Full bibliographical details of all secondary works cited are contained in the notes below. Autobiographies and memoirs are cited in the notes by surname only and should be cross-referenced with the bibliography for the full citation. Where more than one writer has the same surname, additional detail has been given to enable correct identification of the author. Where items have survived in manuscript form only, I have indicated the archives in which they are stored.
1 Introduction: ‘A Simple Naritive’
1. R. Anderson, pp. xiii–xxxiv.
2. Bennett, p. 2 (Bristol Record Office); Mayett, p. 2.
3. Lincoln, p. 82 (Norfolk Record Office).
4. Ibid., p. 1.
5. Ibid., p. 5.
6. Ibid., pp. 7–9.
7. Ibid., p. 10.
8. Ibid., p. 13.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., p. 21.
11. Ibid., p. 23.
12. Ibid., p. 27.
13. At least this seems a reasonable inference, since John and Sarah gave the name Elizabeth to a daughter in 1826 and again in 1830. See Norfolk Record Office, Oxborough Baptism Registers, 1813–1998, PD 139/56.
14. The starting point for anybody interested in looking at working-class autobiography must be Burnett et al.'s annotated bibliography: John Burnett, David Vincent and David Mayall, The Autobiography of the Working Class. An Annotated, Critical Bibliography, 1790–1900, i (New York, 1984). See also Nan Hackett, Nineteenth-Century British Working-Class Autobiographies: An Annotated Bibliography (New York, 1985). Many more items have come to light since Burnett et al.'s work in the 1970s and about 20 per cent of the items consulted here are not listed in their bibliography.
15. The broad contours of these debates can be traced in: Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson, ‘Rehabilitating the industrial revolution’, Economic History Review, 45/1 (1992), pp. 24–50; J. De Vries, ‘The industrial revolution and the industrious revolution’, Journal of Economic History, 54/2 (1994), pp. 249–70; M. J. Daunton, Progress and Poverty. An Economic and Social History of Britain (Oxford, 1995); Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (Princeton, NJ, 2007); Robert C. Allen, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective (Cambridge, 2009); Joel Mokyr, The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain, 1700–1850 (New Haven, CT, 2010). A simple summary can also be found in Emma Griffin, A Short History of the British Industrial Revolution (London, 2010).
16. A useful entry point to autobiographical material, both published and manuscript, is provided by the following edited collections: John Burnett, Useful Toil: Autobiographies of Working People from the 1820s to the 1920s (Harmondsworth, 1974); idem, Destiny Obscure. Autobiographies of Childhood, Education and Family from the Late 1820s to the 1920s (London, 1982); David Vincent, Testaments of Radicalism: Memoirs of Working-Class Politicians, 1790–1885 (London, 1977); James R. Simmons and Janice Carlisle, eds, Factory Lives: Four Nineteenth-Century Working-Class Autobiographies (Ontario, 2007).
17. This was very clearly the view of the first major study of working-class autobiography. See David Vincent, Bread, Knowledge and Freedom: a Study of Nineteenth-Century Working-Class Autobiography (London, 1981), pp. 10, 6. A recent and very robust rebuttal of this view, however, may be found in Jane Humphries, Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution (Cambridge, 2010), which subjects broadly the same set of sources that I have looked at here to statistical analysis in an attempt to chart changes in the significance and extent of child labour over the period 1627–1878.
18. Hemmingway, pp. 408–11 (Norfolk Record Office).
19. Oakley, pp. 113–50, p. 148.
20. A useful introduction to female life-writing may be found in Jane Rendall, ‘A Short account of my Unprofitable Life: autobiographies of working-class women in Britain, 1775–1845’, in Trev Lynn Broughton and Linda Anderson, eds, Women's Lives/Women's Times: New Essays on Auto/Biography (Albany, 1997). Also useful are Eileen Yeo, ‘Will the real Mary Lovett please stand up? Chartism, gender and autobiography’, in Malcolm Chase and Ian Dyck, eds, Living and Learning: Essays in Honour of J.F.C. Harrison (Aldershot, 1996), pp. 163–81; Paula J. Harvey, ‘Spreading the wealth: “cultural capital” and modern British laboring women's autobiography’, Women's Studies, 22/2 (1993), pp. 181–96; Julia Swindells, ‘Liberating the subject: autobiography and “women's history”: a reading of the diaries of Hannah Cullwick’, in the Personal Narrative Group, Interpreting Women's Lives: Feminist Theory and Personal Narratives (Bloomington, IN, 1989), pp. 24–38.
21. Tough, p. 6.
22. Frost, p. 42. Contrast with Peter Gurney, ‘Thomas Frost’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
23. E. Johnston, pp. 301–24, 302.
24. Bennett; the quote comes from p. 1 (Bristol Record Office).
25. Ibid., p. 3.
26. These difficulties seem heightened by the fact that literary theorists have been far more active than historians in working with autobiographical material. See, for instance, Karl Weintraub, ‘Autobiography and historical consciousness’, Critical Inquiry, 1/4 (1979), pp. 821–48; William C. Spengemann, The Forms of Autobiography: Episodes in the History of a Literary Genre (New Haven, CT, 1980); Robert Elbaz, The Changing Nature of the Self: a Critical Study of the Autobiographic Discourse (London, 1988); James Olney, ed., Studies in Autobiography (Oxford, 1988); Felicity Nussbaum, The Autobiographical Subject: Gender and Ideology in Eighteenth-Century England (Baltimore, MD, 1989); Regenia Gagnier Subjectivities: A History of Self-Representation in Britain, 1832–1920 (Oxford, 1991); James Treadwell, Autobiographical Writing and British Literature (Oxford, 2005); Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, Reading Autobiography: a Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives (Minneapolis, MN, 2001).
27. Vincent, Bread, Knowledge and Freedom, pp. 10, 6. See also W. S. Howard, ‘Miners' autobiography: text and context’, Labour History Review, 60/2 (1995), pp. 89–99; Nan Hackett, ‘A different form of “self”: narrative style in British nineteenth-century working-class autobiography’, Biography, 12 (1989), pp. 208–26; Chris Waters, ‘Autobiography, nostalgia, and the changing practices of working-class selfhood’, in George K. Behlmer and Fred Marc Leventhal, eds, Singular Continuities: Tradition, Nostalgia, and Society in Modern Britain (Stanford, CA, 2000), pp. 178–95; Kevin Binfield, ‘Ned Ludd and labouring class autobiography’, in Eugene Stelzig, ed., Romantic Autobiography in England (Farnham, Surrey, 2009).
28. MacDonald, p. 2.
29. Hutton, pp. vi–vii.
30. Nye, p. 20.
31. Hemmingway, unpaginated introduction (Norfolk Record Office).
32. William Wordsworth, ‘Outrage done to Nature’, from The Excursion (1814); William Blake, ‘And did those feet in ancient time’, from Milton: a Poem (1804–8).
33. Charles Dickens, Hard Times (London, 1854).
34. Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil, Or the Two Nations (London, 1845).
35. William Cobbett, Rural Rides (London, 1830).
36. John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, ed. W. J. Ashley (London, 1909), p. 751.
37. Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, ed. David McLellan (Oxford, 1993) p. 16. See also Tristram Hunt, The Frock-Coated Communist: the Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels (London, 2010).
38. Published in German in 1845, Engels' ideas remained largely locked away for several decades until the American feminist, Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky, undertook an English translation in the 1880s.
39. Quoted in T. S. Ashton, ‘The standard of life of the workers of England, 1790–1830’, Journal of Economic History, Supplement IX (1949), pp. 19–38, quote p. 20.
40. Arnold Toynbee, Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England (London, 1884), pp. 84, 5. John U. Nef, ‘The industrial revolution reconsidered’, Journal of Economic History, 3/1 (1943), pp. 1–31, p. 1. Toynbee's knowledge of Engels' as yet untranslated work is discussed in D. C. Coleman, ‘Myth, history and the industrial revolution’, in his Myth, History, and the Industrial Revolution (London, 1992), pp. 19–20.
41. John H. Clapham, An Economic History of Modern Britain: the Early Railway Age, 1820–1850 (Cambridge, 1926).
42. Ibid., pp. 55, 561.
43. The quotes come from reviews by Abbott Payson Usher (American Economic Review, 17/4, 1927), pp. 694–6; T. S. Ashton (Economic History Review, 5/1, 1934), pp. 104–19; H. L. Beales (Economica, 20, 1927), pp. 233–5; and T. H. Marshall (English Historical Review, 42/168, 1927), pp. 624–6.
44. J. L. Hammond, ‘The industrial revolution and discontent’, Economic History Review, 2/2 (1930), pp. 215–28, quote p. 219.
45. E. J. Hobsbawm, ‘The standard of living during the industrial revolution: a discussion’, Economic History Review, 16/1 (1963), pp. 119–34, quote p. 119.
46. R. M. Hartwell and S. Engermann, ‘Models of immiseration: the theoretical basis of pessimism’, in Arthur J. Taylor, ed., The Standard of Living in Britain in the Industrial Revolution (London, 1975), pp. 189–213, quote p. 212.
47. E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth, 1976), p. 231.
48. S. Horrell and J. Humphries, ‘Old questions, new data, and alternative perspectives: families' living standards during the industrial revolution’, Journal of Economic History, 52/4 (1992), pp. 849–80; C. H. Feinstein, ‘Pessimism perpetuated: real wages and the standard of living in Britain during and after the industrial revolution’, Journal of Economic History, 58/3 (1998), pp. 625–8; Robert C. Allen, ‘Engels' pause: technical change, capital accumulation, and inequality in the British industrial revolution’, Explorations in Economic History, 46 (2009), pp. 418–35.
49. H. J. Voth, Time and Work in England 1750–1830 (Oxford, 2000); idem, ‘The longest years: new estimates of labor input in England, 1760–1830’, Journal of Economic History, 61/4 (2001), pp. 1065–82; E. Hopkins, ‘Working hours and conditions during the industrial revolution: a reappraisal’, Economic History Review, 35/1 (1982), pp. 52–66; Humphries, Childhood and Child Labour; Peter Kirby, Child Labour in Britain, 1750–1870 (Basingstoke, 2003); P. Huck, ‘Infant mortality and the living standards of English workers during the industrial revolution’, Journal of Economic History, 55/3 (1995), pp. 528–50; Simon Szreter and Graham Mooney, ‘Urbanisation, mortality, and the standard of living debate’, Economic History Review, 51/1 (1998), pp. 84–112.
50. R. Floud, K. Wachter and A. Gregory, Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750–1980 (Cambridge, 1990), Stephen Nicholas and Richard H. Steckel, ‘Heights and living standards of English workers during the early years of industrialization, 1770–1815’, Journal of Economic History, 1/4 (1991), pp. 937–57; Stephen Nicholas and Deborah Oxley, ‘The living standards of women during the industrial revolution, 1795–1820’, Economic History Review, 46/4 (1993), pp. 723–49; Paul Johnson and Stephen Nicholas, ‘Male and female living standards in England and Wales, 1812–1857: evidence from criminal height records’, Economic History Review, 48/3 (1995), pp. 470–81; Stephen Nicholas and Deborah Oxley, ‘The living standards of women in England and Wales, 1785–1815: new evidence from Newgate prison records’, Economic History Review, 49/3 (1996), pp. 591–9; Robert William Fogel, The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700–2100: Europe, America, and the Third World (Cambridge, 2004).
51. The major exception here is Gregory Clark, whose work suggests sizeable rises in the real wage before 1850. See Clark, ‘The condition of the working class in England, 1209–2004’, Journal of Political Economy, 113/6 (2005), pp. 1307–40, idem, ‘Farm wages and living standards in the industrial revolution: England, 1670–1869’, Economic History Review, 53/3 (2001), pp. 477–505.
52. Lincoln, ‘Memoirs’, p. 2 (Norfolk Record Office).
53. Ibid., p. 36.
54. Ibid., p. 37.
55. The expression is Hobsbawm's. See his ‘The British standard of living, 1790–1850’, Economic History Review, 10/1 (1957), pp. 46–68, p. 59.
56. Lincoln, ‘Memoirs’, p. 37.
57. Ibid., pp. 50–2.
58. Ibid., p. 80.
Part I: Earning a Living
2 Men at Work
1. Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, ed. David McLellan (Oxford, 1993), pp. 144–96.
2. Andrew Ure, The Philosophy of Manufactures, Or, An Exposition of the Scientific, Moral, and Commercial Economy of the Factory System of Great Britain (London, 2nd edn, 1835), pp. 277–403, esp. pp. 309–13, 379–402.
3. Key works include: Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb, Industrial Democracy (n.p., 1897); J. L. and Barbara Hammond, The Rise of Modern Industry (9th edn, London, 1966); E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth, 1976).
4. Thompson, The Making, pp. 487–8.
5. E. P. Thompson, ‘Time, work-discipline and industrial capitalism’, Past & Present, 38 (1967), pp. 56–97; H. Joachim Voth, Time and Work in England 1750–1830 (Oxford, 2000); idem, ‘The longest years: new estimates of labor input in England, 1760–1830’, Journal of Economic History, 61/4 (2001), pp. 1065–82. See also, however, E. Hopkins, ‘Working hours and conditions during the industrial revolution: a reappraisal’, Economic History Review, 35 (1982), pp. 52–66; R. Whipp, ‘A “time to every purpose”: an essay on time and work’, in P. Joyce, ed., The Historical Meanings of Work (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 210–36; Gregory Clark and Ysbrand Van der Werf, ‘Work in progress? The industrious revolution’, Journal of Economic History, 58/3 (1998), pp. 830–43.
6. Richard Price, Labour in British Society. An Interpretive History (London, 1986); Clive Behagg, Politics and Production in the Early Nineteenth Century (London, 1990).
7. Sidney Pollard, ‘Factory discipline in the industrial revolution’, Economic History Review, n. s. 16/2 (1963), pp. 254–71; Gregory Clark, ‘Factory discipline’, Journal of Economic History, 54/1 (1994), pp. 128–63; Chris Evans, ‘Work and workloads during industrialization: the experience of forgemen in the British iron industry 1750–1850’, International Review of Social History, 44/2 (1999), pp. 197–215.
