Stalybridge : The Hay Loft

Image: © Ken Bagnall Taken: 22 Aug 2009

On the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, the Stalybridge cotton mills rapidly ran short of cotton. Thousands of operatives were laid off. In October 1862, a meeting was held in the Stalybridge Town Hall which passed a resolution blaming the Confederate States of America and their actions in the American Civil War for the cotton famine in Lancashire. By the winter of 1862–1863 there were 7,000 unemployed operatives in the town. Only five of the town's 39 factories and 24 machine shops were employing people full-time. Contributions were sent from all over the world for the relief of the cotton operatives in Lancashire; and at one point 75 per cent of Stalybridge workers were dependent on relief schemes. By 1863 there were 750 empty houses in the town. A thousand skilled men and women left the town, in what became known as "The Panic". In 1863 the relief committee decided to substitute a system of relief by ticket instead of money. The tickets were to be presented at local grocers' shops. An organised resistance was organised culminating on Friday 20 March 1863.

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