The Lunar Society

This year marks the anniversary of the Birmingham riots in which inventor and philosopher Joseph Priestley's house was burnt down by a 'Church and King' mob.

Priestley (1733–1804) was a member of the Lunar Society, which starred some of the most eminent thinkers and men of science of its day. The Society was based in Birmingham, home of industrial pioneers Boulton and Watt and the famous Soho foundry.

You can find out more about the story of the Lunar Society members and their pivotal role in the history of freedom of thought in the July issue of Jane Austen's Regency World.

Images: Dr Joseph Priestley. Burning of Dr Priestley’s House at Fair Hill on 14 July 1791. Samuel Smiles’s Lives of the Engineers: Boulton & Watt, (John Murray, 1874).

Travelling Post-haste

If you are a fan of all things Regency like me, you’ll love S4C’s recreation of the days of the Irish mailcoach in their programme ‘Y Goets Fawr’ (The Mail Coach). You can watch a a clip of the show on their website or watch the programme on CLIC here.

Once upon a time, the Irish mails went from London to Holyhead via Chester, but in 1808 the Post Office decided a new, speedier route was needed, via Shrewsbury instead of Chester. Telford’s new road, begun in 1815, meant that coaches could reach an average speed of ten and a half miles per hour. The loss of the Holyhead mail was bad news for Chester businesses, although it remained a busy centre for local coach traffic.
Images: Seeing them off. Illustration by Hugh Thomson, Coaching Days and Coaching Ways, (Macmillan, 1910.)
Through the toll-gate. Illustration by Hugh Thomson, Coaching Days and Coaching Ways, (Macmillan, 1910.)

Peckforton in Peril

I was very sorry to hear about the horrific fire at Peckforton Castle yesterday. Mercifully, no-one appears to have been hurt, although one wing of the building appears to have been badly damaged. Peckforton was built by Lord Tollemache in the mid-1840s in the Gothic style; it was designed by Anthony Salvin. In Cheshire, the fad for Gothic architecture began in the early 1800s; Cholmondeley Castle was probably the first Gothic mansion, built by George Cholmondeley, the fourth earl, from 1801-4.

By the 1850s the Gothic revival was still going strong, and Peckforton Castle was featured in the Illustrated London News (26 April 1851). A reporter who explored the castle felt that it 'more than rivals Conway for its size and position'. Its apartments were 'splendid' but decorated 'in accordance with the most pure taste and refinement'. I hope Peckforton can be restored to its former glory.
Image: Peckforton Castle, Illustrated London News (26 April 1851). Author's collection.

Children History Forgot update

Owing to the jacket redesign, unfortunately The Children History Forgot will be launched four weeks later than previously scheduled - it will now be available from 31 August.  A little disappointing, but hopefully worth the wait as the book now has a much more exciting cover! Just to remind readers, the Robert Hale website has a special web price for the book, which will last for the first month after publication.

Health and Safety ‘Gone Mad’?

My latest feature for Discover My Past is on the factory inspectorate - it has tips on finding records relating to the factory acts which can help shed light on your ancestors' lives.
‘Health and safety’ legislation is sometimes satirised today for excessive caution – the ‘nanny state’. But early factories were dirty and ill-ventilated. Unguarded machinery killed and injured thousands of workers, young and old. The first factory inspectors fought mill-owners’ hostility and public apathy to make factories safer and ensure children were not over-worked.
Mill-owners used women and children as cheap labour. Working hours were incredibly long (fourteen hours or more in Yorkshire). Children did not have time to go to day school.
The Factory Act of 1833, an educational measure, set a minimum age of nine years. It limited hours for children and young people in textile mills (with some exceptions). Night work was banned, and children must have two hours’ schooling per day. Inspectors were appointed to enforce the legislation.
But many industries were left unregulated for decades, despite calls for reform by Lord Shaftesbury and other reformers. Children and teenagers endured miserable conditions in brick-making, straw-plaiting, the metals industries, and so on.
Why did it take so long for change to come? These children’s needs were ignored or forgotten by society – the nation’s prosperity was considered too important to trifle with.
You can find out more about the bitter battle for change fought by Lord Shaftesbury, the factory inspectors, and other reformers in The Children History Forgot.

Images:

India Mill, Darwen. Cotton spinning factory built in the mid-1860s. © Sue and Nigel Wilkes.

Edward Bryon’s proposed guard (lower diagram) for steam-presses following horrific accidents in the sanitary pipe industry. Steam presses used a steam-powered piston to press out sections of earthenware pipe. Boys fed each machine with clay using a shovel or their hands. Twenty workers were injured at Ruabon between 1870-5; some workers lost a hand, including Thomas Griffiths and John George at Plas Kynaston Tile-works. They were only fourteen years old. Reports of the Inspectors of Factories for the Half-Year ending 31 October 1875 (1876).

Arkwright’s Derbyshire Mills

We recently braved the uncertain weather to visit some of Sir Richard Arkwright’s mills in Derbyshire, which I’ve wanted to see for a long time. First we went to see the textile museum in the Masson Mills built by Arkwright in 1783. The museum has a very fine collection of textile machines, which was extremely interesting, especially as I hadn't seen some of them before.

Later in the day we explored Arkwright's mills at Cromford. His first mill on this site was built in 1771. When a parliamentary select committee looked into conditions for factory children in 1816, it discovered that this mill (then owned by Arkwright’s son Richard) worked a thirteen hour day, although no children younger than ten years old were employed. Over 260 children under the age of 18 worked in the mill, which ran from six in the morning until seven at night, with an hour for lunch, but no breakfast time.

The Cromford mills did not employ parish apprentices. These child workers were ‘free’ labour, and went home to their parents each night, unlike parish apprentices in mills such as those at Quarry Bank, Styal and Litton mill.

You’ll be able to find out more about the mill children’s stories in The Children History Forgot.

Images: Masson mill, Cromford mill. © Sue Wilkes

Special Offer!

My new book The Children History Forgot will be available from Robert Hale at a special web price of £14 instead of £20 for the first month after the release date of 29 July, so get your orders in early if you would like to take advantage of this great offer!

Once upon a time, Britain forged a mighty industrial empire - built with the blood, sweat and tears of society's most vulnerable members. The Children History Forgot explores young people's working lives during the late Georgian and Victorian eras, when boys and girls created almost every item in our ancestors' homes: bricks, glass, cutlery, candles, lace, cotton and more. All over Britain, from the coal mines of Wales to the flax mills of Ireland, children toiled in factories and workshops, underground and on the land. A chosen few like Samuel Slater began new lives in America but thousands of others have been forgotten by history: killed by unguarded machinery or poisoned by metal or pottery dust. Many were conscript workers: pauper apprentices trapped by their poverty. 

My book tells the story of the long, heartbreaking fight for reform. The story of men like Lord Shaftesbury, Richard Oastler and the tireless factory inspectors who battled, not only to improve youngsters' working conditions and opportunities for education, but also to change society's attitudes towards childhood.

Image: Two children at work on a paper cutting machine. Penny Magazine, 1833. Author's collection.