East Lancashire Power Loom Riots 1826 - 190th anniversary next Tuesday
This week is the 190th anniversary of the East Lancashire loom riots that led eventually to changes in factory conditions for working people which began by starving workers marching from Enfield to Grange Mill at the bottom of Manchester Road in Accrington where the first power looms were destroyed. The power-loom riots of 1826 took place in Lancashire, England, in protest against the economic hardship suffered by traditional handloom weavers caused by the widespread introduction of the much more efficient power loom [4] set against a cost of living crisis following the Napoleonic Wars. Rioting broke out on 24 April and continued for three days, widely supported by the local population, who were sympathetic to the weavers' plight. Sykes’s Mill at Higher Grange Lane Courtesy of the Lancashire County Library Service - Accrington Library. After a period of prosperity in the 1810s the textile industry suffered a serious slump in 1825. After a period of relative prosperity i