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A
MEMOIR
OF
ROBERT BLINCOE,
An Orphan Boy;
SENT FROM THE WORKHOUSE OF ST. PANCRAS, LONDON,
AT SEVEN YEARS OF AGE,
TO ENDURE THE
Horrors of a Cotton-Mill,
THROUGH HIS INFANCY AND YOUTH,
WITH A MINUTE DETAIL OF HIS SUFFERINGS,
BEING
THE FIRST MEMOIR OF THE KIND PUBLISHED.
BY JOHN BROWN.
[Illustration]
MANCHESTER:
PRINTED FOR AND PUBLISHED BY J. DOHERTY, 37, WITHY-GROVE,
1832.
PUBLISHER’S PREFACE.
The various Acts Of Parliament, which have been passed, to regulate the
treatment of children in the Cotton Spinning Manufactories, betoken the
previous existence of some treatment, so glaringly wrong, as to force
itself upon the attention of the legislature. This Cotton-slave-trade,
like the Negro-slave-trade, did not lack its defenders, and it might have
afforded a sort of sorry consolation to the Negro slaves of America,
had they been informed, that their condition, in having agriculturally
to raise the cotton, was not half so bad, as that of the white
infant-slaves, who had to assist in the spinning of it, when brought to
this country. The religion and the black humanity of Mr. Wilberforce seem
to have been entirely of a foreign nature. Pardon is begged, if an error
is about to be wrongfully imputed—but the Publisher has no knowledge,
that Mr. Wilberforce’s humane advocacy for slaves, was ever of that
homely kind, as to embrace the region of the home-cotton-slave-trade.
And yet, who shall read the Memoir of Robert Blincoe, and say, that the
charity towards slaves should not have begun or ended at home?
* * * * *
The Author of this Memoir is now dead; he fell, about two or three years
ago, by his own hand. He united, with a strong feeling for the injuries
and sufferings of others, a high sense of injury when it bore on himself,
whether real or imaginary; and a despondency when his prospects were not
good.—Hence his suicide.—Had he not possessed a fine fellow-feeling with
the child of misfortune, he had never taken such pains to compile the
Memoir of Robert Blincoe, and to collect all the wrongs on paper, on
which he could gain information, about the various sufferers under the
cotton-mill systems. Notes to the Memoir of Robert Blincoe were intended
by the author, in illustration of his strong personal assertions. The
references were marked in the Memoir; but the Notes were not prepared,
or if prepared, have not come to the Publisher’s hand. But, on inquiring
after Robert Blincoe, in Manchester, and mentioning the Memoir of him
written by Mr. Brown, as being in the Publisher’s possession, other
papers, by the same Author, which had been left on a loan of money in
Manchester, were obtained, and these papers seem to have formed the
authorities, from which the Notes to the Memoirs would have been made. So
that, though the Publisher does not presume to make notes for the Author,
nor for himself, to this Memoir, he is prepared to confirm much of the
statement here made, the personalities of Robert Blincoe excepted, should
it be generally challenged.
* * * * *
Robert Blincoe, the subject of the Memoir, is now about 35 years of age,
and resides at No. 19, Turner-street, Manchester, where he keeps a small
grocer’s shop. He is also engaged in manufacturing Sheet Wadding and
Cotton Waste-Dealer. The Publisher having no knowledge of Robert Blincoe,
but in common with every reader of this Memoir, can have no personal
feelings towards him, other than those of pity for his past sufferings.
But such a Memoir as this was much wanted, to hand down to posterity,
what was the real character of the complaints about the treatment of
children in our cotton mills, about which a legislation has taken place,
and so much has been said. An amended treatment of children has been
made, the apprenticing system having been abandoned by the masters of the
mills; but the employment is in itself bad for children—first, as their
health—and second, as to their manners and acquirements—the employment
being in a bad atmosphere; and the education, from example, being bad;
the time that should be devoted to a better education, being devoted to
that which is bad. The employment of infant children in the cotton-mills
furnishes a bad means to dissolute parents, to live in idleness and all
sorts of vice, upon the produce of infant labour. There is much of this
in Lancashire, which a little care and looking after, on the part of the
masters of cotton-mills, might easily prevent. But what is to be done?
Most of the extensive manufacturers profit by human misery and become
callous toward it; both from habit and interest. If a remedy be desired,
it must be sought by that part of the working people themselves, who
are alive to their progressing degradation. It will never be sought
fairly out, by those who have no interest in seeking it. And so long as
the majority of the working people squanders its already scanty income
in those pest-houses, those intoxicating nurseries, for vice, idleness
and misery, the public drinking-houses, there is no hope for them of an
amended condition.
MEMOIR
OF
Robert Blincoe,
AN ORPHAN BOY.
CHAP. I.
