The Jute Industry
It’s important, firstly, to have a basic understanding of the jute industry and of its relevance to the economy of Dundee and surrounding areas. If at all possible you should visit the Verdant Works as this will graphically bring home to you the nature of the work done by your ancestor. In the meantime the following will give you some background to the rise and fall of this important industry.
From the 1850s until well into the 20th century, jute was one of the most important materials in the world. Said to be the fabric of a thousand uses, jute was used for everything from clothing to flooring and from deck chairs to explosive fuses! It was the material that covered the pioneers’ wagons on the American West and made the ropes used by the British Navy. World trade relied on it as sacking and it was a vital wartime commodity that was made into tents, guns covers and horse blankets.
A large grass-like plant cultivated in India for centuries, jute was processed in Dundee from the early 19th century. From the 1850s the Scottish jute industry boomed, at its height employing around 50,000 people in Dundee and thousands more in nearby towns such as Forfar and Tayport.
The jute factories were deafeningly noisy and the atmosphere was full of tiny particles of jute fibre which filled workers’ noses, mouths and lungs. Women and children were the main groups employed in the factories as they could be paid less than men and their smaller bodies and hands could move more easily amidst the dangerous spinning and weaving machines.
Jute production made vast fortunes for “jute barons” such as the Cairds and the Baxters who lived in splendid villas. Their lives were markedly different from those of the mill workers. Cramped and unsanitary housing, low wages and periods of unemployment meant that life was hard and often short for most mill workers and their families.
By the end of the 19th century jute production was shifting to Calcutta in India. But even as jute manufacturing in Dundee declined, the City continued to play a vital role in the industry. Scottish managers and engineers went to India to oversee the jute mills there and Indian and East Pakistani textile students came to study at Dundee Technical College. By the 1980s almost all jute manufacturing in Dundee and Tayport had ceased but the industry had changed Dundee forever.
The life of the Dundee jute worker at the turn of the century was very hard, with long hours and dangerous working conditions. At Lochee, Cox’s jute mill employed 5,000 on 1,000 looms. Irish immigrant workers who sought work in the mill, lived in a close environment, squeezed into tenements managed by the mill owners. Unsurprisingly infant and maternal deaths were the highest in the country. Dundee was known as a women’s town as so many women were employed in the jute factories in preference to men, primarily it was said because of their aptitude but undoubtedly mainly because women’s wages were less. Any young men employed were laid off on reaching their 18th birthdays to prevent them earning higher wages.