Robert Owen’s Experiment at New Lanark: From Paternalism to Socialism

180 Pages·2017·3.693 MB·English

by  Ophélie Siméon (auth.)

ROBERT OWEN’S
EXPERIMENT AT
NEW LANARK
from paternalism
to socialism
OPHÉLIE SIMÉON
palgrave studies in utopianism
Palgrave Studies in Utopianism
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Royal Holloway, University of London
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Ophélie Siméon
Robert Owen’s
Experiment at New
Lanark
From Paternalism to Socialism
Ophélie Siméon
Sorbonne Nouvelle University
Paris, France
Palgrave Studies in Utopianism
ISBN 978-3-319-64226-0 ISBN 978-3-319-64227-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64227-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017949214
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
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A
cknowledgements
Many people have helped and advised me at various stages of this
research. I owe a great debt to Professor Neil Davie, who acted as my
supervisor then, and whose steadfast inspiration, kindness and insightful
editorial guidance later helped me complete this study.
Special thanks go to my colleagues Yann Béliard, Fabrice Bensimon
and Sarah Pickard, who carefully read through various drafts of this
work. Their constructive comments on both the form and content of this
book have been invaluable.
Many thanks to Christian Auer, Samir Boumediene, Christian Civardi,
Catherine Crimp, Ian Donnachie, Bill and Rosie Findlay, Lilas Fréchet,
Joanna Innes, Michel Lallement, Marc Lenormand, Thomas Le Roux
and Françoise Poulet for their advice and encouragement in the forma-
tive stages of my research.
David Cranstoun, Raphaël Gans, Alan E. Laurie and Nicholas Young
helped me locate rare archival and scholarly materials. This study has
greatly benefited from their insights into the lives of New Lanark’s
inhabitants. I am greatly indebted to the staff of the New Lanark Trust,
especially former directors Jim Arnold and Lorna Davidson.
I am also grateful to Gregory Claeys who commissioned this project,
and who has shown constant support of my research. Many thanks to
Carmel Kennedy and Emily Russell, who have been tremendous editors,
and to Hemapriya Eswanth, who supervised the production stage of this
book.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Lastly, my warmest thanks go to my friends and family, and especially
to my husband Cyril, to whom I dedicate this work.
Ophélie Siméon
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
2 Beginnings 13
3 The “Preparatory Phase”, 1800–1816 45
4 Towards the “New Moral World”, 1816–1825 87
5 Visions of New Lanark 109
6 Rethinking New Lanark: The Model and The Myth 141
Select Bibliography 167
Index 169
vii
l f
ist of igures
Fig. 1.1 Portrait of Robert Owen, circa 1830 3
Fig. 2.1 British Cotton Mill Villages, 1771–1825 25
Fig. 2.2 New Lanark: Mill no. 3 and Mill Canal 27
Fig. 2.3 H ugh William Williams, portrait of David Dale.
Oil on canvas, circa 1800 30
Fig. 2.4 New Lanark: Workers’ Tenements, circa 1790 33
Fig. 3.1 P lan of River Clyde and Mills at New Lanark, 1809.
By John Bell, surveyor 52
Fig. 3.2 N ew Lanark Ticket for Wages, circa 1815,
Robert Owen & Co 58
Fig. 3.3 Map of Mills and Village at New Lanark, 1863 77
Fig. 4.1 A View and Plan of the Agricultural and Manufacturing
Villages of Unity and Mutual Co-operation, 1818 93
Fig. 5.1 New Lanark, General View, circa 1818 111
Fig. 5.2 G eorge Hunt. Mr. Owen’s Institution, New Lanark
(Quadrille Dancing), 1825. Aquatint Engraving 113
Fig. 6.1 B anknote of the National Equitable Labour Exchange,
Birmingham, 1833 147
Fig. 6.2 Robert Owen, circa 1840 149
ix
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
On 1 January 1816, Robert Owen, managing partner of the New Lanark
spinning mills, gathered his workers and their families to inaugurate
an educational and cultural centre, the Institute for the Formation of
Character (IFC).1 Amenities included new nursery and primary schools
for the children of the factory village, an assembly room, a library and
a non-denominational chapel. The aim was to improve significantly the
conditions of the working classes through life-long instruction and the
promotion of harmonious community feeling.
The IFC’s grand opening marked the culmination of a sixteen-year
social experiment. Owen had acquired the New Lanark Company in
1799 from his father-in-law, Scottish entrepreneur David Dale. The lat-
ter had founded the concern in 1785 on the River Clyde, twenty-five
miles south-east of Glasgow, as a joint venture with renowned inven-
tor and cotton master Richard Arkwright. From the onset, New Lanark
had gained a reputation as an enlightened factory, following Dale’s
desire to “unite the things which […] have been thought impossible
to go on together, the prosperity of the works and the health, morals,
[…] of the people” (Dale 1795, quoted in Currie 1831, 132). Owen
pursued a similar ethos, albeit with increasingly universal aims. From
the early 1800s onwards, the village was used to test his deterministic
intuition that the careful engineering of the labouring classes’ material,
moral and intellectual environment would provide a valuable answer to
the social and economic upheavals of the new industrial age. Bestowed
with superior amenities, New Lanark was evidence that workers’
© The Author(s) 2017 1
O. Siméon, Robert Owen’s Experiment at New Lanark, Palgrave
Studies in Utopianism, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64227-7_1