Image ID: 06466

Parnham's Flour Mill

Courtesy of M H Holmes

Mill Lane (Parnham's Island)
Newark on Trent
England

The mill was built in the late 18th Century and, for most of it's life, was concerned with the production of flour. It was originally erected, however, for the spinning of cotton, taking advantage of the great trade in that commodity opened up by (Sir) Richard Arkwright's invention of the water frame. Recent research by Dr Andrew Brown of Newark has revealed the following regarding the history of the mill. Dr Brown has traced the first suggestion that a cotton mill was to be built in Newark to a series of bills stored among the papers of the Dukes of Newcastle at Nottingham University. The Duke of Newcastle owned the land on which the cotton mill was built, and during 1787 a number of bills for the establishment of a brickyard were sent to him by a so-called cotton mill company. In the following year some 50,000 bricks were brought to the site, all of which were paid for by the Duke. Timber for the building, meanwhile, was supplied by Messrs. Handley and Sketchley of Newark (timber merchants) who were also partners in the cotton mill venture. Samuel Sketchley had come to Newark from Burton-on-Trent, and in around 1766 established Newark's first brewery on the Town Wharf. He entered partnership with William Handley - a successful local banker - in the 1770's, and their brewery later evolved into what became Warwicks and Richardsons on Northgate. By 1790 construction of the cotton mill would appear to have been largely complete: it is shown on William Attenburrow's map of Newark published in that year, and in the following year (1791) the Universal British Directory clearly records the business of Sketchley, Handley, Jessop and Marshall, cotton manufacturers, as operating on Millgate. Of particular interest among the list of partners is William Jessop who, prior to his involvement with the cotton mill, had risen to become one of the country's foremost civil engineers and canal builders. He was chief engineer on the Grand Union Canal and worked on the Cromford Canal for Sir Richard Arkwright in Derbyshire. William Jessop lived in Newark from 1784 to 1805 in a house directly opposite the present police station on Appletongate. He was Mayor of Newark in 1790 and 1803. In view of Jessop's expertise in canal construction it is tempting to speculate whether part of his involvement with the cotton mill concerned designing or supervising it's water management scheme. The mill as originally built in the 1780's was five storeys high and 13 bays wide with (it is thought) initially two water wheels rated at 50hp each. It was used exclusively for the spinning of cotton thread which was then transported by water to the great weaving factories in Manchester. There is no evidence of cotton cloth ever having been produced at the Newark mill. At the height of it's production, the mill is said to have employed 300 people, mainly women and children who earned between one shilling and five shillings a week. William Dickinson in his History of Newark, first published in 1806 (p137), mentions that the mill provided employment for many of the town's poorest families, and an official report on Newark's workhouse in 1797 notes that of the 20 child inmates, 10 went out daily to work at the cotton mill. Close to the factory itself, meanwhile, Cotton Square - a yard of 17 houses on the east side of Millgate almost opposite Mill Lane - is sometimes said to have provided homes for workers at the mill. There is certainly some evidence to suggest that the houses of Cotton Square were erected around the same time as the mill, although the occupations of its original householders is not known. After a profitable existence of over 20 years cotton manufacture at the Newark mill ceased in the early 19th Century. By 1820 (according to R P Shilton's History of Newark p540) only one of the original partners - Marshall - was still involved with the mill and by 1822 Pigot's Directory records it as having passed into the hands of James Thorpe and Son, corn merchants and flour millers. From this time onwards the mill was used exclusively for the production of flour. Thorpe extended the original building in 1835 (adding a third water wheel), and in 1850 adapted the mechanism for steam power. It was taken over by the Parnham's in 1886 in whose hands it remained until the disastrous fire of 1965.

Date: 1962

Organisation Reference: NCCE001032

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