By the time the observant reader has got through the melancholy recital
of the sufferings of Blincoe and his associates in cotton-mill bondage,
he will probably incline to an opinion, that rather than rear destitute
and deserted children, to be thus distorted by excessive toil, and
famished and tortured as those have been, it were incomparably less
cruel to put them at once to death—less cruel that they had never been
born alive; and far more wise that they had never been conceived. In
cases of unauthorized pregnancies, our laws are tender of unconscious
life, perhaps to a faulty extreme; whilst our parochial institutions, as
these pages will prove, after incurring considerable expence to PRESERVE
the lives of those forlorn beings, sweep them off by shoals, under the
sanction of other legal enactments, and consign them to a fate, far worse
than sudden death.
Reared in the most profound ignorance and depravity, these unhappy
beings are, from the hour of their birth, to the last of their
existence, generally cut off from all that is decent in social life.
Their preceptors are the veriest wretches in nature!—their influential
examples all of the worst possible kind. The reports of the Cotton Bill
Committees abundantly prove, that, by forcing those destitute poor to go
into cotton-mills, they have, in very numerous instances, been consigned
to a destiny worse than death without torture. Yet appalling as are many
of the statements, which, through the reports of the Committees, have
found their way before the public, similar acts of delinquencies, of a
hue still darker—even repeated acts of murder, have escaped unnoticed.
Much of the evidence brought forward by the friends of humanity, was
neutralized or frittered away by timidity of their witnesses, or by
the base subserviency of venally unprincipled professional men, who,
influenced by rich capitalists, basely prostituted their talent and
character as physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries, to deceive the
government, to perplex and mislead public opinion, and avert the loud
cry raised against the insatiate avarice and relentless cruelty of their
greedy and unfeeling suborners.
It was in the spring of 1822, after having devoted a considerable time
to the investigating of the effect of the manufacturing system, and
factory establishments, on the health and morals of the manufacturing
populace, that I first heard of the extraordinary sufferings of R.
Blincoe. At the same time, I was told of his earnest wish that those
sufferings should, for the protection of the rising generation of parish
children, be laid before the world. Thus assured, I went to enquire for
him, and was much pleased with his conversation. If this young man had
not been consigned to a cotton-factory, he would probably have been
strong, healthy, and well grown; instead of which, he is diminutive as
to stature, and his knees are grievously distorted. In his manners,
he appeared remarkably gentle; in his language, temperate; in his
statements, cautious and consistent. If, in any part of the ensuing
narrative, there are falsehoods and misrepresentations, the fault rests
solely with himself; for, repeatedly and earnestly, I admonished him to
beware, lest a too keen remembrance of the injustice he had suffered
should lead him to transgress the limits of truth. After I had taken down
his communications, I tested them, by reading the same to other persons,
with whom Blincoe had not had any intercourse on the subject, and who had
partaken of the miseries of the same hard servitude, and by whom they
were in every point confirmed.
ROBERT BLINCOE commenced his melancholy narrative, by stating, that he
was a parish orphan, and knew not either his father or mother. From the
age of four years, he says, “till I had completed my seventh, I was
supported in Saint Pancras poorhouse, near London.” In very pathetic
terms, he frequently censured and regretted the remissness of the
parish officers, who, when they received him into the workhouse, had,
as he seemed to believe, neglected to make any entry, or, at least, any
to which he could obtain access, of his mother’s and father’s name,
occupation, age, or residence. Blincoe argued, and plausibly too, that
those officers would not have received him, if his mother had not proved
her settlement; and he considered it inhuman in the extreme, either to
neglect to record the names of his parents, or, if recorded, to refuse
to give him that information, which, after his attaining his freedom,
he had requested at their hands. His lamentations, on this head, were
truely touching, and evinced a far higher degree of susceptibility of
heart, than could have been expected from the extreme and long continued
wretchedness he had endured in the den of vice and misery, where he
was so long immured. Experience often evinces, that, whilst moderate
adversity mollifies and expands the human heart, extreme and long
continued wretchedness has a direct and powerful contrary tendency, and
renders it impenetrably callous.
In one of our early interviews, tears trickling down his pallid cheeks,
and his voice tremulous and faltering, Blincoe said, “I am worse off
than a child reared in the Foundling Hospital. Those orphans have a name
given them by the heads of that institution, at the time of baptism, to
which they are legally entitled. But I have no name I can call my own.”
