The Industrial Revolution transformed Britain as many traditional crafts and cottage industries gave way to large-scale, mechanised factory production manned by staff whose working lives were regulated by the clock. When Samuel Gregg built a cotton textile mill at Quarry Bank, Styall, Cheshire in 1784, his apprentice indentures indicated provision of clothes, along with food and training. Some industrialists also offered clothing prizes to their workforce to encourage production, like Richard Arkwright at his Derbyshire cotton-spinning mill. Early mill-workers dressed similarly to other labourers: men wore breeches or, from the 1810s/20s, trousers, often removing jackets and waistcoats to work in light shirt sleeves. Female dress was cumbersome in hot and humid, or dusty, airless conditions, long skirts being easily caught in moving machinery, layers of underwear unbearably stifling.

During the early 1800s a new protective factory apron evolved: a simple sleeveless white linen or cotton garment constituting an early form of pinafore. Otherwise, dress was slow to adapt to the new workplaces. Broadly, employers set their own rules and when the vast cage crinoline frame grew fashionable in the late 1850s, Samuel Courtauld issued a dress code prohibiting such items. Plain, neat frocks with few petticoats were considered sensible factory wear, with shawls for warmth. Half-aprons or the new pinafores were also worn, long hair pinned up securely or contained in a net. Economical, practical iron-studded wooden-soled clogs with leather uppers became usual in northern factories and mills. But provision of special protective clothing was not compulsory and even heavy-industry workers were poorly equipped. In extremely hazardous jobs some rudimentary steps were taken, such as heavy-duty steel-toe reinforced leather boots, but safety gear was ad hoc until the 1891 Factory and Workshop Act regulated dangerous occupations. Due to the looser nature of women’s clothes, females were still vulnerable: in 1894 a 14-year-old Lancashire factory girl fractured her leg when her skirt caught in the driving band of a carding engine.

Clogs, calf-length skirt, thick dark stockings and chequered shawl were characteristic of female textile mill workers in the early 1900s, although in some industries long-sleeved coveralls or overall coats were developing. During WW1 millions of women entered factory work and following Factory Act guidelines ‘munitionettes’ in hazardous munitions factories were provided with calf-length overall coat treated with flame-retardant chemicals, although these were of little use in major industrial accidents. Caps for the hair were obligatory and some women in heavy industry adopted a short overall coat or tunic and loose ankle-length trousers. All metal items that could possibly cause sparks, including hairpins and steel-boned corsets, were strictly prohibited on the factory floor. Between the wars many men wore denim or stout calico overall coats or all-in-one trousered ‘mechanics overalls’ or ‘boiler suits’ – as did many women taking over male factory jobs during the Second World War.

Read Jayne’s latest guides to dating photos in the new print edition, Issue 9, available now viadiscoveryourancestors.co.uk