Home Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine - Edwin Waugh
. . . I have heard of ladies whose whole lives seem to be but a
changing from one kind of pleasure to another; who suffer chiefly
from what they call ennui, (a kind of disease from which my sisters
are not likely to suffer at all,) and to whom a new pleasure to
enjoy would be something like what a new world to conquer would be
to Alexander. Why should they not hear our Lancashire girls' cry of
'Con yo help us a bit?' Why should not they be reminded that these
girls in cotton gowns and wooden clogs are wending their way towards
the same heaven--or, alas, towards the same hell--whither wend all
the daughters of Eve, no matter what their outer condition and
dress? Why should not they be asked to think how these striving
girls have to pray daily, 'Lead us not into temptation,' while
temptations innumerable stand everywhere about them?
Those of us who are men would rather do much than let our sisters go
begging. May not some of us take to doing more to prevent it? I
remember some poetry about the
'Sister bloodhounds, Want and Sin,'
and know that they hunt oftener together than singly. We have felt
the fangs of the first: upon how many of us will the second
pounce?"
In a second letter, inserted in The Times of April 22, 1862, the
same writer says:--"Even during the short time which has elapsed
since I wrote last week, many things have combined to show that the
distress is rapidly increasing, and that there is a pressing need
that we should go beyond the borders of our own county for help. . .
. I remember what I have read of the Godlike in man, and I look with
a strange feeling upon the half-famished creatures I see hourly
about me. I cannot pass through a street but I see evidences of deep
distress. I cannot sit at home half-an-hour without having one or
more coming to ask for bread to eat. But what comes casually before
me is as nothing when compared with that deeper distress which can
only be seen by those who seek it. . . . There have been families
who have been so reduced that the only food they have had has been a
porridge made of Indian meal. They could not afford oatmeal, and
even of their Indian meal porridge they could only afford to have
two meals a day. They have been so ashamed of their coarser food
that they have done all that was possible to hide their desperate
state from those about them. It has only been by accident that it
has been found out, and then they have been caught hurriedly putting
away the dishes that contained their loathsome food. A woman, whose
name I could give, and whose dwelling I could point to, was said not
only to be in deep distress, but to be also ill of fever. She was
visited. On entering the lower room of the house, the visitors saw
that there was not a scrap of furniture; the woman, fever-stricken,
sat on an orange-box before a low fire; and to prevent the fire from
going quite out, she was pulling her seat to pieces for fuel bit by
bit. The visitors looked upstairs. There was no furniture there--
only a bit of straw in a corner, which served as the bed of the
woman's four children. In another case a woman, who was said to be
too weak to apply for relief, was visited. Her husband had been out
of work a long time by reason of his illness; he was now of a
fashion recovered, and had gone off to seek for work. He left his
wife and three children in their cellar-home. The wife was very near
her confinement, and had not tasted food for two or three days. . .
. There are in this town some hundreds of young single women who
have been self-dependent, but who are now entirely without means.
Nearly all of these are good English girls, who have quietly fought
their own life-battle, but who now have hard work to withstand the
attacks this grim poverty is making. I am told of a case in which
one of these girls was forced to become one of that class of whom
poor Hood sang in his 'Bridge of Sighs.' She was an orphan, had no
relations here, and was tossed about from place to place till she
found her way to a brothel. Thank God, she has been rescued. Our
relief fund has been the means of relieving her from that
degradation; but cannot those who read my letter see how strong are
the temptations which their want places in the way of these poor
girls!"
On 25th April a number of city merchants, most of whom were
interested in the cotton manufacture, waited upon the Lord Mayor of
London, with a view to interest him, and through him the public at
large, in the increasing distress among the operative population in
the manufacturing districts of Lancashire. Previous to this, the
"Lancashire Lad" had made a private appeal, by letter, to the Lord
Mayor, in which he said:-
"Local means are nearly exhausted, and I am convinced that if we
have not help from without, our condition will soon be more
desperate than I or any one else who possesses human feelings can
wish it to become. To see the homes of those whom we know and
respect, though they are but working men, stripped of every bit of
furniture--to see long-cherished books and pictures sent one by one
to the pawn-shop, that food may be had--and to see that food almost
loathsome in kind, and insufficient in quantity,--are hard, very
hard things to bear. But those are not the worst things. In many of
our cottage homes there is now nothing left by the pawning of which
a few pence may be raised, and the mothers and sisters of we
'Lancashire lads' have turned out to beg, and ofttimes knock at the
doors of houses in which there is as much destitution as there is in
our own; while the fathers and the lads themselves think they are
very fortunate if they can earn a shilling or two by street-sweeping
or stone breaking. . . . Will you not do for us what you have done
for others--become the recipient of whatever moneys those who are
inclined to help us may send to you?"
