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
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.
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