He said he perfectly recollected riding in a coach to the workhouse,
accompanied by some female, that he did not however think this female
was his mother, for he had not the least consciousness of having felt
either sorrow or uneasiness at being separated from her, as he very
naturally supposed he should have felt, if that person had been his
mother. Blincoe also appeared to think he had not been nursed by his
mother, but had passed through many hands before he arrived at the
workhouse; because he had no recollection of ever having experienced a
mother’s caresses. It seems, young as he was, he often enquired of the
nurses, when the parents and relations of other children came to see
his young associates, _why no one came to him_, and used to weep, when
he was told, that _no one had ever owned him_, after his being placed
in that house. Some of the nurses stated, that a female, who called
soon after his arrival, inquired for him by the name of “Saint;” and,
when he was produced, gave him a penny-piece, and told him his mother
was dead. If this report were well founded, his mother’s illness was
the cause of his being removed and sent to the workhouse. According to
his own description, he felt with extreme sensibility the loneliness
of his condition, and, at each stage of his future sufferings, during
his severe cotton-mill servitude, it pressed on his heart the heaviest
of all his sorrows—an impassable barrier, “a wall of brass,” cut him
off from all mankind. The sad consciousness, that he stood alone “_a
waif on the world’s wide common_;” that he had no acknowledged claim
of kindred with any human being, rich or poor—that he stood apparently
for ever excluded from every social circle, so constantly occupied his
thoughts, that, together with his sufferings, they imprinted a pensive
character on his features, which probably neither change of fortune, nor
time itself, would ever entirely obliterate. When he was six years old,
and, as the workhouse children were saying their Catechism, it was his
turn to repeat the Fifth Commandment—“Honour thy father and thy mother,
&c.,” he recollects having suddenly burst into tears, and felt greatly
agitated and distressed—his voice faltering, and his limbs trembling.
According to his statement, and his pathetic eloquence, in reciting his
misfortunes, strongly corroborated his assertion, he was a very ready
scholar, and the source of this sudden burst of grief being inquired into
by some of his superiors, he said, “I cry, because _I cannot_ obey one of
God’s commandments, I know not either my father or my mother, I cannot
therefore be a good child and honour my parents.”
It was rumoured, in the ward where Robert Blincoe was placed, that
he owed his existence to the mutual frailties of his mother and a
reverend divine, and was called the young Saint, in allusion to his
priestly descent. This name or appellation he did not long retain, for
he was afterwards called Parson; often, _the young Parson_; and he
recollected hearing it said in his presence, that he was the son of
a parson Blincoe. Whether these allusions were founded in truth, or
were but the vile effusions of vulgar malice, was not, and is not, in
his power to determine, whose bosom they have so painfully agitated.
Another remarkable circumstance in his case, was, that when he was sent
in August, 1799, with a large number of other children, from Saint
Pancras workhouse, to a cotton-mill near Nottingham, he bore amongst his
comrades, the name of _Parson_, and retained it afterwards till he had
served considerably longer than his FOURTEEN YEARS, and then, when his
Indentures were at last relinquished, and not till then, the young man
found he had been apprenticed by the name of Robert Blincoe. I urged the
probability, that his right indenture might, in the change of masters
that took place, or the careless indifference of his last master, have
been given to another boy, and that to the one given to him, bearing the
name of Blincoe, he had no just claim. This reasoning he repelled, by
steadily and consistently asserting, he fully recollected having heard
it said his real name was Blincoe, whilst he remained at Saint Pancras
workhouse. His indentures were dated the 15th August, 1799. If, at this
time, he was seven years of age, which is by no means certain, he was
born in 1792, and in 1796, was placed in Pancras workhouse. With these
remarks I close this preliminary matter, and happy should I be, if the
publication of these facts enables the individual to whom they relate,
to remove the veil which has hitherto deprived him of a knowledge of his
parentage, a privation which he still appears to feel with undiminished
intensity of grief.
Two years have elapsed, since I first began to take notes of Blincoe’s
extraordinary narrative. At the close of 1822 and beginning of 1823,
I was seized with a serious illness, which wholly prevented my
publishing this and other important communications. The testimony of
a respectable surgeon, who attended me, as any in the country, even
ocular demonstration of my enfeebled state, failed to convince some of
the cotton spinners, that my inability was not feigned, to answer some
sinister end; and such atrocious conduct was pursued towards me, as
would have fully justified a prosecution for conspiracy. Animated by
the most opposite views, the worst of miscreants united to vilify and
oppress me; the one wanting to get my papers, in order, by destroying
them, to prevent the enormities of the cotton masters being exposed;
and another, traducing my character, and menacing my life, under an
impression that I had basely sold the declarations and communications
received from oppressed work-people to their masters. By some of those
suspicious, misjudging people, Blincoe was led away. He did not, however,
at any time, or under any circumstances, retract or deny any part of his
communications, and, on the 18th and 19th of March, 1824, of his own free
will, he not only confirmed all that he had communicated in the spring
of 1822, with many other traits of suffering, not then recollected,
but furnished me with them. It has, therefore, stood the test of this
hurricane, without its authenticity being in any one part questioned or
impaired. The authenticity of this narrative is, therefore, entitled
to greater credit, than much of the testimony given by the owners of
cotton-factories, or by professional men on their behalf, as will, in
the course of this narrative, be fully demonstrated, by evidence wholly
incontrovertible. If, therefore, it should be proved, that atrocities
to the same extent, exist no longer; still, its publication, as a
preventative remedy, is no less essential to the protection of parish
paupers and foundlings. If the gentlemen of Manchester and its vicinity,
who acted in 1816, &c., in conjunction with the late Mr. Nathaniel
Gould, had not made the selection of witnesses too much in the power of
incompetent persons, Robert Blincoe would have been selected in 1819, as
the most impressive pleader in behalf of destitute and deserted children.
CHAP. II.