8. Suresh Naidu and Noam Yuchtman, ‘Coercive contract enforcement: law and the labour market in nineteenth century industrial Britain’, ABER Working Paper, 17051 (2011); Robert J. Steinfeld, Coercion, Contract, and Free Labor in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 2001). Though it should be emphasised that none of these writers position their work within the bleak interpretation of the industrial revolution.
9. Dodd, p. 187.
10. Ibid., p. 221.
11. Ibid., p. 205.
12. Exposition of a Coiner, p. 4.
13. Ibid.
14. C. Campbell, p. 23.
15. It is interesting to note that a recent study of agricultural labourers in the period before 1780 suggests that their living standards may also have been higher than previously believed (Craig Muldrew, Food, Energy and the Creation of Industriousness: Work and Material Culture in Agrarian England, 1550–1780, Cambridge, 2011). Muldrew's study stops in 1780, but his findings do not of course preclude the possibility of further gains in subsequent decades.
16. Barlow, p. 21.
17. Ibid., pp. 19–20.
18. For an introduction to the history of apprenticeship see J. Lane, Apprenticeship in England, 1600–1914 (London, 1996); S. L. Kaplan, ‘Reconsidering apprenticeship: afterthoughts’, in B. De Munck, S. L. Kaplan and H. Soly, eds, Learning on the Shop Floor: Historical Perspectives on Apprenticeship (New York, 2007), pp. 203–19; Chris Minns and Patrick Wallis, Rules and Reality: Quantifying the Practice of Apprenticeship in Early Modern Europe (LSE Economic History Working Papers, 118/09, 2009)
19. K. D. M. Snell, ‘The apprenticeship system in British history: the fragmentation of a cultural institution’, History of Education, 25/4 (1996), pp. 303–21.
20. Hardy, p. 38.
21. The shoemakers who learned without serving an apprenticeship are: Askham, p. vii; T. Cooper, pp. 42–5; Dunning, p. 214; C. Bent, pp. 5–6; Bezer, pp. 173–7; Gibbs, pp. 45–6; Hardy, p. 38; Holcroft, p. 176; Hollingsworth, pp. 5–6; Jewell, p. 141; Spurr, p. 283; Struthers, pp. xxxiv–xxxvi. Those who entered a formal apprenticeship are: Crocker, pp. ix–xi; Gifford, p. 13; Herbert, pp. 7–12; M'Kaen (though he never completed), pp. 8–9; McAdam, pp. 2–4; W. Smith, p. 180; and Watkins, p. 20. Lackington served an apprenticeship with no premium, pp. 86–7. The fate of Chatterton, p. 2; Nicholson, p. 3; and Younger, p. 103; is not entirely clear.
22. T. Carter, pp. 70–4, 113–14.
23. The other tailors who learned without serving an apprenticeship are [Cameron], pp. 12–13; [Holkinson], 24 Jan. 1857; Lowery, pp. 59–61. The Irish tailor served an apprenticeship (‘Life of an Irish tailor’, 18 April 1857) as did Robert Crowe, pp. 4–5, though he quit early.
24. Carpenters: formal apprenticeships (Gabbitass, pp. xii–xiii; Jackson, p. 33; Newnham, p. 283; and G. Smith, Autobiography, pp. 16–17); uncompleted apprenticeships (Buckley, pp. 78–80, 104–20, and Croll, p. 16); informal arrangements (Bennett, p. 2, Bristol Record Office); Thomson, pp. 165–7). The terms of Murison's apprenticeship are unclear, pp. 212–13. Bakers: formal apprenticeships (‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 2 May 1857; D. Johnston, p. 31, though it was of only two years' duration; W. Swan, p. 44); informal arrangements (Innes, pp. 8–9; ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 13 & 20 Dec. 1856). Whitesmiths: formal apprenticeships (Claxton, p. 5; T. Mitchell, p. 4, Bristol Central Library); and Stradley, [p. 2] (Greenwich Heritage Centre); informal arrangements ([Gooch], p. 16 and [Self-Reformer], p. 284). The fate of T. Wood was not entirely clear, p. 8 (Bradford Central Library). Shipwright: formal apprenticeships (R. Barker, pp. 3–4; Sanderson, p. 22; and Thomson, pp. 59–76); informal arrangement (Thompson, pp. 6–7). Butcher: informal arrangement (J. Taylor, p. 8). Coopers: formal apprenticeships (Hart, 7/2, p. 151; and Nicol, p. 25).
25. Gammage p. 37; North, p. 103; Murdoch, pp. 8–12; Whetstone, p. 60; E. Davis, p. 10. Coach-trimming refers to the painting of horse-drawn carriages.
26. On deskilling, see in particular, Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: the Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1974). See also Stephen J. Nicholas and Jacqueline M. Nicholas, ‘Male literacy, “deskilling”, and the industrial revolution’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 23/1 (1992), pp. 1–18.
27. Dunning, pp. 120–4. See also Struthers, pp. xxxiv–xxxvi.
28. Dunning, p. 124.
29. Aird, pp. 10–11; Memoirs of a Printer's Devil, pp. 91–2: Bertram, pp. 3–28; Autobiography of Scotch Lad, pp. 26–33; Adams, pp. 81–90; Leno, pp. 8–9; [Smith], pp. 6–8; Paterson, pp. 60–2; J. Robinson, p. 1; Roper, no pag. (Warwickshire County Record Office); Skeen, pp. 2–6. The exceptions are: Urie, who did not complete his apprenticeship (Urie, pp. 41–2); and Scenes from my Life, p. 83. See also Horne, who started as an errand boy in a printers' shop, but left as his father could not afford the premium for an apprenticeship. E. Horne, pp. 30–2.
30. Gilders and carvers (Johnson, pp. 34–6; S. Taylor, pp. 2–3; and Wallis, pp. 23–8); cutlers (Jewitt, pp. 14–17 (Wigan Archives); Longden, p. 10). Consider also the drapers and grocers: Belcher, p. 10; Bewley, pp. 10–11; and Featherstone, p. 10, all entered apprenticeships; Binns, p. 2 (Tyne and Wear Archive Service), learned the work from his uncle. Millwrights (Croll, pp. 15–16, and Haggart, pp. 6–7, entered an apprenticeship; R. White, p. 3. did not). Blacksmiths (Bownas, pp. 1–2; Collyer, p. 21; Hick, p. 5; Stradley, [p. 2] (Greenwich Heritage Centre) all entered apprenticeships). Cartwright and wagon-wright (Errington, p. 17, and W. Johnston, p. 13, both entered apprenticeships).
31. Lovett, p. 25. The other cabinetmakers were Hopkinson, pp. 20–1, and H. Taylor, p. 6 (East Riding Archives).
32. Bangs, pp. 11–13.
33. It will be seen that I differ in emphasis from Humphries' recent account of apprenticeship. Humphries has stressed the importance of apprenticeship to industrialisation, but does not distinguish between formal and informal apprenticeships. In order to accept the resilience of apprenticeship during this economic transition, I believe it is necessary to work with a very loose definition of apprenticeship and to recognise that the entry to and substance of ‘apprenticeships’ did change considerably throughout the period. See Jane Humphries, Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 256–305,
34. G. Smith, Autobiography, p. 20; [Self Reformer], p. 285; T. Mitchell, pp. 18–22 (Bristol Central Library).
35. Good pay: Collyer, p. 39; Fairburn, pp. 72, 83; Henderson, p. 5; ‘Life of journeyman baker’, 13 & 20 Dec. 1856; ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 2 May 1857; Longden, p. 22; Lowery, p. 61; W. Swan, pp. 50–l; Thomson, pp. 166–7; Wallis, p. 48; Watkins, pp. 23–4; T. Wood, pp. 14–16 (Bradford Central Library).
36. Clothes: T. Carter, pp. 149–50; W. Swan, p. 48. Books: McAdam, pp. 3–4.
37. Gibbs, p. 46; H. Taylor, p. 6 (East Riding Archives); Burdett, p. 8 (Nottinghamshire Archives). See also Burn, p. 134; Corben, pp. 11–12.
38. Burn, p. 152.
39. Claxton, p. 17.
40. Skeen, p. 9.
41. Hick, p. 23.
42. Younger, p. 291; T. Mitchell, p. 18 (Bristol Central Library).
43. Bennett, p. 4 (Bristol Record Office).
44. See, for instance, J. Robinson, p. 1.
45. See, for instance, ibid., pp. 4–8 passim; Croll, p. 16. See also, more generally, Humphrey R. Southall, ‘The tramping artisan revisits: labour mobility and economic distress in early Victorian England’, Economic History Review, 44/2 (1991), pp. 272–96.
46. Davenport, pp. 28–30.
47. Ibid., pp. 33–7.
48. T. Carter, p. 152; Crowe, p. 6; [Holkinson], 24 Jan. 1857 (of his father), 31 Jan. 1857 (himself); ‘Life of Irish tailor’, 18 April 1857.
49. Lowery, pp. 59–61.
50. Chatterton, p. 2.
51. Watkins, pp. 22–3. See also C. Bent, pp. 6–20; ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 13 & 20 Dec. 1856; ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 2 May 1857. More unusually the East End baker, William Swan, ‘found it difficult to get enough for ourselves and the children’ owing to unemployment (W. Swan, p. 54). The hatter James Dawson Burn suffered from bouts of unemployment (Burn, pp. 135, 137). See also the shoemaker Robert Spurr (Spurr, pp. 285–6).
52. ‘Colin’, p. 36.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Writing under the pseudonym John Buckley. See Buckley, pp. 126–8.
56. Lincoln, p. 36 (Norfolk Record Office); Davies, pp. 2–8; Mayett, pp. 85, 92–5; W. T. Swan, p. 15; B. Shaw, pp. 28, 34–6, 37, 45, 47–50.
57. Lackingon, pp. 130–1.
58. Ibid., p. 132.
59. ‘Colin’, pp. 36, 60, 36.
60. W. Swan, p. 51.
61. D. Johnston, p. 92.
62. It can be seen that I am working with a common-sense understanding of ‘skill’. The extent to which factory work in the early nineteenth century was unskilled is challenged in H. M. Boot, ‘How skilled were Lancashire cotton factory workers in 1833?’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 48/2 (1995), pp. 283–303.
63. For an introduction to the literature on proto-industry, see Charles Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin, ‘Historical alternatives to mass production’, Past & Present, 108 (1985), pp. 133–76; Pat Hudson, ‘Industrial organisation and structure’, in Roderick Floud and Paul Johnson, eds, The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain: Industrialisation, 1700–1860, i (Cambridge, 2004).
64. J. Bethune, p. 12; Calladine, p. 2; [Moss], p. 5 (Nottinghamshire Archives).
65. Holroyd, pp. 115–16; Livesey, p. 197; Short, [p. 20] (Norwich Castle Museum); Whitehead, pp. 5–6.
66. The most influential account in this vein has been E. P. Thompson, The Making; though see also, more recently, John C. Brown, ‘The condition of England and the standard of living: cotton textiles in the northwest, 1806–1850’, Journal of Economic History, 50/3 (1990), pp. 591–614. There have always been critics, emphasising the slow rate of decline and the extent to which factories and mills allowed families to make up the lost wages of the male weaver. See, for example, Duncan Bythell, The Handloom Weavers. A Study in the English Cotton Industry during the Industrial Revolution (Cambridge, 1969); J. S. Lyons, ‘Family response to economic decline: handloom weavers in early nineteenth-century Lancashire’, Research in Economic History, 10 (1981), pp. 45–91; Geoffrey Timmins, The Last Shift: the Decline of Handloom Weaving in Nineteenth-Century Lancashire (Manchester, 1993).
67. For weavers engaged in farm work: Varley, 5 March 1822, p. 383. For knitters: Woolley, 11 Oct. 1813; 1 April, 17 June 1815 (Nottinghamshire Archives); [Moss], pp. 7–8 (Nottinghamshire Archives). See also the discussion in Carolyn Steedman, The Stocking-maker, the Magistrate and the Law (forthcoming), chs 8–9.
68. Bamford, Early Days, pp. 225–6; J. Barker, pp. 36–7; J. Bethune, p. 14; Brierley, p. 27; Castle, p. 18 (Essex Record Office); Farish, p. 34; Short Account of Glasgow Weaver, p. 4; Gutteridge, pp. 122, 124; T. Hanby, p. 136; Whitehead, p. 31.
69. Hammond, p. 24.
70. Arch, p. 47.
71. Bamford, Early Days, p. 226.
72. Brierley, p. 27.
73. Hammond, pp. 24–5.
74. Brierley, p. 27.
75. Bamford, Early Days, p. 307; J. Barker, pp. 30–6; J. Bethune, p. 15; Brierley, pp. 22–7; [Butler], p. 12; Castle, p. 21 (Essex Record Office); Farish, p. 34; Short Account of Glasgow Weaver, p. 5; Gutteridge, pp. 115–26; Harland extract no. 8 (Bradford Central Library); Holroyd, p. 116; Leatherland, p. 9; ‘Life of handloom weaver’, 25 April 1857; Livesey, pp. 197–8; Sankoffsky, p. 2 (Cumbria Record Office); Sholl, p. 39; Thom, pp. 21–38.
76. Carnegie, pp. 12–13; Cooke, p. 3; Farish, pp. 6–7; Hemmingway, pp. 2–9 (Norfolk Record Office); ‘Life of a handloom weaver’, 25 April 1857; M'Gonnagall, p. 2; T. Wood, p. 8 (Bradford Central Library).
77. Calladine, p. 2.
78. Hutton, pp. 63–4; [Moss], no pag. (Nottinghamshire Archives); Ragg, p. vi. The other knitter was Millhouse. His moves between knitting and the Nottinghamshire militia may have been prompted by downturns in the trade. See Millhouse, pp. vii–xii.
