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10
Catrine Mills

The building of the cotton mills at Catrine by Claud Alexander, Esq. of Ballochmyle, and David Dale, Esq., merchant in Glasgow, wrought a great change in the appearance of the western extremity of the parish of Sorn. Instead of green fields on the banks of the river, with one or two thatched cottages, a model village sprang up, with wide streets and substantial two-storey dwelling-houses. The mill itself was a large building, built of red sandstone, pinned with whin, five storeys in height, with sky-lights in the tall, pointed roof, and a handsome flight of steps leading up to its principal entrance. It is there to this day, strong and virile as ever, a very hive of industry, with a record behind it of a hundred and ten years of honourable work within its walls, and it is now a centre of commercial influence, which finds its limits only with civilisation. Besides the principal, or twist mill, a jeanie-house was added in 1790, built on a line with the main street. This jeanie-house or spinning-mill received its rather curious name from the fact that at first, when spinning weft by machinery was introduced, it was found difficult to get away from the idea of spinning by women. The first machines were called spinning-jennies or spinning-jeanies, which simply meant that they were substitutes for spinsters or spinning women. The jeanie-house is used to this day as part of the mill, but now called the mule-house, a name which receives its derivation from the machinery in use- a hybrid between the throstle and spinning jenny. The old knocker of the jeanie-house can still be seen- a cast iron, miniature representation of a lion, and beneath it the inscription on a brass plate, "Alexander and Dale's jeanie-house." Old people still call the mule-mill by its former name.

In 1801 the cotton works and all in connection with them were purchased by James Finlay and Company of Glasgow. The whole of the machinery was bought with the mills, the staff of the employees was retained and the workmen's houses were taken over. Weaving of cotton was continued and trade grew enormously in the hands of the new Company. In 1824 an extensive bleach-work was added, not on the old-fashioned system of bleaching in the open, but bleaching by chemicals, which permitted the whole process to be carried on within doors; and not only the cotton cloth manufactured in the village was successfully bleached at the Catrine works, but that manufactured at the other mills in Perthshire belonging to the same Company. Fifty years ago it was estimated that from fifteen to twenty-five thousand yards a day were bleached and finished at Catrine.

The great water wheels for supplying the motive power of the cotton mills were built in 1827. They were considered a marvel at the time and people thronged from far and near to, see them. They were the largest in Britain and possibly in the world. Even yet they are eclipsed in Britain in size only by the Laxey wheel in the Isle of Man, which is a few feet more in diameter; but as there are two wheels at Catrine, they are really a greater feat in mechanics than that of Laxey. The great wheel at Earl's Court Exhibition can hardly be regarded in the same connection, as it is used merely for amusement, while the Catrine water wheels have been in working order and in constant use for seventy years. The first wheel was much smaller, and of wood, and was broken up when the new wheels were built, but reappeared in various shapes and forms, principally as snuff-boxes, from Mauchline box-work. On the lids of the snuff-boxes made from the old wheel, were the following facetious lines written by a clerk in the cotton mill:-