Of the few adventures of Robert Blincoe, during his residence in old
Saint Pancras workhouse, the principal occurred when he had been there
about two years. He acknowledges he was well fed, decently clad, and
comfortably lodged, and not at all overdone, as regarded work; yet, with
all these blessings in possession, this destitute child grew melancholy.
He relished none of the humble comforts he enjoyed. It was liberty he
wanted. The busy world lay outside the workhouse gates, and those he was
seldom, if ever permitted to pass. He was cooped up in a gloomy, though
liberal sort of a prison-house. His buoyant spirits longed to rove at
large. He was too young to understand the necessity of the restraint
to which he was subjected, and too opinionative to admit it could be
intended for his good. Of the world he knew nothing, and the society
of a workhouse was not very well calculated to delight the mind of a
volatile child. He saw givers, destitute of charity, receivers of insult,
instead of gratitude, witnessed little besides sullenness and discontent,
and heard little but murmurs or malicious and slanderous whispers. The
aged were commonly petulant and miserable—the young demoralized and
wholly destitute of gaiety of heart. From the top to the bottom, the
whole of this motley mass was tainted with dissimulation, and he saw
the most abhorrent hypocrisy in constant operation. Like a bird newly
caged, that flutters from side to side, and foolishly beats its wings
against its prison walls, in hope of obtaining its liberty, so young
Blincoe, weary of confinement and resolved, if possible to be free, often
watched the outer gates of the house, in the hope, that some favourable
opportunity might facilitate his escape. He wistfully measured the height
of the wall, and found it too lofty for him to scale, and too well
guarded were the gates to admit of his egress unnoticed. His spirits, he
says, which were naturally lively and buoyant, sank under this vehement
longing after liberty. His appetite declined, and he wholly forsook his
usual sports and comrades. It is hard to say how this disease of the mind
might have terminated, if an accident had not occurred, which afforded
a chance of emerging from the lifeless monotony of a workhouse, and of
launching into the busy world, with which he longed to mingle.
Blincoe declares, he was so weary of confinement, he would gladly have
exchanged situations with the poorest of the poor children, whom, from
the upper windows of the workhouse, he had seen begging from door to
door, or, as a subterfuge, offering matches for sale. Even the melancholy
note of the sweep-boy, whom, long before day, and in the depths of
winter, in frost, in snow, in rain, in sleet, he heard pacing behind
his surly master, had no terrors for him. So far from it, he envied him
his fortune, and, in the fulness of discontent, thought his own state
incomparably more wretched. The poor child was suffering under a diseased
imagination, from which men of mature years and elaborate culture are
not always free. It filled his heart with perverted feelings—it rendered
the little urchin morose and unthankful, and, as undeserving of as he
was insensible to, the important benefits extended to him by a humane
institution, when helpless, destitute and forlorn.
From this state of early misanthropy, young Blincoe was suddenly
diverted, by a rumour, that filled many a heart among his comrades with
terror, viz. that a day was appointed, when the master-sweeps of the
metropolis were to come and select such a number of boys as apprentices,
till they attained the age of 21 years, as they might deign to take into
their sable fraternity. These tidings, that struck damp to the heart
of the other boys, sounded like heavenly music to the ears of young
Blincoe:—he anxiously inquired of the nurses if the news were true, and
if so, what chance there was of his being one of the elect. The ancient
matrons, amazed at the boy’s temerity and folly, told him how bitterly he
would rue the day that should consign him to that wretched employment,
and bade him pray earnestly to God to protect him from such a destiny.
The young adventurer heard these opinions with silent contempt. Finding,
on farther inquiry, that the rumour was well founded, he applied to
several menials in the house, whom he thought likely to promote his
suit, entreating them to forward his election with all the interest they
could command! Although at this time he was a fine grown boy, being
fearful he might be deemed too low in stature, he accustomed himself
to walk in an erect posture, and went almost a tip-toe;—by a ludicrous
conceit, he used to hang by the hands to the rafters and balustrades,
supposing that an exercise, which could only lengthen his arms, would
produce the same effect on his legs and body. In this course of training
for the contingent honour of being chosen by the master-sweeps, as one
fit for their use,—with a perseverance truly admirable, his tender age
considered, young Blincoe continued till the important day arrived. The
boys were brought forth, many of them in tears, and all except Blincoe,
very sorrowful. Amongst them, by an act unauthorised by his guardians,
young Blincoe contrived to intrude his person. His deportment formed a
striking contrast to that of all his comrades; his seemed unusually high:
he smiled as the grim looking fellows approached him; held his head as
high as he could, and, by every little artifice in his power, strove to
attract their notice, and obtain the honour of their preference. While
this fatherless and motherless child, with an intrepid step, and firm
countenance, thus courted the smiles of the sooty tribe, the rest of
the boys conducted themselves as if they nothing so much dreaded, as to
become the objects of their choice, and shrunk back from their touch as
if they had been tainted by the most deadly contagion. Boy after boy was
taken, in preference to Blincoe, who was often handled, examined, and
rejected. At the close of the show, the number required was elected,
and Blincoe was not among them! He declared, that his chagrin was
inexpressible, when his failure was apparent.