79. For more on this process, see Timmins, The Last Shift, pp. 17–34, 61–106.
80. See in particular Holroyd, p. 116; J. Bethune, p. 15. Just two of the autobiographers were still weavers when they wrote their autobiography: Short Account of Glasgow Weaver; ‘Life of a handloom weaver’, 25 April 1857.
81. Gutteridge, p. 99.
82. Thom, pp. 21–40, p. 21.
83. Hutton, pp. 63–4.
84. On this see in particular: Maxine Berg, ‘What difference did women's work make to the industrial revolution?’, History Workshop Journal, 35 (1993), pp. 22–44.
85. Factory work: Bates, p. 2; Cooke, p. 5; Farish, pp. 18, 66–84; Hanson, p. 14; Heaton, pp. xxii–xxiii; Hemmingway, p. 385 (Norfolk Record Office); Thom, pp. 47–8. Warehouses and dealing: Bamford, Early Days, pp. 187–92; Brierley, pp. 50, 54; Hammond, p. 24; Harland, extract no. 8 (Bradford Central Library); and Whitehead, p. 40. Farish, pp. 78–81 and Hemmingway, pp. 368–74, also worked transporting goods after a stint in the factory. It will be seen, then, that I disagree with Bythell and Lyons, who have argued that factories primarily employed children and wives rather than the displaced weavers. Adult male weavers certainly did take up employment inside, and in support of, the new factories. Bythell, Handloom Weavers, pp. 60–4; Lyons, ‘Family response to economic decline’, pp. 45–91.
86. Livesey, pp. 228–9; Sankoffsky, p. 2 (Cumbria Record Office); J. Wood, p. 20.
87. Their stories are told in: Castle, pp. 21ff. (Essex Record Office); Gutteridge, pp. 99, 115–28, 172–83. John Leatherland and his wife turned to weaving silk vests at this point, and fared a little better. See Leatherland, pp. 31–3.
88. See Heaton, p. xxiii; Leatherland, pp. 9, 31–3; Thom, pp. 8–10, 18.
89. C. Campbell, p. 23; Exposition of a Coiner, pp. 4–5.
90. Catton, p. 4. See also Bodell, p. 20.
91. B. Shaw, p. 45.
92. Marcroft, pp. 39–43. See also ‘Life of a cotton spinner’, 27 Dec. 1856; ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 13 & 20 Dec. 1856.
93. Rushton, pp. 66, 82–5.
94. Dodd, pp. 200, 202.
95. Collyer, p. 2.
96. Tough, p. 6.
97. [Wright], no pag. See also Bates, 30 years at Paul Speak's mill, p. 2; Catton, 9 years, pp. 4–5; Exposition of a Coiner, 12 years, p. 5; Hanson, 10 years in Messrs Wards' weaving shop, p. 24; Hemmingway, 11 years at Stirling's Mill in Manchester, p. 385 (Norfolk Record Office). Lincoln, 7 years at Woolwich Arsenal, pp. 26–9 (Norfolk Record Office).
98. Gwyer, pp. 8–9; Rushton, p. 54; Teer, p. iv; Townend, p. 22; Watson, pp. 109–10 and references in note 85 above.
99. T. Wood, pp. 8–9,14 (Bradford Central Library).
100. B. Shaw, pp. 38, 42.
101. I. Roberts (bookkeeper), pp. 14–15; ‘Life of a handloom weaver’ (account collector), 25 April 1857.
102. Hanby, no pag.
103. W. Smith, p. 183.
104. Hemmingway (carrier for ‘Fustian Cutters of Lymm’), p. 385.
105. Watson, p. 110. See also Farish, pp. 78–81; Tough, p. 5.
106. Barr, pp. 37–44; Farish, pp. 72–4, 85–6; Langdon, p. 64; Mallard, pp. 11ff. (Northamptonshire Record Office).
107. G. Cooper, [p. 20]. See also Goodliffe, no pag. (Leicestershire Record Office); ‘Life of a cotton spinner’, 27 Dec. 1856; Oliver, p. 50.
108. Croll (tea), pp. 20–1; Livesey (‘cheap cheese’), pp. 228–9; E. Davis (cakes and gingerbread), p. 13. See also the references in note 85 above and 111 below.
109. ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 13 & 20 Dec. 1856; ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 2 May 1857.
110. See, for example, [Cameron], pp. 15ff.; Love, p. 38ff.; M'Gonagall, pp. 3–8; [Wright], no pag.
111. Chadwick, p. 9; Pearman, pp. 188–91.
112. Hemmingway, p. 408 (Norfolk Record Office). See also Sankoffsky, p. 2 (Cumbria Record Office) and [Porteus], p. 25.
113. For more on social mobility through this period see Andrew Miles, Social Mobility in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century England (Basingstoke, 1999). Miles' emphasis on the fluidity of nineteenth-century society chimes with the evidence presented here.
114. Tough, pp. 4–6.
115. Powell, p. 10.
116. Whittaker, p. 26.
117. Dodgson, 19 May 1956 (Halifax Central Library).
118. B. Shaw, p. 40.
119. Though rather dated, John Benson, British Coal-Miners in the Nineteenth Century: a Social History (New York, 1980), remains a useful introduction to the history of mining. A valuable reminder of the great variation between mining regions is contained in John Langton, ‘Proletarianization in the industrial revolution: regionalism and kinship in the labour markets of the British coal industry from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, n.s. 25/1 (2000), pp. 31–49.
120. Burt, pp. 104, 108, 112; Weaver, p. 73; John Wilson, p. 66.
121. Oliver, p. 18.
122. Errington, passim. Rymer suggested the pits did occasionally lie idle, but he mentioned just ‘days now and then’. Rymer, p. 5. See also the discussion in Burt, p. 112. See, however, Timothy Mountjoy who noted that at one point ‘the summer trade was so bad, we only worked two, sometimes three, days per week, and we could not see when these bad times would come to an end’. Mountjoy, p. 18. For more on the Forest of Dean miners, see Chris Fisher, Custom, Work and Market Capitalism: the Forest of Dean Colliers, 1788–1888 (London, 1981).
123. Lovekin, no. 4 (Brunel University Library). See also Blow, p. 5; Mallard, pp. 8–9 (Northamptonshire Record Office); W. Milne, p. 173.
124. Arch, p. 50.
125. I. Anderson, p. 9.
126. Lovekin, no. 4 (Brunel University Library).
127. Autobiography of Suffolk Farm Labourer, p. 15 (Suffolk Record Office).
128. [H., Bill], p. 143.
129. John Wilson, pp. 46–7.
130. For more on unemployment, see John Burnett, Idle Hands: the Experience of Unemployment, 1790–1990 (London, 1994), pp. 54–63, 87–121.
131. Barlow, p. 16.
132. Hopper, pp. 183–4.
133. Chubb, p. iii.
134. Ferguson, pp. 21–2.
135. Ibid., p. 22.
136. Ibid., p. 21.
137. Oakley, p. 139.
138. Nye, p. 20.
139. G. Mitchell, p. 96; Mayett, p. 65.
140. Cook, p. 35 (Lincoln Reference Library).
141. Nye, pp. 12–13; T. Wood, p. 2 (Bradford Central Library); Langdon, pp. 24–5.
142. Bowd, p. 298.
143. Mayett, pp. 61, 72, 73, 76.
144. Younger, pp. 13–14.
145. ‘Life of an Irish tailor’, 18 April 1857.
146. Edwards, pp. 4–5; G. Smith, Autobiography, p. 5.
147. John Burgess, pp. 20, 27, 29, 58, 60, 61, 67, 68. See also Todd, p. 75.
148. Matters were brighter though for those trying to make a living in the second half of the century. See Irving (Carlisle Library); Plastow (University of Warwick); Pointer (Broadstairs Library); Shervington (Worcestershire Record Office).
149. Oakley, p. 139.
150. Catton, p. 4.
151. Ibid.
152. Mayett, pp. 69–70.
153. Ibid., p.73. See also the incident described on p. 20.
154. Murdoch, p. 2.
155. These include Britton, p. 62; Buckley, p. 78; Croll, p. 16; Crowe, p. 4; Fairburn, p. 69; W. Johnston, p. 13; H. Miller, p. 153; Murison, p. 212; North, pp. 45–6; Paterson, p. 60; Whetstone, p. 60.
156. These include E. Anderson, p. 3; Choyce, p. 3; Davenport, p. 19; Donaldson, p. 23; Haggart, p. 6; B. Harris, pp. 1–2; Hawker, p. 3; Lawrence, p. 18; Mayett, pp. 22–3; Rattenbury, p. 2; Robinson, p. 9 (West Sussex Record Office); Somerville, pp. 124–8.
157. Gibbs, p. 45; [Gooch], p. 16; [Holkinson], 24 Jan. 1857; Jewell, p. 141; [Self-Reformer], p. 284; Struthers, pp. xxxiv–xxxv; Younger, p. 103.
158. I. Anderson, p. 9; Bowes, pp. 9–12; Blow, p. 5; [H. Bill], p. 143; Mallard, pp. 8–9 (Northamptonshire Record Office); W. Milne, p. 173; G. Mitchell, p. 109.
159. Catton, p. 4; Gywer, pp. 8–9; Watson, pp. 109–10.
160. G. Mitchell, p. 96.
161. Ibid., p. 108; See also Bowes, pp. 9–12.
162. G. Mitchell, p. 108.
163. I. Anderson, p. 8.
164. [Self-Reformer], p. 285.
165. Lincoln, pp. 15–25 (Norfolk Record Office).
166. Ibid., p. 27.
167. Ibid., pp. 28–34.
168. Mockford, pp. 14–52, passim.
169. The quote comes from E. P. Thompson. See note 4 above.
3 Suffer Little Children
1. Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (1838); idem, David Copperfield (1850), ch. 11; idem, Sketches by Boz (1836).
2. Charles Kingsley, Water Babies (1863); Frances Trollope, The Life and Adventures of Michael Armstrong, the Factory Boy (1840); Charlotte Elizabeth, Helen Fleetwood (1840).
3. The expression was used to particularly good effect by Richard Oastler. See, for example, his letter to the Leeds Mercury, 16 Oct. 1830.
4. Coal Mines Act of 1842. For more about this legislation, see Robert Gray, The Factory Question and Industrial England, 1830–1860 (Cambridge, 1996); Joanna Innes, ‘Origins of the factory acts: the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act 1802’, in N. Landau, ed., Law, Crime and English Society, 1660–1830 (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 230–55.
5. The best summary is to be found in Peter Kirby, Child Labour in Britain, 1750–1870 (Basingstoke, 2003). See also Clark Nardinelli, Child Labour and the Industrial Revolution (Bloomington, IN, 1990); H. Cunningham, ‘The employment and unemployment of children, 1680–1851’, Past and Present, 126 (1990); Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries, ‘“The exploitation of little children”: child labor and the family economy in the industrial revolution’, Explorations in Economic History, 32 (1995), pp. 485–516; Michael Lavalette, ed., A Thing of the Past? Child Labour in Britain in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Liverpool, 1999); Carolyn Tuttle, Hard at Work in Factories and Mines: the Economics of Child Labor during the British Industrial Revolution (Boulder, CO, 1999).
6. Rymer, p. 2.
7. Collyer, p. 15
8. Hopper, p. 182; C. Campbell, p. 2; Hardy, p. 38.
9. Over a hundred of the autobiographers provided insufficient detail to pinpoint the age at which they started work, leaving us with a sample of 251 writers.
10. The figure varies slightly depending upon whether we use the age at which they first started work, or the age at which they started full-time employment, which was often slightly later. If we use the part-time figure, the average age for starting work is almost exactly 10 years. If we use the full-time figure, the average is slightly raised to 10 years and 3 months. As we shall see in more detail below, part-time employment was most heavily concentrated in rural areas.
11. Contrast with Jane Humphries, Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution (Cambridge, 2010), table 7.1, p. 176, who finds the average age for starting work is 10.5.
12. Between 1700 and 1749 the mean age for starting work was 10 years; between 1750 and 1799 it was 10.6 years; and between 1800 and 1850 it was 9.8 years.
13. E. Davis, p. 6
14. Belcher, pp. 9–10.
15. Mockford, p. 3.
16. Ibid., p. 2.
17. J. Taylor, Memoirs, p. 4.
18. Ibid., p. 6.
19. Of the 31 children who started work at the age of 10, 14 provided evidence of poverty in their family whereas 17 did not. See also Humphries who concludes, in somewhat similar vein, that fathers' earning capacity is ‘not the full story’ when it comes to explaining children's age at starting work. Humphries, Childhood and Child Labour, pp. 180–3.
20. Life of a Chimney Boy, p. 12.
21. Robinson, p. 9 (West Sussex Record Office).
22. By way of context, about 40 per cent of children lived in industrial areas.
23. For instance; Bennett, pp. 9–10 (Bristol Record Office; J. Bethune, p. 6; Cook, pp. 2–3 (Lincoln Reference Library); B. Harris, p. 144; Hogg, p. 5; Mallard, p. 3 (Northamptonshire Record Office); G. Mitchell, p. 96; J. Robinson, p. 7 (West Sussex Record Office); [H. Bill], p. 141.
24. Brown, Sixty Years, pp. 12–15; [Gooch], p. 8; Huffer, p. 14; Langdon, p. 28; Shervington, pp. ix–x (Worcestershire Record Office); Shipp, pp. 3–4.
25. See, for instance, Barr, p. 34; Gabbitass, pp. xii–xiii; Featherstone, p. 10; Skeen, pp. 2–3.
26. Barr, p. 34.
27. Gibbs, pp. 27, 30.
28. Ibid., pp. 31–2.
29. Ibid., p. 32.
30. Jewell, pp. 126–8; J. Bethune, pp. 6, 11–12. See also Lea, [p. 4] (Sheffield Archives); John Taylor, ‘Autobiographical sketch’, p. 7.
