A piecer mended broken threads during spinning. The piecers were often called ‘little piecers’ because they started young. They were usually employed by the spinner, rather than directly by the mill owners. A spinner would often employ their own children, thus keeping the money in the family.
Spinner
A spinner operated one or more spinning machines, usually two facing each other, each with many spindles that made thread. Because the floor beneath spinning machines was soaked in the oil from the cotton, spinners usually worked barefoot. Spinners normally employed their own piecers and paid them directly. A spinning mule (a machine used to spin cotton) might have up to 1200 spindles from end to end and be nearly 100 yards long. A spinner would be paid according to the amount of thread produced. Poor quality cotton with short fibres broke more easily. Ask a spinner to spin Surat (a type of low quality cotton thread) and they would be most unhappy, knowing that their piecers would be unable to keep up with the number of breaks, forcing them to stop the mule.
Weaver
A weaver ran one or more looms to weave cloth. The more looms run, the more money earned. Weaving was a very noisy operation, leaving many weavers deaf. Whether deaf or not, most weavers would have learned to lip-read since this was the only way to hold a conversation in the weaving shed. Making the lip movements without bothering to produce sound is known as ‘Mee-mawing’.