SECTION II

They generally had to do what they call dry down; sometimes this took the whole of the time at breakfast or drinking, and they were to get their dinner or breakfast as they could; if not, it was brought home.

5054. Had you not great difficulty in awakening your children to this excessive labour?

Yes, in the early time we had them to take up asleep and shake them, when we got them on the floor to dress them, before we could get them off to their work; but not so in the common hours.

5056. Supposing they had been a little too late, what would have been the consequence during the long hours?

It was near 11 o'clock before we could get them into bed after getting a little victuals, and then at morning my mistress used to stop up all night, for fear that we could not get them ready for the time; sometimes we have gone to bed, and one of us generally awoke.

About six weeks it held; it was only done when the throng was very much on; it was not often that.

5063. The common hours of labour were from 6 in the morning till half-past eight at night?

Many times; we have cried often when we have given them the little victualling we had to give them; we had to shake them, and they have fallen to sleep with the victuals in their mouths many a time.

Yes, my eldest daughter when she went first there; she had been about five weeks, and used to fettle the frames when they were running, and my eldest girl agreed with one of the others to fettle hers that time, that she would do her work; while she was learning more about the work, the overlooker came by and said, "Ann, what are you doing there?" she said, "I am doing it for my companion, in order that I may know more about it," he said, "Let go, drop it this minute," and the cog caught her forefinger nail, and screwed it off below the knuckle, and she was five weeks in Leeds Infirmary.

As soon as the accident happened the wages were totally stopped; indeed, I did not know which way to get her cured, and I do not know how it would have been cured but for the Infirmary.

Yes, every one; the eldest daughter; I was up in Lancashire a fortnight, and when I got home I saw her shoulders, and I said, "Ann, what is the matter?" she said, "The overlooker has strapped me; but," she said, "do not go to the overlooker, for if you do we shall lose our work "; I said I would not if she would tell me the truth as to what caused it. "Well," she said, "I will tell you, father." She says, "I was fettling the waste, and the girl I had learning had got so perfect she could keep the side up till I could fettle the waste; the overlooker came round, and said, "What are you doing?" I said, "I am fettling while the other girl keeps the upper end up"; he said, "Drop it this minute;" she said, "No, I must go on with this"; and because she did not do it, he took a strap, and beat her between the shoulders. My wife was out at the time, and when she came in she said her back was beat nearly to a jelly; and the rest of the girls encouraged her to go to Mrs. Varley, and she went to her, and she rubbed it with a part of a glass of rum, and gave her an old silk handkerchief to cover the place with till it got well."

5083. Could you dispose of their wages, when they had received them, as you wished: did you understand that?

They never said anything to me; but the children have said, "If we do not bring some little from the shop I am afraid we shall lose our work." And sometimes they used to bring a bit of sugar or some little oddment, generally of their own head.

5084. That is, they were expected to lay out part of their wages under the truck system?

5086. Had your children any opportunity of sitting during those long days of labour?

No; they were in general, whether there was work for them to do or not, to move backwards and forwards till something came to their hands.

5118. At the time they worked those long hours, would it have been in their power to work a shorter number of hours, taking the 3s.?

To a worsted manufactory; but it so happened with her that her stepmother dying, I took her away to manage the affairs of my house; she was very young to be sure, but she did what I had to do, except what I hired out, and she is very healthy and strong; but with regard to my boy, Edwin, he was a proverb for being active and straight before he went; there is a portion of ground of considerable extent, opposite to a building in our neighbourhood, and that boy would run seven times round that piece of ground, and come in without being much fatigued; but when he had gone to the mill some time, perhaps about three years, he began to be weak in his knees; and it went on to that degree, that he could scarcely walk; I had three steps up into my house, and I have seen that boy get hold of the sides of the door to assist his getting up into the house; many a one advised me to take him away; they said he would be ruined, and made quite a cripple; but I was a poor man, and could not afford to take him away, having a large family, six children, under my care; they are not all mine, but I have to act as a father to them; he still continued to go, but during the last six or seven months the factory has been short of work; they spin for commission; and it has so happened that they have worked less hours since last November than they formerly did, not being able to obtain so much work; and he is very much improved in that time with regard to the strength of his knees, and it has been observed by the neighbours that he grows a little, but he is bent in one knee.

5492. Have you had any other children on whom this labour has had a similar effect?

Yes, I have a daughter Barbara; she went to the mill between 7 and 8 years of age; she was straight then, but, however, a few years back, about three years since, she fell weak and lame in one of her knees, and she was off her work in consequence; but, however, in a few weeks she got a little recovered and went to the mill again, and she has continued to go there ever since, and she has got very much bow-legged, the legs are bent outwards.