31. Hogg, p. 5.
32. Bowcock, p. 8.
33. Bennett, p. 2 (Bristol Record Office).
34. Bowd, p. 295.
35. Jewell, pp. 130–2. See also Mallard, p. 3 (Northamptonshire Record Office). When the farmer who employed him as a child ‘got upset he would kick and knock me about one day he was knocking my head against a gate post he said he would knock it untill it was as hard as the post’.
36. Langdon, pp. 29–32.
37. Hogg, p. 6.
38. W. Milne, pp. 109–11.
39. Ibid., pp. 120–2. Joseph Mayett reported a similar tale, returned by his father to a drunken master who beat him, p. 5. See also Nye: when he lost his place in service he was allowed to stay at home ‘threshing with my father’, but he also ‘came back on scanty food again’, p. 11.
40. Nye, p. 11.
41. Wallis, p. 16.
42. Ibid., pp. 16–17.
43. See, for example, Hawker, p. 1; Holcroft, pp. 14–17, and Hollingsworth, pp. 4–5 (working for their family); MacDonald, pp. 12–15 (irregular work); Watkins, pp. 11–17 (seasonal bird scarer).
44. Stir(r)up, 22, Nov. 1856. See also ‘Jacques’, 11 Nov. 1856, who spent a year at home after leaving school ‘without finding me in any regular employment’.
45. Hemmingway, pp. 20–5 (Norfolk Record Office). See also Obadiah Short, who was also raised in Norwich in the early nineteenth century and remembered being ‘very poorly clothed, and not too well fed’ before starting work. Short, [pp. 6, 22–3] (Norwich Castle Museum).
46. P. Taylor, p. 38. Paisley had once been the centre of a thriving weaving industry and offered work for all the family, including small children. But by the 1840s the industry had collapsed so Peter's parents were trying to find him a position as an errand boy, with the usual difficulty that entailed. See also Short, [p. 46] (Norwich Castle Museum).
47. T. Carter, p. 99; Bezer, pp. 162–6.
48. For more detail on child labour in industrial districts, see Per Bolin-Hort, Work, Family, and the State: Child Labour and the Organization of Production in the British Cotton Industry, 1780–1920 (Lund, 1989); Adam Booker et al., ‘Child slaves? Working children during the industrial revolution, c. 1780–1850’, in Michael Winstanley, ed., Working Children in Nineteenth-Century Lancashire (Preston, 1995), pp. 25–47.
49. Piecers: Clifford, p. 5; Dodd, p. 187; ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 2 May 1857; Teer, p. iii; Rushton, p. 28. Scavenger: Aitken, p. 18.
50. Doffers: Collyer, p. 15; Roberts, pp. 10–11.
51. Aitken, p. 19.
52. Richard Meurig Evans, Children Working Underground (Cardiff, 1979); Peter Kirby, ‘The historic viability of child labour and the Mines Act of 1842’, in Lavalette, ed., Thing of the Past?, pp. 101–17.
53. Lovekin no. 2 (Brunel University Library).
54. For example, Hodgson, p. 5; Hughes, p. 7 (Newport Central Library); Parkinson, p. 1.
55. Lowery, p. 45; ‘Coal miner's defence’, p. 231; Weaver, p. 31; Dunn, pp. 9–10.
56. Lovekin, no. 2 (Brunel University Library).
57. Dunn, p. 17.
58. Brierley, p. 19; ‘Life of a handloom weaver’, 25 April 1857; Livesey, pp. 196–7; Short, [p. 24] (Norwich Castle Museum).
59. E. Davis, p. 6; Deacon, p. 2; G. Cooper, [p. 14]; Sanderson, p. 13; Hodgson, p. 6; Short [pp. 28, 43–4] (Norwich Castle Museum).
60. Struthers, pp. xviii–xix.
61. Marcroft, p. 33; Rymer, p. 2; Ricketts, p. 121; Marsh, p. 2 (Barnsley Archives); Rushton, pp. 29–31 (clearing brushwood and potato planting).
62. Marcroft, pp. 33–4.
63. C. Bent, p. 4; ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 13 & 20 Dec. 1856. See also Hemmingway, pp. 28–9 (Norfolk Record Office).
64. Hemmingway, p. 64.
65. J. Wood, p. 4.
66. Hodgson, p. 5.
67. Marsh, p. 3 (Barnsley Archives). See also Errington, p. 38; ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 2 May 1857; Marcroft, p. 33.
68. G. Smith, Autobiography, p. 9.
69. Oliver, p. 11.
70. Whitehead, pp. 6–13, passim.
71. Hemmingway, pp. 31–2 (Norfolk Record Office).
72. Dodd, p. 186.
73. Hemmingway, p. 29 (Norfolk Record Office).
74. ‘Coal miner's defence’, p. 231.
75. Dodgson (Halifax Central Library), p. 5
76. A similar observation has been made by Hugh Cunningham in ‘The decline of child labour: labour markets and family economies in Europe and North America since 1830’, Economic History Review, 53/3 (2002), pp. 409–28, esp. p. 419.
77. Hughes, pp. 6–7 (Newport Central Library).
78. J. Harris, p. 28. See also Edwards, p. 6.
79. Gabbitass, p. xii.
80. Clifford, p. 2. See also I. Roberts, pp. 12–13; T. Smith, pp. 6–7.
81. E. Davis, p. 9.
82. B. Shaw, pp. 87–94.
83. Ibid., pp. 43, 44.
84. Ibid., p. 44.
85. Sholl, pp. 37–8; Tryon, pp. 7–8; Hutton, pp. 11–12; D. Taylor, pp. 2–3; J. Taylor, p. 6.
86. Sholl, pp. 37–8.
87. The only exception being Tryon.
88. Better-off families include: Hopper, p. 182; T. Johnson, p. 32; Jaco, p. 260; Staniforth, pp. 147–8.
89. Barlow, p. 15.
90. Ferguson, pp. 4, 11.
91. Hugh Cunningham's suggestion that unemployment was widespread amongst children before 1850 was refuted by Peter Kirby (see the discussion in Hugh Cunningham, ‘The employment and unemployment of children, 1680–1851’, Past and Present, 126 (1990) pp. 115–50; Peter Kirby, ‘How many children were “unemployed” in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Britain?’, Past and Present 187 (2004)) pp. 187–202. My evidence from the autobiographies suggests that availability of work was indeed a factor in determining overall levels of child employment in the way that Cunningham suggested.
92. ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 13 & 20 Dec. 1856.
93. T. Wood, p. 7 (Bradford Central Library).
94. Townend, p. 4.
95. Weaver, p. 32. See also Askham, p. vii.
96. B. Shaw, p. 26.
97. Ibid., p. 94.
98. Aitken, p. 18; Hemmingway, pp. 36–7 (Norfolk County Record Office); I. Roberts, pp. 11–13; Rushton, pp. 28–35; T. Wood, p. 7 (Bradford Central Library).
99. Heap, p. 2 (Rawtenstall Library).
100. Lowery, p. 45.
101. ‘Autobiography of a Suffolk farm labourer’, chapter III (Suffolk Record Office).
102. Todd, pp. 29–35, 44–5, 68, 70, 72; Irving, pp. 2–3 (Carlisle Public Library). For more on the seasonal nature of children's employment in agriculture see Jackson, pp. 27–9; Robinson, p. 7 (West Sussex Record Office).
103. Robinson, p. 7 (West Sussex Record Office).
104. Lea, [p. 4] (Sheffield Archives).
105. Arch, p. 28.
106. Somerville, p. 38.
107. Lawrence, p. 14. See [Loveridge], p. 28; and Adam Rushton, who described working outdoors as a ‘rural and free life’ and his time at the mill as ‘awful factory imprisonment’. Rushton, p. 31.
108. This view has recently been powerfully restated in Humphries, Childhood and Child Labour, pp. 172–209, esp. pp. 183–6, 208–9.
4 Women, Work and the Cares of Home
1. North, p. 37.
2. Ibid., p. 44.
3. Ibid., pp. 143–4.
4. Ibid.
5. C. Milne, p. 102.
6. Davidson, pp. 27–9.
7. For an introduction to the history of married women's work see A. Janssens, ed., The Rise and Decline of the Male Breadwinner Family (Cambridge, 1998); Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries, ‘The origins and expansion of the male breadwinner family: the case of nineteenth-century Britain’, International Review of Social History, Supplement, 5 (1997), pp. 25–64; Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries, ‘Women's labour force participation and the transition to the male-breadwinner family, 1790–1865’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 48 (1995), pp. 89–117.
8. Murison, p. 209.
9. Spinners include E. Anderson, p. 3; C. Campbell, p. 22; Davenport, p. 10; Jackson, p. 11; Lackington, pp. 39–42; ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 13 & 20 Dec. 1856; Love, p. 8; Ricketts, p. 121.
10. Bobbin-winders include Bain, pp. 12–13; Bezer, p. 159; Myles, pp. 236–7; G. J., p. 5.
11. Younger, p. 8.
12. Fairburn, pp. 56–7, 65–6.
13. ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 13 & 20 Dec. 1856.
14. For example Betty Shaw. See B. Shaw, p. 34.
15. Bamford, Early Days, p. 101.
16. Marcroft, pp. 28–32. Other weavers include: Bates, p. 1; Cooke, p. 3; Holroyd, pp. 115–16; Short, [pp. 4–5, 9–10, 20] (Norwich Castle Museum); Whitehead, p. 5; J. Wood, pp. 8, 20; T. Wood, p. 5 (Bradford Central Library).
17. Farish, p. 7.
18. J. Wood, p. 8.
19. Dodgson, 19 May 1956 (Halifax Central Library); Fairburn, pp. 56–7. See also however Thomas Cooper, whose mother kept up a small dyeing business after the death of her husband. T. Cooper, pp. 6, 8–11.
20. For women in industrial employment, see Carol E. Morgan, Women Workers and Gender Identities, 1835–1913: the Cotton and Metal Industries in England (London, 2002); idem, ‘Women, work and consciousness in the mid nineteenth-century English cotton industry’, Social History, 17 (1992), pp. 23–41; Janet Greenlees, ‘Equal pay for equal work?: a new look at gender and wages in the Lancashire cotton industry, 1790–1855’, in Margaret Walsh, ed., Working out Gender: Perspectives from Labour History (Aldershot, 1999), pp. 167–90; Robert Gray, ‘Factory legislation and the gendering of jobs in the north of England, 1830–1860’, Gender & History, 5 (1993), pp. 56–80.
21. B. Shaw, p. 24. Other women who worked in the factory may be found in: Joseph Burgess, pp. 8–9; Clifford, p. 9; E. Johnston, pp. 306–9; Whittaker, pp. 25–6.
22. This was Joseph Wilson. Living in Great Horton, Manchester, in the 1840s with the Factory Acts in operation, he and his mother swapped roles. He was at home, ‘nursing and housekeeping’, while his mother went to the factory. See Joseph Wilson, pp. 7, 15.
23. For women in agriculture, see Nicola Verdon, Rural Women Workers in Nineteenth-Century England (Woodbridge, 2002); idem, ‘The rural labour market in the early nineteenth century: women's and children's employment, family income, and the 1834 Poor Law Report’, Economic History Review, 55/2 (2002), pp. 299–323; Joyce Burnette, ‘Labourers at the Oakes: changes in the demand for female day-laborers at a farm near Sheffield during the agricultural revolution’, Journal of Economic History, 59 (1999), pp. 41–67; Deborah Valenze, ‘The art of women and the business of men: women's work and the dairy industry, c. 1740–1840’, Past and Present, 130 (1991), pp. 142–69.
24. For mothers working on smallholdings, see Errington, p. 44; Goodliffe, no pag. (Leicestershire Record Office); Hanson, p. 4; Murison, pp. 210–12; Rushton, p. 21.
25. Short Account of Glasgow Weaver, p. 5. Other seasonal farm workers include [Cameron], pp. 10–11; Mockford, pp. 21–2; Murdoch, pp. 16–17; Oakley, pp. 131, 141; W. Johnston, pp. 8–9; Shervington (Worcestershire Record Office), pp. ix–x; Somerville, pp. 19–20.
26. Clift, pp. 61–3.
27. Ibid., p. 63.
28. For women in service: Carolyn Steedman, Master and Servant. Love and Labour in the English Industrial Age (Cambridge, 2007); Sheila McIsaac Cooper, ‘From family member to employee: aspects of continuity and discontinuity in English domestic service, 1600–2000’, in Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux, ed., Domestic Service and the Formation of European Identity: Understanding the Globalization of Domestic Work (New York, 2004), pp. 277–96; Bridget Hill, Servants: English Domestics in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1996); Deborah Valenze, The First Industrial Woman (Oxford, 1995).
29. For women who worked in domestic service before marriage, see: Arch, p. 46; Castle, pp. 14–15 (Essex Record Office); [O'Neill], p. 4; Leno, p. 3; Lincoln, pp. 10–11 (Norfolk Record Office); Oakley, pp. 132–9; M. Smith, pp. 1–2.
30. Though a few mothers did find themselves back in service, usually following the death or desertion of their husbands: ‘Autobiography of Suffolk farm labourer’, p. 3 (Suffolk Record Office); Dunning, pp. 120–2; Watson, p. 109.
31. Spurr, p. 285.
32. Place, pp. 98–9. For other laundry workers, see Adams, pp. 33–5; Arch, pp. 9–10; Hodgson, p. 5; Lincoln, p. 1 (Norfolk Record Office); Munday, p. 111; Sanderson, p. 6; Joseph Wilson, p. 3.
33. For instance Bowd, p. 299; Horne, p. 12; Joseph Wilson, p. 3.
34. Joseph Wilson, pp. 98–9.
35. Adams, p. 33.
36. Sanderson, p. 6. See also John Lincoln, whose mother made up her income from laundry work with a dole from the parish. Lincoln, p. 1 (Norfolk Record Office).
37. Townend, pp. 1–2, 22.
38. Binns, p. 1 (Tyne and Wear Archives Service). See also J. Barker, pp. 35–7; Carnegie, pp. 12–13; Hollingsworth, pp. 4–5; John Jones, ‘John Jones’, p. 171; Lovett, pp. 32–3.