The Lord Mayor, having listened to the deputation, read them the
personal appeal, and, "before separating, the deputation engaged to
form themselves into a provisional committee, to correspond with any
local one which circumstances might render it desirable to set on
foot in some central part of the distressed districts." Immediately
afterwards, the Lord Mayor, on taking his seat in the justice-room,
stated that "he was ready, with the assistance of the gentlemen of
the deputation, to act in the way desired. . . . He could not
himself take any part in the distribution. All he could do was to be
the medium of transmission; and as soon as he knew that some
organisation had been formed, either in the great city of
Manchester, or in some other part of Lancashire, in which the public
might feel confidence, he should be ready to send the small sums he
had already received, and any others that might be intrusted to him
from time to time." And thus originated the first general
subscription for the cotton operatives, and which, before it closed,
reached the magnificent sum of 528 pounds,336, 9s. 9d.
MR COBDEN'S SPEECH ON THE COTTON FAMINE.
On the 29th of April 1862, a meeting of gentlemen residents, called
by Thomas Goadsby, Esq., Mayor of Manchester, was held in the Town
Hall of that city, to consider the propriety of forming a relief
committee. '"The late Mr Richard Cobden, M.P., attended, and
recommended a bold appeal to the whole country, declaring with
prophetic keenness of vision that not less than 1,000,000 pounds
would be required to carry the suffering operatives through the
crisis, whilst the subscriptions up to that date amounted only to
180,000 pounds." On the motion of a vote of thanks to the Mayor of
Manchester, who was retiring from the mayoralty, Mr Cobden said:-
"Before that resolution is passed, I will take the opportunity of
making an observation. I have had the honour of having my name added
to this committee, and the first thing I asked of my neighbour here
was--'What are the functions of the general committee?' And I have
heard that they amount to nothing more than to attend here once a
month, and receive the report of the executive committee as to the
business done and the distribution of the funds. I was going to
suggest to you whether the duties of the general committee might not
be very much enlarged--whether it might not be employed very
usefully in increasing the amount of subscriptions. I think all our
experience must have taught us that, with the very best cause in the
world in hand, the success of a public subscription depends very
much upon the amount of activity in those who solicit it; and I
think, in order to induce us to make a general and national effort
to raise additional funds in this great emergency, it is only
necessary to refer to and repeat one or two facts that have been
stated in this report just read to us. I find it stated that it is
estimated that the loss of wages at present is at the rate of
136,094 pounds per week, and there is no doubt that the savings of
the working classes are almost exhausted. Now, 136,094 pounds per
week represents upwards of 7,000,000 pounds sterling per annum, and
that is the rate at which the deduction is now being made from the
wages of labour in this district.
I see it stated in this report that the resources which this
committee can at present foresee that it will possess to relieve
this amount of distress are 25,000 pounds a month for the next five
months, which is at the rate of 300,000 pounds per annum; so that we
foresee at present the means of affording a relief of something less
than five per cent upon the actual amount of the loss of wages at
present incurred by the working classes of this country. But I need
not tell honourable gentlemen present, who are so practically
acquainted with this district, that that loss of seven millions in
wages per annum is a very imperfect measure of the amount of
suffering and loss which will be inflicted on this community three
or four months hence. It may be taken to be 10,000,000 pounds; and
that 10,000,000 pounds of loss of wages before the next spring is by
no means a measure of the loss this district will incur; for you
must take it that the capitalists will be incurring also a loss on
their fixed machinery and buildings; and though perhaps not so much
as that of the labourer, it will be a very large amount, and
possibly, in the opinion of some people, will very nearly approach
it.
