The Mill

- Season 1

(2013)

1833;- Workers at the Quarry Bank cotton mill - many of them young orphans from the work-house - rise early for a long day. Over-looker Crout neglects his duty to sexually molest apprentice Miriam, leading to young Tommy losing a hand in the machinery. Hannah, the kindly, abolitionist wife of mill-owner Samuel Greg, nurses the boy back to health but her husband is more concerned that this will reflect badly when the parish commission arrives to look into working conditions. Spirited Esther Price reports Crout to them but he talks his way out of it. Meanwhile engineer ...

Esther appears in court for assaulting Crout but proves that she was defending herself against his sexual advances and is charged only with taking the clapper from the bell. On return to the mill Robert sacks Crout, who reveals that Robert's younger brother William impregnated apprentice Susannah. Robert agrees to look after her and her child providing she keeps the paternity a secret. Supervisor Timperley brings the Garner sisters from the Liverpool work-house but the younger girl is deemed too sickly to work and has to be returned. Timperley lets her escape - rather...

Esther and Lucy steal Timperley's horse and cart and reach the Liverpool work-house, only to find that Catherine was not returned. They suspect that Timperley killed her but Timperley follows and brings Lucy back to the mill. Esther eludes him and tries in vain to find her birth certificate but eventually she too is captured and, back at Quarry Bank, her hair is shaved and she is locked in a cell but rescued by Hannah, who accuses Robert of brutality. Timperley's callous, over-weight wife drops dead whilst climbing the stairs to the cell and the apprentices roar with ...

In response to Esther's investigations in Liverpool her sister Martha arrives at the mill. Timperley tells her Esther has run off but Tommy tells her the truth and she goes to see John Doherty. Samuel Greg dies at much the same time as the bill to shorten the working day is defeated. Robert gives the newly married Daniel a half share of the new loom's patent profits as a wedding present but Daniel sees it as a bribe and destroys the money. He and Susannah defy Robert by going to a Sunday meeting addressed by John. The workers are locked up to prevent their attendance ...