Factory Lives: Four Nineteenth-Century Working-Class Autobiographies

496 Pages·2007·2.621 MB·English

by  James R. Simmons, Jr.

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This electronic material is under
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Factory Lives
Nineteenth-Century British Autobiographies
series editors: Janice Carlisle and Linda H. Peterson
textual editor: Elizabeth Reed
THEDISTAFFGOSPELS 1
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2 THEDISTAFFGOSPELS
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Factory Lives:
Four Nineteenth-Century
Working-Class Autobiographies
Edited by James R.Simmons,Jr.
Introduction by Janice Carlisle
Nineteenth-Century British Autobiographies
THEDISTAFFGOSPELS 3
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©2007 James R.Simmons,Jr.,and Janice Carlisle
All rights reserved.The use of any part of this publication reproduced,transmitted in any form
or by any means,electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,or otherwise,or stored in a
retrieval system,without prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopy-
ing,a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency),One Yonge
Street,Suite 1900,Toronto,Ontario M5E 1E5—is an infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Factory lives :four nineteenth-century working-class
autobiographies / edited by James R.Simmons ;introduction
by Janice Carlisle.
(Nineteenth-century British autobiographies)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-55111-272-5
1.Working class--Great Britain--Biography--Textbooks. 2.Working class writings,
English--Textbooks. 3.Great Britain--Social conditions--19th century--Textbooks.
I.Simmons,James R. II.Series.
HD8393.A1F32 2007 305.5'62092241 C2007-900015-0
Broadview Editions
The Broadview Editions series represents the ever-changing canon of literature in English
by bringing together texts long regarded as classics with valuable lesser-known works.
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Contents
Acknowledgements (cid:127) 7
Introduction,Janice Carlisle (cid:127) 11
Significant Nineteenth-Century Factory Legislation
and Factory Literature:ABrief Chronology (cid:127) 77
A Note on the Text,Elizabeth Reed (cid:127) 79
John Brown,A Memoir of Robert Blincoe,An Orphan Boy
(1832) (cid:127) 87
William Dodd,A Narrative of the Experience and Sufferings of
William Dodd,A Factory Cripple.Written by Himself(1841) (cid:127) 181
James Myles,Chapters in the Life of a Dundee Factory Boy
(1850) (cid:127) 223
Ellen Johnston,“Autobiography of Ellen Johnston,‘The Factory
Girl’”(1867) and “Autobiography”(1869) (cid:127) 301
Appendix A:Contemporary Perspectives on A Memoir of Robert
Blincoe
1. A Correspondent to The Lion,“Confirmation of the Memoir
of Robert Blincoe”(14 March 1828) (cid:127) 325
2. A Friend at Manchester,“Confirmation of Blincoe’s Printed
Memoir By Himself”(28 March 1828) (cid:127) 326
3. Robert Blincoe,Testimony before the 1833 Royal Commis-
sion on the Employment of Children in Factories (cid:127) 327
4. Substantive Changes in Doherty’s 1832 Edition of the
Memoir (cid:127) 330
Appendix B:Contemporary Perspectives on William Dodd’s Nar-
rative
1. Lord Ashley and John Bright,from the debate of 15 March
1844,House of Commons (cid:127) 334
2. William Dodd,from The Laboring Classesof England
(1847) (cid:127) 348
Appendix C:Contemporary Perspectives on Myles’s Chapters in
the Life of a Dundee Factory Boy
1. James Myles,from Rambles in Forfarshire(1850) (cid:127) 353
2. William Norrie,from Dundee Celebrities of the Nineteenth
Century(1873):James Myles,Robert Nicoll,and William
Jackson (cid:127) 356
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Appendix D:Contemporary Perspectives on Johnston’s “Autobi-
ography”:Selected Poems from Autobiography,Poems and Songs of
Ellen Johnston,The “Factory Girl”(1867 and 1869)
1. “The Working Man” (cid:127) 367
2. “Kennedy’s Dear Mill” (cid:127) 369
3. “An Address to Napiers’Dockyard” (cid:127) 371
4. “Lord Raglan’s Address to the Allied Armies” (cid:127) 373
5. “The Last Sark” (cid:127) 375
6. “To my Aunt Phemie” (cid:127) 376
7. “An Address to Nature on its Cruelty” (cid:127) 377
8. “Lines to Mr James Dorward” (cid:127) 379
9. “Lines by Edith to the Factory Girl” (cid:127) 381
10. “The Factory Girl’s Reply to ‘Lines by Edith’” (cid:127) 382
