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. — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
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.
John Stuart Mill · en
It is within the compass of probability, that there have been, and are
yet, instances, wherein the overseers of the poor, and more especially
the _assistant_ overseers, who are mere mercenaries, and serve for pay,
have been, and are, some of them at least, _bribed_ by the owners of
mills for spinning silk, cotton or woollen yarn, to visit the habitation
of the persons receiving parochial aid, and to compel them, when children
are wanting, utterly regardless of education, health, or inclination, to
deliver up their offspring, or by cutting off the parish allowance leave
them to perish for want!
When Messrs. Lamberts gave up the cotton-yarn establishment, carried
on at Lowdham Mill, they permitted all their apprentices who wished to
leave their employment in a cotton-mill, to write to their parents and
friends, and some few found redeemers; the great bulk were, unhappily
left to their fate! Being a foundling, and knowing no soul on earth
to whom he could look up for succour, Robert Blincoe was one of the
unhappy wretches, abandoned to as dismal a destiny as ever befel _a
parish apprentice_. It was his evil fortune, with a multitude of fellow
sufferers, to be turned over _en masse_ to Mr. ELLICE NEEDHAM, of
Highgate Wall, Derbyshire, the master and owner of Litton Mill, near
Tideswell.
Before, however, I close this delineation of the character and conduct of
the owners of Lowdham Cotton-Mill—Messrs. William, Charles, and Thomas
Lambert—it is due to them, if living, whatever may be their fortune, and
to their memory, if deceased, to state, that, with the exception of Mary
Richards, who was so dreadfully racked upon a shaft, and her bones mostly
broken, not one of the children sent to their mill by St. Pancras parish,
were injured as to be made a cripple, nor were they deformed in their
knees and ancles. That there were deficiencies as to food and an excess
of labour exacted, is clear, by the alterations which were introduced;
but still, compared with what they soon afterwards suffered, they were
humanely treated.