SLATER RECOGNISED IN THE COUNTY HE BETRAYED
To the Americans he is a hero, to the British an industrial spy who betrayed his country.
Now Samuel Slater’s life is about to be commemorated in the place he called home for 21 years.
On Sunday, June 3, Derbyshire County Council will put up a Blue Plaque on his former home in Belper – the first in the second round of Blue Plaques organised by the authority to commemorate the county’s great and good.
Among the witnesses gathered round his former cottage on Chevin Road will be representatives from Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where Slater made his fortune and is recognised as the father of the American Industrial Revolution.
In Derbyshire he was dubbed Slater the Traitor after taking the secrets of Richard Arkwright’s new spinning machine to the USA.
Slater was nominated for a Blue Plaque by Rosemary Timms of Milford who was keen to see his life commemorated. Following a poll among residents, Slater was chosen, along with five others, to be honoured.
Mrs Timms, who will be among the special guests at the unveiling at 2.30pm by Derbyshire County Council leader and cabinet member for culture Councillor Andrew Lewer, said: “Slater’s story is one of enterprise and intrigue, linking Belper with America’s industrial heritage.
“I hope this blue plaque will help to enlighten future generations into the significance of his 18th century apprenticeship in Jedidiah Strutt’s Cotton Mill in Belper, and subsequently the development of the factory system in America and across the world.”
Samuel Slater was born in Belper in 1768 where he became an apprentice in Jedidiah Strutt’s cotton mill, learning how to operate Richard Arkwright’s new water frame which enabled cotton to be spun much more quickly.
With his expert knowledge of how the machinery worked and was made, he headed to the States where he set up a small mill in Pawtucket and made his fortune – despite a ban on people with this kind of information from going abroad.
Although he is not revered by everybody, Councillor Lewer said Slater was an important historical figure whose story deserved to be known.
“He may be considered infamous rather than famous, but Slater is a son of Derbyshire we should remember,” he said.
“Although at the time he defied the law, I think today we can acknowledge his entrepreneurship and while we might not like what he did, I hope we can come together to recognise his importance.”
The five other historical figures selected by the public in the second round of Derbyshire County Council’s Blue Plaques are: Gardener William Barron; engineer Henry Royce; manufacturer John Smedley; author Alison Uttley and engineer Joseph Whitworth.
Anyone who would like to attend the Samuel Slater Blue Plaque ceremony on Sunday, June 3, is welcome.
An exhibition of photographs from the filming of Samuel Slater – Hero or Traitor – a film made by in 2006 Rosemary Timms and local company Maypole Productions – will be on display.
Councillor Lewer and Dr Robert Billington, President of the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council, Pawtucket, will unveil the plaque at 2.30pm. Pawtucket has been twinned with Belper since 1994.
Councillor Lewer – speech for unveiling of Samuel Slater blue plaque
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the unveiling of this latest Derbyshire County Council blue plaque. We launched the scheme in 2010 to celebrate the county’s cultural and historical heritage. The Derbyshire public vote for their favourites to get a plaque. It is fair to say that those awarded a plaque last year can justly be described as famous; however, some would call today’s subject, Samuel Slater, infamous.
Across the Atlantic he is celebrated as “the Father of the American Industrial Revolution”, but in this area he has sometimes been nicknamed “Slater the Traitor”.
I am delighted that we are joined by some American admirers of Slater who will fight his corner! They are representatives of the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council. Blackstone Valley is in Pawtucket, Rhode Island and Pawtucket is twinned with Belper in recognition of their shared history of Samuel Slater of which we will hear more later. We have the President of the Council, Dr Robert Billington and Natalie Carter their Operations Director with us. We also welcome Debra Rossetti. Thank you very much for coming all this way to be with us today.
We are also joined by some of those who were involved in the making of a book and film, ‘Samuel Slater – hero or traitor’ in 2005/6. This project was funded by Ohio University, Belper Town Council, Derbyshire County Council, the Heritage Lottery and Maypole Promotions of Milford. A key person in this was Rosemary Timms – who later nominated Slater for the blue plaque. Our thanks to her and all the others involved.
Let me tell you now the story of Samuel Slater – a story of enterprise and intrigue, linking Belper with America’s industrial heritage.
Slater had the classic humble background of many successful entrepreneurs; the 9th child in a family of 13 he was born in 1768 in one of these two houses, originally tiny cottages. His father had built the first – illegally – on the roadside next to a plot of land known as Three Nooked Piece, which he later bought.
