Copyright © 2018 Laurence Cockcroft
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ISBN 978 1789012 873
Illustrated by Juliet Breeze
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
In memoriam
Bob Suttcliffe
William Holt
Two great Todmorden visionaries
Contents
FOREWORD
CHAPTER 1
TAKE THA’ MONEY!
CHAPTER 2
THE BIG MEETING
CHAPTER 3
GATHERING STRENGTH
CHAPTER 4
UNDER FIRE IN MANCHESTER
CHAPTER 5
THE DERBYSHIRE HILLS
CHAPTER 6
THE ESCAPE FROM BLACK SAM
CHAPTER 7
ARREST THE RINGLEADERS!
CHAPTER 8
LONDON AT LAST
CHAPTER 9
TO PARLIAMENT
CHAPTER 10
BACK TO THE MOORS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Dickie plunges to the towpath.
Feargus O’Connor at the Big Meeting.
Ruth and Joshua with Jim Knotts at the big tunnel.
The Torchlight Procession in Manchester
Enoch and Shep try to save Ruth
Holding off Black Sam
With Ellie in the Nottingham caves
Jess is released from Nottingham Prison
The London Route
With Danny’s gang in Bow Street
Reaching Home
FOREWORD
This book has been a labour of love for more than twenty-five years, since I first told the story to my older children (Jasmine and Jacob) in about 1992. They suggested I write it down; the part-time writing took many months and the ‘research’ included a walk with them in stormy weather over Kinder Scout as described in the book. The format changed and my youngest son, Joshua, and I worked on a new Chapter 1 together in 2000. In 2014, I was fortunate enough to meet a very talented illustrator, Juliet Breeze, who understood the spirit of the whole story from beginning to end and produced the illustrations which are now in each chapter of the book.
I was born in Todmorden, the starting point for the march, and was raised on stories of the Industrial Revolution and in particular of the Chartists who gathered at the Basin Stone, a rock high on the moors which my father took me past many times, never omitting to say that this is where the Chartists met. They always seemed real, just as they were in a memorable painting of a meeting at the Stone, which still hangs in Todmorden’s Town Hall. Todmorden’s pioneering industrialist, John Fielden, was also a Chartist and as a Radical MP laid out the Petition in support of the Charter in the House of Commons in 1839, a step he saw as part of his fight for the Ten Hours Act, which was only achieved in 1847.
Ruth and Joshua Midgeley, stalwarts of the march and of numerous adventures en route, are of course fictitious, but I believe represent the world of children caught up in times of major change, as I have witnessed elsewhere in the world.
In the course of the original ‘research’ for the book, I read several of the substantial histories of Chartism which give us a very lively sense of what happened, and in particular of the role of the charismatic Feargus O’Connor, the publisher of the hugely popular Northern Star newspaper, every edition of which can be accessed in the British Library and which was the most important source for the book. I am grateful to all those who, when hearing of the book, have cheered me on, and in particular those who found the time to read it at various stages. In particular, I am grateful to Linda Croft, an expert on Chartism in Todmorden, and to Jeff Kaye, for his serious and thoughtful comments based on his own research into the subject. Needless to say, the events in the book are a mixture of fact and fiction but are anchored in the events of the time.
Laurence Cockcroft
September 2018
CHAPTER 1
TAKE THA’ MONEY!
Todmorden, on the border
of Lancashire and Yorkshire,
1839
Dickie Hardwood and Joshua Midgeley stood on the cotton bale as the crane operator prepared to lift it from the canal barge to the warehouse door of Woodhouse Mill. The crane jutted from the top floor of the mill thirty yards over the canal, and was controlled by a capstan inside the warehouse. This was driven by the five men that worked in the mill, which otherwise depended on a hundred children aged between ten and fifteen.
The Annie Maud was a day late, and the bargeman and his family wanted to unload as quickly as possible. Woodhouse Mill in Todmorden was the last stop on their journey on the Rochdale Canal, and they needed to return to Manchester or lose the Rochdale Canal Company’s freight for a week. The bales of raw cotton which they carried had been packed in the town of Natchez, Mississippi, carried on gigantic barges on the Mississippi River to New Orleans, transferred to oceangoing freighters which carried them to Liverpool and then moved to the barges which plied the canals from Liverpool to Manchester and eventually to Rochdale and Todmorden. The bales were generally tightly sewn canvas bags, but sometimes the stitches fell apart, and the cotton burst in all directions. This cold morning was such a day.
Each bale was lifted off the boat at a shout from the bargee, with Dickie and Joshua standing on it. They were supposed to ensure that the strain of the lifting did not break the stitches on the canvas, and this required them to be hoisted up with each bale. On this occasion, Dickie was exhausted from having to work till midnight under torchlight. He overlooked the fact that two stitches of the bale were broken. As the crane lifted the bale, the stitches began to unravel, the canvas loosened, Dickie could no longer hold his position, and the cotton spilled everywhere. He was edged off the bale and plunged to the towpath thirty yards below.
