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( Mill town)
A Mill town, also known as factory town or mill village, is typically a settlement that developed around one or more mills or factories (usually cotton mills or factories producing textiles). In the United Kingdom, the term "Mill town" often refers to the 19th century textile-manufacturing towns of Scotland and Northern England, particularly those in Lancashire (cotton) and Yorkshire (wool). Likewise the northern English city of Manchester was bestowed with the name Cottonopolis as its region was considered a metropolis of cotton processing mills. One of the most famous references to the early mills was in the poem/hymn "Jerusalem" by William Blake, in which "those dark satanic mills" were used to symbolise the injustice that a new Jerusalem ought to replace. The British textile industry never fully recovered after the Great Depression, and its decline continued after the Second World War when it was unable to compete with the growing Indian textile industry. It is said that Gandhi was jeered when he visited mill towns on his 1931 tour of Britain, as many locals blamed his policies for causing unemployment.[1] There are still a minority of mills left in operation today however. In addition, many mill buildings have conservation orders on them, and some have been converted into blocks of flats. The term mill town (or sometimes mill and mosque town) has seen something of a revival in the British media since the debate over relations between Muslims and non-Muslims began in the aftermath of riots in several mill towns.[2] The term conveniently groups together towns on both sides of the Pennines that suffer from racial segregation and sometimes significant racial tension. Bradford has seen several riots in recent years whilst Burnley, Dewsbury and Oldham have all had suffered one riot each (see Oldham Riots and Bradford Riot). After the Second World War, thousands of migrants from both the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent settled in the mill towns to fill the labour shortage in the industry; they often moved to the traditional working-class areas whilst the White working-class moved out to the newly built estates after the war.[3]
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