5134. For how long a time together have you worked that excessive length of time?

5214. You are considerably deformed in your person in consequence of this labour?

I was about 13 years old when it began coming, and it has got worse since; it is five years since my mother died, and my mother was never able to get me a pair of good stays to hold me up, and when my mother died I had to do for myself, and got me a pair.

5218. Have you been attended to by any medical gentleman at Leeds or the neighbourhood?

8094. Does that length of standing and of exertion tend to deform the limbs of the children so employed?

Yes, that is my opinion; I took an examination of those that were employed under me in that flat.

Yes; there are fifty hands in the room altogether, old and young; and I found that out of that fifty there were nine who had entered the mill before they were nine years of age, who are now above thirteen years of age.

Yes; and out of those nine, there were six who were splayfooted, and three who were not; the three who were not splayfooted were worse upon their legs than those who were; and one was most remarkably bow-legged; she informed me she was perfectly straight before she entered the mills.

Very observable; I can hardly describe the woman's deformity, from the way in which she walks; but I have passed by, and thought that I was far from her, and have got on her shins as I was going past her.

I have examined those who had not entered the mills till after twelve years of age, and found that out of fifty there were fourteen of this class; two of them were splayfooted, and one with her ankle a little wrong; the others were all perfectly straight.

120. West Riding of Yorkshire: Southern Part.—In many of the collieries in this district, as far as relates to the underground employment, there is no distinction of sex, but the labour is distributed indifferently among both sexes, excepting that it is comparatively rare for the women to hew or get the coals, although there are numerous instances in which they regularly perform even this work. In great numbers of the coal-pits in this district the men work in a state of perfect nakedness, and are in this state assisted in their labour by females of all ages, from girls of six years old to women of twenty-one, these females being themselves quite naked down to the waist.

121. "Girls," says the Sub-Commissioner, "regularly perform all the various offices of trapping, hurrying, filling, riddling, tipping, and occasionally getting, just as they are performed by boys. One of the most disgusting sights I have ever seen was that of young females, dressed like boys in trousers, crawling on all fours, with belts round their waists and chains passing between their legs, at day pits at Hunshelf Bank, and in many small pits near Holmfrith and New Mills: it exists also in several other places. I visited the Hunshelf Colliery on the 18th of January: it is a day pit; that is there is no shaft or descent; the gate or entrance is at the side of a bank, and nearly horizontal. The gate was not more than a yard high, and in some places not above two feet. When I arrived at the board or workings of the pit I found at one of the side-boards down a narrow passage a girl of fourteen years of age, in boy's clothes, picking down the coal with the regular pick used by the men. She was half sitting, half lying, at her work, and said she found it tired her very much, and "of course she didn't like it." The place where she was at work was not two feet high. Further on were men at work lying on their sides and getting. No less than six girls out of eighteen men and children are employed in this pit. Whilst I was in the pit the Rev. Mr. Bruce, of Wadsley, and the Rev. Mr. Nelson, of Rotherham, who accompanied me, and remained outside, saw another girl of ten years of age, also dressed in boy's clothes, who was employed in hurrying, and these gentlemen saw her at work. She was a nice-looking little child, but of course as black as a tinker, and with a little necklace round her throat."

From the whole of the evidence which has been collected, and of which we have thus endeavoured to give a digest, we find—

1. That instances occur in which children are taken into these mines to work as early as four years of age, sometimes at five, and between five and six, not unfrequently between six and seven, and often from seven to eight, while from eight to nine is the ordinary age at which employment in these mines commences.

2. That a very large proportion of the persons employed in carrying on the work of these mines is under thirteen years of age; and a still larger proportion between thirteen and eighteen.

3. That in several districts female children begin to work in these mines at the same early ages as the males.

7. That the nature of the employment which is assigned to the youngest children, generally that of "trapping," requires that they should be in the pit as soon as the work of the day commences, and, according to the present system, that they should not leave the pit before the work of the day is at an end.

8. That although this employment scarcely deserves the name of labour, yet, as the children engaged in it are commonly excluded from light and are always without companions, it would, were it not for the passing and re-passing of the coal carriages, amount to solitary confinement of the worst order.

9. That in those districts in which the seams of coal are so thick that horses go direct to the workings, or in which the side passages from the workings to the horseways are not of any great length, the lights in the main ways render the situation of these children comparatively less cheerless, dull, and stupefying; but that in some districts they remain in solitude and darkness during the whole time they are in the pit, and, according to their own account, many of them never see the light of day for weeks together during the greater part of the winter season, excepting on those days in the week when work is not going on, and on the Sundays.

