The Thread of History

1482 The Portuguese built the Elmina Castle (in present day Ghana). Their aim was to trade in gold, ivory and slaves.

 

1482 The Portuguese built the Elmina Castle (in present day Ghana). Their aim was to trade in gold, ivory and slaves.

 

1562 John Hawkins of Plymouth became the first English sailor to trade in African Slaves.

 

1589 William Lee of Calverton, Nottinghamshire invented the knitting frame.

 

1672-1689 The Royal African Company was formed by Charles II and London Merchants, and transported around 100,000 Africans into slavery in the Caribbean.

 

1730 The first pair of cotton stockings were manufactured in Bellar Gate in Nottingham.

 

1764 James Hargreaves invented the ‘Spinning Jenny’.

 

1769 Richard Arkwright's water frame was patented and set to work, initially in Nottingham.

 

1777 Completion of Grand Trunk Canal, linking the Trent and Mersey

 

1792 U.S. exported 140,000 lbs of cotton to England

 

1793 Invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in U.S.

 

1800 U.S. exported 17 million lbs of cotton to England. Slavery was increased as a way to meet the great demand for cotton.

 

1804 Jaquard Lace Machine invented. A precursor to modern computers.

 

1807 British Parliament votes to abolish the trade in slaves.

 

1811 UK raw cotton consumption at that point reached 90 million lbs (about 45,000 tons) a year, having almost doubled in 10 years.

 

1811-12 Luddite rebellion in Nottinghamshire. Rioters broke over 800 machines.

 

1833 Abolition of Slavery Act passed with a period of apprenticeship

 

1838 Emancipation of enslaved people in British territories.

 

1840 India ceased to be able to provide manufactured cloth and yarn to the Empire due to crippling taxes from the East India Company. It was forced to export raw cotton to England and compete against the superior quality cotton from the American South.

 

1845 The population of Nottingham had reached 52,000, but the decline in demand for framework knitting left the city in considerable poverty.

 

1850 In the U.S. cultivating and harvesting cotton became the leading occupation of slaves.

 

1858 ‘Cotton is King’: the emergence of American cotton as a superior type encouraged British traders to purchase cheaper cotton from plantations in the United States and the Caribbean.

 

1860 The rail network in Britain expanded to around 10,000 miles of track. For the first time in history, goods could be transported across the country within a matter of hours.

 

1865  After the civil war in the U.S., ‘sharecropping’ evolved, in which free black farmers worked on white-owned cotton plantations in return for a share of the profits (although in reality, the system was little changed from the days of slavery).

 

1910 The New York Times announced ‘From Nottingham, lace is sent to all parts of the world, more especially to the United States and South America. Large shipments are also made to all parts of Europe and the British colonies. The lace industry is the child of the hosiery industry, but in Nottingham the child has quite outgrown its mother.’

 

1950 Cotton harvesting was finally mechanised in southern states of America, ceasing the need for vast labour forces of black farmers to hand-pick cotton fibres.

 

1957 The Gold Coast was the first British African Colony to gain independence, changing it’s name to Ghana after an ancient African empire.