39. Love, p. 29.
40. Lovett, p. 1; Rattenbury, p. 1.
41. Bezer, pp. 161–2. Other mothers and wives who worked as hawkers may be found in R. Barker, ii, pp. 31–2; Hodgson, p. 3; Holcroft, p. 8; Lomas, p. 156; [Loveridge], pp. 27–31; M'Kaen, p. 21.
42. Hanson, p. 19.
43. Mountjoy, p. 15.
44. ‘Life of a handloom weaver’, 25 April 1857. Other dressmakers include: Dunn, p. 6; Harland, extract no. 1 (Bradford Central Library); Healey, p. 2; E. Johnston, p. 304; Leno, p. 4; S. Martin, p. 6; H. Miller, p. 24; Nuttall, p. 3 (Flintshire Record Office); Stir(r)up, 22 Nov. 1856; Price, p. 5 (Finsbury Library); Roper, 9 May 1848 (Warwickshire County Record Office).
45. Ashford, p. 20.
46. Leno, p. 4. For other teachers, see also: T. Carter, p. 40; Gough, pp. 3–4, 13; Lowery, p. 45; [Leask], p. 39; H. Miller, pp. 10–11; Starkey, p. 7.
47. Bamford, Early Days, p. 15.
48. Nicholson, p. 3.
49. Cook, pp. 9–10 (Lincoln Reference Library).
50. Ibid., p. 10.
51. Pointer, pp. 13–14 (Broadstairs Library). The only other nurse mentioned was the mother of John Castle; see Castle, pp. 1–2 (Essex Record Office).
52. For shops, in addition to the references in note 38 above, see: Goodliffe, no pag. (Leicestershire Record Office); Hemmingway, p. 408 (Norfolk Record Office); Livesey, pp. 228–9; Love, pp. 29–31; Sankoffsky, p. 2 (Cumbria Record Office); [Porteus], p. 25; Sanderson, p. 23. For inns, see Ashford, pp. 14–15; Exposition of a Coiner, pp. 5–6; ‘Life of journeyman baker’, 13 & 20 Dec. 1856; ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 2 May 1857; Rattenbury, pp. 57–8. William Irving's parents ran a bacon-curing business together, see Irving, p. 12 (Carlisle Library); Thomson, pp. 48–50.
53. Shoemaking: Brown Sixty Years, p. 282; Davenport, pp. 42–3; Herbert, pp. 16–17; F. Mason, p. 88; Spurr, pp. 285–6. Tailoring: Hawker, p. 1; [Holkinson], 24, 31 January 1857.
54. Hollingsworth, pp. 8–9; Hopkinson, p. 96.
55. P. Sharpe, ‘The women's harvest: straw plaiting and the representation of labouring women's employment, 1793–1885’, Rural History, 5 (1994), pp. 129–42; Penelope Lane, ‘Work on the margins: poor women and the informal economy of eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Leicestershire’, Midland History, 22 (1997), pp. 85–99.
56. T. Cooper, pp. 8–9; Oakley, p. 139.
57. [H., Bill], pp. 148–9; North, p. 153.
58. Benjamin Shaw had a female cousin who drove a coal cart on the Dentdale coalfields. See B. Shaw, p. 15.
59. Holyoake, ch. 4. See also the various businesses of the enterprising mother of William Hollingsworth. Hollingsworth, pp. 3–5.
60. T. Cooper, pp. 8, 26.
61. T. Mitchell, p. 9 (Bristol Central Library).
62. Ashford, p. 20.
63. Bowd, p. 299.
64. Adams, p. 34.
65. B. Shaw, p. 34.
66. Ibid., pp. 50–2.
67. Oakley, pp. 138–9.
68. [Porteus], pp. 22–3.
69. Ashford, p. 45.
70. Oakley, p. 139.
71. [Porteus], p. 25.
72. Ashford, pp. 78–9.
73. North, p. 153.
74. Joseph Wilson, p. 3.
75. Goodliffe, no pag. (Leicestershire Record Office).
76. Britton, p. 38.
77. Hart, 8/1, p. 68.
78. T. Mitchell, pp. 13–17 (Bristol Central Library). See also Lovett, pp. 32–3.
79. Brown, Sixty Years, p. 282.
80. Ibid., p. 293.
81. Murdoch, pp. 16–17.
82. Leatherland, p. 33, Bamford, Early Day, p. 308, Lowery, p. 162. See also J. Wood, p. 20; [H. Bill], p. 149.
83. Pearman, p. 219.
84. W. Swan, p. 57.
85. Ibid., p. 59.
86. Ibid., p. 50.
87. Joseph Burgess, p. 13.
88. ‘Norfolk labourer's wife’, p. 28.
89. Langdon, p. 65.
90. Ibid., p. 68.
91. T. Cooper, pp. 8–10.
92. [Cameron], pp. 10–11.
93. Townend, pp. 2–3. See also E. Horne, p. 23.
94. Mockford, pp. 21–2.
95. Carnegie, pp. 12–13.
96. Lowery, p. 45. See also [Leask], p. 39.
97. H. Miller, p. 24.
98. Hanson, p. 4.
99. Somerville, pp. 19–20.
100. Mockford, pp. 52–3.
101. Castle, pp. 1–2 (Essex Record Office).
102. Bezer, pp. 161–2.
103. Marsh, p. 1 (Barnsley Archives).
104. Adams, p. 36.
105. Preston, p. 4.
Part II: Love
1. Bamford, Early Days, p. 169.
2. R. Anderson, p. xxii.
3. Oakley, p. 137.
5 A Brand New Wife and an Empty Pocket
1. Harland, esp. extracts nos 7–8 (Bradford Central Library).
2. The themes of this chapter tap into a considerable literature. An excellent starting point is Tim Hitchcock, English Sexualities, 1700–1800 (Basingstoke, 1997), esp. pp. 24–41. See also David Levine, Family Formation in an Age of Nascent Capitalism (New York, 1977); idem, Reproducing Families: the Political Economy of English Population History (Cambridge, 1987).
3. Roper, 23 April, 7 May 1848 (Warwickshire County Record Office).
4. [H., Bill], p. 149.
5. Terry, p. 40 (Brunel University Library).
6. Oakley, p. 137.
7. Ibid., p. 138.
8. Lackington, p. 176.
9. Roper, 14 April, 18 April, 12 May, 13 May 1848 (Warwickshire County Record Office).
10. [Gooch], p. 19.
11. Castle, p. 12 (Essex Record Office).
12. Terry, p. 41 (Brunel University Library).
13. Roper, ‘Journal’, 14 May, 21 May 1848 (Warwickshire County Record Office).
14. Story, p. 140.
15. Oakley, p. 136.
16. Davidson, pp. 27–30.
17. Saxby, p. 5.
18. Ashford, p. 46.
19. Ibid., pp. 47–8.
20. Bryceson, 18 Jan. 1846; 1 Feb. 1846; 13 March 1846; 17 April 1846 (Westminster City Archives).
21. Ibid., 29 Nov. 1846.
22. Cannon, i, p. 55.
23. Ibid.
24. Terry, p. 139 (Brunel University Library).
25. [Gooch], pp. 25–6.
26. Woolley, 19 June 1801; 2 May 1813; Feb. 1813; April 1813; Feb. 1813; 8 Jan. 1813 (Nottinghamshire Archives). For more neighbourly censure in a similar vein see also Huffer, p. 43; Scarfe, 10, 25 Feb. 1828; 21, 23 Jan. 1831.
27. For more on marriage: John R. Gillis, ‘Peasant, plebeian, and proletarian marriage in Britain 1600–1900’, in David Levine, ed., Proletarianization and Family History (Orlando, 1981), pp. 129–62: idem, For Better, For Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present (Oxford, 1985); Peter Laslett, Family Life and Illicit Love in Earlier Generations (Cambridge, 1977); Wally Seccombe, Weathering the Storm: Working-Class Families from the Industrial Revolution to the Fertility Decline (London, 1993); R. M. Smith, ‘Fertility, economy and household formation in England over three centuries’, Population and Development Review, 7 (1981), pp. 595–622.
28. For more on separation, see Joanne Bailey, Unquiet Lives, Marriage and Marriage Breakdown in England, 1660–1800 (Cambridge, 2003); Pamela Sharpe, ‘Marital separations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’, Local Population Studies, 45 (1990), pp. 66–70; D. A. Kent, ‘Gone for a soldier: family breakdown and the demography of desertion in a London parish, 1750–91’, Local Population Studies, 45 (1990), pp. 27–42; S. Menefee, Wives for Sale: an Ethnographic Study of British Popular Divorce (Oxford, 1981); E. P. Thompson, ‘Wife sales’, in his Customs in Commons (London, 1983).
29. G. Smith, Autobiography, pp. 19–20.
30. Lovett, p. 31.
31. Wrigley et al., English Population History from Family Reconstitution (Cambridge, 1997), table 5.3, p. 134.
32. I. Roberts, p. 35.
33. The question has received considerable scholarly attention. See, for instance, E. A. Wrigley, ‘Growth of population in eighteenth-century England: a conundrum resolved’, Past and Present, 98 (1983), pp. 121–50, p. 127; David Levine, ‘For their own reasons: individual marriage decisions and family life’, Journal of Family History, 7 (1982), pp. 255–64; J. A. Goldstone, ‘The demographic revolution in England: a re-examination’, Population Studies, 49 (1986), pp. 5–33; K. D. M. Snell, Annals of the Labouring Poor. Social Change and Agrarian England, 1660–1900 (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 345–52; Emma Griffin, ‘A conundrum resolved? Rethinking courtship, marriage, and population growth in eighteenth-century England’, Past and Present, 215 (2012), pp. 125–64.
34. Mather, pp. 158–239, p. 163.
35. Longden, p. 22; Melhuish, p. 17; Nelson, pp. 1–165, pp. 5, 8; Holcroft, p. 177.
36. Bennett, p. 9 (Bristol Record Office).
37. Askham, p. x; Crocker, p. xi; Stir(r)up, 29 Nov. 1856; Struthers, p. lix; Watkins, p. 23.
38. Hick, p. 23; Collyer, p. 42; Jewitt, p. 75 (Wigan Archives Service); [Gooch], pp. 35–7; [Holkinson], 24 & 31 Jan. 1857; J. Taylor, Autobiography, p. 8; Goodliffe, no pag. (Leicestershire Record Office); H. Taylor (East Riding Archives), p. 7; Sanderson, pp. 5–41, p. 22; Rattenbury, p. 24.
39. Bezer, p. 178; Munday, pp. 99–121; Place, pp. 100–6; W. T. Swan, p. 6.
40. Dodgson, 19 May 1956 (Halifax Central Library).
41. ‘Jacques’, 1 Nov. 1856.
42. J. Bent, p. iv; W. Smith, pp. 178–85; Townend, p. 22.
43. Whittaker, p. 25.
44. Hanson, p. 8.
45. Livesey, pp. 213–17, pp. 116–17.
46. Sholl, pp. 37–47; Castle, pp. 15–16 (Essex Record Office).
47. Marsh, p. 12 (Barnsley Archives).
48. Errington, pp. 57, 169.
49. Lovekin, nos 4–5 (Brunel University Library); Rymer, p. 7; ‘Narrative of a miner’, 25 Oct. 1856.
50. In 1857, Thomas Pointer, an agricultural labourer living at Broadstairs in Kent, married at the age of 20. Pointer, ‘Memoirs’, p. 12 (Broadstairs Library, Kent).
51. Arch, p. 46.
52. Ricketts, pp. 120–6, p. 123.
53. For example: Carvosso, pp. 38–9; Rodda, p. 129; Staniforth, pp. 109–51.
54. Nye, p. 14.
55. Ibid.
56. Hawker, p. 82.
57. Love, p. 26.
58. Thomson, pp. 159–60.
59. Spurr, p. 282.
60. Mayett, p. 61. See also Love, p. 29.
61. Leno, pp. 29–30.
62. Blow, pp. 6–7.
63. Mockford, p. 14.
64. Burn, p. 129.
65. ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 13 & 20 Dec. 1856.
66. Bowd, p. 296.
67. Ibid.
68. Lincoln, p. 10 (Norfolk Record Office).
69. Ibid., pp. 10–12.
70. ‘Colin’, pp. 29–30.
71. Saxby, p. 8.
72. Nye, p. 14.
73. R. Barker, ii, pp. 31–2.
74. Lackington., p. 191.
75. Lowery, p. 62.
76. Lowe, pp. 24, 45.
77. Ibid., p. 46.
78. Ibid., p. 70.
79. M'Kaen, p. 13.
80. Ibid, p. 14.
81. Bownas, pp. 43–4.
82. Hick, p. 20.
83. Johnson, pp. 47–8.
84. Hutton, pp. 90–1.
85. Lackington, pp. 183–6.
86. There is considerable overlap between those who identified their marriage as improvident and those who resided with their parents after marriage, though the match is not perfect. Those staying with kin are: Arch, p. 46; Bowd, p. 296; Davies, p. 2; Gutteridge, p. 113; [Gooch], pp. 35–7; Harland, extracts 7–8 (Bradford Central Library); Hopper, p. 196; ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 13 & 20 Dec. 1856; Lincoln, pp. 10–11 (Norfolk Record Office); T. Mitchell, p. 11 (Bristol Central Library); Mockford, p. 20; Oakley, p. 139; [E. O'Neill], pp. 6–7; B. Shaw, pp. 30–1; Thomson, p. 165; Whittaker, pp. 25–6.
87. Harland, extract 12 (Bradford Central Library).
88. Roper, 23 May, 29 May 1848 (Warwickshire County Record Office).
89. Errington, p. 106.
90. Hollingsworth, pp. 8–9.
91. ‘Colin’, p. 29.
