Textiles and the Industrial Revolution
Following a building boom during the 1860s-1870s, Shaw and Crompton became a mill town, dominated by large rectangular brick-built cotton mills.
The manufacture of textiles in Crompton can be traced back to 1474, when a lease dated from that year outlines that the occupant of Crompton Park had spinning wheels, cards and looms, all of which suggest that cloth was being produced in large quantities.
Before industrialisation the area was used for grazing sheep, which provided the raw material for a local woollen weaving trade
Most families owned a small pasture, but supplemented their incomes by weaving woollens in the domestic system, and selling cloth, linen and fustians.
The inhabitants of Shaw and Crompton relatively wealthy.
The most affluent were those involved in cloth and linen, and their wealth was comparable to that of the merchants of Manchester and Salford.
In the second half of the 18th century, the technology of cotton-spinning machinery improved, and the need for larger buildings to house bigger, better and more efficient equipment became apparent. The profitability of cotton spinning meant that open land that had been used for farming since antiquity, was utilised for purpose-built weavers' cottages. Larger buildings were still desired, and construction of two water powered cotton factories (two or three times the size of a cottage) can be traced to 1782. The construction of more mills followed-ten by 1789.
The introduction of the factory system led to an increase of the township's population; from 872 in 1714 to 3,500 in 1801, mostly as a result of an influx of people from Yorkshire and Lancashire looking for employment in the cotton mills.
Power looms introduced in the early 19th century put an end to the last remnants of the domestic system in Crompton, but not without resistance. Weavers and spinners were paid according to the amount of cloth they produced; independent hand loom weavers saw a drop in their income, and could not compete with the mechanised mass production that was gathering pace in the township.
There was a mill building boom in Shaw and Crompton, giving rise to the area as major mill town. The local townscape became dominated by distinctive rectangular brick-built mills, and its former villages and hamlets agglomerated as a single town around these factories.
Shaw and Crompton railway station and a goods yard was opened in 1863, allowing improved transportation of textile goods and raw materials to and from the township.
Neighbouring Royton had begun to encroach upon the township's southern boundary, forming a continuous urban cotton-spinning district with Oldham, Lees and Chadderton-the Oldham parliamentary constituency-which was responsible for 13% of the world's cotton production.
The demand for cheap cotton goods from this area prompted the flotation of cotton spinning companies; the investment was followed by the construction of 12 new cotton mills from 1870 and 1900.
During this time, it was reported in the national press that Shaw and Crompton had more millionaires per capita than any other town in the world.
The number of cotton mills in the township peaked at 36 in 1920.
The Great Depression, and First and Second World Wars each contributed to periods of economic decline in Shaw and Crompton. Although the industry endured, as imports of cheaper foreign yarns increased during the mid-20th century, Shaw and Crompton's textile sector declined gradually to a halt; said to have over-relied upon the textile sector, cotton spinning reduced in the 1960s and 1970s, and by the early 1980s only four mills were operational.
In spite of efforts to increase the efficiency and competitiveness of its production, the final cotton was spun in Shaw and Crompton in 1989, in Lilac and Park mills.