page_title: Eccles Shorrock
section_title: The 1860s
hierarchical_section_title: Eccles Shorrock / The 1860s
caption_attribution_description: English: India Mill
context_page_description: Eccles Shorrock was a Lancashire cotton industrialist who was responsible for commissioning the India Mill and its iconic chimney, a major landmark in Darwen, Lancashire.
context_section_description: The 1860s was a difficult time for Eccles Shorrock and his India Mill Company and proved to be a definitive decade for both of them. The decade started with the American Civil War which had an effect not only on Shorrock and his India Mill Company but also on the entire cotton trade/milling industry.
  This effect was due to the fact that the whole of the Southern United States was dominated by cotton farming and production and during the war the production of cotton fell because of the Confederate States of America's focus on military production. Certain trade embargoes also lead to a considerable reduction in the export of cotton from the United States. The lack of American cotton lead to a large influx of Indian cotton, which was of a significantly lesser quality and yet still more expensive because of transportation expenses. The lack of American cotton had caused the price of Indian cotton to skyrocket.
  Shorrock luckily had purchased plenty of American cotton to fill his reserves at the beginning of the war and there was no need for him to pay a 300% increase in cotton prices. Cotton reserves meant that Shorrock was able to weather the storm of the "Cotton Famine" when other cotton mill companies which had not taken similar precautions at the start of the war were forced to suffer.
  Eccles Shorrock's uncle had opened the William Street School for the purpose of educating people who had lost their job in the cotton mill industry in new trades, believing that the William Street School would combat unemployment problems in the town of Darwen and the larger area. In 1862, the numbers of those whom needed assistance in the William Street School and under the Darwen Relief Fund that Shorrock had founded went from 600 at the start of the year to 3000 at the end. Eccles Shorrock had personally donated 1000 British Pounds to the Darwen Relief Fund .
  In 1862, Eccles Shorrock and many others that were a part of the Darwen Relief Fund donated 2000 Christmas dinner tickets to the unemployed and needy. In tandem with the Darwen Relief Fund the Lord of the local Manor, William Duckworth, donated the money for an addition 2000 Christmas dinner tickets to match Shorrock and the relief fund. The economic casualties from the Queensland Cotton Growing Company were invited to the assembly room in 1863; the address to these people was headed with the title "Emigration or Starvation!".
  Despite the despair that the Cotton Famine caused by the American Civil War had inflicted on the English cotton mill industry, Eccles Shorrock and the India Mill Company were able to prosper during and after this period. In the mid-1860s the new India Mill was completed with its mock campanile chimney. The India Mill Company's building and chimney would be and is looked at as a symbol of prosperity and productiveness for the town of Darwen as it stands as the greatest monument the town has to offer.
  It is also worth stating that the chimney was not completed without daring and bold actions by the common man. As was accounted in the "Blackburn Times" on October 1, 1864, Briggs Knowles had volunteered to climb the height of the chimney to untangle and free the rope that was used to bus the materials (in a box) at the top of the chimney in progress. Knowles had climbed the chimney without any safety measures other than his own sure-handedness and his wits. Knowles was successful in his attempt and Shorrock had awarded him 20 shillings. As evidence to the aforementioned the building became a symbol for prosperity in the town of Darwen because the town and the India Mill Company was seemingly at its height in the realm of commerce. An 1867 table of works in Darwen projected extremely positive numbers for the town and the India Mill Company; unemployment in Darwen had drastically improved from the years of 1861–1864. In Darwen's table of works in 1867 it also showed that the Shorrocks had 32 cotton weaving works that were employing approximately 7000 individuals producing over 28,550,000 pounds of cloth per annum.
  Eccles Shorrock and the India Mill Company's enjoyed
caption: India Mill
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