Some of the sweeps complimented him for his spirit, and, to console
him, said, if he made a good use of his time, and contrived to grow a
head taller, he might do very well for a fag, at the end of a couple of
years. This disappointment gave a severe blow to the aspiring ambition
of young Blincoe, whose love of liberty was so ardent, that he cared
little about the sufferings by which, if attained, it was likely to be
alloyed. The boys that were chosen, were not immediately taken away.
Mingling with these, some of them said to our hero, the tears standing
in their eyes:—“why, Parson, can you endure the thoughts of going to be
a chimney-sweep? I wish they would take you instead of me.” “So do I,
with all my heart,” said Blincoe, “for I would rather be any where than
here.” At night, as Blincoe lay tossing about, unable to sleep, because
he had been rejected, his unhappy associates were weeping and wailing,
because they had been accepted! Yet, his heart was not so cold as to
be unaffected by the wailings of those poor children, who, mournfully
anticipating the horrors of their new calling, deplored their misfortune
in the most touching terms. They called upon their parents, who, living
or dead, were alike unable to hear them, to come and save them! What a
difference of feeling amongst children of the same unfortunate class!
The confinement that was so wearisome to young Blincoe, must have been
equally irksome to some of his young associates; therefore, the love
of liberty could not have been its sole cause,—there was another and a
stronger reason—all his comrades had friends, parents, or relations: poor
Blincoe stood alone! no ties of consanguinity or kindred bound him to
any particular portion of society, or to any place—he had no friend to
soothe his troubled mind—no domestic circle to which, though excluded for
a time, he might hope to be reunited. As he stood thus estranged from the
common ties of nature, it is the less to be wondered at, that, propelled
by a violent inclination to a rambling life, and loathing the restraint
imposed by his then condition, he should indulge so preposterous a
notion, as to prefer the wretched state of a sweeping-boy. Speaking on
this subject, Blincoe said to me, “If I could penetrate the source of my
exemption from the sorrow and consternation so forcibly expressed by my
companions, it would probably have been resolved by the peculiarity of my
destiny, and the privation of those endearing ties and ligatures which
cement family circles. When the friends, relatives, parents of other
children came to visit them, the caresses that were sometimes exchanged,
the joy that beamed on the faces of those so favoured, went as daggers to
my heart; not that I cherished a feeling of envy at their good fortune;
but that it taught me more keenly to feel my own forlorn condition.
Sensations, thus, excited, clouded every festive hour, and, young as I
was, the voice of nature, instinct, if you will, forced me to consider
myself as a moral outcast, as a scathed and blighted tree, in the midst
of a verdant lawn.”
I dare not aver, that such were the very words Blincoe used, but they
faithfully convey the spirit and tendency of his language and sentiments.
Blincoe is by no means deficient in understanding: he can be witty,
satirical, and pathetic, by turns, and he never showed himself to such
advantage, as when expatiating upon the desolate state to which his utter
ignorance of his parentage had reduced him.
During Blincoe’s abode at St. Pancras, he was inoculated at the Small Pox
Hospital. He retained a vivid remembrance of the copious doses of salts
he had to swallow, and that his heart heaved, and his hand shook as the
nauseous potion approached his lips. The old nurse seemed to consider
such conduct as being wholly unbecoming a _pauper child_; and chiding
young Blincoe, told him, he ought to “lick his lips,” and say thank
you, for the good and wholesome medicine provided for him at the public
expense; at the same time, very coarsely reminding him of the care that
was taken to save him from an untimely death by catching the small-pox in
the natural way. In the midst of his subsequent afflictions, in Litton
Mill, Blincoe, declared, he often lamented having, by this inoculation,
lost a chance of escaping by an early death, the horrible destiny for
which he was preserved.
From the period of Blincoe’s disappointment, in being rejected by
the sweeps, a sudden calm seems to have succeeded, which lasted till
a rumour ran through the house, that a treaty was on foot between
the Churchwardens and Overseers of St. Pancras, and the owner of a
great cotton factory, in the vicinity of Nottingham, for the disposal
of a large number of children, as apprentices, till they become
twenty-one years of age. This occurred about a twelvemonth after his
chimney-sweep miscarriage. The rumour itself inspired Blincoe with
new life and spirits; he was in a manner intoxicated with joy, when he
found, it was not only confirmed, but that the number required was so
considerable, that it would take off the greater part of the children
in the house,—poor infatuated boy! delighted with the hope of obtaining
a greater degree of liberty than he was allowed in the workhouse,—he
dreamed not of the misery that impended, in the midst of which he could
look back to Pancras as to an Elysium, and bitterly reproach himself for
his ingratitude and folly.