10. That at different ages, from six years old and upwards, the hard work of pushing and dragging the carriages of coal from the workings to the main ways, or to the foot of the shaft, begins; a labour which all classes of witnesses concur in stating requires the unremitting exertion of all the physical power which the young workers possess.

11. That, in the districts in which females are taken down into the coal mines, both sexes are employed together in precisely the same kind of labour, and work for the same number of hours; that the girls and boys, and the young men and young women, and even married women and women with child, commonly work almost naked, and the men, in many mines, quite naked; and that all classes of witnesses bear testimony to the demoralizing influence of the employment of females underground.

13. That when the workpeople are in full employment, the regular hours of work for children and young persons are rarely less than eleven; more often they are twelve; in some districts they are thirteen; and in one district they are generally fourteen and upwards.

14. That in the great majority of these mines night-work is a part of the ordinary system of labour, more or less regularly carried on according to the demand for coals, and one which the whole body of evidence shows to act most injuriously both on the physical and moral condition of the workpeople, and more especially on that of the children and young persons.

Manchester has no Building Act, and hence, with the exception of certain central streets, over which the Police Act gives the Commissioners power, each proprietor builds as he pleases. New cottages, with or without cellars, huddled together row behind row, may be seen springing up in many parts, but especially in the township of Manchester, where the land is higher in price than the land for cottage sites in other townships is. With such proceedings as these the authorities cannot interfere. A cottage row may be badly drained, the streets may be full of pits, brimful of stagnant water, the receptacle of dead cats and dogs, yet no one may find fault. The number of cellar residences, you have probably learned from the papers published by the Manchester Statistical Society, is very great in all quarters of the town; and even in Hulme, a large portion of which consists of cottages recently erected, the same practice is continued. That it is an evil must be obvious on the slightest consideration, for how can a hole underground of from 12 to 15 feet square admit of ventilation so as to fit it for a human habitation?

We have no authorised inspector of dwellings and streets. If an epidemic disease were to invade, as happened in 1832, the authorities would probably order inspection, as they did on that occasion, but it would be merely by general permission, not of right.

So long as this and other great manufacturing towns were multiplying and extending their branches of manufacture and were prosperous, every fresh addition of operatives found employment, good wages, and plenty of food; and so long as the families of working people are well fed, it is certain they maintain their health in a surprising manner, even in cellars and other close dwellings. Now, however, the case is different. Food is dear, labour scarce, and wages in many branches very low; consequently, as might be expected, disease and death are making unusual havoc. In the years 1833, 1834, 1835, and 1836 (years of prosperity), the number of fever cases admitted into the Manchester House of Recovery amounted only to 1,685, or 421 per annum; while in the two pinching years, 1838 and 1839, the number admitted was 2,414, or 1,207 per annum. It is in such a depressed state of the manufacturing districts as at present exists that unpaved and badly sewered streets, narrow alleys, close, unventilated courts and cellars, exhibit their malign influence in augmenting the sufferings which that greatest of all physical evils, want of sufficient food, inflicts on young and old in large towns, but especially on the young.

Manchester has no public park or other grounds where the population can walk and breathe the fresh air. New streets are rapidly extending in every direction, and so great already is the expanse of the town, that those who live in the more populous quarters can seldom hope to see the green face of nature.... In this respect Manchester is disgracefully defective; more so, perhaps, than any other town in the empire. Every advantage of this nature has been sacrificed to the getting of money in the shape of ground-rents.

SECTION II

The most important modern books on the subject are:—Hammond, The Village Labourer; Gonner, Common Land and Inclosure; Prothero, English Farming Past and Present; Hasbach, The English Agricultural Labourer; Levy, Large and Small Holdings; Johnson, The Disappearance of the Small Landowner; Slater, The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of the Common Fields; Ashby, One Hundred Years of Poor Law Administration in a Warwickshire village in Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History, Vol. III; Leonard in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 3rd Series, Vol. XIX.

Bibliographies in Hasbach, Hammond, Levy, and Cunningham, English Industry and Commerce, Modern Times, Part II.

Contemporary (1).—Records of late seventeenth century enclosures may be found in Chancery Enrolled Decrees, and Enclosures Awards in Proceedings in Chancery (Public Record Office, and some copies in Durham Court of Chancery). Eighteenth century material includes petitions in Journals of the House of Commons; proceedings in Parliament, ditto; Awards, in custody of Clerks of the Peace and of County Councils—a Return of Commons (Inclosure Awards) to the House of Commons, 1904, shows where they are to be found. There are reports of Committees on Cultivation of Waste, etc., 1795 (IX), ditto, 1797 (IX), ditto, 1800 (IX); on Inclosure, 1844 (V), on Allotments, 1843 (VII).

