The weavers in Clitheroe were used to a healthy income and it was perceived to be a good profession, although they were now receiving a small amount of relief from the Guardians in the form of relief tickets for food, perhaps a small amount of clothing, their standard of living was thoroughly decreased.
Why were the Board of Guardians failing the weavers of Clitheroe? It is perhaps of no coincidence that out of the thirty-six members on the Board, only three were mill owners, and only one of those mill owners was a representative of Clitheroe, the remaining thirty-three being farmers they were uninterested in the ‘industries’ needs and unprepared to use their money supporting the growing mills industry. Furthermore the diary of ‘James Garnett’ informs us Clitheroe supported the liberal candidate, Mr Fort, and the farmers were Tory, representing a political aspect involved in the discrimination of the Clitheroe weavers by the Board of Guardians. They were even against philanthropic charities becoming involved, were extremely dismissive over the distress of the Town and the consequences that would follow. Reverend J H Anderton approached the board to offer his services but was informed, “they did not consider any immediate steps were necessary with a view of supplementing the efforts of the guardians, as the applications were not more numerous than they could meet”- a quote Anderton found through his own research to be a blatant lie.
The ‘cotton famine’ was creating public concern all over England and philanthropic charities quickly came to aid, but whilst larger towns were receiving help from newly formed local relief committees such as the Mansion House Committee formed in May 1862 by the Lord Mayor, and national aid from the merged CRC (central relief committee and the cotton district relief fund), Clitheroe was receiving no extra help.
After the summer on 29 September 1862 an anonymous letter was written to the Preston Guardian reprimanding the prosperous within Clitheroe for not forming charitable organisations, “but I have yet to learn why its inhabitants who are in such distress, should not be relieved as well as those of larger Towns.”. A Clitheroe Relief committee was then formed on 9 October 1862 which was relieving its peak of 1206 people the following January. This committee was a mirror of Victorian philanthropy; it was not undertaken by a genuine concern but through concerns of how the ‘public’ perceived the clergy, well-to-do businessmen and the richer in society. Large donations were often published in the newspaper.
Those ‘at risk’ in Clitheroe needed the guidance of relief committees; it was also important they kept their pride and did not allow themselves to be reduced to pauperism. Clitheroe Relief encouraged this, they were concerned the weavers would become idle, remaining on relief for a prolonged length of time.
For this reason the Relief Committee, however generous their donations had been, would pay out an average of a third of what the workers were used to receiving. Families received charity in kind such as tickets for shopkeepers, clothing and food. To further dissuade idleness relief was dropped to 2s per head in December 1862.
In the Victorian times people who had become pauperised were seen as ‘moral failures’, the weavers unemployment was out of their control thus although there were not originally perceived as failures they has to work hard to keep their name and resume their class higher than those who had dropped to pauperism. The Clitheroe Relief intently watched them, almost waiting for their failure, enabling to seize their relief from them. They filled in relief forms that were thoroughly investigated for fraudulent claims. In March 1863 a women called Margaret Pollard was sent to prison for seven days for claiming and obtaining 3s under false pretences.
The weavers homes were constantly intruded by observers from the relief committee, examining their homes for insurance of their gratitude and that they had not declined to idleness. If houses were untidy and disorderly the observers would confiscate parts of their donations, for example linen, or take away their relief altogether.
The weavers in Clitheroe were keen to maintain their positions in society and they quietly and gradually emptied their savings whilst eating well below their usual daily intake. Pawn shops did a brisk trade as desperate weavers sold furniture, jewellery and anything of value, even clothes, in a tragic attempt to buy food.
Landlords found themselves at risk when their tenants could no longer pay rent, many of them being weavers themselves. Tenants who were evicted often shared a house with three families to afford the rent. Some sewing and cooking classes were set up for women where they received 1s for attending. The women were often perceived as incapable, not having a basic knowledge, and of need of help so a they could find their moral finding and not lower themselves to social upheavals such as prostitution. It was not considered that the factory working females had previously not the time to break fresh bread daily and sew all their family clothes by hand. Men who had partaken in the 1852 Outdoor Regulation Act had some labour for a small sum of relief, some men had education classes to attend, but their were many people with very little to take up their time. “The streets were filled with that ‘middle class nightmare’, wandering groups of unemployed young men, with nowhere to go and nothing to do”.
In a small Town such as Clitheroe when the thousands of operatives’ expenditure stopped so did the income of shops decrease, “Trade is at a stand-still, in every street shops are closed and those that keep open are doing no business or next to nothing”.
James Garnett held one of the largest mills in Clitheroe, Low Moor Mill, also housing many of his workers. He, like many other mill owners lost a dire amount of profit during the cotton family. However him and his family were regarded as paternalistic employers and kept many of his workers on during the famine providing them with soup and employment using Indian cotton, surat. From John O’Neill’s diary, a worker from Garnett’s mill, we learn that the weavers, although provided with work, had to work long, hard labouring hours, making little money due to the quality of the surat and were continually reprimanded because of it, “To turn Surat into a sufficiently robust thread to work required twelve turns per inch while American needed only eight, apart from the costly adjustment that needed to be made to the spinning machinery, the thread constantly broke causing not only frustration to the operatives but seriously reducing their earnings, since they were usually on piece work.
James Garnett looked after retired workers and joined the relief committee providing one hundred pounds, he opened a school, which remained private for some time and funded ‘tea parties’ in celebration of Christmas in 1862. Through the five-year famine however he became frustrated with the weavers seeing their slow production as a result of charitable organisations and relief making them unable, foreseeing them never to be capable of work again.
Those ‘at risk’ of poverty were predominantly those employed by the mills and by 1862 they were no longer at risk but experiencing different levels of poverty. The levels of their poverty were mainly dependent on family savings. Although a loss of profit occurred the mills had little effect during the famine and the majority who offered paternalistic help to their employers did so so that their mills could resume mass production as soon as the famine was over. The weavers, those truly at risk in the cotton famine in Clitheroe, were constantly under pressure by the Clitheroe relief, (a philanthropic charity formed purely for their own image and not a genuine desire to nurture their hard done by society), when they could do very little to help themselves except sell any saleable valuable in their home and drain their savings. Both of which occurred leaving them destitute and depressed.
The main resource which failed Clitheroe to the greatest extent was the Board of Guardians who did far too little far too late to aid the weavers. They had little regard for the weavers as people but wanted to dismiss the ‘problem’. When placing some of the males into Outdoor Labouring the men were thoroughly distraught and angered, as their hands and feet became that of labourers, unfit for return to the mills.
An overriding factor of the Clitheroe cotton famine is that the people of Clitheroe did retain their pride, no violent riots occurred, they remained self-sufficient until the last moment and no health epidemics or incredulous death rises occurred,
“Clitheroe are proud folk, and many of ‘em ‘ll clam before they’ll deign to come to us for relief;”.
Bibliography
The Hungry Mills by Norman Longmate
A poor cotton weyver; poverty and the cotton famine in Clitheroe by Rosalind Hill
The Lancashire Cotton Industry by Mary Rose
