Study sources E&F and the site at Quaryy Bank Mill - How useful are these sources in arriving at an accurate explanation of how apprentices were treated at the mill in the early 1840's?

History Assignment – Question 1

STUDY SOURCES E&F AND THE SITE AT QUARYY BANK MILL – HOW USEFUL ARE THESE SOURCES IN ARRIVING AT AN ACCURATE EXPLANATION OF HOW APPRENTICES WERE TREATED AT THE MILL IN THE EARLY 1840’S?

Source E is useful because it tells us what was done to punish some of the apprentices. It describes the punishment given by Robert Hyde Greg toward Esther Price. Esther price was a young apprentice during the year 1835, she and another girl committed a violent assault on another apprentice, Robert sent them both before magistrate, then it goes on to talk about the next year in which Esther Price and Lucy Garner ran away. Lucy returned four days later but Esther didn’t return until a further ten days. As a punishment, the Greg’s didn’t believe in beating the children so the next best action had to be taken, the girls were placed in solitary confinement. While in solitary confinement, their meals were cut back to two servings of watery porridge per day. While Esther was serving her time in confinement, the superintendent’s wife, Mrs. Timperley, died of apoplexy, and was placed in the room next to Esther. A Robert Hyde Greg state that Esther begged to come out, promised to complete her imprisonment afterward, and was then let out. This is useful because it shows us that the Greg’s were not the type of Mill Owners that beat their children to a pulp, also that they looked after there children disciplined them fairly.

Source F is useful even though it disagrees in some places with Source E. This is because it does still agree with Source E in that the girls had done wrong, and were being punished by the method of solitary confinement. They agree on the fact that the ‘Matron’ of the house died and was placed in the room next to Esther and she was soon acquainted with this fact, this worried her very much.

These sources still are not completely useful though, the authors of the sources could be very biased, for example the writer of source E is ...

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These sources still are not completely useful though, the authors of the sources could be very biased, for example the writer of source E is Robert Hyde Greg, so he would make the article look good on him, so what he writes about, may not be completely true. The writer of Source F is a man who was campaigning to reduce the children’s hours of work, so he could be biased, to make things look worse than they really are, so it helps his argument. Also the reliability of these sources could be let down, due to the dates of when the sources were written. Source F was wrote just two years after the incident, in the year 1838, whereas Source E was wrote a later 8 years after the incident in 1843, so Robert Gregs memory could differ from what really happened to what he wished had happened.

One of the main things, which shows that Greg treated his children well, is that he pays for them to have an education, which is years before his time, as other employers were reluctant to provide an education for their apprentices. Greg provided the children with an apprentice house to live in. There was about 90-100 children at a time living and working at Style. Greg supplied the children with a doctor, who was called whenever they needed him. In all 22 years, there were only 17 deaths at Style and only one of them was caused in the factory which is very, very good for this time. Greg provided his children with 3 meals per day, and the children were allowed as much as they wanted to eat. All of these things show that Greg looked after his apprentices exceptionally well for his time.

CONCLUSION – The two sources I used were both useful in their own ways, as they both showed us different ways apprentices were treated but not completely so. But they lack detail, and may be biased against what they say.

ANTHONY MCKEE