Rowbottom's Comments on Trade and Politics - 1800 to 1819
As Recorded in the Diary of William Rowbottom
Comments and additional information (in italics) are from the transcription by Samuel Andrew,
serialised in the 'Oldham Standard' between 1887 & 1889
Cost of Provisions HERE

1807

December 3rd -
Prices of weaving were very low, and the martial spirit of Oldham, as usual when a war was raging and the people poor, exhibited itself in large enlistments in the army.

The Jacobins, or early Radicals, though quiet for many years, here show signs of existence, and probably in an organised form. We shall see further on that these appeals to Government for peace were backed out by a strike for higher wages on the part of the distressed weavers.

In 1807 -
The waste of Greenacres Moor had all been effectually reclaimed, and manufactories and habitations were starting into existence as if by magic. There were 8 cotton mills and nearly 230 houses on the spot which, 36 years previously, had been almost an uninhabited wilderness.

The number of dwellings in Northmoor had increased to 130.