That is not all: Mr Farnall has told us that at present the
increase of the rates in this district is at the rate of 10,000
pounds per week. That will be at the rate of half a million per
annum, and, of course, if this distress goes on, that rate must be
largely increased, perhaps doubled. This shows the amount of
pressure which is threatening this immediate district. I have always
been of opinion that this distress and suffering must be cumulative
to a degree which few people have ever foreseen, because your means
of meeting the difficulty will diminish just in proportion as the
difficulty will increase. Mr Farnall has told us that one-third of
the rateable property will fall out of existence, as it were, and
future rates must be levied upon two-thirds. But that will be by no
means the measure of the condition of things two or three months
hence, because every additional rate forces out of existence a large
amount of saleable property; and the more you increase your rates
the more you diminish the area over which those rates are to be
productive. This view of the case has a very important bearing,
also, upon the condition of the shop-keeping class as well as the
classes of mill-owners and manufacturers who have not a large amount
of floating capital. There is no doubt but a very large amount of
the shopkeeping class are rapidly falling into the condition of the
unemployed labourers.
When I was at Rochdale the other day, I heard a very sorrowful
example of it. There was a poor woman who kept a shop, and she was
threatened with a distraint for her poor-rate. She sold the Sunday
clothes of her son to pay the poor-rate, and she received a relief-
ticket when she went to leave her rate. That is a sad and sorrowful
example, but I am afraid it will not be a solitary one for a long
time. Then you have the shopkeeping class descending to the rank of
the operatives. It must be so. Withdraw the custom of 7,000,000
pounds per annum, which has ceased to be paid in wages, from the
shopkeepers, and the consequence must present itself to any rational
mind. We have then another class--the young men of superior
education employed in warehouses and counting-houses. A great number
of these will rapidly sink to the condition in which you find the
operative classes. All this will add to the distress and the
embarrassment of this part of the kingdom. Now, to meet this state
of things you have the poor-law relief, which is the only relief we
can rely upon, except that which comes from our own voluntary
exertions. Well, but any one who has read over this report of Mr
Farnall, just laid before us, must see how inadequate this relief
must be. It runs up from one shilling and a half-penny in the pound
to one shilling and fourpence or one shilling and fivepence; there
is hardly one case in which the allowance is as much as two
shillings per week for each individual--I won't call them paupers--
each distressed individual.
Now, there is one point to which I would wish to bring the attention
of the committee in reference to this subject--it is a most
important one, in my appreciation. In ordinary times, when you give
relief to the poor, that relief being given when the great mass of
workpeople are in full employment, the measure of your relief to an
isolated family or two that may be in distress is by no means the
measure of the amount of their subsistence, because we all know that
in prosperous times, when the bulk of the working people are
employed, they are always kind to each other. The poor, in fact, do
more to relieve the poor than any other class. A working man and his
family out of employment in prosperous times could get a meal at a
neighbour's house, just as we, in our class, could get a meal at a
neighbour's house if it was a convenience to us in making a journey.
But recollect, now the whole mass of the labouring and working
population is brought down to one sad level of destitution, and what
you allow them from the poor-rates, and what you allow them from
these voluntary subscriptions, are actually the measure of all that
they will obtain for their subsistence. And that being so general,
producing a great depression of spirits, as well as physical
prostration, you are in great danger of the health and strength of
this community suffering, unless something more be done to meet the
case than I fear is yet provided for it. All this brings me to this
conclusion--that something more must be done by this general
committee than has been done, to awaken the attention of the public
generally to the condition of this part of the country. It is
totally exceptional. The state of things has no parallel in all
history. It is impossible you could point out to me another case, in
which, in a limited sphere, such as we have in Lancashire, and in
the course of a few months, there has been a cessation of employment
at the rate of 7,000,000 pounds sterling per annum in wages. There
has been nothing like it in the history of the world for its
suddenness, for the impossibility of dealing with it, or managing it
in the way of an effective remedy.
Well, the country at large must be made acquainted with these facts.
