Dale built the mills there in a brief partnership with the English inventor and entrepreneur Richard Arkwright to take advantage of the water power provided by the only waterfalls on the River Clyde.

Dale sold the mills, lands and village in the early 19th century for £60,000, payable over 20 years, to a partnership that included his son-in-law Robert Owen.

Owen, who became mill manager in 1800, was an industrialist who carried on his father-in-law's philanthropic approach to industrial working and who subsequently became an influential social reformer.

[3] The town and mills are important historically through their connection with Owen's ideas, but also because of their role in the developing Industrial Revolution in the UK and their place in the history of urban planning.

He paid particular attention to the needs of the 500 or so children living in the village (one of the tenement blocks is named Nursery Buildings) and working at the mills, and opened the first infants' school in Britain in 1817, although the previous year he had completed the Institute for the Formation of Character.

[6] The mills thrived commercially, but Owen's partners were unhappy at the extra expense incurred by his welfare programmes.

They were astonished to find a clean, healthy industrial environment with a content, vibrant workforce and a prosperous, viable business venture all rolled into one.

Owen's philosophy was contrary to contemporary thinking, but he was able to demonstrate that it was not necessary for an industrial enterprise to treat its workers badly to be profitable.

As well as the mills' connections with reform, socialism and welfare, they are also representative of the Industrial Revolution that occurred in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries and which fundamentally altered the shape of the world.

The Walkers managed the village until 1881, when it was sold to Birkmyre and Sommerville and the Gourock Ropeworks (although they tried unsuccessfully to sell the mills and the town in 1851).

The town and the industrial activity had been in decline before then, but after the mills closed migration away from the village accelerated, and the buildings began to deteriorate.

Some sense of such living conditions can be obtained by visiting the reconstructed Millworkers House at New Lanark World Heritage Site or the David Livingstone Centre at Blantyre.

It was not until 1933 that the houses had interior cold water taps for sinks and the communal outside toilets were replaced by inside facilities.

From 1938 the village proprietors provided free electricity to all the homes in New Lanark, but only enough power was available for one dim bulb in each room.

The importance of New Lanark has been recognised by UNESCO as one of Scotland's six World Heritage Sites, the others being Edinburgh Old and New Towns, Heart of Neolithic Orkney, St Kilda, the Antonine Wall and the Forth Bridge.

In 2009 the NLA was wound up as being financially and administratively unviable, and responsibility for the village's tenanted properties passed to the NLCT.

Some features introduced by the NLT, such as commercial signage and a glass bridge connecting the Engine House and Mill Number Three, have been criticised.