Prior to the show-day of the pauper children to the purveyor or cotton
master, the most illusive and artfully contrived falsehoods were
spread, to fill the minds of those poor infants with the most absurd
and ridiculous errors, as to the real nature of the servitude, to which
they were to be consigned. It was gravely stated to them, according to
Blincoe’s statement, made in the most positive and solemn manner, that
they were all, when they arrived at the cotton-mill, to be transformed
into ladies and gentlemen: that they would be fed on roast beef and
plum-pudding—be allowed to ride their masters’ horses, and have silver
watches, and plenty of cash in their pockets. Nor was it the nurses,
or other inferior persons of the workhouse, with whom this vile
deception originated; but with the parish officers themselves. From the
statement of the victims of cotton-mill bondage, it seems to have been
a constant rule, with those who had the disposal of parish children,
prior to sending them off to cotton-mills, to fill their minds with the
same delusion. Their hopes being thus excited, and their imaginations
inflamed, it was next stated, amongst the innocent victims of fraud and
deception, that no one could be _compelled_ to go, nor any but volunteers
accepted.
When it was supposed at St. Pancras, that these excitements had operated
sufficiently powerful to induce a ready acquiescence in the proposed
migration, all the children, male and female, who were seven years old,
or considered to be of that age, were assembled in the committee-room,
for the purpose of being publicly examined, touching their health, and
capacity, and what is almost incredible touching their _willingness_ to
go and serve as apprentices, in the way and manner required! There is
something so detestable, in this proceeding, that any one might conclude,
that Blincoe had been misled in his recollections of the particulars;
but so many other sufferers have corroborated his statement, that I can
entertain no doubt of the fact. This exhibition took place in August
1799, and eighty boys and girls as parish apprentices, and till they
had respectively acquired the age of twenty-one years, were made over
by the churchwardens and overseers of Saint Pancras parish, to Messrs.
Lamberts’, cotton-spinners, hosiers and lace-men, of St. Mary’s parish,
Nottingham, the owners of Lowdam Mill. The boys, during the latter part
of their time, were to be instructed in the trade of stocking weaving—the
girls in lace-making. There was no specification whatever, as to the time
their masters were to be allowed to work these poor children, although,
at this period, the most abhorrent cruelties were notoriously known to
be exercised, by the owners of cotton-mills, upon parish apprentices.
According to Blincoe’s testimony, so powerfully had the illusions,
purposely spread to entrap these poor children, operated, and so
completely were their feeble minds excited, by the blandishments held
out to them, that they almost lost their wits. They thought and talked
of nothing but the scenes of luxury and grandeur, in which they were to
move. Nor will the reflecting reader feel surprised at this credulity,
however gross, when he considers the poor infants imagined there were no
greater personages than the superiors, to whom they were, as paupers,
subjected, and that, it was those identical persons, by whom their weak
and feeble intellects had thus been imposed upon. Blincoe describes
his conduct to have been marked by peculiar extravagance. Such was his
impatience, he could scarcely eat or sleep, so anxiously did he wait the
hour of emancipation. The poor deluded young creatures were so inflated
with pride and vanity, that they strutted about like so many dwarfish
and silly kings and queens, in a mock tragedy. “We began” said Blincoe
“to treat our old nurses with airs of insolence and disdain—refused to
associate with children, who, from sickness, or being under age, had not
been accepted; they were commanded to keep their distance; told to know
their betters; forbidden to mingle in our exalted circle! Our little
coterie was a complete epitome of the effects of prosperity in the great
world. No sooner were our hearts cheered by a prospect of good fortune,
than its influence produced the sad effects recited. The germ of those
hateful vices, arrogance, selfishness and ingratitude, began to display
themselves even before we had tasted the intoxicating cup. But our
illusion soon vanished, and we were suddenly awakened from the flattering
dream, which consigned the greater part of us to a fate more severe than
that of the West Indian slaves, who have the good fortune to serve humane
owners.” Such were Blincoe’s reflections in May 1822.
It appears that the interval was not long, which filled up the space
between their examination, acceptance, and departure from St. Pancras
workhouse, upon their way to Nottingham; but short as it was, it left
room for dissension. The boys could not agree who should have the _first
ride_ on their masters’ horses, and violent disputes arose amongst the
girls, on subjects equally ludicrous. It was afterwards whispered at
Lowdam Mill, that the elder girls, previous to leaving Pancras, began to
feel scruples, whether their dignity would allow them to drop the usual
bob-curtsey to the master or matron of the house, or to the governess by
whom they had been instructed to read, or work by the needle. Supposing
all these follies to have been displayed to the very letter, the poor
children were still objects of pity; the guilt rests upon those by whom
they had been so wickedly deceived!