11. “The Factory Girl’s Reply to Edith” (cid:127) 384
12. “Lines to Mr G.D.Russell” (cid:127) 386
13. “The Last Lay of ‘The Factory Girl’” (cid:127) 389
Appendix E:Contemporary Documents:Parliamentary Testi-
mony as Autobiography
1. Charles Aberdeen,Testimony before the 1832 Committee on
the Labour of Children in Factories (cid:127) 391
2. Elizabeth Bentley,Testimony before the 1832 Committee on
the Labour of Children in Factories (cid:127) 400
Appendix F:Factory Life:Contemporary Views
1. Harriet Martineau,from A Manchester Strike(1832) (cid:127) 404
2. Andrew Ure,from The Philosophy of Manufactures
(1835) (cid:127) 408
3. From The Young Folks of the Factory(1840) (cid:127) 415
4. Frances Trollope,from Michael Armstrong(1840) (cid:127) 422
5. Elizabeth Barrett Browning,“The Cry of the Children”
(1843) (cid:127) 430
6. R.Arthur Arnold,from The History of the Cotton Famine
(1864) (cid:127) 435
Appendix G:Factory Legislation:Contemporary Views
1. Richard Oastler,“The White Slaves ofYorkshire”(1830) (cid:127) 439
2. Caroline Norton,A Voice from the Factories(1836) (cid:127) 444
3. John Fielden,from The Curse of the Factory System
(1836) (cid:127) 462
4. Robert Hyde Greg,from The Factory Question and the “Ten
Hours Bill”(1837) (cid:127) 470
5. Frances Trollope,from Michael Armstrong(1840) (cid:127) 476
6. Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna,from Helen Fleetwood(1841) (cid:127) 483
Select Bibliography (cid:127) 492
6 CONTENTS
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Acknowledgements
This volume has an interesting history. I first became intrigued
by working-class autobiography when I read A Memoir of Robert
Blincoein a Victorian nonfiction prose class taught by Dr.William
B. Thesing at the University of South Carolina. The Memoir
piqued my interest, and as I started to research and read other
working-class autobiographies, I discovered two things. First, I
learned that hundreds of working-class autobiographies had been
written by Victorians from all walks of life, including chimney
sweeps,beggars,ratcatchers,butlers,and workers of almost every
other occupation imaginable.Secondly,I learned that very little
scholarship had been produced about these texts and that the
scholarship that did exist had been written primarily by histori-
ans. Taking these factors into consideration, along with my
genuine interest in these texts and the light that they shed on
works of nineteenth-century literature about chimney sweeps,
beggars,ratcatchers,and butlers,I decided to write my disserta-
tion using the Victorian working-class autobiography as its focus.
The first and longest chapter examined working-class autobi-
ographies by Victorian factory workers and included an examina-
tion of the four texts in this volume.
As I was working on that project,I was fortunate enough to be
introduced to Linda Peterson at a conference.Linda was (and is)
considered one of the preeminent experts in Victorian autobiog-
raphy,and eventually I asked Linda to serve as an outside reader
when I finished my research,and she graciously agreed to do so.
I little knew how significant having Linda read my dissertation
would be.
A year after I received my doctorate,as I settled into my role
as an assistant professor,I decided that for one of my first major
projects I would submit a proposal to Broadview for a new
edition of Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography. What I did not
know was that Linda and Janice Carlisle had agreed to edit a
series of Victorian autobiographies for Broadview, and before
long I was contacted by Linda with an interesting proposal:
instead of working on Martineau’s Autobiography, she asked,
would I be interested in doing an edition of a working-class auto-
biography instead? I proposed seven texts that I would be most
interested in doing,including A Memoir of Robert Blincoe,A Nar-
rative of the Experience and Sufferings of William Dodd, and the
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“Autobiography of Ellen Johnston,‘The Factory Girl.’”Though
the original idea was to do just one autobiography, Janice sug-
gested that I do a volume containing not only the three titles
listed above, but also James Myles’s Chapters in the Life of a
Dundee Factory Boy.The end result was this edition, to which
Janice contributed the title Factory Lives.
