The Cotton Industry / 棉花产业

Before the Industrial Revolution, Great Britain imported large amounts of cloth and textiles from India. Cloth was made in Great Britain but it was a slow and expensive process. Both thread and cloth was made by hand, usually by women, working in their own homes. British textile manufacturers would provide the raw materials to each household and then later return to collect the finished thread or woven cloth.

在工业革命之前，大不列颠从印度进口大量布料和纺织品。尽管英国也生产布料，但过程既慢又贵。线和布通常都是手工制作的，通常由女性在自己家完成。英国的纺织厂家会把原材料提供给每户家庭，然后再回来收取完成的线或织好的布。

In the mid to late 1700s, textile factories started to appear. These factories utilised a number of inventions which meant that cloth could be mass produced both cheaply and quickly. Cloth production also moved away from using wool and flax as the raw material and towards using cotton instead.

在18世纪中后期，纺织工厂开始出现。这些工厂利用了一些发明，能够又快又便宜地批量生产布料。布料生产也从使用羊毛和亚麻作为原料转向使用棉花。

The first of these new inventions was the flying shuttle. It was invented by a man called John Kay in 1733. The flying shuttle fired the shuttle backwards and forwards between the threads in the loom by pulling on a string. This made weaving substantially faster than moving the shuttle by hand.

这些新发明中的第一个是飞梭子。它是1733年由一个叫约翰·凯的人发明的。飞梭子通过拉动一根线在织布机的经线之间来回发射梭子。这比手工移动梭子织布要快得多。

The second major invention was called the spinning jenny. This machine was invented in 1764 by a Lancashire weaver called James Hargreaves. Before this invention, a worker could only spin one thread at a time. However, after this invention, a worker could produce 20 to 30 spindles of thread at a time just by manually turning a wheel . This number of spindles was increased up to 80 spindles as the technology developed.

第二个重要发明叫做珍妮纺纱机。这台机器是1764年由兰开夏的工人詹姆斯·哈格里夫斯发明的。在这个发明之前，工人一次只能纺一根线。但是发明之后，工人只需要手动转动一个轮子，就能一次生产20到30个纱锭。随着技术的发展，这个纱锭数量甚至增加到80个。

The water frame was an improvement on the spinning jenny. This machine was invented by Richard Arkwright in 1769. The main difference between the water frame and the spinning jenny was that the water frame was water powered. Consequently, large factories using these machines were built near large streams or fast flowing rivers. Many of these factories were built in the north of England and Scotland were the damp atmosphere helped to prevent the threads from snapping during production.  Water frames could operate 24 hours a day and could spin up to 100 threads at the same time. However, when James Watt invented the steam engine in 1776, these engines became the principle power source for spinning and weaving machines and thus these factories no longer needed to be located next to a river or a stream.

水力纺织机是对珍妮纺纱机的一种改进。这台机器是理查德·阿克赖特在1769年发明的。水力纺织机和珍妮纺纱机的主要区别在于水力纺织机由水力驱动。因此，使用这些机器的大型工厂通常建在大溪流或急流河流附近。许多这样的工厂建在英格兰北部和苏格兰，那里的潮湿环境有助于在生产过程中防止纱线断裂。水力纺织机可以每天24小时运行，同时纺织多达100根纱线。然而，当詹姆斯·瓦特在1776年发明蒸汽机后，这些发动机成为纺织和编织机器的主要动力来源，因此这些工厂不再需要建在河流或溪流旁。

Further improvements to spinning machines resulted in a machine called the spinning mule. This was invented in 1779 by Samuel Crompton. Spinning mules were gigantic. They could be over 40m wide and spin over 1000 spindles of thread at a time.

对纺纱机的进一步改进产生了一种叫做纺纱骡的机器。这是由塞缪尔·克朗普顿在1779年发明的。纺纱骡非常巨大，它们的宽度可以超过40米，一次可以纺织1000多根纱锭的线。

The final significant invention was the power loom. This was invented in 1785 by Edmund Cartwright. Edmund Cartwright was intending to become a vicar, however when he visited a spinning mill, he was inspired to start his own factory and invent his own machinery. As spinning machines were now well established he decided to invent a weaving machine using the thread produced by other factories. His power loom and further improvements to such machinery revolutionised the manufacture of cloth.