Happy, no doubt, in the thought of transferring the burthen of the future
support of fourscore young paupers to other parishes, the churchwardens
and overseers distinguished the departure of this juvenile colony by acts
of munificence. The children were completely new clothed, and each had
two suits, one for their working, the other for their holiday dress—a
shilling in money, was given to each—a new pocket handkerchief—and a
large piece of gingerbread. As Blincoe had no relative of whom to take
leave, all his anxiety was to get outside the door. According to his own
account, he was the first at the gate, one of the foremost who mounted
the waggon, and the loudest in his cheering. In how far the parents
or relatives of the rest of the children consented to this migration;
if they were at all consulted, or even apprised of its being in
contemplation, formed no part of Blincoe’s communications. All he stated
was, that the whole of the party seemed to start in very high spirits. As
to his own personal conduct, Blincoe asserts, he strutted along dressed
in party-coloured parish clothing, on his way to the waggon, no less
filled with vanity than with delusion: he imagined he was free, when he
was in fact legally converted into a slave; he exulted in the imaginary
possession of personal liberty, when he was in reality a prisoner. The
whole convoy were well guarded by the parish beadles on their way to the
waggons; but those officers, bearing their staves, the children were
taught to consider as a guard of _honour_. In addition to the beadles,
there was an active young man or two, appointed to look after the
passengers of the two large waggons, in their conveyance to Nottingham.
Those vehicles, and very properly too, were so secured, that when once
the grated doors were locked, no one could escape. Plenty of clean
straw was strewed in the beds, and no sooner were the young fry _safely
lodged_ within, than they began throwing it over one another and seemed
delighted with the commencement of their journey. A few hours progress
considerably damped this exultation. The inequality of the road, and
the heavy jolts of the waggon, occasioned them many a bruise. Although
it was the middle of August, the children felt very uncomfortable. The
motion of the heavy clumsey vehicle, and so many children cooped up in
so small a space, produced nausea and other results, such as sometimes
occur in Margate boys. Of the country they passed through, the young
travellers saw very little.—Blincoe thinks the children were suffered
to come out of the waggon to walk through St. Alban’s. After having
passed one night in the waggon, many of the children began to repent,
and express a wish to return. They were told to have patience, till they
arrived at Messrs. Lamberts, when, _no doubt_, those gentlemen would pay
every attention to their wishes, and send back to St. Pancras, those
who might wish to return. Blincoe, as might have been expected, was not
one of those _back-sliders_—he remained steady to his purpose, exulting
in the thought, that every step he advanced brought him nearer to the
desired spot, where so many enviable enjoyments awaited him, and conveyed
him farther and farther from the detested workhouse! Blincoe being so
overjoyed with the fine expectations he was to receive at Lowdam Mill, he
spent his shilling at Leicester in apples.
The greater part of the children were much exhausted, and not a few of
them seriously indisposed, before they arrived at Nottingham. When the
waggons drew up near the dwelling and warehouse of their future master,
a crowd collected to see the _live stock_ that was just imported from
the metropolis, who were pitied, admired, and compared to lambs, led
by butchers to slaughter! Care was taken that they should not hear or
understand much of this sort of discourse. The boys and girls were
distributed, some in the kitchen, others in a large ware-room, washed,
combed and supplied with refreshments; but there were no plum-pudding—no
roast beef, no talk of the horses they were to ride, nor of the watches
and fine clothing that they had been promised. Many looked very mournful;
they had been four days travelling to Nottingham: at a more advanced
period of their lives, a travel to the East Indies might not have been
estimated as a much more important or hazardous undertaking. After
having been well refreshed, the whole of the boys and girls were drawn up
in rows, to be _reviewed by their masters_, their friends and neighbours.
In Blincoe’s estimation, their masters, Messrs. Lamberts’, were “stately
sort of men.” They looked over the children and finding them all right,
according to the INVOICE, exhorted them to behave with proper humility
and decorum. To pay the most prompt and submissive respects to the orders
of those who would be appointed to instruct and superintend them at
Lowdam Mill, and to be diligent and careful, each one to execute his or
her task, and thereby avoid the punishment and disgrace which awaited
idleness, insolence, or disobedience. This harangue, which was delivered
in a severe and dictatorial tone, increased their apprehensions, but
not one durst open a mouth to complain. The masters and their servants
talked of the various sorts of labour to which the children were to
apply themselves, and to the consternation and dismay of Blincoe and
his associates, not the least allusion was made to the many fine things
which had so positively been promised them whilst in London. The
conversation which Blincoe heard, seemed to look forward to close, if not
to unremitting toil, and the poor boy had been filled with expectations,
that he was to work only when it pleased him; to have abundance of money
and fine clothes—a watch in his pocket, to feast on roast beef and
plum-pudding, and to ride his masters horses. His hopes, however were,
not wholly extinguished, because Nottingham was not Lowdam Mill, but his
confidence was greatly reduced, and his tone of exultation much lowered.