Even though I had worked with these four texts previously,
this project turned out to be much more involved than any of us
had anticipated.What initially started out as a relatively simple
project became more and more complex as we decided to repro-
duce early editions of each work.The magnitude of textual vari-
ants necessitated involving a fourth person, Elizabeth Reed,
without whom this book could not have been completed.She is
certainly the unsung heroine of this volume.
The end result is a text that has changed considerably over its
five-year gestation period. As with any other complex project
written over an extended period of time,there were a number of
people who contributed in ways that were extremely important.I
am grateful for the help of the following people for the assistance
they gave,whether in research,preparation,inspiration,or moral
support:Lynell Buckley,Laura Ogden,and Peggy Schenk at the
Louisiana Tech University Library;Ruth Lamb and Warren Ober
at the University of Waterloo Library; Margaret Lowden at the
Dundee Library; Paula Morehouse at the Manchester Central
Library;Jackie Fay at the Kendal Library;Hilary Attfield,Marjie
Bloy, Florence Boos, Gaye Dewitt, Paula Feldman, Jessica
Flowers,Ina Rae Hark,Ed Jacobs,Jason Pierce,Maaja Stewart,
and Bill Thesing.Again,thanks to Linda Peterson,Janice Carlisle
and Elizabeth Reed. Finally, thanks to my late mother, who did
not live to see this volume in print,and to my father,sister,and,
above all,Sue,Courtenay,and Cord.
—James R.Simmons,Jr.
* * *
Work on this volume has been more than usually collaborative,
with all three editors—James R. Simmons, Jr., Elizabeth Reed,
and Janice Carlisle—participating in every stage of its production
from choosing the texts included to introducing and annotating
them. First, we would like to thank Rick Simmons for his
patience as we completed our parts of this project. Professor
William M.Murphy generously reviewed our list of unidentified
8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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references. Ellen Kline of Colophon Books located valuable
material through out-of-print searches. Deirdre Sweeney and
Eileen Moran of the Local Studies department of the Central
Library in Dundee were particularly helpful in providing the
information that identifies Myles’s Chapters in the Life of a Dundee
Factory Boyas a work of fiction.We are deeply indebted to Eliza-
beth Sudduth of the G. Ross Roy Collection of Scottish Litera-
ture, Rare Books and Special Collections, Thomas Cooper
Library, at the University of South Carolina, for her invaluable
assistance in establishing the copy-text of the Dundee Factory Boy.
Also responsive to inquiries was Pam York of Derbyshire Local
Studies.The staff members of numerous libraries—at Columbia,
Cornell, Harvard, Tulane, and Yale, as well as the New York
Public Library—aided us in locating information for the Note on
the Text, the annotations, and the headnotes to the appendices.
Verifying the place names in Brown’s A Memoir of Robert Blincoe,
which demonstrate the accuracy of Blincoe’s recall some twenty
years after the events in his story, would not have been possible
without the resources of the Map Collection at Yale’s Sterling
Memorial Library and the Rare Books and Manuscripts Collec-
tion at the Yale Center for British Art. Special thanks go to
Rebecca Boggs for her painstaking proofreading of the appen-
dices against the original texts and to Linda Peterson for provid-
ing her perspectives on this project. Janice Carlisle would like
particularly to acknowledge two debts:first,to Andy Nicholson,
Nottingham local historian, for kindly answering many e-mail
inquiries and locating a photograph of the factory in which
Robert Blincoe first worked;secondly,to her daughter Catherine
Roach, for her assistance during a memorable research trip to
Dundee and for obtaining a copy of one of the title pages repro-
duced here. Finally, we are grateful to Julia Gaunce and Judith
Earnshaw at Broadview Press for their understanding throughout
a process that turned out to be more complex and lengthy than
either of us could have imagined at the outset.
—Janice Carlisle and Elizabeth Reed
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10 INTRODUCTION