Contemporary (2) Literary Authorities.—The best descriptions of agriculture are to be found in Arthur Young's various Tours (1768-71) in The Annals of Agriculture (1784-1815), and in the Reports made to the Board of Agriculture; Reports on individual counties (partial list in Hasbach's bibliography), a General Report (1808), and Reviews of Reports for different sections of the country (by William Marshall, 1808-17). Cobbett's Rural Rides are more literary and political and less official (1830). For agricultural progress, see J. Tull, The New Horse-hoeing Husbandry (1731), and Young passim; for the legal aspect, The Law of Commons (1698); for contemporary opinion, D. Davies, The Case of Labourers in Husbandry (1795), Young, An Enquiry into the Propriety of Applying Wastes, etc. (1802), and a long list of pamphlets (bibliography in Hasbach).

Forasmuch as ... every owner's share hath been duly set out ... and yet nevertheless one of the said defendants hath endeavoured to obstruct the said division ... it is therefore now thought fit and so ordered by the Right Honourable Sir Francis Goodriche Knight, Chancellor of the County of Durham and Sadberge, that the Award ... shall stand absolutely confirmed and decreed unless good cause be shown to the contrary at the next sitting at Durham.

"Whereas it is found, by long experience, that common or open fields, wherever they are suffered or continued, are great hindrances to a public good, and the honest improvement which every one might make of his own, by diligence and a seasonable charge: and, whereas the common objections hitherto raised against inclosures are founded on mistakes, as if inclosures contributed either to hurt or ruin the poor; whilst it is plain that (when an enclosure is once resolved on) the poor will be employed for many years, in planting and preserving the hedges, and afterwards will be set to work both in the tillage and pasture, wherein they may get an honest livelihood: And whereas all or most of the inconveniences and misfortunes which usually attend the open wastes and common fields have been fatally experienced at——, to the great discouragement of industry and good husbandry in the freeholders, viz., that the poor take their advantage to pilfer, and steal, and trespass; that the corn is subject to be spoiled by cattle, that stray out of the commons and highways adjacent; that the tenants or owners, if they would secure the fruits of their labours to themselves, are obliged either to keep exact time in sowing and reaping or else to be subject to the damage and inconvenience that must attend the lazy practices of those who sow unseasonably, suffering their corn to stand to the beginning of winter, thereby hindering the whole parish from eating the herbage of the common field till the frosts have spoiled the most of it," etc., etc.

To conclude this article upon commons,[334] I would advise all noblemen and gentlemen, whose tenants hold their lands by Copy of Court Roll for three lives, not to let them renew, except they will agree to deliver up their Copy, in order to alter the tenure by converting it to leasehold on lives. This method will put a stop to that unreasonable custom of the widow holding a life by her free-bench, which is a fourth life, not covenanted for in the Copy, but only pretended to by custom; which deprives the lord of an undoubted right of making the best, and doing what he will with his own.

Ordered, That leave be given to bring in a Bill pursuant to the prayer of the said petition: and that Mr. Cholmley, Sir George Savile, and Sir Joseph Mawbey, do prepare and bring in the same.

February 10, 1766.[337] A Bill for inclosing and dividing the common waste grounds, open fields, open meadows, grounds, and ings, within the parish of Stillington, in the county of York, was read a second time.

Resolved, That the Bill be committed to Mr. Cholmley, Mr. Fonereau, Sir John Taines [etc., etc.]; and all the members who serve for the counties of York, Nottingham, Northumberland, and Durham: and they are to meet this afternoon, at five of the clock, in the Speaker's Chamber.

February 27.[338] Mr. Cholmley reported from the Committee, to whom the Bill for inclosing and dividing the common waste grounds [etc.] within the parish of Stillington, in the county of York, was committed. That the Committee had examined the allegations of the Bill; and found the same to be true; and that the parties concerned had given their consent to the Bill, to the satisfaction of the Committee, except the proprietors of sixty acres of land in the said fields and ings, who refused their consent to the inclosure, and the proprietors of twenty seven acres of land, who were not at home when application was made for their consents; and that the whole of the said fields and ings contain six hundred acres or thereabouts; and also, except the proprietors of eight common rights, who refused to consent, and the proprietors of seven common rights, who were from home when application was made for their consents; and that the whole number of common rights are eighty-nine; and that no person appeared before the Committee to oppose the Bill; and that the Committee had gone through the Bill, and made several amendments thereunto; which they had directed him to report to the House; and he read the report in his place; and afterwards delivered the Bill, with the amendments, in at the Clerk's Table; where the amendments were once read throughout; and then a second time, one by one; and, upon the Question severally put thereon, were agreed to by the House; and several amendments were made, by the House, to the Bill. Ordered, that the Bill, with the amendments be ingrossed.