A visit to the cotton mills is most interesting, but almost bewildering from the amount of complicated machinery seen in motion. When one has passed through the mill the wonder becomes to the uninitiated that, after all its many processes, cotton cloth can be sold at the cheap price it obtains. All the various stages can be seen, from the bales of cotton clamped with flexible iron bands covered with sack-cloth, as they are taken from the ships at Liverpool, to the finished cotton cloth with its high gloss, cut into lengths and carefully packed for shipment to North or South America or elsewhere. Let us glance at the various processes. After unpacking the tightly compressed bales, it is noted to what class the cotton belongs. Cotton is judged by its colour, its by cleanliness, and by the length of fibre or staple; the longer the staple the more valuable, as long fibre makes stronger strands of thread or yarn. Some cotton is much cleaner than others, part of the seed pods being left in great profusion in some bales, which is the cotton picker's fault. Others again have a proportion of sand mixed with them, inadvertently or otherwise. The first process is called scutching, probably from the fact that at one time the cotton was beaten or scutched with long rods by hand. The scutching machine opens the fibres, and by an exhaust arrangement the particles are sent flying against a perforated cylinder, and the seed pods and sand fall through a grating. We next see the cotton in the form of a lap or great round bale. It has been scutched or opened and cleaned and passed through another machine and is now rolled in layers round an iron rod, and called a lap. It is classified according to its different qualities- extra, good-middling, middling, waste, and low America. Then comes the mixing of the different qualities according to the different kinds of yarn wanted, and the cotton again emerges in the form of a lap. The laps are all of the same length and weight. The next process is carding, for which there is a most intricate and beautiful machine. In this process the final cleaning of the cotton is carried out. It is separated, thin as a spider's web, all the fibres are loosened and the web of cotton is gathered into a narrow ribbon, and it then drops into a tall cylindrical can, a compressed strand of perhaps an inch in width. Then comes the drawing machine, where six strands are carried over four rollers, those in front moving six times as quick as those behind, where the strands are led in. This gives the final straightening to the staple, and eliminates the slightest lumpiness or knots. Then comes the slubbing frame. In the slubbing frame the sliver is drawn to the utmost extent which it can attain without damage to the strength, and as it emerges from the drawing roller is given a twist, as the thread has become too attenuated to be handled without twist. It is thereafter still further reduced in size in the roving frames.

Then follows the spinning of the thread by self-acting mules, the most beautiful and wonderfully complicated machinery. Girls look after the spinning. The machine draws out the thread to the requisite fineness, twists it, and winds it upon a spindle. Should any thread break the girl is at hand to mend it, which she does with the utmost delicacy of touch, as the machine works. So delicate is this work that only girls who have learned the trade from their school days can work at it. When this machine is seen with its many hundreds of spindles all in process of filling at once, it is a matter of surprise to think of the old-fashioned spinning wheel, with its one spindle being used with such good effect by the women folks of other days, that often the whole of the household clothing and napery were spun by it.

The yarn is next steamed to prevent it being curled in the weaving. It is packed into a malleable iron chest and steamed under pressure. The yarn is numbered and marked as follows :- No 16 means 16 hanks in the pound, and each hank contains 840 yards. The number of hanks in the pound determines the quality of fineness of the thread.

The various stages of manufacture thus described are connected with the production of the weft or woof of the cloth; identical processes are required for the making of the warp, up to the roving frame, but instead of the mule, the machine known as the throstle frame (invented by the great Arkwright) is employed. It is of two sorts, the fly throstle and the ring throstle (the latter an American invention). In that machine the yarn is spun direct from the rollers to the spool, and as the warp yarn is subject to greater strain than the weft, more twist is required, and in addition warp yarn is invariably of superior quality. From the throstle bobbin, the yarn in the winding room is transferred to large spools, and these are placed in the bank of the warping frame and run on to a beam, each carrying from 500 to 600 separate ends. The beams are transferred to the dressing machine, where the yarn is passed through troughs of size- or dressing-the superfluous size squeezed out and the yarn dried on a huge steam cylinder and again wound upon a beam. The next process is heddling or drawing the threads into the heddle. It is performed by girls, one in front and one behind. The girl sitting behind places the thread in position, and the girl in front, by a clever manipulation, draws it through the heddle with a needle. Then comes the reeding, when the threads are drawn through the reeds, ready for the weaver. The many threads are wound evenly round a large roller, or reel, ready for weaving. On one end of each reel is marked the number of threads, length, name and width of fabric to be woven, weight of yarn and number of warping machine.

The weaving shed is a scene of great animation. There are 450 looms in it, driven by overhead shafts. The shed is divided into five sections or rooms, for convenience of reference, and each loom in a line has a given number, beginning with 100. Thus, in one line from east to west the looms may all belong to the number of 300, and the lines of looms from north to south have all the same lateral number- as 317, 417 517. A tenter has charge of each of the five sections or rooms in the weaving shed. It is a bright, pretty scene; the moving looms, the polished machinery, the pure light, which falls from above, the bright-faced girls busy about their work. But the din and clatter are deafening. The wonder is that all these girls retain their sense of hearing. One girl, in some cases, attends to as many as four looms. Cloth is woven from 30 to 108 inches in width. After the cloth is woven it is examined carefully to see if there are any defects in it or stains of oil, and marked as to where it was examined, number of loom, date, weight of cloth and examiner's initials. Then it is folded by machinery and taken into the wareroom or cloth receiving room.