How is that to be done? It can only be by the diffusion of
information from this central committee. An appeal must be made to
the whole country, if this great destitution is to be met in any
part by voluntary aid. The nation at large must be made fully
acquainted with the exigency of the case, and we must be reminded
that a national responsibility rests upon us. I will, therefore,
suggest that this general committee should be made a national
committee, and we shall then get rid of this little difficulty with
the Lord Mayor. We shall want all the co-operation of the Lord Mayor
and the city of London; and I say that this committee, instead of
being a Manchester or Lancashire central committee, should be made a
national committee; that from this should go forth invitations to
all parts of the country, beginning with the lords-lieutenant,
inviting them to be vice-presidents of this committee. Let the noble
Lord continue to be at the head of the general committee--the
national committee--and invite every mayor to take part. We are
going to have new mayors in the course of the week, and, though I am
sorry to lose our present one, yet when new mayors come in, they may
be probably more ready to take up a new undertaking than if they had
just been exhausted with a years labour. Let every mayor in the
kingdom be invited to become a member of this committee. Let
subscription-circulars be despatched to them asking them to organise
a committee in every borough; and let there be a secretary and
honorary secretary employed. Through these bodies you might
communicate information, and counteract those misrepresentations
that have been made with regard to the condition of this district.
You might, if necessary, send an ambassador to some of those more
important places; but better still, if you could induce them to send
some one here to look into the state of things for themselves;
because I am sure if they did, so far from finding the calumnies
that have been uttered against the propertied classes in this county
being well founded, they would find instances--and not a few--of
great liberality and generosity, such as I think would surprise any
one who visited this district from the southern part of the kingdom.
This would only be done by an active effort from the centre here,
and I submit that we shall not be doing justice to this effort
unless we give to the whole country an opportunity of co-operating
in that way, and throw upon every part of the kingdom a share of the
responsibility of this great crisis and emergency. I submit that
there is every motive why this community, as well as the whole
kingdom, should wish to preserve this industrious population in
health and in the possession of their energies. There is every
motive why we should endeavour to keep this working population here
rather than drive them away from here, as you will do if they are
not sufficiently fed and clothed during the next winter. They will
be wanted again if this district is to revive, as we all hope and
believe it will revive. Your fixed capital here is of no use without
the population. It is of no use without your raw material.
Lancashire is the richest county in the kingdom when its machinery
is employed; it is the poorest county in the kingdom when its
machinery and fixed capital are paralysed, as at present. Therefore,
I say it is the interest, not only of this community, but of the
kingdom, that this population should be preserved for the time--I
hope not a distant time--when the raw material of their industry
will be supplied to this region.
I submit; then, to the whole kingdom--this district as well as the
rest--that it will be advisable, until Parliament meets, that such
an effort should be made as will make a national subscription amount
probably to 1,000,000 pounds. Short of that, it would be utterly
insufficient for the case; and I believe that, with an energetic
appeal made to the whole country, and an effort organised such as I
have indicated, such an amount might be raised."
SPEECH OF THE EARL OF DERBY
AT THE COUNTY MEETING, ON THE 2D DECEMBER 1863.
THE EARL OF SEFTON IN THE CHAIR.
The thirteen hundred circulars issued by the Earl of Sefton, Lord-
Lieutenant of Lancashire, "brought together such a gathering of
rank, and wealth, and influence, as is not often to be witnessed;
and the eloquent advocate of class distinctions and aristocratic
privileges (the Earl of Derby) became on that day the powerful and
successful representative of the poor and helpless." Called upon by
the chairman, the Earl of Derby said:-
"My Lord Sefton, my Lords and Gentlemen,--We are met together upon
an occasion which must call forth the most painful, and at the same
time ought to excite, and I am sure will excite, the most kindly
feelings of our human nature. We are met to consider the best means
of palliating--would to God that I could say removing!--a great
national calamity, the like whereof in modern times has never been
witnessed in this favoured land--a calamity which it was impossible
for those who are the chief sufferers by it to foresee, or, if they
had foreseen, to have taken any steps to avoid--a calamity which,
though shared by the nation at large, falls more peculiarly and with
the heaviest weight upon this hitherto prosperous and wealthy
district--a calamity which has converted this teeming hive of
industry into a stagnant desert of compulsory inaction and idleness-
-a calamity which has converted that which was the source of our
greatest wealth into the deepest abyss of impoverishment--a calamity
which has impoverished the wealthy, which has reduced men of easy
fortunes to the greatest straits, which has brought distress upon
those who have hitherto been somewhat above the world by the
exercise of frugal industry, and which has reduced honest and
struggling poverty to a state of absolute and humiliating
destitution. Gentlemen, it is to meet this calamity that we are met
together this day, to add our means and our assistance to those
efforts which have been so nobly made throughout the country
generally, and, I am bound to say, in this county also, as I shall
prove to you before I conclude my remarks. Gentlemen, I know how
impossible it is by any figures to convey an idea of the extent of
the destitution which now prevails, and I know also how impatient
large assemblies are of any extensive use of figures, or even of
figures at all; but at the same time, it is impossible for me to lay
before you the whole state of the case, in opening this resolution,
and asking you to resolve with regard to the extent of the distress
which now prevails, without trespassing on your attention by a few,
and they shall be a very few, figures, which shall show the extent,
if not the pressure, throughout this district, of the present
distress. And, gentlemen, I think I shall best give you an idea of
the amount of distress and destitution which prevails, by very
shortly comparing the state of things which existed in the districts
to which I refer in the month of September 1861, as compared with
the month of September 1862, and with that again only about two
weeks ago, which is the latest information we have--up to the 22d of
last month.
