Page from Wages book from Richard Arkwright and Company's Lumford Mill in Bakewell, Derbyshire

Sir Richard Arkwright (1732-1792), cotton manufacturer, was born in Preston, Lancashire. After an early career as a barber, perukier and then publican, he began to develop cotton spinning machinery, inventing the "water frame" in 1769. He formed a company to exploit his patents, and went into partnership with Samuel Need of Nottingham (1718-1781) and Jedediah Strutt of Derby (1726-1797). The mills founded by the company in the Derwent Valley are considered the earliest exponents of the factory system and became a World Heritage Site in 2001.

Arkwright leased the land for his mill at Lumford, Bakewell, from Philip Gell of Hopton in 1778. The building had probably been erected by the end of the year, and was certainly in operation by 1783. However, the machinery that powered the mill affected the fishing further downstream, and interrupted the supply of water to a corn mill owned by the Duke of Rutland, the Lord of the Manor of Bakewell. Although the subsequent legal dispute was resolved in the Duke's favour in 1786, further disagreements about the use of the river went on into the nineteenth century.

The wages books for Lumford Mill are some of the earliest surviving records for any of the Richard Arkwright Company mills, and demonstrate the differentiation between types of workers, reflected in a wide variation in rates of pay. Some workers are grouped together by place of origin as "Youlgreave pickers" (Youlgreave is a nearby village) and the factory operated up to 24 hours a day, as the list of "Night Spinners" shows.