His closest friends in the mill were Joshua Midgeley and his older sister, Ruth. Ruth watched as the empty bale climbed upwards with Joshua beside it. Dickie was still lying on the towpath, nursing his leg.
Dickie plunges to the towpath.
***
It took another two hours before the rest of the bales were lifted. Joshua stood on each of them but was no longer watched by Ruth and the rest of the children, who had been sent back to work. Dickie Hardwood had not been able to climb the stairs to the first floor, where most of the children were working. For the time being, he rested by the boiler at the back of the mill.
The working hours of the mill were six in the morning to six in the evening on weekdays, and to five in the evening on Saturdays. The last half-hour of work on Saturdays was given over to the payment of wages
for the previous week. Most of the children took home about one shilling and sixpence. The wages of two children could keep a family in food and fuel for the next week.
The accident had happened on a Thursday. On the following Saturday, when wages were due to be paid, his father, John Hardwood, appeared at Woodhouse Mill to claim those due to Dickie. This was one of the few times in the week when the owner of the mill, Jeremiah Stansfield, emerged from his office to supervise his clerk. On this occasion, he was surprised to see John Hardwood at the end of the line, cap in hand.
‘I’m ’ere to claim our Dickie’s wages,’ said John. ‘’E’s mending well enough, but ’e’ll not be back for a couple of weeks, I reckon.’
Stansfield looked sombre. ‘Your lad failed on Thursday and cost me a good five pounds. I’ll tak ’im back, but I’ll dock every wage of ’is until ’e’s repaid those five pounds.’
John Hardwood looked shattered. ‘Tha’d not do that, Mr Stansfield. Dickie’s only one in’t family working, and we’ll never get by.’
‘’Ow many of your family are out of work is not my business. I don’t make the rules ’ere to break them for folk like you. Tha’d best be gone.’
Hardwood had been thinking rapidly. It could take Dickie two years to pay off the five pounds. His family’s wretched poverty would become even worse. Feeling bitter, he opened the challenge to Stansfield.
‘If that’s so, Mr Stansfield, then thou won’t see me nor Dickie again – and I’ll see you and your lot damned before any of my lot is back.’ He crammed his hat back on his head and marched out of the mill. All the mill children were aghast, knowing the consequences for any family losing a child’s wage. A good half of them were in the same position, and all were terrified of losing their jobs. However, Jeremiah Stansfield’s proposals were more unjust than any which they had yet experienced. Ruth was the first to speak.
‘Mr Stansfield, Dickie weren’t to blame. ’E and the rest of us was ’ere till midnight last night to get them warps off. ’E was fagged out and didn’t see the stitches.’
Taken aback, Stansfield was angrier than ever. ‘I’ll be the judge of that, and if you go on like that, lass, you’ll be gone too.’
Bobby Sandsmith, a small, lively boy, joined in:
‘’Ow would it be, Mr Stansfield, if we all stood for Dickie and you took the five pounds off each of us wages in bits like?’ Stansfield knew that this would not work because he changed at least a quarter of his child workers every year – ‘to keep the others ’ungry for work,’ as he put it. But it seemed a good idea to Ruth, and she tried to guess what the others were thinking. Looking around the room, she sensed that most of the children wanted to support this.
‘I think you’ll find we’re all for it, Mr Stansfield.’
‘I’m not asking thee or anyone else,’ he replied. ‘And you needn’t come back next week; I’m done with you.’
Even Jeff Stubbs looked taken aback, knowing that Ruth was one of the best workers in the mill. But he didn’t have the courage to question Stansfield’s decision. Ruth was shocked at her own words. Joshua wondered how long it would be before it would be remembered that he was Ruth’s brother and whether he would then be thrown out of work too. Life at their cottage at Oldroyd would take a rapid turn for the worse.
Stansfield’s clerk took a walk along the line paying out the wages, and recording payments against names. As he walked down the line, he spoke the name of each boy or girl. Ruth was standing next to Bobby Sandsmith. The clerk called out, ‘Sandsmith, Bobby. Midgeley, Ruth. Midgeley, Joshua.’
Stansfield’s face darkened. Jeff Stubbs, who knew Joshua was useful on the crane, looked nervous.
‘Well, I’m damned,’ said Stansfield. ‘I near forgot that were your brother. ’E can go too. I’ll ’ave none of your cheek in this mill. Now I remember; your father is a troublemaker. Led a strike at Lumbutts Mill five years ago, didn’t ’e?’
Joshua was proud of the fact that his father had brought all the workers at Lumbutts Mill out in protest at the dangerous machinery there (after a man had lost an arm) and had been forced to fall back on handloom weaving as a result.