I find then, gentlemen, that in a district comprising, in round
numbers, two million inhabitants--for that is about the number in
that district--in the fourth week of September 1861, there were
forty-three thousand five hundred persons receiving parochial
relief; in the fourth week of September 1862, there were one hundred
and sixty-three thousand four hundred and ninety-eight persons
receiving parochial relief; and in the short space which elapsed
between the last week of September and the third week of November
the number of one hundred and sixty-three thousand four hundred and
ninety-eight had increased to two hundred and fifty-nine thousand
three hundred and eighty-five persons. Now, gentlemen, let us in the
same periods compare the amount which was applied from the parochial
funds to the relief of pauperism. In September 1861, the amount so
applied was 2259 pounds; in September 1862, it was 9674 pounds. That
is by the week. What is now the amount? In November 1862 it was
17,681 pounds for the week. The proportion of those receiving
parochial relief to the total population was two and three-tenths
per cent in September 1861, and eight and five-tenths per cent in
September 1862, and that had become thirteen and five-tenths percent
in the population in November 1862. Here, therefore, is thirteen per
cent of the whole population at the present moment depending for
their subsistence upon parochial relief alone. Of these two hundred
and fifty-nine thousand--I give only round numbers--there were
thirty-six thousand eight hundred old or infirm; there were nearly
ninety-eight thousand able-bodied adults receiving parochial relief,
and there were under sixteen years of age nearly twenty-four
thousand persons. But it would be very far from giving you an
estimate of the extent of the distress if we were to confine our
observations to those who are dependent upon parochial relief alone.
We have evidence from the local committees, whom we have extensively
employed, and whose services have been invaluable to us, that of
persons not relieved from the poor-rates there are relieved also by
local committees no fewer in this district than one hundred and
seventy-two thousand persons--making a total of four hundred and
thirty-one thousand three hundred and ninety-five persons out of two
millions, or twenty-one and seven-tenths per cent on the whole
population--that is, more than one in every five persons depend for
their daily existence either upon parochial relief or public
charity. Gentlemen, I have said that figures will not show
sufficiently the amount of distress; nor, in the same manner, will
figures show, I am happy to say, the amount that has been
contributed for the relief of that distress. But let us take another
test; let us examine what has been the result, not upon the poor who
are dependent for their daily bread upon their daily labour, and
many of whom are upon the very verge of pauperism, from day to day,
but let us take a test of what has been the effect upon the well-to-
do artisan, upon the frugal, industrious, saving men, who have been
hitherto somewhat above the world, and I have here but an imperfect
test, because I am unable to obtain the whole amount of deposits
withdrawn from the savings banks, the best of all possible tests, if
we could carry the account up to the present day; but I have only
been able to obtain it to the middle of June last, when the distress
could hardly be said to have begun, and yet I find from seven
savings banks alone in this county in six months--and those months
in which the distress had not reached its present height, or
anything like it--there was an excess of withdrawals of deposits
over the ordinary average to the amount of 71,113 pounds. This was
up to June last, when, as I have said, the pressure had hardly
commenced, and from that time it as been found impossible to obtain
from the savings banks, who are themselves naturally unwilling to
disclose this state of affairs--it has been found impossible to
obtain such further returns as would enable us to present to you any
proper estimate of the excess of withdrawals at present; but that
they have been very large must necessarily be inferred from the
great increase of distress which has taken place since the large sum
I have mentioned was obtained from the banks, as representing the
excess of ordinary withdrawals in June last.