Piccadilly Mill , also known as Bank Top Mill ^[1] or Drinkwater's Mill , owned by Peter Drinkwater , was the first cotton mill in Manchester , England, ^[2] to be directly powered by a steam engine , ^[3] and the 10th such mill in the world. ^[1] Construction of the four-storey mill on Auburn Street started in 1789 ^[3] and its 8 hp Boulton and Watt engine was installed and working by 1 May 1790. ^[4] Initially the engine drove only the preparatory equipment and spinning was done manually. ^[5] The mill-wright was Thomas Lowe , who had worked for William Fairbairn and helped with the planning two of Arkwright 's earliest factories. ^[6]

During the early 1790s the mill employed around 500 workers. ^[4] Robert Owen was employed as the manager in 1792. ^[5]

References [ edit ]

Bibliography [ edit ]

• Kidd, Alan J. (2013), "Drinkwater, Peter (1750?1801), cotton manufacturer " , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press , retrieved 23 December 2013
• Miller, Ian; Wild, Chris (2007), A & G Murray and the Cotton Mills of Ancoats , Lancaster Imprints, ISBN   978-0-904220-46-9
• Nevell, Michael (2007), "The Social Archaeology of Industrialisation: the example of Manchester during the 17th and 18th centuries" , in Casella, Eleanor Conlin; Symonds, James (eds.), Industrial Archaeology: Future Directions , Springer, pp. 177?204, ISBN   978-0-387-22831-0 , retrieved 23 December 2013

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