‘’E did, Mr Stansfield, and we’ve been the poorer for it since then.’
‘Well, you can join ’im on ’is ’andloom then. I’ll ’ave no more of you ’ere. Give ’im ’is wage,’ he said to the clerk, ‘and that will be the last ’e gets.’
Suddenly the whole room was silent. Ruth and Joshua looked each other in the eye with dismay. How would their parents take this disaster? Jess, their father, had not only led a strike, but was well known as a supporter of the Chartists, the new movement pressing for the total reform of Parliament by one man one vote. Although their mother had always been a supporter of Jess, she held the purse strings and exercised severe thrift. All the income Jess made from his handloom was handed over to her – though this was usually no more than the combined wages of the children. They knew she would be angry and distressed.
The other mill children stood in reluctant silence – dismayed by Stansfield but too afraid to speak. Jeff Stubbs thought of speaking up for Joshua but decided against it; he’d been out of work for a year till the previous October.
Ruth held Joshua’s gaze for a moment and sensing his support, nodded to him. She said, ‘Tha’ can keep tha’ wage, Mr Stansfield, and thee’ll never see us again.’
With that, she and Joshua turned on their heels and walked out of the door.
The clerk for a moment lost his composure. ‘Nay, you two come back,’ he said. ‘Tha’ mother and father will never forgive you.’ But it was too late.
***
The two children idled home, no longer so sure that they had done the right thing. But in twenty minutes, they were home. Their mother was in the kitchen trying to stoke up the stove to a heat where it was warm enough to cook on, using as little peat as possible. The clack of the loom upstairs told them that their father was still working. The children had agreed that it would be Joshua who delivered the bad news, but that was easier said than done. Both of the children sat on the spare loom bench in the corner. Their mother, Ellen, could see that they were strangely silent.
‘What’s up then? Tha’ doesn’t look ’appy.’
‘Mam, we lost us jobs.’ Ruth kicked Joshua because they had agreed he would say they had rejected this week’s wage at the same time. ‘And we’ve brought nowt ’ome this week.’
Because she trusted them and sensed this was a complicated story, Ellen called up to Jess, ‘Tha’d best come down, luv. Childer are back, and summut’s up!’
The loom fell silent as Jess came down the ladder that led to the upper storey.
‘What’s wrong with you two then?’ he said casting an appraising eye at Ruth and Joshua.
‘They’ve lost their jobs. And there’s no wage for this week,’ said Ellen reprovingly. Jess looked at the children with an enquiring glance. Ruth told them the whole story, finishing with their rejection of the wage.
‘Tha’ young fools,’ said Ellen, ‘we’ll scarce ’ave enough to eat in this ’ouse for next week. Never mind next month and beyond.’
‘Nay, Ellen,’ said Jess, ‘that damn Stansfield’s not fit to employ one child, let alone ’an ’undred. They did right.’
The children looked expectantly at their parents, thinking that there would be a big argument. It didn’t happen: the news was too dire and involved all of them. Nobody spoke, though with a bitter look, Ellen returned to try to breathe life onto the dying fire. Jess sat down at the table and said:‘You’ve done right, but we’re in for ’ard times. Men like Stansfield need to be forced to offer better conditions or we’ll be sent to gaol. Sooner or later, Parliament’s got to tak men like ’im in and Fielden ’ere in Todmorden ’as got the right idea, but there are not many like ’im.’
‘Finish tha’ speech, Jess, and ’elp us ’ere,’ said Elle
n. ‘Words’ll not put pies on the table.’
‘Is that what we’re ’aving, Mam?’ asked Ruth, hopefully.
‘Aye, but don’t blame me if this is the last for I don’t know ’ow long.’
***
The meal they took an hour later was a silent ritual, till Jess volunteered: ‘There’ll be a need for one meal less tomorrow, Ellen. Feargus O’Connor ’imself is speaking at a meeting of Chartists on’t market. I’ll be there for three ’ours or more.’
Ruth and Joshua looked at each other, sure that they shared the same idea.
CHAPTER 2
THE BIG MEETING
Over at the open market, where the River Calder which rises on the Lancashire side of the Pennines turns east to flow into Yorkshire, a crowd of several hundred had already assembled. They were very close to a towering newly built railway viaduct which had not yet seen a train. Most of the men wore rough cloth caps, and open waistcoats or jackets over linen shirts, with leather clogs on their feet. The women – young and old alike – wore black shawls cast over their heads, with dark-coloured blouses and shirts beneath them. It was a Sunday afternoon and a good time for a meeting. There was no sign of rain, and most people would rather be out in the open than crowded into small houses and shacks with too many brothers, sisters and children.
Joshua and Ruth ran down a path along the canal to join the crowd at the marketplace. When they arrived, a tall, handsome man with full side whiskers was already speaking to the crowd in a rich Irish accent:
Northern Stars Page 1
