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
To this arrogant and unfeeling master, Messrs. Lambert made over the
unexpired term of years for which the greater part of the parish
apprentices had been bound by their respective indentures. What
premium was paid, or, if any, I know not. As this master was neither
a hosier, nor a lace manufacturer, he had not the power to fulfil the
conditions imposed on Messrs. Lamberts, viz. to instruct the girls,
during the last three years of their time, in lace-knitting, and the
boys in stocking-weaving. The consequence was, the poor children lost
those important advantages, and those who survived the term of their
apprenticeship to Ellice Needham, found themselves without that degree
of skill which was requisite to enable them to gain their bread, in
almost any other cotton-mill, and could touch none but the very coarsest
work.
As Messrs. Lamberts were constrained, by circumstances, to stop their
works, it might be, that they had not means to support the apprentices;
but were forced to get rid of them with the utmost expedition. There
have been instances, where, in case of Bankruptcy, parish apprentices
bound to cotton-masters, have been put into carts, driven to the verge of
the parish, and there turned adrift without money—without a friend or a
place to shelter them. According to Blincoe’s account, although Messrs.
Lamberts’ informed the guardians of the poor of St. Pancras parish of
the necessity they were under of giving up their apprentices, or turning
them over to their masters, no steps were taken for the protection of
the friendless children, an imputation, the more extraordinary, when the
promptitude and decision with which they had acted in the case recited,
is considered. It is, therefore, probable, that their activity might
be owing to the horrid tales, that had then burst upon the public,
descriptive of the cruelty and misery, of which parish children placed
out in cotton-mills were the victims. It was in 1802, that Sir Robert
Peel, of Bury, who had the largest number of parish and foundling
children, employed in his cotton-mills, of any cotton-master in Great
Britain, brought forward his bill for their protection. According to
Blincoe’s narrative, the committee from St. Pancras arrived at Lowdham
Mill, at this juncture, and the reforms introduced at Lowdham Mill, were,
therefore, likely to have been owing to the parliamentary agitation of
that question; and nothing can be more highly illustrative of the force
of public opinion, than this proof of its potent effect on the officers
of St. Pancras parish!—Supposing the conjecture to be well founded, at
the time the apprentices were removed from Lowdham Mill, this humane act
had passed into a law, and had become all but a dead-letter!—It may also
have been a reliance upon the effect of that law which induced the parish
officers to leave the children to their fate—what THAT fate was will
presently appear!