One might be tempted to think that after all those processes, the tortured cotton had reached the end of its sufferings, and would forthwith he launched upon the world to benefit and bless it. But its day of tribulation is not yet over. From the weaving-mill the cotton is taking to the bleachwork, and there is passed through many different processes. First of all there is the singeing, which is a fearsome looking thing. Many miles of the cloth sewn together are passed over a red-hot cylinder, to singe off any roughness on its surface, and then dipped into a trough of water to extinguish any possible sparks. Then it is boiled in great pots or vats, preparatory to bleaching. These pots are 10 feet in depth. Then it is placed in a bath of chemicals called technically the chemic, and from that into the sour. Then the cloth is thoroughly rinsed and washed, squeezed, examined, blued, and dried. The cloth is then damped by machinery- a kind of circular brush arrangement- and beetled. The damping and beetling give the calico a beautiful gloss. The beetle is a series of wooden mallets which beats upon the cloth as it revolves round a cylinder. It is not unlike the mechanism of a carillon, but the result is very different. The beetles come down with a terrific noise. It is impossible to hear anyone speak in this department, shout as he may. The workers wear cotton in their ears for protection. Curiously enough, people who are almost deaf hear in the din of this room better than almost anywhere. This can be explained only by the vibration of the air striking so constantly upon the insensitive drum of the ear and rousing it to action. The cloth is then calendered and doubled and taken to the lapping department, where it is examined, assorted, and cut into lengths to suit its various destinations, and finally taken to another department and packed. An interesting room is that in which the finished sheets are hemmed ready for use. Pillow-cases are also made in the sewing-room. It is a bright, pretty place, well lighted, with flowers in the windows, and the familiar whirr of the sewing-machines striking upon the ear. The bleachwork and the manager's house are lighted by electricity. A water-wheel of moderate size and several engines supply the motive power of the works.

The precautions against fire in the cotton mill are upon the Grinnel sprinkler system. A tank at the top of a high tower supplies the water through overhead pipes to every room of the establishment. When the room reaches the temperature of 150 degrees it melts the solder at the mouth of the pipe. The water spouts out at a great pressure through a rose to a radius of ten feet, and also sets a bell ringing outside. In large rooms a sprinkler is placed for each ten feet of space. There has never been a disastrous fire in the mill, although only a short time ago there was a small fire, which might have spread indefinitely, had it not been promptly extinguished by the action of the sprinkler. Besides the employees proper of the mill and bleachwork, each of those places has a staff of engineers, joiners, blacksmiths, moulders, masons, tinsmiths, painters, and packing-case makers.

The head office of the firm of James Finlay & Co. is in Glasgow, and it is one of the three or four firms appearing in the first and latest Post Office Directories of that city. Conspicuous ability has all along been characteristic of its members, from Kirkman Finlay- the founder-who was Lord Provost of Glasgow, and later, one of its Members in the Imperial Parliament. He was one of the great cotton lords of the West of Scotland and his monument fittingly stands near the Royal Infirmary. Sir John Muir, Bart., of Deanston, is the present head, and he too has been Lord Provost of Glasgow. One of the partners- A. M. Brown, Esq., of Gryffe Castle, Renfrewshire, gifted the sum of three thousand pounds to the village for the erection of a much needed Institute. A Public Library has been a feature of the village life for three-quarters of a century, and for fifty years James Finlay & Co. have housed, heated and lighted it for the nominal sum of five shillings yearly. There is also a capital Public Hall in the village, built by the trustees of the late John Wilson, baker, Catrine, who by his will left money for the purpose, and the poor are greatly helped by invested funds from the said John Wilson's estate, and from that of the late Elizabeth Murray, merchant, Catrine.

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