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This theme contains a collection of items relating to Robert Owen (1771-1858), the factory reformer, Utopian and socialist. Owen was born in Newtown, Montgomeryshire, where his father was a saddler and ironmonger. Despite being regarded as an exceptional pupil, he left school at the age of nine and worked as an assistant in a local drapery shop. The following year he left for London before being apprenticed to a draper in Stamford, Lincolnshire. He returned to London five years later before moving to work in Manchester in 1788. At that time, Manchester was developing to became an important textile town, and it was there that Owen first embarked on his ventures in machine-making and cotton-spinning. At the age of twenty, he was appointed manager of a modern steam-powered spinning-mill employing some 500 workers, and four years later, became managing partner of the Chorlton Twist Company. In 1799, the Chorlton Twist Company decided to buy the large cotton mills at New Lanark, Scotland, where Robert Owen was to leave his mark forever.

 

During his period in Manchester, Owen had been introduced to many new intellectual ideas. He joined the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, and took an active role in the Society's debates and discussions. It appears therefore that he had already begun forming his ideas on social reform before his company bought the New Lanark Mills from his father-in-law, David Dale, in 1799. At New Lanark, Owen immediately set about improving the working and living conditions of the workforce. He shortened working hours, provided free medical care for his workers, and established a school to educate the factory children.

 

In 1825, Owen sold the mills at New Lanark and concentrated his efforts on the establishment of a co-operative community at Harmony in Indiana, United States of America. Despite some initial success, Owen's social experiment ultimately failed and in 1828 he returned to Britain. On his return, he found himself being drawn more and more into the trade union and co-operative movement. Between 1835 and 1845 his ideas gained a following among the 'Owenites' and in 1839, with Owen's assistance, they established an experimental co-operative community at Queenswood, Hampshire. Although this venture also failed, Owen continued to promote his ideas through his lectures and writings. In 1858 he travelled to Newtown, his home town, where he died. In 1902, the Co-operative Union paid for the fine iron railings which now surround his grave in St. Mary's churchyard. A statue of Robert Owen was erected in the town in 1956, and the Robert Owen Museum was opened in 1983.

 

Description based on information supplied by John Davidson and the Robert Owen Museum.