92. Thomson, pp. 162–3. See also T. Mitchell, pp. 10–11 (Bristol Central Library).
93. Hall, pp. 17–20.
94. Place, p. 102.
95. Ibid., p. 103.
96. Ibid., p. 104.
97. Ibid., pp. 92–3, 121–2.
98. Terry, p. 55 (Brunel University Library).
99. Struthers, pp. lviii–lix.
100. Gutteridge, p. 113.
101. Britton, i., p.74.
102. Ibid., pp. 74–7.
103. Burn, p. 129; Gutteridge, p. 113; Lowery, p. 62; Sanderson, pp. 5–41, p. 22.
104. Hanson, p. 19.
105. Whittaker, pp. 25–6.
6 Naughty Tricks on the Bed
1. Bowd, p. 296.
2. Family history pieced together from 1861 Census and Cambridge County Record Office, Elsworth Baptism Register; 26 May 1850 (Sarah, born 15 June 1849).
3. Family history pieced together from Derbyshire Record Office: Glossop Independent Baptism Register, 1812–1837, RG 4/859 (Susan Scholes born Feb. 1812); Cheshire Record Office: St Mary, Stockport, Marriage Register, 1819–1837, MF34/10 (marriage of Thomas Whittaker and Susan Scholes 15 April 1832); Derbyshire Record Office: Glossop Independent Baptism Register, 1812–1837, RG 4/859 (Nancy Whitacre, born 26 Oct. 1832; William Whitaker, baptised 15 Dec. 1833); Lancashire Record Office: St Mary the Virgin, Blackburn, Burial Records, 1658–1837, DRB2 (burial of William Whittaker, aged 4 months, 24 March 1834). Thomas Whittaker never mentioned the birth of Nancy in his autobiography and implied that William was their only child in 1834. Following the death of Susan in 1837, their daughter, Nancy, appears to have been taken in by her parents. An 8-year-old ‘Nancy Whiteker’ is recorded in the 1841 Census as living with Joshua Scholes (Joshua and Nancy Scholes were listed as the parents of Susan at the time of her baptism in Glossop in 1812). See also Whittaker, pp. 25–6.
4. W. Swan, pp. 49–50.
5. William Thomas, The Diary of William Thomas of Michaelston-super-Ely, near St. Fagans, Glamorgan, 1762–1795, ed. R. T. W. Denning (South Wales Record Society, 11, 1995), p. 80.
6. Ibid., p. 114.
7. The figures are based upon E. A. Wrigley, ‘British population during the long eighteenth century’, in Roderick Floud and Paul Johnson, eds, The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain: Industrialisation, 1700–1860 (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 75–6. See also Patricia Broomfield, ‘Incidences and attitudes: a view of bastardy from eighteenth-century rural North Staffordshire, c. 1750–1820’, Midland History, 27 (2002), pp. 80–98.
8. The figures are based upon my own reworking of the figures presented by Peter Laslett, Karla Oosterveen and Richard Smith, eds, Bastardy and its Comparative History (London, 1980) table 1.1, and revised upwards in line with the work of Adair who showed that the earlier work missed many illegitimates (Richard Adair, Courtship, Illegitimacy and Marriage in Early Modern England, Manchester, 1996). See also Alysa Levene, Samantha Williams and Thomas Nutt, eds, Illegitimacy in Britain, 1700–1920 (Basingstoke, 2005). The totals may appear low, but that stems in part from the way that illegitimacy is being measured. The parish registers only reveal what proportion of the total baptisms were of children of unmarried mothers. But this was an era of high marriage rates and married women tended to have much larger families than their unmarried peers, so the children born within wedlock would inevitably greatly outnumber those born outside. An alternative way of grasping the extent of illegitimacy is by looking at the proportion of first births that were illegitimate, or at the proportion of unmarried women giving birth outside marriage. Such measures tell a very different story. Studies of first births in parishes in Kent and in Cheshire indicate that somewhere between 10 and 20 per cent of all first births were illegitimate. Grace Wyatt, ‘Bastardy and prenuptiual pregnancy in a Cheshire town during the eighteenth century’, Local Population Studies, 49 (1992), pp. 38–50, table 6, p. 47; Barry Reay, ‘Sexuality in nineteenth-century England: the social context of illegitimacy in rural Kent’, Rural History, 1 (1990), pp. 219–47, p. 242. A study which relates the number of illegitimate births to the number of unmarried women in mid-nineteenth-century Colyton, Devon, reveals that almost 20 per cent of unmarried women gave birth to a child. Jean Robin, ‘Illegitimacy in Colyton, 1851–1881’, Continuity and Change, 2 (1987), pp. 307–42, p. 309.
9. For more on these themes, see Tim Hitchcock, ‘Demography and the culture of sex in the long eighteenth century’, in Jeremy Black, ed., Culture and Society in Britain, 1660–1800 (Manchester, 1997), pp. 69–84; Steven King, ‘The bastardy prone sub-society again: bastards and their fathers and mothers in Lancashire, Wiltshire, and Somerset’, in Levene et al. (eds), Illegitimacy; Adrian Wilson, ‘Illegitimacy and its implications in mid-eighteenth-century London: the evidence of the Foundling Hospital’, Continuity and Change, 4/1 (1989), pp. 103–6; Nicholas Rogers, ‘Carnal knowledge: illegitimacy in eighteenth-century Westminster,’ Journal of Social History, 23 (1989–90), pp. 355–75; John R. Gillis, ‘Servants, secular relations, and risks of illegitimacy in London, 1801–1900’, Feminist Studies, 5/1 (1979), pp. 142–73; Emma Griffin, ‘Sex, illegitimacy and social change in industrialising Britain’, Social History (forthcoming).
10. Cannon, i, p. 26.
11. Ibid., pp. 35–6.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., p. 48.
14. Ibid., p. 55.
15. Ibid., p. 63.
16. Ibid., pp. 62–3.
17. Ibid., p. 63.
18. Ibid., p. 88.
19. For more on the making and unmaking of John's pact with Mary, see John Money's excellent summary, ibid., pp. xlv–l.
20. Ibid., pp. 88–9.
21. Ibid., p. 89.
22. Ibid., p. 90.
23. Ibid., pp. 93–4.
24. Harrold, p. xi.
25. Ibid., p. xii
26. Ibid., pp. 5, 20, 26, 27, 31, 33, 35, 42, 44.
27. Ibid., p. 52.
28. Ibid., pp. 74–5.
29. Ibid., pp. 74, 82.
30. Ibid., p. 78
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid., p. 80.
33. The exception here is John's relationship with Ann Heister. We will consider this in more detail below.
34. Zobel, 31 March 1831, p. 4; 23 May 1831, p. 6; 22 June 1831, p. 7; 30 June 1831, p. 8 (Norwich and Norfolk Millennium Library).
35. Ibid., 7 Dec. 1828, p. 11.
36. Ibid., 17 Oct. 1831, p. 21.
37. Ibid., 7 Nov. 1831, p. 22.
38. Ibid., 19 Sept. 1832, p. 31.
39. Ibid., 12, 15, 26 Nov. 1832, p. 34.
40. Ibid, pp. 37–77 passim.
41. Bryceson, 22 Feb. 1846 (Westminster City Archives).
42. Ibid., 6 March 1846.
43. Ibid., 3 May 1846; 24 May 1846.
44. Ibid., 31 May 1846.
45. Ibid., 9 Aug. 1846.
46. Ibid., 13 Sept. 1846.
47. Ibid., 11 Oct. 1846.
48. Ibid., 29 Nov. 1846.
49. Cannon, i, p. 104.
50. Johnson, p. 40.
51. Ibid., p. 39.
52. Ibid., pp. 103–4.
53. M'Kaen, p. 15.
54. Ibid., p. 22.
55. Cannon, i, pp. 102–4.
56. M'Kaen, pp. 14–15.
57. Lincoln, pp. 10–11 (Norfolk Record Office).
58. Johnson, p. 39.
59. Saxby, p. 8.
60. Stanley, pp. 6–10.
61. J. Davis, p. 5. It is not clear what her intentions had been and as she died three weeks after the birth it is possible they were never known by her family either.
62. W. Milne, p. 18.
63. Price, p. 1 (Finsbury Library).
64. Ibid., pp. 3–5.
65. Bamford, Early Days, p. 169.
66. Ibid., p. 224.
67. Ibid., p. 225.
68. Ibid., p. 294.
69. Ann had been baptised with Jemima's name in January. Lancashire Record Office, St Leonard, Middleton Baptism Register, 1721–1847, DRM 2 (‘7 Jan 1810, Ann Shepherd – Daughter of Jemima Shepherd, singlewoman’. Marriage Register 1721–1847, DRM 2; the marriage is recorded on 24 June 1810).
70. Bamford, Early Days, p. 225.
71. Ibid., p. 227.
72. Errington, pp. 169, 172.
73. Ibid., p. 109.
74. Ibid., p. 99.
75. Shaw, p. 26.
76. Ibid., p. 30.
77. Ibid., p. 31.
78. Ibid., p. 29.
79. Ibid., p. 32
80. Ibid., p. 90.
81. Ibid., pp. 91–2.
82. Ibid., pp. 104–7. They were reconciled four years later.
83. Ibid., pp. 112, 115–16.
84. Ibid., pp. 96–7; ibid., pp. 87–8.
85. Ibid., p. 89.
86. In fact she did not do so as her own health now began to break down.
87. As was Edward Shorter's controversial thesis. See Shorter, ‘Illegitimacy, sexual revolution and social change in modern Europe’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2/2 (1971), pp. 237–72.
88. Marcroft, pp. 18–22.
89. E. Johnston, pp. 307–10.
Part III Culture
1. Somerville, p. 22.
7 Education
1. Lovekin, nos 1–2 (Brunel University Library).
2. The evidence for trends of literacy, as measured by the ability to sign one's name, is inconclusive. Stephen Nicholas and Jacqueline M. Nicholas, ‘Male literacy, “deskilling” and the industrial revolution’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 23 (1992), pp. 1–18, argue for a dip in signing ability between 1790 and 1830. R. Schofield, ‘Dimensions of illiteracy, 1750–1850’, Explorations in Economic History, 10/4 (1973), pp. 437–54 and David Vincent, The Rise of Mass Literacy: Reading and Writing in Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2000), indicate very modest improvements. See also R. Crone, ‘Reappraising Victorian literacy through prison records’, Journal of Victorian Culture, 15 (2010), pp. 3–37.
3. Good surveys of education for children may be found in: B. Reay, ‘The context and meaning of popular literacy in nineteenth-century rural England’, Past and Present, 131 (1991), pp. 89–129; M. Sanderson, Education, Economic Change and Society, 1780–1870 (Cambridge, 1991); Neil J. Smelser, Social Paralysis and Social Change: British Working-Class Education in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley, CA; 1991); David Vincent, Literacy and Popular Culture, England 1750–1914 (Cambridge, 1989), ch. 3; W. B. Stephens, Education, Literacy and Society, 1830–1870: The Geography of Diversity in Provincial England (Manchester, 1987); Phil Gardner, The Lost Elementary Schools of Victorian England: The People's Education (London, 1984). The literature for the eighteenth century is more limited, but see Deborah Simonton, ‘Schooling the poor: gender and class in eighteenth-century England’, British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 23/2 (2000), pp. 183–202; Robert Allan Houston, Scottish Literacy and the Scottish Identity: Illiteracy and Society in Scotland and Northern England 1600–1800 (Cambridge, 1986).
4. J. Barker, p. 36. See also J. Bethune, pp. 3–4; Bowcock, p. 7; Chadwick, p. 9; Choyce, p. 3; T. Davies, p. 1; W. Johnston, pp. 8–9; Marcroft, p. 41; Nicholson, pp. 1–2.
5. A. Bethune, p. 12. See also Buxton, p. iii.
6. The main exception lies with the Scottish autobiographers, some of whom benefited from a combination of better schools, families and communities that placed greater value on schooling, and (particularly in the more rural and remote areas) the absence of suitable employment for children. See, for instance, H. Miller, pp. 27–144; W. Milne, pp. 35–87; Murison, p. 212; Todd, pp. 25–49.
7. Lovekin, no. 2 (Brunel University Library).
8. Ibid., nos 3, 5.
9. Simonton, ‘Schooling the poor’, pp. 183–202.
10. Hutton, pp. 9–11, 22.
11. See, for example, Haime; T. Hanby; J. Mason; D. Taylor; J. Taylor, Memoirs.
12. Holcroft, p. 22.
13. Ibid., pp. 134–5.
14. Tryon, p. 8.
15. Ibid., pp. 14–15.
16. Gifford, p. 15.
17. Ibid., pp. 15–20.
18. Ferguson, p. 6.
19. Ibid., pp. 12–15.
20. Ibid., p. 16.
21. Ibid., p. 18.
22. MacDonald, pp. 26, 30, 40.
23. Saville, p. 11.
24. Lackington, p. 84.
25. Whitehead, pp. 18–19.
26. Davenport, pp. 10–12.
27. Livesey, pp. 197–8.
28. Claxton, pp. 16–17.
29. Watson, p. 109.
30. Fairburn, p. 73.
31. Thomson, p. 176.
32. The development of adult education remains a very neglected topic. An introduction may be found in W. B. Stephens, Adult Education and Society in an Industrial Town: Warrington, 1800–1900 (Exeter, 1980).
33. Thomson, p. 61.
34. Bain, pp. 20–1. Other autobiographers to benefit from commercial night schools in urban areas include John Jones, ‘Autobiographical extract’, pp. 365–6; Herbert, p. 27; Life of a Chimney Boy, p. 26; [Leask], p. 95. Those in London include Plummer, pp. xix–xx; Catling, pp. 48–9; Hollingsworth, p. 21; G. Mitchell, pp. 113–14.
