Windows of the old Deanston Mill

Image: © kim traynor Taken: 30 Aug 2013

"This is one of those beautifully situated and admirably regulated great manufacturing establishments which it is a pleasure to see, on account of the general arrangements of every department of this extensive work, as well as the happiness which a numerous population engaged in the pursuits of industry apparently enjoy. The apartments in the mill first erected are not equal in height nor in other respects to those of the works lately erected; but the whole are clean, well ventilated, and have the machinery well fenced. The preparing-rooms in the lately erected part of the work are, owing to the superior construction of the fanners, which blow the whole of the dust to the open-air, more thoroughly freed from the impurities generally prevailing in the preparation-rooms than those in any factory where we have hitherto been. Indeed, I ought more properly to have said, which was literally the case, that there was no appearance of dust nor of impure air in those preparing-rooms. Even in the web-dressing-room a fanner is most usefully employed in dissipating the noxious heat and moisture. (...) The windows, instead of being constructed in the usual way in many of the mills which we have seen, so that only a single pane of glass in each window can be opened, are so hung that the whole of the upper part of each window may be let down from the top, and a free current of air admitted." -- Report of the Commissioners on Conditions in Factories, Parliamentary Papers, 1833

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0