94 MY LIFE [Chap. 



with the best machinery under the management of Mr. Lee, 

 a civil engineer, who had unexpectedly left him, he himself 

 knowing nothing of the business. Owen applied for the post, 

 being then barely twenty years old, and looking younger. 

 He asked £300 a year salary ; and after a few inquiries as to 

 character, seeing his little factory of three mules, and examining 

 his books, Mr. Drinkwater engaged him, and about a week 

 afterwards he was called upon to take charge of a large 

 factory employing about five hundred workpeople. The former 

 manager had left the day before, Mr. Drinkwater did not come 

 to introduce him, and he was simply sent there as the new 

 manager. His business was to purchase the raw material, 

 to make the machines, for the mill was not nearly completed ; 

 to manufacture the yarn, and to sell it ; to keep the accounts, 

 pay the wages, and take the whole responsibility of the first 

 fine cotton-spinning establishment by machinery that had ever 

 been erected. Hitherto his life had been spent in retail 

 shops, where he had learnt the qualities of various fabrics, 

 and how to buy and sell, but till his short experience with 

 Jones and with his three spinning-mules, he had never even 

 seen any textile machinery or learnt anything about its 

 construction. 



He describes how he suddenly found himself in the midst 

 of five hundred men, women, and children, who were busily 

 occupied with machinery, much of which he had scarcely seen, 

 and never in their regular connection so as to manufacture 

 from the raw cotton to the finished thread. We can well 

 understand his feelings, and how he said to himself, " How 

 came I here ? And how is it possible I can manage these 

 people and this business ? " His description of how he did 

 manage it, without ever showing his complete ignorance ; how 

 he not only superintended the completion of the mill and 

 carried on the whole thing successfully, but in a very short 

 time noticed imperfections in the thread, found out the defect 

 in the machinery or in the mode of working that led to these 

 imperfections, and then had these defects remedied ; how the 

 quality and selling value of the output steadily advanced ; how 

 the organization of the whole mill was perfected, and yet the 