I should say at this point that it had always previously been believed that Samuel Slater’s birthplace was Holly House Farm, on the other side of the Blackbrook valley – largely because that was what he told his biographer, George White. Thanks to the research of Stephanie Hitchcock, a member of Maypole Promotions project, it has emerged that Samuel had been less than truthful about his background. In fact it was only in 1789, the year of his departure for the USA, that a Slater – Samuel’s older brother William – first took up residence at Holly House Farm.
From this hillside vantage point [here], the construction of Jedidiah Strutt’s original cotton mill would be have been clearly visible. And it was to Jedidiah Strutt that the 15 year old Samuel was apprenticed in 1783, a few months after his father’s death in a farming accident. His apprentice’s indenture stated that he would be taught “the art of cotton spinning”, which would have included learning the workings and construction of the spinning machinery, as well as how to operate it.
He served his apprenticeship in Belper and “New Mills” – as Milford was known at that time – for six and a half years, absorbing as much information as he could about the cotton-spinning industry. And then, on 1st September 1789, two months after he completed his apprenticeship, the 21 year old went home to collect his clothes, told his mother he was going to London, and left by coach from Derby.
Now to put things in context before we see what Slater did next it is important to note that at this time, British commerce was run on what are known as “mercantilist principles”. These were aimed at restricting the manufacturing ability of the colonies, in order to maintain their absolute dependence on Britain as the only legal market for their raw materials, and their only legal source of finished products.
Amongst other resentments, this restrictive attitude eventually resulted in the War of Independence, with United States territorial sovereignty being recognised in 1783. But the Americans’ ability to manufacture their own goods was still extremely limited, and the means they employed to solve the problem was one that is still familiar today: industrial espionage.
Spies were active in Derbyshire, trying to uncover the secrets of textile manufacture. Official warnings were issued, and it is probably from these that Slater realised the value of his training. It was illegal for people with knowledge that might be useful to foreign competitors to leave the country, but despite the phrase in his indenture which ordered that Samuel “his Master faithfully shall serve [,] his Secrets keep”. Slater slipped abroad, arriving in New York, with the apprenticeship as his only asset.
In New York he soon found work in a “Jenny Shop” – where the old-fashioned hand-powered “spinning jennies” were used, and he quickly came to realise that the Americans had little idea about the latest spinning technology. He contacted a Quaker textile merchant, Moses Brown from Pawtucket, New England, who was looking for someone to build carding and spinning engines on the Arkwright principle. Slater offered his expertise, struck a very favourable deal, and began constructing new machines, from memory. He married Hannah Wilkinson in 1791. She was the daughter of the house where he lodged on arrival in Pawtucket and together they had nine children.
Five years after arriving in Pawtucket, he struck out on his own. In 1803 he encouraged his brother John to follow him across the Atlantic – probably bringing with him details of the latest industrial innovations, including his wheelwright’s knowledge of controlling and storing water for powering the large cotton mills Samuel planned to build.
June, 2, 2012 2:30pm
Dr. Robert Billington, President, Blackstone Valley Tourism Council – response to Councillor Lewer, Derbyshire County Council, UK speech at the unveiling of the Samuel Slater blue plaque presentation Samuel Slater’s Cottage, Sunny Bank, Chevin Road, Belper, Derbyshire, UK
Councillor Lewer, members of the Derbyshire County Council, honoured guests, dignitaries, friends from Belper, friends from Derbyshire, I bring the greetings of the Mayor of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Donald Grebien, the greetings from Slater Mill Historic Site, the greetings of our Governor Lincoln Chafee, the President of our Rhode Island Senate, the Speaker of our Rhode Island House of Representatives. Also in addition, the greetings from United States Senator Jack Reed, United States Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and our United States Congressman David Ciciline have been sent.
It is especially exciting to be celebrating with our British friends, the Queens Diamond Jubilee.
Before I begin, I would like to thank the work of Ms. Stephanie Hitchcock, who uncovered the real history of Samuel Slater, and led us to the very location where he lived as a young man and viewed the building of Jedidiah Strutt’s original cotton mill. Also I would like to thank Rosemary Timms of Milford, who nominated Samuel Slater for the Blue Plaque and was keen to see his life commemorated.
Certainly the path to get this point in our history has been a long one. One that began here in Belper, England with a young man determined to make his own way and his own money, in the world, and ended in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Along the way, both the United States and the United Kingdom, fought wars side-by-side, have gone through economic upheavals together, shared economic success and have remained steadfast in their friendship.
