This page introduces you to the socio-economic/cultural conditions of the workers during late 18th and early 19th centuries, concentrating on Galashiels, one of the two principal woollen producing towns in the Borders.
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Categories of Workers
Categories of Workers
There were several skills that were required to achieve a finished woollen product. The author Karen McKechnie refers to "....the skills of the Border spinners and weavers, the piecers and warpers, the dyers and finishers". Some workers were employed in factory concerns, while others spun wool from their spinning wheels at home. The same author also highlights the significance of the cottage industry element of turning wool into textiles when she states that ".... clattering looms could be heard from cottage to cottage".
Working Conditions
The cottage industry element of wool-textile production enabled spinners to take their spinning wheel and visit a friend, thus infusing work with social interaction. Those who worked from home could stop when they wished, but if there was work to be done, they would be working into the night. At the mills, even children, some as young as eight or nine, would, according to the author Karen McKechnie, "... work for upto eleven hours per day", while the men worked for just a few hours less.
Some workers were employed on a piece work basis, others were paid by the hour, and a few annually. But whichever form of payment they received it was only sufficient for living expenses. This meant that people had to work until their old age or until they were no longer able to do so.
Living Conditions
The peoples usual diet is an element of their living conditions. According to the author Karen McKechnie, the day began with porridge and milk and more often than not ended with the same, as it was the cheapest form of food available, though some could afford the bread from the town's bakery or meat from the butcher.
Clean water was essentially unavailable in Galashiels, and together with the absence of water-borne sanitation contributed to dysentery that would periodically affect the whole town and mild fevers were also common. The greatest cause of death, was however, the unremitting hard work compounded by the insufficient diet and these unhygenic living conditions. And ultimately the welfare of the family and society in Galshiels and other Border woollen tows was inextricably linked to the success (or failure) of the industry.
Relocation to Towns
Agricultural and woollen labour were initially the same, as farm workers saw spinning and weaving as their alternative skills, though eventually there was a more distinct seperation as the wool-textile industry took hold. The author Karen McKechnie comments that "here then in the Border counties existed a community of rural dwellers, pushing and hardworking, who by dint of changing circumstances began to exploit the growing commercial possibilities of crafts they had long practised in a minor way as an adjunct to an agricultural way of life". Thus moving to towns from their small farms or leased land and beginning in a small way the process of urbanisation.
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