最后一个重要的发明是动力织机。这是由埃德蒙·卡特赖特在1785年发明的。埃德蒙·卡特赖特原本打算成为一名牧师，但当他参观纺纱厂时，他受到了启发，决定自己开工厂并发明自己的机器。由于纺纱机已经非常成熟，他决定发明一台使用其他工厂生产的线的织布机。他的动力织机以及对这种机器的进一步改进彻底改变了布料的制造方式。

The impact of these factories on society was immense. In the past, people were mainly employed in agriculture. With unreliable weather and harvests, people were often very poor and hungry. The new factories offered employment all year round and a stable income. People flocked from the countryside to work in these textile factories, so much so factory owners often had to build new houses for their workers. Nevertheless, there were some skilled workers from the countryside, called Luddites, who resisted these changes and attacked local factories, smashing the machinery inside.

这些工厂对社会的影响非常大。过去，人们主要从事农业。由于天气和收成都不稳定，人们常常面临贫穷和饥饿。新工厂提供全年就业和稳定收入。人们从乡下涌向这些纺织工厂工作，以至于工厂老板常常不得不为工人建新房。然而，也有一些来自乡下的熟练工人，叫做卢德派，他们抵制这些变化，袭击当地工厂，破坏里面的机器。

Life, however, was not easy for these workers. The machines ran 24 hours a day. Workers would work 12 hour shifts with only Sunday off. Some of these workers were just children as they were the only ones who could get underneath the machines to reconnect broken threads. There were no safety guards on the machines and workers could lose limbs or even their lives if they got trapped in the machines. In addition, the machines were extremely noisy and it was common for workers to become deaf. Workers in the factories would usually communicate with each other using sign language as hearing what another person was saying was impossible.

然而，这些工人的生活并不轻松。机器每天24小时运转。工人们每天工作12小时，只在星期天休息。一些工人还是孩子，因为只有他们才能钻到机器下面重新连接断掉的线。机器没有安全护罩，工人如果被机器困住可能会失去肢体甚至生命。此外，机器噪音非常大，工人们常常会耳聋。工厂里的工人通常会用手语交流，因为想听见别人说话几乎是不可能的。

At the height of the Industrial Revolution, Great Britain was not only able to compete with India on price but also export cloth to the rest of the world. At one point half the cloth sold in the world was manufactured in Great Britain.

在工业革命的高峰时期，英国不仅能够在价格上与印度竞争，还能把布料出口到世界其他地方。曾经全球一半的布料都是英国制造的。

The cotton used in British factories came from America. The demand for cotton was so high that a large number of cotton plantations sprang up in the southern states of America. These plantation required a large labour force to grow and harvest the cotton crop. It was this demand that fuelled the slave trade. Known as the triangular slave trade, manufacture goods from Great Britain would be shipped to Africa in exchange for slaves. The slaves would then be shipped to America to work on the cotton plantations and finally the raw cotton would be shipped to Great Britain to make cloth.

英国工厂使用的棉花来自美国。棉花的需求非常高，以至于美国南部各州出现了大量棉花种植园。这些种植园需要大量劳动力来种植和收割棉花。正是这种需求推动了奴隶贸易。所谓的三角奴隶贸易，是把英国制造的商品运往非洲以换取奴隶，然后这些奴隶被运到美国，在棉花种植园工作，最后原棉运回英国制造布料。

Over time, it was realised that factory conditions had to improve. Factory owners improved workers’ houses, build schools, improved machine safety and limited working hours. The Cotton Mills and Factories Act 1819 set the first legal limits on the working hours and age of children working in the cotton industry. However, it was not until 1933 that children were actually banned from working in British factories.

随着时间的推移，人们意识到工厂条件需要改善。工厂老板改善了工人住房，建学校，提高机器安全性，并限制工作时间。《1819年棉纺厂与工厂法》首次对棉纺行业儿童的工作时间和年龄设定了法律限制。不过，直到1933年，儿童才真正被禁止在英国工厂工作。

In the mid-20th century, the British cotton industry started to suffer. This was due to the decline of the British Empire, the diffusion of manufacturing technology and cheaper labour costs in countries such as India and China. Today, the British textile industry focuses on heritage and luxury textiles such as Harris tweed and Scottish cashmere.

在20世纪中叶，英国的棉花工业开始衰退。这是因为大英帝国的衰落、制造技术的扩散以及印度和中国等国的廉价劳动力成本。如今，英国的纺织行业主要集中在传统和奢侈纺织品上，比如哈里斯花呢和苏格兰羊绒。