The United States became a developed nation, a powerful nation, because of one young man’s intellect, drive, entrepreneurial thinking and his innovation. The same qualities, we seek 200 years later, in our young people. Despite what our founding father Thomas Jefferson spoke against, our young nation took the road of industrialization to become economically free from the mother country. This path was paved by a young Samuel Slater that left Belper in 1789 and landed on the shores of New York Harbor and eventually found his way north to Pawtucket, Rhode Island and the Blackstone River.
He may be considered, a traitor on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, but on the United States side, his name is spoken in the halls of the United States Congress almost every day, and soon we expect that President Barack Obama will be speaking about young Samuel Slater in the White House, as he signs into law a new National Park in the United States: the Blackstone River Valley National Historic Park – the centre piece of the park is Samuel Slater’s cotton mill in Pawtucket and brother John Slater’s cotton mill in North Smithfield, Rhode Island.
For the past 25 years our Federal Government has spent well over $25 million preserving the story that surrounds the river valley that Slater made famous.
Exactly 20 years ago in 1992, an inquiry was made from a small town in the United States named Pawtucket, to a small town in England named Belper. The call was to prepare for the 200 anniversary of the construction of the first successful water-powered cotton mill in America. Yes, it was Slater’s Mill that was to be celebrated. Here in Derbyshire, a man named Reg Whitworth, picked up the phone and listened to an excited group of Americans who had located the hometown of their hero.
At that time we never connected Samuel Slater to words and phrases like: traitor, illegal, spying, stealing secrets, warnings from Government, espionage. We were thinking in terms of creating relationships, scholarly research, twinning, friendship and expanding our historical industrial story back to its origins.
Regardless, Reg Whitworth, was inquisitive enough to humour the Americans and research the story of Samuel Slater who, according to the American’s came from Belper. Subsequently he sent Sally Bruckshaw, of the Amber Valley Borough Council, over to find out what the Americans were talking about and if there really was a place called Pawtucket!
The rest they say has become history. Subsequently, many trips have been made across the Atlantic between Pawtucket and Belper. A Twinning Agreement was signed between Belper and Pawtucket, and Amber Valley Borough Council and the Blackstone Valley, in 1994. Strong and lasting friendships were formed between so many people here in Belper and the County. Most notably were Reg Whitworth, Sally Bruckshaw, Joanne Bamford, Mayor John Nelson, Ron Buzzard, Tim and Julie Benson, Jen and Jan and Tan, our artist friends, and our Fleet Art Center friends. Sally Lyman, Jackie Woodward, Stephanie Hitchcock, Mary Smedley, Adrian Farmer, the Thornton’s Brass Band and a host of others too many to mention today are all kept in our hearts, and will never be forgotten amoungst their American friends.
National Heritage Corridor’s on both sides of the Atlantic were developed, museum interpreters shared learning’s about Slater, Strutt and Arkwright; Thornton’s Chocolates sent a band to play in the US, and even 10 years later requests for their return continue. Twice the Belper Nailers football team came to the Blackstone Valley to play.
Today, Slater is revered more than ever. Even Samuel and Hannah’s bedspread still lays atop their bed in the oldest house in Pawtucket. His mill and his brother’s mill will both become part of our new United States National Park.
My agency developed the Twinning Agreement between the Amber Valley and the Blackstone Valley and between Belper and Pawtucket. We feel as proud today as we did twenty years earlier to stand shoulder to shoulder with our British friends.
While we in the United States dreamed of the idea of a World Heritage Site for Slater’s Mill, here in the Amber Valley you acted on it and created a remarkable World Heritage Site around Belper, based on the work of Strutt and Arkwright.
We feel privileged to be here today, to celebrate the installation of the Derbyshire County Council’s Blue Plaque, for your not-so-favourite son. Slater enabled the United States to be economically free, and for that, we thank you for not coming to find him!
On behalf of all of the aforementioned leaders in Rhode Island, and all of the families, friends, businesses, governments and officials we have worked with through the years, to maintain the ties here, and in the States, we are humbled and proud to be invited to witness this important installation of the Blue Plaque and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and will bring back to the United States fond memories, many pictures and stories to share.
Thank you Mr. Strutt, thank you Mr. Arkwright and thank you Mr. Slater.
Congratulations on a job well done, we look forward to continuing our partnership!