“The developments in Britain during the period 1760-1820 were of an importance comparable with the first cultivation of crops or the domestication of animals. At the beginning of the period, the English village was self- sufficient with a few cottage industries; by 1820, goods were made by machines in factories and trade was on a world scale. It was the cotton industry that led the way.”

In the 1720s, while touring Great Britain, Daniel Defoe remarked on “curiosity in trade worth mentioning” as he came upon the recently built Lombe brothers’ silk mill on the river Derwent at Derby. (Figure 1)

This building is arguably the first recorded mechanised factory in the world; an enormous water wheel drove a bank of machinery overhead. Sadly now demolished, it displayed innovation ahead of its peers. Consisting of a skeleton frame with outer skin walls, its building structure was a type of design that would later provide the basis for many other factories. Its advances inspired by Lombes observations of Italian silk manufacturing.

Figure1

The industries of this time, now mostly referred to as “cottage industries”, were housed in smaller buildings, usually converted cottages. Even the furnaces and workshops in the heart of the Shropshire countryside which gave birth to the Industrial revolution and in the textile industries trade still relied upon the smaller enterprise, its size limited to the amount of work able to be processed manually . Industrial buildings here still had their roots in the vernacular architecture of the locality in question.

It was not until some fifty or so years later that the patent of the “water frame” spinning machine by Arkwright In 1769 allowing yarn to be spun by machinery changed this forever. The machinery needed horse, or more efficiently water power, and so this event signalled the commencement of the creation of purpose made buildings ,“mills”, arguably the first factory buildings , where people were concentrated in one place to produce goods on a mechanised scale.

The buildings were placed according to the need of large amounts of flowing water, sometimes in quite isolated areas. Their design, governed by the need to compact machinery near the power source and drives, along with the structural technology of the day, gave these mills a vertical emphasis. Their outward appearance often following the prevalent architectural style of the time, such as Palladian, as in Cressbrook mill, Millers Dale, Derbyshire, (1815). (Figure 2)

Figure 2

The coming of steam:

Although steam power had been available since 1712, the technology only allowed for a reciprocating motion as in a pump. Therefore, its use was restricted to pumping water from the tailrace to the headrace to assist the water wheel rather than power the mill directly.

The introduction of steam power with a rotary drive by Boulton and Watt (1784) , released the owners from the restrictions of building near watercourses. Location was governed then by proximity to supply chains and distribution centres, and so grew industrial sites near the canal and emerging railway network. The more efficient power supply and installation of gas light in some cases, allowed larger floor areas, room for bigger machinery resulting in longer lower buildings being used rather than the earlier “squat “ones.

The first instance of production efficiency and working practices affecting factory design came in with the building of Josiah Wedgwood’s Etruria works (1769) in Staffordshire. (Figure 3) The linear arrangement of the factory mirrored the flow of production. Care was taken also to make use of natural light sources near machinery to help the workers.

Figure 3

Burning issues, the coming of iron:

The early mills, whether water powered or steam, were plagued with a major problem, fire. The prevalence of large amounts of flammable material, either the goods or the structure of the mill itself, along with the proximity of candle, oil, gas light or the creation of static electricity proved the demise of many mills including the notable Albion Mill (1786). (Figure 4)

Figure 4

This created the challenge to design a fireproof mill. Early attempts were displayed at William Strutt’s Derby Mill (1792-3) and Belper West Mill (1793) where he pioneered the use of cast iron columns, (previously only used in churches ), the replacement of timber with brick or timber covered in plaster for fireproofing and the addition of wrought iron tie rods to give extra support to the structure.

A further development on this theme arrived in 1796 with the construction of the first building in the world to use cast iron columns and beams locally celebrated new “Fireproof” flax mill in Shrewsbury, Shropshire (figure 5) designed by Benyon and Bage, arguably the progenitor of all later steel frame buildings. Its 1803 extension became the first building to use cast iron roof trusses where the members are slotted together without bolts or rivets.

Figure 5

Iron proved to be the key to further developments in factory design 1750-1850, James Sutherland the historian states the Industrial revolution could easily be described as the Iron Revolution. The iron making process was continuously developed, especially in rolled sections and the introduction of cheap mass produced steel in the 1850s was driven on by the development of the railways.

Cross-pollination of ideas was spreading, shipbuilding techniques suggested larger spans in iron work for buildings. Railway stations, exhibition halls, and arcades with their use of large spans with iron tie rods and trusses gave ideas, and the use of modular glazing panels became the predecessor of the top-lit factory space. In Fact the first use of “northern light” or “saw tooth” roofing system was used at Swindon railway sheds (1850), closely followed by many weaving sheds, usually as annexes to large mills as in the Great Western Cotton factory Bristol.

To conclude this introduction to iron we must include a building built by the engineer Colonel Geoffrey Green, Sheerness Boathouse (1858-60). (Figure 6) This innovative building, hidden away with in the secure naval dockyard, is probably the oldest building in Britain to be completely iron framed, with riveted iron plate girders spanning 30ft over cast iron columns and is the first to use “H” and “I” sections. The exposed frame, use of corrugated infill panels and standard sections pointed the way ahead to many of the steel frame sheds of the future. Its outward appearance is quite modern and belies the actual age, importance and relevance to modern buildings.

Figure 6

Reinforcing the issue, the move to concrete:

In 1843, Brunel built his first Atlantic steamship, built with a hull of riveted iron plates and with a wrought iron superstructure. Factory builders noted this, especially the fact that wrought iron is more suited to stresses than cast iron and does not fracture in fire so readily . In 1845 William Fairbairn , millwright turned engineer, who believed other factory builders were slow to recognise the potential of these new materials built a eight storey refinery building with iron floor beams and thin curved iron plates spread between them and levelled off with concrete.

He published this system in his publication (1854) “On the Application of Cast and Wrought iron to Building Purposes” Above the iron plates, vulnerable tie bars were buried in the concrete to protect them from potential fire damage. Here Fairbairn perhaps came close to inventing reinforced concrete, the first use of metal tie bars in a man made artificial stone compound. The potential future problem here lay in lack of flexibility, producing cracking as the structure flexed and inevitably could collapse.

The answer to this problem came with the invention of the “monolithic joint” (1892) , a flexible and stress resistant design by the Belgian Francois Hennebique . It worked by binding the vertical and horizontal reinforcement bars together at their junction. It first use was in Belgium at the Charles 6 spinning mill at Tourcoing and he brought the system to Britain when with his partner Le Brun, he built a flourmill (1897) in Swansea south Wales (figure7). By 1900, his firm had become a large international concern with other firms using his system under licence. The first industrial works using this system was the “Rose Downs and Thompson” (1900) factory Hull.

Figure 7

Engineers remained at the forefront of development in structural design. The Swiss engineer Robert Maillart built the first concrete bridge in 1898, and in 1909 patented a system in which concrete columns appeared to flow into concrete floor slabs above via a mushroom shaped capital. The first building to use this was a five-storey warehouse in Zurich (figure 8).This “Mushroom head” column as it became known simplified the becoming irrelevant junction between post, ceiling slab and beam, its cantilever action solving a structural problem and its “Dendriform” looks arguably being an aesthetically pleasing solution.

Figure 8

That concludes this section, to move to the next section, post 1900 era, please click here.