ABSTRACT
Robert Owen’s connection with New Lanark lasted for twenty-eight years in all, and for twenty-five of these he was in active control of the establishment. The difficulties which Owen met with at New Lanark are in many respects typical of the time. The rapid expansion of the factory system involved an intensely keen demand for labour. Owen meant to make New Lanark not merely a success as a factory, but the laboratory for a great series of social experiments in education and moral and physical reform. But, Owen’s work at New Lanark falls into two periods. The first and longest, stretching from 1800 to 1813, when he formed his partnership to work the mills, during which New Lanark was gradually transformed into the most successful establishment of the day, in its human as well as its commercial results. The second period stretches from 1813 to about 1825.
