Diary of a group of Manchester cotton magnates on a business trip to the United States, checking out the competition in Lowell, Massachusetts, and getting into a fist fight in New York City during a business dinner. This compelling diary charts a six week trip from Liverpool, England to Halifax, Nova Scotia, the group’s trip across cholera-ravaged Canada and into New England where the four Manchester industrialists (including two member of the immensely wealthy Philips family, Robert Needham Philips and Edward Philips) met with American industrial power-brokers such as Nathan Appleton (power loom pioneer in the US) and John Young (father of the Port of Montreal) in Canada.
What really distinguishes the narrative is the group’s detailed and highly serious comparative study of the textile manufacture in the US, with a determination to learn from Manchester’s competitors, notably during their stay in Lowell, Massachusetts. This diary is witness to the growing realisation in industrial England in the 1850s that north America was growing to be a major rival to British industrial supremacy.
Taking place just a year after their Manchester compatriot (and probable friend) Joseph Whitworth wrote his pioneering report on the New York Industrial Exhibition, the diary writer is fascinated by every aspect of manufacturing in New England. Guided in Lowell by ‘Mr Sade a partner of Abbot Lawrence’ he observes how ‘over here the Looms run very slowly, but as the older girls appear in some instances to manage 4 or 5 Looms each, it probable that the production from the individual is as great as in England’ He notes the construction of the weaving shed, ‘The rooms in the Mill were narrow - & the windows being open on each side, altho the day was very hot, yet the work rooms were moderate temperature’ and visits a lodging house: ‘for Women/ people/ girls provided by the proprietors… a number of persons Male & Female at Tea in the Common Eating room… Any deviation from morality punished by dismissal from the Mills.’ The quality of the fabrics is carefully examined ‘Blankets, Shawls, Table Cloths… Fitted Cloth for Top Coats & Warm trousers’ but the pattern of American industrial ownership causes equal fascination:
‘The splendid Establishments Lawrence & Lowell could never have risen at all except the Laws of the U. States had allowed the association of Capitalists without making each individual personally liable… The men imployed in Machine Shops, … have many of them invested their saving in these Establishments... It is a question worthy consideration whether similar facilities should not be given in England’.
The travellers crossed the Atlantic between Liverpool and Halifax Nova Scotia with the Cunard Line, being warned on landing by a ‘Landlord [who] wanted to persuade us not to go to St John on account of Cholera’, ignoring the advice they find ‘Out districts of St John not sewered - all the filth of a filthy people running over the surface towards the river… in hot weather fermentation goes on, and the stench is dreadful… an immense trade going on at St John in ship building - 50,000 tons of large shps will be launched there in 1854.’
From New Haven the group travelled by sidewheel steamboat (Eastern City’ - ‘Capt informed us that he guessed his Vessel “Rolled like an Egg” in rough weather’) to Maine (very drunken!), south to Lawrence and on to New York City where they stayed at the St Nicholas Hotel: ‘Quite a Palace - Marble Halls of great size - our rooms about five stories up’ though the writer worried about security as ‘all the loungers in Broadway seem to drop in for a drink at its celebrated Bar [which] must be done away with before it can become a safe or comfortable residence for peaceable men - particularly Englishmen’. A business dinner with cotton brokers ends with Edward Philips struck in the face, before the group took a steamboat up the Hudson to Albany - ‘large Hotels, large steam Boats, large Stores, large Grog shops’ - and on to Montreal where ‘English taste and capital judiciously applied might make a Paradise of this place’ and Quebec where they spent a long time watching and reporting on a debate in the House of Representatives where the diary breaks off.
DESCRIPTION:
Small maroon roan bound notebook with gilt panel and spine lines (10x16cm), marbled endpapers. The narrative begins on the first leaf and extends over 105 pages, c8000 words. c25 pages terminal blanks. Written n a mixture of brown ink and pencil, spanning August 5th 1854-September 12 1854, breaking off en route to Quebec. The four members of the travelling group are named as R N Phillips (Robert Needham Philips’) Edward Philips and A Ing(?) with the diary writer not giving his name though this would certainly be discoverable with additional research.
