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"Hero or Traitor" - Samuel Slater (1768-1835)

Samuel Slater was born in Belper in 1768, the son of William Slater. After his father's death in 1783 Samuel signed indenture papers as an apprentice to Jedidiah Strutt in his Cotton Mill, where he stayed for six and a half years. Subsequently he emigrated to Pawtucket, Rhode Island (USA), where he helped to start the American cotton industry.

On 1 September 1789, the twenty-one year old Slater - “Slater the Traitor”, as he is known in Belper - left town and took a stage coach to London. From there, he sailed to New York, with the sole intention of making his fortune by betraying the secret of Arkwright's “water frame” to American cotton manufacturers. He did so in the knowledge that the UK government had made it illegal to export industrial knowledge from the Cotton factory system in Britain as it was against her economic interests.

George S. White's Memoir of Samuel Slater written in 1836 has up to now been regarded as a primary source document; however White was unable to check what he was told and merely relayed the inaccuracies and lies that Slater wanted the world to believe in order to retain the respect and social position he had by then acquired in the New World. Now detailed research into Slater's twenty-one years in England has uncovered the truth about his early life, before he went to Rhode Island and - as we said earlier - helped to start the American cotton industry.

For further information, and details of a book and DVD see “Samuel Slater - Hero or Traitor?” .

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© 2007 Copyright UK Caroline Densham.

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