By 1830 large numbers of children were employed in the cotton mills. Many families were so poor that even very young children were sent out to work. They were often taken on as scavengers, crawling underneath the machinery, cleaning and oiling them as they went. Older children worked as piecers, watching the hundreds of threads and joining together any that broke. Young men became spinners, operating the large machines.

	After the evictions began many families moved to escape from poverty. They went to cities like Glasgow, where there was work to be found in the textile mills, on the railways, in coal mines and in ship building. The cities grew so quickly that it was impossible to build decent homes fast enough. Conditions in the three and four storey tenements were very bad.
The immigrant areas were the poorest in the city. There was little sanitation, no proper water supply and rubbish lay in the street. Two or three families often had to share one or two rooms. These areas were known as slums. Rents were not always cheap and people were put out on the street if they could not pay on time.

Here are some diary entries we wrote about what life might have been like in the Glasgow factories.

Kirsty's Diary by Kathryn

Dear Diary Today I had to get up at 5.00 a.m. I could hardly walk to the factory. It is an ugly black building and it stinks of rotten eggs. Our work starts at 6.00 a.m. We get 2 shillings a week, but we don't even get paid for the first three days! You'd think we were slaves. When I went in I was told I was a piecer. I have to watch thousands of machines and when the thread breaks I have to piece it together. It stings your hands like mad. You'd never have seen me doing this in Culmailie, but we have to do it here.

A girl called Maggie works beside me, she's really kind. we were talking about work, when the overseer saw us. He got his massive leather strap and hit Maggie with it, it must have been agony. At lunch I couldn't eat my piece, I was too exhausted. Maggie gave me some water though. Then the whistle blew again and we went back into the building. On the way in there is a sign. It has 21 rules, if you break one you get fined! After lunch I was almost falling onto the machines. My dress got ripped on it. Maggie says a boy had his arms ripped off in the machinery and he lived for 24 hours after! At 7.30 p.m. the whistle blew and we trudged slowly home.

Davie's Diary by Chris

Dear Diary Today I had to get up at 5.30 a.m for work at 6.oo a.m. This gruelling work went on fo the maximum of eighteen hours! In the half an hour until breakfast nothing happened except the machinery clanking to a halt twice. Breakfast was nothing more than an oatcake and cheese, after that back to the slavery. Eventually the machines started up again. Later on old Tam one of Kirsty's friends was found 'slacking' and the overseer's whip came down on his back. He fell to the ground and his arm became mangled in the machine.

As he screamed in pain the overseer Mr. Septile (Reptile to the workers), leapt to the rescue, yanking the sobbing Tam free of the machine. After that incident a ghostly silence swept across the mill, all silent except for the clatter of the machinery. I was a collector of the full bobbins, changing them for the empty ones. Kirsty had a job as a piecer, joining broken threads, a very tiring and boring life. All this suffering and pain was only rewarded with 2 shillings a week and no wages when you were learning. At the end of this horrible day the horn blew...FREEDOM!

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