Talk:Murrays' Mills

Murrays' Mills has been listed as one of the Art and architecture good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
May 15, 2008	Good article nominee	Listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on March 29, 2008.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ...that in 1806, Murrays' Mills (pictured) in Ancoats, Manchester was the largest mill complex in the world?

History Low‑importance

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Mills Mid‑importance

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Potential DYK?

How about the statement "by 1805, the complex was the largest factory in the world"? Nev1 (talk) 14:25, 28 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good! Also worth mentioning oldest surviving urban steam powered mill? Changes look good BTW Pit-yacker (talk) 13:10, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's been nominated complete with picture, but I haven't included the oldest surviving steam powered mill bit. If I - or anyone else - can find a reference before the powers that be decide whether or not the article will feature in DYK? it should probably be added to the nomination. Nev1 (talk) 17:45, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Next step...

I think the article's in really good shape, well referenced and illustrated. It's not quite finished, there's still a gap before 1950. Despite this I think it might make a good GA candidate. Any thoughts on this? I'd like to have an infobox, perhaps Template:Infobox Historic building, although it might not work so well for multiple buildings. Nev1 (talk) 02:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Going for GA sounds good, although, I'm not entirely sure on the standard for buildings - I haven't seen a decent set of guidelines such as the ones for places at WP:UKCITIES. It would be certainly useful to get some feedback on the article. I wonder if the book mentioned in the Further Reading section might fill in some gaps? I might get around to visiting a library at some point. Pit-yacker (talk) 21:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Attempted to find Cotton Mills in Greater Manchester at city centre library today. However, failed to find it in time available :(. Pit-yacker (talk)

On filling in the gaps - it appears the canal basin was filled in at some point (as part of the restoration I believe it has been restored), I guess somethig about that could be added if we can find out when it happened Pit-yacker (talk) 21:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the history section is pretty much done. I think a new section could be added on the restoration of the mill, and perhaps one on the working conditions although I think that's far less important. Once the lead is reworked a bit I think we're ready to submit this for GA. Nev1 (talk) 19:55, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On working conditions:

The factory, like many of the time, was criticised for its worker's conditions. Murrays Mills did boast windows that employees could open and an entire extra room per floor, for workers' ablutions - a positive job perk in those days!
- BBC source.

[1] Notes that the reason for tunnels was that the owners where worried workers would take more breaks than they wdere entitled to.

[2] notes that unlike other firms the Murrays did not provide housing for their staff. However by 1855, they did own 3 terraces in Gas Street, Murray Street and Maria Street.

Do you have anything? Do you think we have enough specifically about the Murrays/Murray Mills to write a section about this? Pit-yacker (talk) 14:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly, I no longer have access to the Miller and Wild book which did contain more info on working conditions. With the amount of information we have at the moment, I think we should look for a way to integrate it rather than give the conditions a stand alone section. Nev1 (talk) 14:45, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Images badly laid out

Any idea why? Or how to fix? Pit-yacker (talk) 18:56, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps fewer images should be used in the text, what's left over could be put in a gallery at the end. No need to get worried about it, there's still more text to add which will space out the images more. Nev1 (talk) 19:01, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative Names

In addition to Old Mill previously being known as Union Mill, it seems:

New Mill is sometimes known as Jersey Mill.
Doubling and Fireproof are sometimes known as Waulk Mill.
New Little Mill is sometimes known as Dixon's Mill.

Do you think this should be recorded in the notes in the table. AFAICT from a Google search, it appears (at least with regard to its regeneration (as offices)) "Waulk" appears to be the more common name for Doubling and Fireproof Mills. Pit-yacker (talk) 14:54, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should go in; I've come across Jersey Mill and Waulk Mill as alternative names, but not Dixon, although since Dixon was heavily involved in the business, it seems plausible. It'll need to be sourced though. Nev1 (talk) 14:56, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Typo???

world with over 60 and 30,000 employees - I assume a word is missing between "60" and "and" ? Pit-yacker (talk) 16:42, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, the missing word was mills. Sorted now: with over 60 mills and 30,000 employees Nev1 (talk) 17:06, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GA pass

I've passed this article as GA, and archived the review at Talk:Murrays' Mills/GA1 as linked above in article history. Well done. Gwinva (talk) 00:13, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Smoke burner

Engineer Joshua Field visited the mill in 1821 and commented "they spin the finest thread"; he also noted that the steam engines had been fitted with a "smoke burner" to "lessen the consumption of fuel" and had the effect of reducing the amount of smoke produced by the engines.[27]

The engine itself doesn't produce any smoke whatsoever. It is the furnace that produces smoke.
Factory engines were usually very large, perhaps 30 or 40 feet high. The furnace and boiler were not physically part of the engine. (Not like a steam locomotive, where the furnace, boiler and engine are all together on the wheels). The furnace and boiler were generally in a seperate space, the boiler room or boiler house. A large boiler was usually at some distance from the engine, because boilers were dangerous and prone to explode. Factory owners did not want to lose the most valuable part of their plant (the engine) if the boiler blew up.
A number of methods were developed to contain and burn the sulphurous smoke produced by coal-fired furnaces. These lessened the consumption of fuel and greatly reduced pollution in industrial towns.

I would rewrite the sentence as two sentences, removing the semi-colon. Spinning the finest thread is not an idea directly related to smoke burners. Both ideas are significant.

Engineer Joshua Field visited the mill in 1821 and commented "they spin the finest thread". He also noted that the furnace which heated steam for the engines had been fitted with a "smoke burner" to "lessen the consumption of fuel", also having the effect of reducing the amount of smoke produced by the factory.[27]

Amandajm (talk) 12:49, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your input, I've changed the sentence along the lines suggested, it now reads

Engineer Joshua Field visited the mill in 1821 and commented "they spin the finest thread". He also noted that the furnace which provided steam to drive the engines had been fitted with a "smoke burner" to "lessen the consumption of fuel", also having the effect of reducing the amount of smoke produced.

The furnace after all did not heat steam and I felt that the very last bit was unnecessary. Nev1 (talk) 13:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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