The children rested one night at Nottingham in the warehouses of
their new masters—the next day they were led out to see the castle,
Mortimer-hole and other local curiosities, in the forest of Sherwood,
which are so celebrated by bards of ancient times. Many shoes, bonnets,
and many other articles of clothing having been lost upon the journey,
others were supplied—but withal Blincoe found himself treated as a
parish orphan, and he calculated on being received and treated as
if he had been a gentleman’s son sent on a visit to the house of a
friend or relative. By the concurring testimony of other persons who
had been entrapped by similar artifices, it appears certain, that the
_purveyors_ of infant labourers to supply the masters of cotton and silk
factories with cheap labourers, adopted this vile, unmanly expedient,
in most of their transactions. It will be seen, by the evidence of Sir
Robert Peel, Baronet, David Owen, Esq. and other witnesses examined
in 1816, that, when children were first wanted to attend machinery in
cotton-factories, such was the aversion of parents and guardians to
this noxious employment, that scarcely any would submit to consign
their offspring to those mills, the owners of which, under the specious
pretext of diminishing the burdens occasioned by poor-rates, prevailed
on churchwardens and overseers, to put their infant paupers into their
hands. Since then, by a gradual progress of poverty and depravity, in the
county of Lancashire alone, there are some thousand fathers, mothers, and
relatives, who live upon the produce of infant labour, though alloyed by
the dreadful certainty, that their gain is acquired by the sacrifice of
their children’s health and morals, and too frequently of their lives,
whereby the fable of Saturn devouring his children, seems realised in
modern times.
CHAP. III.
Lowdham Cotton-Mill, situated near a village of that name, stood ten
miles distant from Nottingham, on the Surhill road; thither Robert
Blincoe and his associates were conveyed the next day in carts, and it
was rather late when they arrived. The mill, a large and lofty edifice,
being surmounted by a cupola, Blincoe, at first, mistook for a church,
which raised a laugh at his expense, and some jeering remarks, that he
would soon know what sort of service was performed there. Another said,
he did not doubt but the young cocknies would be very _regular_ in their
_attendance_. When he came in view of the apprentice-house, which was
half a mile distant from the mill, and was told that was _to be his home
for fourteen years to come_, he was not greatly delighted, so closely did
it resemble a workhouse. There was one source of consolation, however,
remaining—it was not surrounded by lofty walls, nor secured by strong
gates, as was the case at Pancras. When the first cart, in which was
young Blincoe, drove up to the door, a number of villagers flocked round,
some of whom exclaimed, “God help the poor wretches.”—“Eh!” said another,
“what a fine collection of children, little do they know to what a life
of slavery they are doomed.”—“The Lord have mercy upon them,” said a
third.—“They’ll find little mercy here,” said a fourth. The speakers
were mostly of the female sex, who, shaking their heads, said,—“Ah! what
fine clear complexions!”—“The roses will soon be out of bloom in the
mill.” Such were a part of the remarks which saluted the ears of these
children, as they entered the Lowdham Mill. In common with his comrades,
Blincoe was greatly dismayed, by the gloomy prognostications, which their
guardians did all they could to check, or prevent the children from
hearing, hurrying them, as rapidly as they could, inside the house.
The young strangers were conducted into a spacious room, fitted up
in the style of the dinner-room, in Pancras old workhouse, viz: with
long, narrow deal tables, and wooden benches. Although the rooms seemed
tolerably clean, there was a certain rank, oily, smell, which Blincoe did
not very much admire. They were ordered to sit down at these tables—the
boys and girls apart. The other apprentices had not left work, when this
supply of children arrived. The supper set before them consisted of
milk-porridge, of a very blue complexion! The bread was partly made of
rye—very black, and so soft, they could scarcely swallow it, as it stuck
like bird-lime to their teeth. Poor Blincoe stared, recollecting this was
not so good a fare as they had been used to at Saint Pancras. Where is
our roast beef and plum-pudding, he said to himself. He contrived, with
some difficulty, to eat about one half of his allowance. As the young
strangers gazed mournfully at each other, the governor and governess,
as the master and mistress of the apprentices were styled, kept walking
round them, and making very coarse remarks. Just as they had passed
Blincoe, some of the girls began making faces, and one flung a dab of
bread against the wall, where it stuck fast, as if it had been plaister.
This caught the eye of the governor—a huge raw-boned man, who had served
in the army, and had been a drill serjeant, unexpectedly, he produced a
large horse-whip, which he clanged in such a sonorous manner, that it
made the house re-echo. In a moment, the face-makers and bread throwers
were reduced to solemn silence and abject submission. Even young Blincoe
was daunted—he had been one of the ring-leaders in these seditious
proceedings; but so powerful was the shock to his nerves, sustained from
the tremendous clang of the horse-whip, it bereft him of all his gaity,
and he sat as demure as a truant-scholar, just previous to his flogging.
Yet the master of the house had not uttered a single threat; nor indeed
had he occasion; his carbuncled nose—his stern and forbidding aspect and
his terrible horse-whip, inspired quite as much terror as was requisite.
Knowing that the apprentices from the mill were coming, this formidable
being retired, to the great relief of the young strangers, but so deep an
impression had he created, they sat erect and formal, scarcely daring to
look beyond the nose. Whilst they were in this subdued and neutralised
state, their attention was suddenly and powerfully attracted by the loud
shouting of many voices, almost instantly the stone-room filled, spacious
as it was, with a multitude of young persons of both sexes; from young
women down to mere children. Their presence was accompanied by a scent of
no very agreeable nature, arising from the grease and dirt acquired in
the avocation.