going out, and which saved the pay of a door-keeper, namely, by the
counting-house being so placed, the people could not go in or out without
being seen! There Blincoe worked some months; but not being perfectly
satisfied with the conditions in which the stewardship of William Gamble
left him, he took the liberty to remove from his hospitable roof, and
the result was, he could live upon and lay up one half of his wages. The
wages paid at this mill were very low, and the work very laborious,
being the stripping of the top cards! The fixed quantum was six pounds
per day, which is a severe task. After this, the master went up to
Blincoe and others, as they were at work, and informed them, he would
have more weight of cotton stripped off the top cards, or turn them away,
and Blincoe not feeling inclined to perform more work for that pay, asked
for his wages and left the Bastile!
Hence, Blincoe went to Mr. Leech, the owner of another factory, at Staley
Bridge, by whom he was engaged at nine shillings a week; but he found
the cotton so foul and dirty, and the work so hard, he staid not long;
as the owner paid only once in three weeks, it required some privation,
before any wages could be got! After three days toil, Blincoe went to his
master and asked him to lend as much silver as his work came to, and,
having obtained it, he took French leave, to the great offence of his
employer. Blincoe still remained at Staley Bridge, though unemployed. He
next obtained work at the mill of a Mr. Bailey, whose father had then
recently had one of his arms torn off by the blower, and he died in a few
hours from the dreadful effects of that accident. Here Blincoe stopped,
stripping of cards, for eleven shillings per week, during several months,
when, having saved a few pounds, he determined to try his fortune at
Manchester, which celebrated town was only seven or eight miles distant.
Of London, Blincoe retained only a faint recollection, and he thought
Manchester the largest and the grandest place in all the world. He took
lodgings in St. George’s-road, being attracted by the residence of James
Cooper, a parish apprentice from the same workhouse with himself, who had
been so cruelly flogged at Litton Mill. By this young man, Blincoe was
received in a friendly manner, and he lodged in his house near Shudehill.
Blincoe arrived at Manchester at a bad time, just at the return of peace,
and he had a difficulty of getting work. His first place was in the
factory of Mr. Adam Murray. There the engines worked only four days and
a half per week; for which he received no more than seven shillings and
a penny. Blincoe suffered much from the heat of the factories at Staley;
but in this of Mr. Murray’s, he found it almost suffocating, and if there
had been as great a heat in the factory at Litton, added to the effects
of long hours, and bad and scanty food, it is probably it had cut him off
in the first year of his servitude! Blincoe, thinking it was wise to risk
the chance of bettering his fortune, left Adam Murray’s gigantic factory,
at the end of the week, and next went to work in Robinson’s factory,[1]
as it is called, which belongs to Mr. Marriet. There he was engaged
to strip cards, at half a guinea per week. He worked at this several
months, living in a frugal manner, and never going into public-houses,
or associating with idle company; but, when he was engaged, by the rule
of the overlookers, he was forced to pay a couple of shillings, by way of
footing, and then he went to a public-house in Bridge-street, where this
silly and mischievous custom, let Blincoe into the first and last act
of drunkenness, in which he was ever concerned, and he felt ill several
days afterwards. At the same time, many of his comrades, who worked in
the same room, and who contributed each so much money, got drunk also.
This was spent contrary to Blincoe’s wishes, who grieved that he was
obliged to drink the ale. If he had refused, he would have been despised,
and might have lost his employ; and if a poor fellow had been ever so
low and wanted this money for the most essential purpose, it must not be
refused. This is a pernicious custom, and should be abolished. Blincoe
continued several months in this factory, living as it were alone in a
crowd, and mixing very little with his fellow work people. From thence
Blincoe went to a factory, at Bank Top, called Young’s old factory, now
occupied by Mr. Ramsbottom, and there, after a time, he was engaged as
stoker, or engine man, doing the drudgery for the engineer. Here, he
continued three years, sleeping a great part of the time on a flat stone
in the fire hole. If it rained in the night he was always drenched! but
he had formerly suffered so much by hardships, and the pay was so small,
he determined to do his best to save as much money as might suffice to
enable him to try to live as a dealer in waste cotton; from which humble
state many of the most proud and prosperous of the master cotton-spinners
of Manchester have emerged. His employer, liking him, raised his wages
to thirteen shillings a week, and, whilst Blincoe was about as black
as a chimney sweeper in full powder, the hope of future independence
induced him to bear his sable hue, and his master behaved to him with
more humanity, than he had been accustomed to experience. He was however
disturbed by some petty artifices of the manager, in the year 1817, and
an attempt being made to lower his wages, for which, upon an average,
he worked sixteen hours in the day, Blincoe resolved to quit such hard,
unremitting and unprofitable servitude, and from that period he commenced
dealer and chapman. At the end of the first year, he found his little
capital reduced full one-half; but on the other hand, he gained, in
experience, more than an equivalent, to what he had lost in money, and,
being pretty well initiated into the _mysteries of trade_, and having
acquired a competent knowledge of raw or waste cottons, he commenced his
second year, in much better style, and, at the end of that year, he had
not only regained his lost capital, but added £5 to it.
