Styal Luxury Guest Classics

Styal is named after the Village in Cheshire, England where my family started a cotton mill and factory 235 years ago. Quarry Bank Mill has manufactured Linen since 1784.

The reason for Quarry Bank Cotton Mill becoming so renowned during and after the Industrial Revolution in England was its “ground breaking” labour policy of the time.

Samuel Greg planned the Village of Styal to give his workers a healthy environment to work and live. The cottages he built for his workers were comfortable compared to the cramped, unsanitary conditions of accommodation in the towns

Each cottage had its own backyard and “privy” – a significant sanitary advantage over the houses in the towns where often one “privy” was shared by an entire street. Healthy workers meant productive workers and Greg believed he could get the best out of his workers by treating them fairly.

He hired a superintendent to attend to their care and alsoemployed a Mill Doctor who was was responsible for the health of the children and other workers. This was the first doctor to be employed in such a capacity for a community of workers at a factory.

For his apprentices he provided The Apprentice House where they had 3 meals a day and could eat as much as they wanted, were clothed and housed, and were taught reading and mathematics by one of the Greg family members. This was very rare for the day where apprentices normally resided in a public workhouse under extremely poor conditions

Samuel and his wife Hannah Greg went further than just the health and comfort of their workers

Samuel’s wife, Hannah, was incredibly concerned with the education of the workers and their children and helped to set up Styal Primary School in 1823, some decades before education for factory children was made compulsory. Evening classes were also made available for the adult workers of the mill.

There was also a Sick Club which workers could pay into, and a Women’s Club – the first known organised women’s society in the United Kingdom.

Managers were drawn from their own workforce, those whose service was longest were promoted and had the opportunity of advancement.

To feed his growing workforce, Samuel Greg founded the Styal Village Shop in the early 1800s under the ‘truck’ system – rather than paying in cash, the shopkeeper would keep a record of all purchases which would then be deducted from the mill workers’ salaries. Villagers could buy all their daily needs in the shop, including freshly churned butter and freshly baked bread, as well as other little luxuries such as clothes and tea. In 1873 the shop became a Co-operative, run by the workers. The fields in and around the village were farmed by two families of tenant farmers. Both farms – Cross Farm and Oak Farm – cultivated a whole range of fresh food, from dairy, poultry and pork to cereals and root crops.

Samuel Greg retired in 1832 and died in 1834. At the time of his retirement, Quarry Bank Mill at Styal was the largest such business in the United Kingdom. The Gregs were careful and pragmatic, millowners, and the mill was expanded and changed throughout its history.

Quarry Bank Mill at Styal, was managed by the Greg family until the late 1930s. We have strong connections to the Village, its people and to the factory working systems that were put in place here to become new benchmarks for a more humanitarian world for Factory workers.

It is now a place where the public are free to visit to learn about this part of The History of the Textile and Cotton Industry which, at Quarry Bank Mill in the English Village of STYAL can be experienced first hand. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/quarry-bank