35. Marcroft, pp. 38–9.
36. Chadwick, p. 9.
37. Bywater, pp. 5–7.
38. Collyer, p. 13.
39. For Farsley, see: I. Roberts, p. 21 and Brierley, p. 23. Others in industrial areas to be involved with night schools include: Aird, p. 10; A. Bethune, p. 12; Collyer, p. 13; E. Davis, pp. 11–12; Dodd, p. 213; Farish, pp. 17–18; ‘Life of a cotton spinner’, 27 Dec. 1856; ‘Life of a handloom weaver’, 25 April 1857; ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 2 May 1857; ‘Life of a letterpress printer’, 7 Feb. 1857; Livesey, p. 310; Lovekin, no. 2 (Brunel University Library); Rushton; Saville, p. 11; Whittaker, pp. 22–3.
40. Jonathon Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (New Haven, CT; 2001), pp. 58–70; John Caskie Crawford, ‘The ideology of mutual improvement in Scottish working class libraries’, Library History, 12 (1996), pp. 49–61; M. I. Watson, ‘Mutual improvement societies in nineteenth century Lancashire’, Journal of Educational Administration & History, 21/2 (1989), pp. 8–17. Also interesting is Anne Secord, ‘Science in the pub: artisan botanists in early nineteenth-century Lancashire’, History of Science, 32 (1994), pp. 269–315, which looks at the routes to scientific learning amongst working-class men.
41. C. Campbell, pp. 3–4.
42. T. Cooper, pp. 46–7.
43. In addition to Rose, Intellectual Life, pp. 63–76, see: W. A. Munford, ‘George Birkbeck and the Mechanics Institute’, in English Libraries, 1800–1850 (London, 1959); Mabel Tylecote, The Mechanics' Institute of Lancashire and Yorkshire before 1851 (Manchester, 1957); Edward Royle, ‘Mechanics' Institutes and the working classes, 1840–60’, Historical Journal, 14/2 (1971), pp. 305–21; Gregory Claeys, ‘Political economy and popular education: Thomas Hodgskin and the London Mechanics' Institute 1823–28’, in Michael T. Davis, ed., Radicalism and Revolution in Britain, 1775–1848: Essays in Honour of Malcolm I. Thomis (Basingstoke, 2000), pp. 157–75.
44. C. Shaw, p. 221.
45. Skilled workers involved in Mechanics' Institutes: Bain, p. 16; Bertram, p. 27; Catling, pp. 48–9; T. Cooper, pp. 103–7; [Gooch], p. 81; Herbert, p. 27; Holyoake, pp. 45–50; Lovett, pp. 28–31; P. Taylor, p. 2; Thomson, p. 335; Wallis, pp. 33–4. Others involved in Mechanics' Institutes include: Burland, p. 2; Marcroft, p. 43; Plummer, pp. xix–xx; Terry, p. 63 (Brunel University Library). The clerk was Robert White, see: R. White, p. 9. (Burland, Cooper, Lovett and Thomson had belonged to mutual improvement societies before getting involved in their Mechanics' Institutes.)
46. Farish, p. 46.
47. C. Shaw, pp. 221–9.
48. C. Campbell, pp. 3–4.
49. Thomson, p. 336.
50. Farish, pp. 46–7 .
51. T. Cooper, pp. 46–7.
52. Edwards, p. 10.
53. Mountjoy, pp. 42–3.
54. The Scottish ones are: Bain, p. 16; C. Campbell, pp. 3–4; Myles, pp. 286–7; McAdam, p. 3; W. Milne, pp. 236–40; P. Taylor, pp. 2–9; ‘Jacques’, 1 Nov. 1856; Urie, pp. 27–31.
55. Lovett, p. 28.
56. Ibid., pp. 28–31. For discussion groups in London, see also Claxton, pp. 23–5; Davenport, p. 68; Fairburn, pp. 83–4; Place, p. 131; Preston, pp. 22–4.
57. For example Goodliffe, no pag. (Leicestershire Record Office); Lowery, pp. 72–3; McAdam, p. 3; [Smith], pp. 14–15; Teer, p. iv; Thomson, pp. 335–44; Urie, pp. 27–31.
58. Adams, pp. 115–19; Barr, p. 26; Buckley, pp. 29–30; T. Cooper, pp. 46–7; Frost, pp. 197–203; p. 81; [Leask], p. 96; Skeen, p. 5; John Wilson, p. 207.
59. Bates, p. 2; Burland, p. 1; C. Campbell, pp. 3–4; Myles, pp. 286–7; Jacques, 1 Nov. 1856; Mountjoy, pp. 42–3; C. Shaw, pp. 221–5.
60. Brierley, pp. 34–6; Farish, pp. 46–7; Gutteridge, pp. 135–6; Heaton, pp. xvii–xix; Leatherland, pp. 9–10.
61. [Gooch], p. 21.
62. Ibid., p. 15.
63. Barr, p. 25.
64. Ibid., p. 25.
65. Edwards, pp. 9–10.
66. W. Milne, pp. 236–7.
67. The definitive history remains: Thomas W. Laqueur, Religion and Respectability: Sunday Schools and Working Class Culture, 1780–1850 (London, 1976). See also: Keith D. M. Snell, ‘The Sunday-school movement in England and Wales: child labour and working-class culture’, Past and Present, 164 (1999), pp. 122–68; Philip B. Cuff, The Rise and Development of the Sunday School Movement in England, 1780–1980 (Redhill, 1986); Callum G. Brown, ‘The Sunday-school movement in Scotland, 1780–1914’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 21/1 (1981), pp. 3–26; Malcolm Dick, ‘The myth of the working-class Sunday school’, History of Education, 9 (1980), pp. 27–41.
68. Gentleman's Magazine, 54 (1784), p. 411.
69. Figures from Snell, ‘Sunday-school movement’, pp. 125–6, 147.
70. Buxton, p. iii.
71. See, for instance, J. Barker, pp. 31, 34–5; Bezer, pp. 157–9, 161–3, 165–9; Castle, pp. 1–2 (Essex Record Office); Chadwick, p. 9; Collyer, pp. 7–8 15; Cook, pp. 2–3 (Lincoln Reference Library); E. Davis, pp. 6, 11; Dunn, pp. 7, 18; J. Harris, pp. 20–1, 32–3; Heap, pp. 2–3 (Rawtenstall Library); Heaton, p. xvii; Hollingsworth, pp. 3, 21; Langdon, pp. 17, 23–8; Lovekin, nos 2–3, 5 (Brunel University Library); Marcroft, pp. 33, 41; Mallard, p. 5 (Northamptonshire Record Office); Mockford, pp. 1–2; C. Shaw, pp. 6–11; Stir(r)up, 22 Nov. 1856; Teer, p. iii; Terry, p. 7 (Brunel University Library); Townend, pp. 3–4; J. Wood, pp. 4, 12; T. Wood, pp. 6–7 (Bradford Central Library).
72. Also argued in Snell, ‘The Sunday-school movement’.
73. Bamford, Early Days, p. 108.
74. Innes, p. 11. See also Rushton, pp. 44–7; Teer, pp. iii.
75. Livesey, p. 310.
76. Bain, pp. 15–21.
77. Marcroft, pp. 38–9.
78. Whittaker, pp. 22–3.
79. Bezer, p. 157.
80. Edwards, pp. 9–10.
81. Brierley, pp. 34–6.
82. Thomson, p. 336.
83. Claxton, p. 23.
84. [Smith], pp. 14–15.
85. Thomson, p. 337. See also Barr, p. 26.
86. Bain, p. 16. See also S. Taylor, pp. 2–6; R. White, p. 9.
87. Parkinson, pp. 66–8.
88. J. Wood, p. 10.
89. J. Harris, p. 21. See also Rushton, pp. 49–51.
90. Hopkinson, p. 72. See also Goodliffe who had been a teacher in the same Stony Street Sunday school in the 1820s: ‘In 1824 I entered heartily into the work of Sunday School teaching at Stoney Street Baptist Chapel, where for some years a capital School had existed’ (Leicestershire Record Office).
91. T. Wood, p. 15 (Bradford Central Library).
92. Joseph Wilson, p. 34. See also Corben, pp. 15–17.
93. Marcroft, pp. 38–9.
94. Ibid., p. 42; part II, pp. 58, 60, 62–3, 65–6.
95. Ibid., p. 67.
96. Ibid., p. 57.
1. Nicholson, pp.1–3.
2. Ibid., p. 15.
3. Ibid., p. 25.
4. Ibid., pp. 17–19.
5. Ibid., p. 21.
6. Ibid., p. 52.
7. Ibid., p. 16.
8. Ibid., p. 43.
9. David W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London, 1989).
10. John Kent, Wesley and the Wesleyans. Religion in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge, 2002); Mark Smith, Religion in Industrial Society, Oldham and Saddleworth, 1746–1865 (Oxford, 1994); David Hempton, The Religion of the People. Methodism and Popular Religion, 1750–1900 (London, 1996); idem, Religion and Political Culture in Britain and Ireland (Cambridge, 1996).
11. H. McLeod, Religion and Society in England, 1850–1914 (London, 1996); idem, Religion and the Working Class in Nineteenth-Century Britain (London, 1984).
12. Arch, pp. 21–2.
13. Deacon, p. 19.
14. Weaver, p. 64. See also Barr, pp. 28–9; Arch, pp. 21–2; T. Cooper, p. 37; Farningham, p. 15; Hampton, p. 41; Lea, [p. 6] (Sheffield Archives).
15. Jackson, pp. 24, 25, 64. See also Barr, p. 29.
16. [Moss], no pag. (Nottinghamshire Archives). See also Shervington, p. vii (Worcestershire Record Office).
17. Ibid.
18. Saxby, p. 32.
19. For more on the revivals, see David Bebbington, Victorian Religious Revivals: Culture and Piety in Local and Global Context (Oxford, 2012); Ned Landsman, ‘Evangelists and their hearers: popular interpretation of Revivalist preaching in eighteenth-century Scotland’, Journal of British Studies, 28/2 (1989), pp. 120–49; D. Luker, ‘Revivalism in theory and practice: the case of Cornish Methodism’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 37 (1986), pp. 603–19.
20. Cook, p. 20 (Lincoln Reference Library). For more on pew rents, see C. G. Brown, ‘The costs of pew-renting: church management, church-going and social class in nineteenth-century Glasgow’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 38/3 (1987), pp. 347–61.
21. Davenport, pp. 35–6.
22. Burt, p. 85.
23. I. Roberts, pp. 16–17.
24. Lea, [p. 6] (Sheffield Archives).
25. Hanson, p. 10; M. Smith, pp. 8, 11.
26. Gibbs, p. 34.
27. Ibid., pp. 39–40.
28. Ibid., pp. 53–4.
29. Arch, pp. 16–17.
30. Ibid., p. 17.
31. Ibid., p. 19.
32. Ibid., p. 20. See also Bezer, pp. 170–3; M. Smith, pp. 8, 11–13, 47–8.
33. T. Wood, p. 11 (Bradford Central Library).
34. I. Roberts, p. 28.
35. Hanson, p. 12. For other Methodist meetings see Carvosso, pp. 42–3; Parkinson, pp. 40–1; Saville, pp. 17–20.
36. See, for instance, Dunn, p. 73; Hopkinson, p. 71.
37. Innes, p. 13; Rushton, pp. 55–62. See also Huggins, ch. 3 (Norfolk Record Office).
38. Mayett, pp. 37–42. For a more positive response to being invited to speak see Whitehead, p. 38.
39. Hughes, p. 3 (Newport Central Library).
40. Croll, p. 19. See also Rushton, p. 75; W. T. Swan, p. 7.
41. Gwyer, p. 14.
42. F. Mason, p. 21. See also Hanson, p. 12; Mayett, p. 91.
43. Scenes from my Life, p. 83.
44. Autobiography of a Scotch Lad, p. 35.
45. W. Smith, p. 184.
46. In addition to the references above, see Aird, p. 15; Basset, p. 132.
47. Terry, p. 63 (Brunel University Library).
48. Ibid., p. 63.
49. Spurr, p. 284.
50. Basset, p. 10.
51. Ibid., pp. 115–19.
52. Ibid., p. 131.
53. Ibid., p.132.
54. Hopwood, pp. 10–11.
55. Saxby, pp. 39–40.
56. M. Smith, pp. 92–3.
57. Oakley, pp. 143–7.
58. Collyer, p. 30.
59. Mockford, p. 12.
60. Ibid., p. 27.
61. John Taylor, Memoirs, p. 4. See also Edward Royle, ‘The Church of England and Methodism in Yorkshire, c. 1750–1850: from monopoly to free market’, Northern History, 33 (1997), pp. 137–61.
62. Arney, pp. 2–23 (Bristol Central Library).
63. Somerville, p. 72.
64. Nye, pp. 15–16.
65. Ibid., p. 17.
66. Doreen Rosman, The Evolution of the English Churches, 1500–2000 (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 192–4.
67. Clifford, pp. 15–16.
68. Ibid., p. 17.
69. Ibid., pp. 18–19. See also Featherstone, p. 11; Hampton, p. 58; Harland, extract no. 4 (Bradford Central Library); Huggins, chs III–IV (Norfolk Record Office); Saville, pp. 25–6; G. Smith, Autobiography, p. 18; Townend, pp. 24–5, 34–5.
70. See also Flockhart, pp. 76–158, esp. p. 140, passim; Weaver, p. 69.
71. I. Anderson, p. 14.
72. Lea, [p. 9] (Sheffield Archives). See also Collyer, pp. 30–1.
73. Jackson, p. 71.
74. Ibid. See also Weaver, pp. 73–4.
75. For more about John Lincoln see introduction, pp. 1–4, 16–19.
76. The female preachers are Evans, Porteus and Davidson. See also D. M. Valenze, ‘Cottage religion and the politics of survival’, in Jane Rendall, ed., Equal or Different? Women's Politics in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1987), pp. 31–56.
