids, like maps and paintings to the children. Vast floor areas without obstructions of the columns were also created, since group assemblies and exercises were often carried out.

Some topics in this essay:
Donnachie Hewitt, Stream Dennis, Lancaster Quaker, Falls Clyde, James Dale's, Lanark Owen’s, View Society, Formation Character, Bentham Owen's, Top Mill, social educational, donnachie hewitt, social reformation, nursery buildings, buildings built, david dale, falls clyde, educational reformation, formed partnership, robert owen, nursery buildings built, social educational reforms, social educational experiments, power falls clyde, built dale's period,