The
youngest children in the textile factories were usually employed as
scavengers and piecers. Scavengers had to pick up the loose cotton
from under the machinery. This was extremely dangerous as the children
were expected to carry out the task while the machine was still working.
Illustration
of scavengers and piecers at work
that
appeared in Trollope's Michael Armstrong
(1840)
Child
Labour Debate Activity (International School of Toulouse)
Child
Labour Simulation (Spartacus Educational)
(1)
John Brown wrote about Robert Blincoe's experiences in a textile mill
in an article for The Lion newspaper (15th January 1828)
The
task first allocated to Robert Blincoe was to pick up the loose cotton
that fell upon the floor. Apparently, nothing could be easier... although
he was much terrified by the whirling motion and noise of the machinery.
He also disliked the dust and the flue with which he was half suffocated.
He soon felt sick, and by constantly stooping, his back ached. Blincoe,
therefore, took the liberty to sit down; but this, he soon found,
was strictly forbidden in cotton mills. His overlooker, Mr. Smith,
told him he must keep on his legs.
(2)
Frances Trollope, Michael Armstrong,
the Factory Boy(1840)
A
little girl about seven years old, who job as scavenger, was to collect
incessantly from the factory floor, the flying fragments of cotton
that might impede the work... while the hissing machinery passed over
her, and when this is skillfully done, and the head, body, and the
outstretched limbs carefully glued to the floor, the steady moving,
but threatening mass, may pass and repass over the dizzy head and
trembling body without touching it. But accidents frequently occur;
and many are the flaxen locks, rudely torn from infant heads, in the
process.
(3)
David Rowland worked as a scavenger at a textile mill in Manchester.
He was interviewed by Michael Sadler's House of Commons Committee
on 10th July, 1832.
Question: At what age did you commence
working in a cotton mill?
Answer: Just when I had turned six.
Question: What employment had you in a mill in the first instance?
Answer: That of a scavenger.
Question: Will you explain the nature of the work that a scavenger
has to do?
Answer: The scavenger has to take the brush and sweep under the wheels,
and to be under the direction of the spinners and the piecers generally.
I frequently had to be under the wheels, and in consequence of the
perpetual motion of the machinery, I was liable to accidents constantly.
I was very frequently obliged to lie flat, to avoid being run over
or caught.
(4)
Edward Baines, The History of the Cotton
Manufacture (1835)
It
is not true to represent the work of piecers and scavengers as continually
straining. None of the work in which children and young persons are
engaged in mills require constant attention. It is scarcely possible
for any employment to be lighter. The position of the body is not
injurious: the children walk about, and have the opportunity of frequently
sitting if they are so disposed.
(5)
E. C. Tufnell, one of the Factory Commissioners, wrote about the work
of scavengers in 1834.
The
scavengers, who have been said (in the Report of the Factory Committee)
to be "constantly in a state of grief, always in terror, and
every moment they have to spare stretched all their length upon the
floor in a state of perspiration." I have seen scavengers idle
for four minutes at a time, and certainly could not find that they
displayed any of the symptoms of the condition described in the Report
of the Factory Committee.
(6)
Angus
Reach,
The
Morning Chronicle
(1849)
The
piecers, either girls or boys, walk along the mule as it advances
or recedes, catching up the broken threads and skilfully reuniting
them. The scavenger, a little boy or girl, crawls occasionally beneath
the mule when it is at rest, and cleans the mechanism from superfluous
oil, dust and dirt.
The opinions of two medical gentleman of Manchester, with whom I have
conversed upon the subject of factories and health, some to this:
that the insalubrity of Manchester and of the Manchester operatives
is occasioned not by the labour of the mills, but by the defective
domestic arrangements for cleanliness and ventilation.
Illustration of scavengers and piecers
at work that appeared in
Edward Baines' book The History of Cotton Manufacture (1835)
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