Hard times and toil

Aug 16 2007 by Barry Gibson, Hudd Main

A NEW book explores the often miserable lives of textile workers in the West Riding during Victorian times.

Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents is a compilation of reports by Scottish journalist Angus Reach, one of the first investigative reporters, who toured Yorkshire in 1849.

His dispatches, which appeared in the Morning Chronicle newspaper at the time, provide a fascinating insight into working class life in Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Batley, Halifax, Leeds and Bradford.

This long-forgotten work is being published by The Book Case, an independent bookshop in Hebden Bridge.

When Reach arrived in Huddersfield he was underwhelmed by the back-to-back terraces which housed the working class.

He wrote: “It is by no means a well-built town. The humble portions of the town – that is to say three-fourths of it – are exceedingly deficient in necessary conveniences.”

In Paddock he visited home weavers and found a man who worked from 6am to 8pm every day. He earned ten shillings a week, but in lean times this could fall as low as three shillings.

Reach wrote: “The woollen hand-loom weavers about Huddersfield were very ill off.”

And the story was no better in the mills, where he found workers – often female – employed in awful conditions.

In one mill he described women hard at work sorting bales of wool, with the filaments floating through the air like snow.

He wrote: “It is manifestly impossible for human lungs to breathe under such circumstances without suffering. I myself was exposed to the atmosphere in several mills for perhaps 10 minutes altogether, and the experiment left an unpleasant, choky sensation in the throat which lasted for the remainder of the day.”

The author dedicated much of his Huddersfield report to describing the “low Irish” of the town, who didn’t seem to impress him.

Reach wrote of them “pigging about” on cellar floors and living in greater filth than their English neighbours.

He also appeared unhappy that many Irish workers preferred life as wandering rag and pot traders to a more settled life in the mills.

Reach wrote: “I asked one Irishman whether he couldn’t get work in one of the factories. He burst into a loudish good-natured laugh and replied: ‘And is it me fingers yer would like to see snipped off entirely by them blissid machinery? Sure I can handle a hoe or a pick; but them mules and looms is a pig with another snout entirely.’ ”

But Reach did find something pleasing in the town.

At the Huddersfield Mechanics’ Institution he discovered “a great body of young men diligently pursuing different courses of study.”

In the five years before Reach’s visit nearly 3,000 people had passed through the institution, all of them working class.

But Reach’s foray into what is now north Kirklees brought him low again.

Dewsbury was a “mean little town” while in Batley he found coarse bad cloth being made for American slaves.

Reach’s report on Huddersfield and Dewsbury was published in the Morning Chronicle on December 3, 1849.

Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents, edited by Chris Aspin, costs £6.95.

For more information call The Book Case on 01422 845353.