Blincoe hired a warehouse and lived in lodgings. In the year 1819, on
Sunday, the 27th. of June, he happened to be, with several other persons,
at the christening of a neighbour’s child, where several females were
present. An acquaintance of Mester Blincoe’s (no longer poor Blincoe,)
a jolly butcher, began to jest and jeer him, as to his living single.
There was a particular female friend present, whose years, though not
approaching old age, outnumbered Blincoe’s, and the guests ran their
jokes upon her, and some of the company said, Blincoe, get married
to-morrow, and then we’ll have a good wedding, as well as a christening,
to-day. Upon which Blincoe, leering a little sideways at the lady, said,
“Well, if Martha will have me, I’ll take her and marry her to-morrow.”
She, demurely, said “Yes.” Then, said Blincoe, though taken unawares,
now, if you’ll stick to your word, “I will.” She then said, “I’ll not
run from mine, if you don’t.” Hearing this, there was a great shout, and
when it had subsided, the butcher offered to bet a leg of mutton, that
Blincoe would not get married on Monday, the _28th. of June_, and others
betted on the same side, when Blincoe determined to win the bets, and
a wife in the bargain. Blincoe said to his comrades, “Well, that I may
not be disappointed. I’ll even go to see for a license to-night.” Two of
the party went to see all was fair. When Blincoe had got half-way, being
fearful of a _hoax_ by Martha, he hit on the device of holding back,
telling her he could not get the license without her presence, and when
she agreed to go, then still more securely to prevent his being laughed
at, he said, “I have not money enough in my pocket, will you, Martha,
lend me a couple of pounds?” In an instant she produced that sum, giving
it to Blincoe, and they proceeded. Blincoe was so bashful he neither took
her hand nor saluted her lips; but, accompanied by two of the persons
who had laid wagers, went to the house direct, of the very celebrated,
though not _very reverend Joshua Brookes_, lately deceased. The next
morning they went in a coach from his lodgings in Bank-Top, and were
married in the Old Church! Blincoe won his bets and his wife! They have
lived together with as great a share of conjugal tranquillity, as falls
to the lot of many, who are deemed happy couples, and he has ever since
kept upon the advance in worldly prosperity. He has lived to see his
tyrannical master brought to adverse fortune, to a state of comparative
indigence, and, on his family, the visitation of calamities, so awful,
that it looked as if the avenging power of retributive justice had laid
its iron hand on him and them. In how short a time Blincoe’s career will
verify the prediction of the old sybil of Chapel-a-Frith remains to
be seen; but it is in the compass of probability, that he may, in the
meridian of his life, be carried as high, by the wheel of fortune, as the
days of his infancy and youth, he was cast low!!
In the year 1824, Blincoe had accumulated in business that sum of money
he thought would be sufficient to keep his family, with the exception
of his cotton-waste business; shortly after he gave up a shop which he
had occupied for a few years at No. 108, Bank-Top, Manchester, and took
a house in Edge-place, Salford, whilst living there, thought proper to
place some of the money he had saved by industry to the purchasing of
some machinery for spinning of cotton—and took part of a mill of one Mr.
Ormrod, near St. Paul’s-Church, Tib-street, in this he was engaged six
weeks, with the assistance of some mechanics, getting the machinery ready
for work—the first day it was at work, an adjoining room of the building
caught fire, and burnt Blincoe’s machinery to the ground, not being
insured, nearly ruined him.—Blincoe declares that he will have nothing to
do with the spinning business again—what with the troubles endured when
apprentice to it, and the heavy loss sustained by fire, is completely
sick of the business altogether.