77. Bamford, Early Days, p. 126.
78. Goodliffe, no pag. (Leicestershire Record Office).
79. Hopkinson, pp. 39, 71–3. See also Aird, p. 15; Barr, p. 31.
80. Saville, pp. 19–20.
81. See, for example, Featherstone, pp. 3–4; Townend, pp. 1–2. See also Mayett, p. 4.
82. Gibbs, pp. 102–14.
83. Ibid., p. 103. See also Carvosso, pp. 45–7, and Mayett, below.
84. See, for instance, G. Mitchell, p. 113; Parkinson, pp. 65–72. For women see, for instance, S. Martin, p. 12.
85. G. Mitchell, p. 115. See also Arch, p. 48; Mountjoy, pp. 3–7.
86. Skeen, pp. 14–15.
87. Catton, p. 15.
88. Aird, p. 15.
89. Mayett, pp. 60–98.
90. Esp. E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth, 1976); E. J. Hobsbawm, ‘Methodism and the threat of revolution in Britain’, in his Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour (London, 1968). See also, however, James Obelkevich, Religion and Rural Society in South Lindsey (Oxford, 1976); W. R. Ward, Religion and Society in England, 1790–1850 (London, 1972); J. A. Jaffe, ‘The “Chiliasm of Despair” reconsidered: revivalism and working-class agitation in County Durham’, Journal of British Studies, 28/1 (1989), pp. 23–42.
91. Stradley, [pp. 18–21] (Greenwich Heritage Centre).
92. Ibid. [p. 22].
93. W. T. Swan, p. 8. See also Autobiography of a Scotch Lad, pp. 52–3.
94. Catton, p. 10.
95. North, p. 75.
96. T. Cooper, pp. 37–9. See also Townend, pp. 34–43.
97. Kitson, p. 6 (Keighley Library).
98. Bezer, p. 178.
99. J. Wood, pp. 13–15.
100. Ibid., pp. 16–17.
101. Ibid., p. 16.
102. Michael Snape, The Church in Industrial Society. The Lancashire Parish of Whalley in the Eighteenth Century (Woodbridge, 2003); Geoffrey S. Chamberlain and Jeremy Gregory, eds, The National Church in Local Perspective: the Church of England and the Regions, 1660–1800 (Woodbridge, 2003); Frances Knight, The Nineteenth-Century Church and English Society (Cambridge, 1995); Robert Lee, ‘Class, industrialisation and the Church of England: the case of the Durham diocese in the nineteenth century’, Past and Present, 191 (2006), pp. 165–88; John Walsh, Colin Haydon and Stephen Taylor, eds, The Church of England, c.1689–1833: From Toleration to Tractarianism (Cambridge, 1993).
103. Bennett, p. 19 (Bristol Record Office).
104. B. Shaw, p. 38.
105. Ibid., pp. 38–40.
106. Thomson, pp. 61–3.
107. Ibid., p. 66.
108. Hanson, p. 16.
9 Sons of Freedom
1. Watson, p. 114.
2. For a useful introduction to the LCS, see H. T. Dickinson, The Politics of the People in Eighteenth-Century Britain (London, 1995). See also Benjamin Weinstein, ‘Popular constitutionalism and the London Corresponding Society’, Albion, 34 (2002), pp. 37–57; Iain McCalman, Radical Underworlds: Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795–1840 (Cambridge, 1988); John Barrell, ‘London and the London Corresponding Society’, in James K. Chandler and Kevin Gilmartin eds, Romantic Metropolis: The Urban Scene of British Culture, 1780–1840 (Cambridge, 2005), 85–112; Mark Philp, ‘Disconcerting ideas: explaining popular radicalism and popular loyalism in the 1790s’, in Glenn Burgess and Matthew Festenstein, eds, English Radicalism, 1550–1850 (Cambridge, 2007), 157–89; Michael T. Davis, ‘The Mob Club? The London Corresponding Society and the politics of civility in the 1790s’, in idem and Paul A. Pickering, eds, Unrespectable Radicals? Popular Politics in the Age of Reform (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 21–40.
3. The essential reading on the emergence of Chartism is E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth, 1968); Dorothy Thompson, The Chartists: Popular Politics in the Industrial Revolution (London, 1984); Gareth Stedman Jones, Languages of Class: Studies in English Working Class History, 1833–1982 (Cambridge, 1983); Paul Pickering, Chartism and the Chartists in Manchester and Salford (Basingstoke, 1995); Miles Taylor, Ernest Jones, Chartism and the Romance of Politics, 1819–1869 (Oxford, 2003); James Epstein, ‘Understanding the cap of liberty: symbolic practice and social conflict in early nineteenth-century England’, Past and Present, 122 (1989), pp. 75–118; idem, The Lion of Freedom: Feargus O'Connor and the Chartist Movement, 1832–1843 (London, 1982); Malcolm Chase, Chartism: A New History (Manchester, 2007).
4. Hardy, p. 39. See also Alan G. Steinberg, ‘Thomas Hardy and the London Corresponding Society: the revolution that never was’, Proceedings of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe (1983), pp. 319–417.
5. Hardy, pp. 39–41.
6. Ibid., pp. 44–5.
7. Ibid., pp. 43–4.
8. Place, pp. 112–15. See also (in addition to Thale's fine introduction to his autobiography), James Alan Jaffe, ed., ‘The Affairs of Others’: the Diaries of Francis Place (Cambridge, 2007).
9. Place, pp. 125–6.
10. Ibid., pp. 129–31.
11. Ibid., p. 131.
12. Preston, pp. 10–11. See also David Worrall, Radical Culture: Discourse, Resistance and Surveillance, 1790–1820 (Detroit, MI, 1993), pp. 77–88.
13. Preston, pp. 12–14.
14. Ibid., pp. 20–2.
15. Bamford, Passages, p. 12. See also Martin Hewitt and Robert Poole, eds, The Diaries of Samuel Bamford (Stroud, 2000).
16. Davenport, pp. 48–51. See also Worrall, Radical Culture, pp. 77–88.
17. Davenport, pp. 44–8.
18. Preston, p. 28.
19. It will be seen then that I differ in interpretation to Iain Hampsheir-Monk who has attributed the Radicals' failure to ‘linguistic non-performance’. If making a revolution is a ‘kind of speech act’, he asks, ‘might the British have failed through having the wrong kind of speech available or through failing to deploy it adroitly enough, or through mere syntactical incompetence?’ See idem, ‘On not inventing the English Revolution: the radical failure of the 1790s as linguistic non-performance’, in Glenn Burgess and Matthew Festenstein, eds, English Radicalism, 1550–1850 (Cambridge 2007), pp. 135–56.
20. Place, p. 131.
21. Contrast with Ian McCalman, ‘Ultra-Radicalism and convivial debating-clubs in London, 1795–1838’, English Historical Review, 102/403 (1987), pp. 309–33. McCalman has indicated the importance of debating clubs in sustaining the Radicals during the 1790s and beyond. I would agree these played a significant role, but also wish to draw attention to a wide range of alternative institutions without political focus.
22. The figure has been calculated by dividing five (the number of autobiographers who did play a political role before 1820) by 104 (the number of autobiographers born before 1790 and therefore having the opportunity to become involved in politics before 1820).
23. Fairburn, pp. 83–4; Claxton, pp. 21–5.
24. C. Campbell, pp. 3–4.
25. Later in life he also helped to establish a Bible Society and a school for poor boys in West Ham, and was involved in the Plaistow allotments and temperance movement. Catton, pp. 12–18. See also Carter, p. 166; Innes, pp. 11–15.
26. The figure has been calculated by dividing 45 (the number of autobiographers who did play a political role between 1820 and 1850) by 200 (the number born between 1791 and 1835 and therefore having the opportunity to become involved in politics before 1850).
27. This figure has been calculated by dividing 49 (the number of autobiographers who played a role in a mutual improvement society, Sunday school union or similar organisation but were never involved in politics) by 200.
28. T. Cooper, pp. 46–7.
29. Lowery, pp. 72–3. See also Lovett, pp. 28–9; McAdam, p. 3.
30. Leatherland, pp. 9–10.
31. Ibid., pp. 17–19.
32. ‘Jacques’, 1 Nov. 1856.
33. [Holkinson], 31 Jan. 1857.
34. W. Milne, p. 237. For similar comment, see Skeen, p. 5.
35. Bezer, pp. 157–9, 165–9, 180–7.
36. Lovekin, no. 3 (Brunel University Library). The others who moved from Sunday school teaching to politics were J. Barker, pp. 77, 286; Burland, pp. 2–3; Goodliffe, no pag. (Leicestershire Record Office); Manton, 22 Nov. 1902, 29 Nov. 1902; Mountjoy, pp. 2–4, 29–30; Terry, pp. 38–41, 62 (Brunel University Library); Joseph Wilson, pp. 33–4, 71. See also Lovett, p. 239 and T. Wood, pp. 10–11, 15 (Bradford Central Library), who moved into Sunday school work after having been involved in politics.
37. Thompson, The Making; idem, ‘Time, work-discipline and industrial capitalism’, Past and Present, 38/1 (1967), pp. 56–97 See, however, Thomas Laqueur, Religion and Respectability: Sunday Schools and Working Class Culture (New Haven, 1976).
38. For an excellent history of the trade union movement see Malcolm Chase, Early Trade Unionism: Fraternity, Skill and the Politics of Labour (Aldershot, 2000).
39. Dunning, pp. 126–34.
40. Ibid., pp. 134–42.
41. A few did not state their date of birth (see, for example, T. Horne, S. Taylor, [Cameron]), but none other stated he or she did not know it.
42. Burn, pp. 138–9.
43. Ibid., p. 139.
44. Ibid. For others who entered by the trade union route, see Lowery, pp. 62–160, passim.
45. Very little has been written in recent years about the early history of the co-operative movement. See, however, Peter Gurney, Co-operative Culture and the Politics of Consumption in England, 1870–1930 (Manchester, 1996); Jennifer Tann, ‘Co-operative corn milling: self-help during the grain crisis of the Napoleonic Wars’, Agricultural History Review, 28 (1989) 45–57; P. Backstrom, Christian Socialism and Co-operation in Victorian Britain (London, 1974).
46. Lovett, pp. 33–5. Lovett was also a member of several mutual improvement societies, pp. 28–30.
47. John Wilson, p. 215.
48. Ibid., p. 216. For others who entered politics from co-operative activity, see Castle (Essex Record Office); Marcroft, pp. 66–7.
49. Brian Harrison, Drink and the Victorians: the Temperance Question in England, 1815–1872 (Pittsburgh, PA, 1971); Lilian Lewis Shiman, Crusade against Drink in Victorian England (London, 1988).
50. ‘Life of a handloom weaver’, 25 April 1857.
51. Crowe, p. 5.
52. Buckmaster writing under the pseudonym John Buckley; Buckley, p. 26. See also Rushton, pp. 92–99.
53. Farish, p. 73. John Bates also entered politics from temperance activity. See Bates, pp. 2–3.
54. Ibid., p. 89.
55. See, for instance, ‘Colin’, p. 60; Powell, p. 11.
56. Lowery, p. 72.
57. Bates, p. 2.
58. Barker, pp. 86–93.
59. Ibid., pp. 244–6.
60. Ibid., p. 286.
61. Scenes from my Life, p. 68.
62. Arch, esp. pp. 65–116, 355–77.
63. For unions, in addition to the references given for James Dawson Burn (nn. 42–44), Thomas Dunning (nn. 39–40), Robert Lowery (n. 56); Francis Place (nn. 8–11) and Thomas Preston (nn. 12–14), see Dodgson, 19 May (Halifax Central Library); ‘Life of an Irish taylor’, 18 April 1857; Powell, p. 12. For co-operatives, in addition to the references given for William Lovett (n. 46); John Wilson (nn. 47–8), and John Castle and William Marcroft (n. 48); see Terry, pp. 65–6 (Brunel University Library).
64. For temperance advocates, in addition to the references given for ‘Life of a handloom weaver’ (n. 50), Robert Crowe (n. 51), John Buckmaster and Adam Rushton (n. 52) and William Farish (nn. 53–4), see: C. Bent, p. 24; ‘Colin’, pp. 85–8; Harland, extract no. 12 (Bradford Central Library); ‘Life of a journeyman baker’, 20 Dec. 1856; Whittaker, passim. See also Blow, pp. 13–24, for temperance work in rural areas.
65. See the references for John James Bezer (n. 35) and Emanuel Lovekin, Joseph Barker, John Burland, Arnold Goodliffe, Henry Manton, Timothy Mountjoy, Joseph Terry, Joseph Wilson and Thomas Wood (all n. 36).
66. See, for instance, Basset; J. Davis; Davies.
67. Somerville.
68. G. Cooper, [p. 18].
69. Ibid. [p. 22].
70. Mountjoy, pp. 38–40.
71. Catton, p. 17.
72. B. Wilson, p. 225; Hawker, pp. 25–6; Hammond, pp. 34–42; Parkinson, pp. 62–3; McAdam, pp. 42–53.
73. John Wilson, p. 207.
74. Ibid., pp. 209–37.
75. Lovekin, no. 3 (Brunel University Library).
76. Leatherland, pp. 17–19.
77. Burn, pp. 140–1.
78. Dunning, pp. 135, 141, 142.
79. Ibid., pp. 142–6.
80. Aitken, pp. 27–8.
10 Conclusion
1. Bennett, pp. 9–10 (Bristol Record Office).
2. Freer, p. 9. See also Adams, pp. 42–50; John Wilson, p. 44.
3. North, p. 95.
4. Burn, p. 133.
5. Horler, p. 14. See also Hayes, p. 1.
6. Hawker, p. 76.
7. Mallard, p. 3 (Northamptonshire Record Office).
8. See, for instance, S. Taylor, p. 1. See also Whittaker, p. 24.
9. Weaver, pp. 29–30.
10. S. Robinson, p. 31.
11. Jackson, p. 32.
12. Wallis, p. 22.
13. W. Smith, p. 181.
14. Livesey, pp. 197–8. See also Claxton, pp. 16–17; Watson, p. 109; Joseph Wilson, p. 9.
15. I. Anderson, p. 7.
16. G. Mitchell, p. 100. Except perhaps William Hanson, who was filled with ‘wonder and astonishment’ at the ‘great changes which have taken place in the world’. Many of the changes he admired, ‘but not all’. Hanson, p. 3.