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The mill

63 replies

Davros · 28/07/2013 14:46

Starting tonight on C4. I wonder if it will be suitable for 10yo DD? They've "done" the Victorians at school so she might find it interesting. But the RT does say its a bit grim and the foreman regularly indecently assaults the women and girls! It is on at 8pm though.

OP posts:
ImNotBloody14 · 29/07/2013 18:42

Guinea do you mean the children that worked there were much younger than the ages portrayed in the programme?

guineapiglet · 29/07/2013 19:02

Yes, they all looked like teenagers and presumably as one lass was pregnant at least had reached puberty, but a lot of the kids who worked there were so much younger than that:( remember when the lad told the royal commission inspector that he was 9 when he started there...samuel greg looked petrified...

ImNotBloody14 · 29/07/2013 19:22

Yes that's right he did. Im very ignorant of what the laws regarding children were back then but was there a minimum age they were supposed to work at?

I saw in the trailer for next week a very girl being told she was unfit for work.

ImNotBloody14 · 29/07/2013 19:22

Yes that's right he did. Im very ignorant of what the laws regarding children were back then but was there a minimum age they were supposed to work at?

I saw in the trailer for next week a very girl being told she was unfit for work.

ImNotBloody14 · 29/07/2013 19:24

Sorry for xpost

ImNotBloody14 · 29/07/2013 19:24

Doh! I mean double post

guineapiglet · 29/07/2013 19:38

There was a factory law passed in 1833 which is about the time the Mill is set, which you saw the crowd shouting for, which was trying to restrict the hours worked by children of all ages to just 10 hours a day (!) - but it was later revised so that 9 -14 would work 8 hours, and those up to 18 would work 12 hours, plus the act tried to force employers to give some of the day up to some form of education. Some life eh?

Where we lived in Cheshire there were four mills, the history was amazing, but there are photos of children as young as 5 going up there with their siblings. We don't know we are born really do we. I find it all really interesting history, you can see where the have and have not histories came from - the contrast between the life of the Gregs, who were actually quite benevolent and the normal workers. Good to think some progress has been made over the past 150 years!

ImNotBloody14 · 29/07/2013 19:40

We really dont know we are born at all. I have always been thankful of being born when i was and not any earlier.

The thought if my dcs having to work in those mills just breaks my heart.

PolkadotsAndMoonbeams · 29/07/2013 20:39

I'm pretty sure they only took older children (compared to other mills).

They had to be able to reach over the top of their head and touch their other earlobe, which you can't do until you're 9ish. Younger than that and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't take them.

DameEdnasBridesmaid · 31/07/2013 22:38

I live in a northern Pennines town, we are surrounded by old textile mills. My grandparents worked in the mills (a bit later than this though!)

Can you imagine any of us having to work in those conditions now? Or even live in those conditions.

susiedaisy · 06/08/2013 10:23

Just watched the second episode and thought it was better so will stick with it.

Ellenora5 · 06/08/2013 19:59

I'm still not sure whether not I like it, will watch next week though. It's a bit dark and dreary.

guineapiglet · 07/08/2013 18:47

Hi - am still watching and enjoying The Mill, it is slowly getting better, although, yes, it is dark and grim to watch at times. But it is such an amazing period of history, such massive social change that it is really compelling stuff, but like I said before, might have been better scheduled for the dark winter nights! The sheer hypocrisy of the Gregs, who were well thought of as being benevolent employers compared to many, and their stance on Anti Slavery, when turning a blind eye in many ways, to the conditions of their own workers... or at least being convinced that their workers had better treatment and should be glad of it. Its what always amazes me about the Victorians, such amazing progress on so many fronts, but such cruelty as well. Still, without the Industrial Revolution there would have been no Empire etc etc, talk about you reap what you sow.......

guineapiglet · 07/08/2013 18:48

... and it is always the 'haves' who do well at the expense of the 'have nots' - no change there then.

ShadeofViolet · 08/08/2013 10:57

The problem with the 1833 Factory Act is that it did not provide any real way of checking that it was being adhered to. A handful of inspectors were employed for over 4000 mills.

Oblomov · 08/08/2013 17:58

Am finding it nearly as depressing as 'The Village', which I had to give up on, because it was so bl**dy depressing, and nothing happened. And I don't mind bleak, or slow drama. But the village was, pitiful in that sense. And I think this is similar.

cheerfulweatherforthewedding · 08/08/2013 21:27

I'm not sure I like it. It's not as grim as The Village, but it's almost like a soap opera, somehow.

Raahh · 11/08/2013 20:04

It's funny watching today- we were at QBM again on Thursday, because it's only round the corner, we go quite often. Is funny to see things like the apprentice house on film. Was busy though- and there was a news crew there as well, so it's helped with the tourists.

OctopusPete8 · 11/08/2013 20:21

What did the big matron like woman mean when she said ,

'You do the crime, I do the suffering, wheres the justice?'

ImNotBloody14 · 11/08/2013 20:29

she meant the girl had done the running away but the matron was the one having to fetch her up her meals up all those stairs= extra work for her but the girl, although in solitary confinement, was not having to do her work.

expatinscotland · 11/08/2013 20:41

The Suzanna love story is such shit. Yeah, great looking guy would really have courted a woman pregnant out of wedlock.

Ellenora5 · 11/08/2013 20:45

I've given up now, it's far too dreary for me, I know it all happened and I usually love programmes similar to this, but after The Village and now this, I'm not sure I want to see anymore. I was thinking that myself expat, I suppose it might, anyway once I saw the haircutting I turned it off.

OctopusPete8 · 11/08/2013 20:47

Oh right yeah should thought, tuned in a few minutes in.

she died didn't she,

She's pretty though isn't she? expat.

Can't believe they cut off her hair. Sad

expatinscotland · 11/08/2013 20:58

It's still bullshit. She would have been shunned entirely and given the child up. NO chance a good looking foreman would have stepped in and married her pregnant and probably wouldn't have been given permission to do so.

OctopusPete8 · 11/08/2013 22:03

the married bit after a few days was far fetched.