_End of the Memoir of Robert Blincoe._
[1] Whilst Blincoe worked at Robinson’s old factory, Water-street,
Manchester, having, by denying himself even a sufficiency of the cheapest
diet, clothed himself more respectably than he had ever been—and having
two-pound notes in his pocket, he determined to spend a few shillings,
and see the diversions of a horse-race, at Kersal-Moor—but not being
aware that such beings as pick-pockets were in the world, he put his
pocket-book in his outside pocket, whence it was stolen by some of
the light-fingered gentry, and poor Blincoe had to lament his want of
caution.
_CONFIRMATIONS OF ITS VERACITY._
Ashton-under-Line, Feb. 24, 1828.
DEAR SIR—I have read the narrated sufferings of Robert Blincoe with
mingled sorrow and delectation: with sorrow, because I know, from bitter
experience, that they have really existed; with delectation, because they
have appeared before the public through the medium of the press, and may,
peradventure, be the means of mitigating the misery of the unfortunate
apprentices, who are serving an unexpired term of apprenticeship in
various parts of Lancashire and Derbyshire. In 1806 or 7, I was bound
an apprentice, with twelve others, from the workhouse of St. James,
Clerkenwell London, to a Mr. J. Oxley, at Arnold-mill, near Nottingham.
From thence, after two years and three months’ servitude, I was sold to a
Mr. Middleton, of Sheffield. The factory being burnt down at this place,
I with many others, were sold to Mr. Ellice Needham, of Highgate-wall,
the owner and proprietor of Litton Mill! Here I became acquainted with
Robert Blincoe, better known at Litton-mill by the name of Parson. The
sufferings of the apprentices were exquisite during Blincoe’s servitude,
both in point of hunger and acts of severity; but, subsequent to
Blincoe’s departure from that place, the privations we had to endure,
in point of hunger, exceeded all our former sufferings (if that were
possible), having to subsist principally upon woodland sustenance, or,
in other words, on such food as we could extract from the woods. What I
now write is to corroborate the statement of Blincoe, having heard him
relate during my apprenticeship, all, or nearly all, the particulars
that are now narrated in his memoir. I may also add, that I worked under
Blincoe, at the same machine, in the capacity that he had done under
Woodward, without receiving any harsh treatment from him—nay, so far was
Blincoe from ill-treating the apprentices employed under him, that he
would frequently give part of his allowance of food to those under his
care, out of mere commiseration, and conceal all insignificant omissions
without a word of reproach—I cannot close this letter without relating
an anecdote that occurred about two years ago. Happening to call at a
friend’s house one day, he asked if I knew Robert Blincoe. I replied in
the affirmative. Because, added he, I saw a prospectus of his biography
some time past; and related the same to W. Woodward, who was on a visit
here, and who immediately said, “HE’LL GIVE IT MA,” and became very
dejected during the remainder of his visit.
Your humble servant,
JOHN JOSEPH BETTS.
* * * * *
Samuel Davy, a young man, now employed in the Westminster Gas Works,
has called on the Publisher of BLINCOE’S MEMOIR, and has said, that
his own experience is a confirmation of the general statement in the
Memoir. Samuel Davy, when a child of 7 years of age, with 13 others,
about the year 1805, was sent from the poorhouse of the parish of St.
George’s, in the Borough of Southwark, to Mr. Watson’s mill, at Penny
Dam, near Preston, in Lancashire; and successively turned over to Mr.
Burch’s mill, at Backborough, near Castmill, and to Messrs. David and
Thomas Ainsworth’s mill, near Preston. The cruelty towards the children
increased at each of those places, and though not quite so bad as that
described by Blincoe, approached very near to it. One Richard Goodall,
he describes, as entirely beaten to death! Irons were used, as with
felons, in gaols, and these were often fastened on young women, in the
most indecent manner from the ancles to the waist! It was common to
punish the children, by keeping them nearly in a state of nudity, in the
depth of winter, for several days together. Davy says, that he often
thought of stealing, from the desire of getting released from such a
wretched condition, by imprisonment or transportation; and, at last, at
nineteen years of age, though followed by men on horseback and on foot,
he successfully ran away and got to London. For ten years, this child and
his brother were kept without knowing any thing of their parents, and
without the parents knowing where the children were. All applications
to the Parish Officers for information were vain. The supposed loss
of her children, so preyed upon the mind of Davy’s mother, that, with
other troubles, it brought on insanity, and she died in a state of
madness! No savageness in human nature, that has existed on earth, has
been paralleled by that which has been associated with the English
Cotton-spinning mills.