Cheshire

by Charles E. Kelsey

Until the passing of the 'Reform Bills' only those who possessed property were allowed to vote, the great majority of the people of Cheshire had no say in the government of the country at all. The Reform Bill of 1832 gave the vote to many more people, to every man in fact who paid a rent of ten pounds or more a year for his house. Thus much of the power which had previously belonged to the rich passed into the hands of the poorer classes.

One of the first results of the Reformed Parliament was the passing of a number of Factory Acts. The cry of the children at work in the mills had long been heard through the land, and the people were indignant at the cruelties put upon them by some mill-owners. As early as the year 1802 Sir Robert Peel, a Lancashire manufacturer, had persuaded Parliament to pass an Act to improve the condition of the factories. The Reformed Parliament now made it illegal to employ children under nine years of age, or to make boys and girls under thirteen work for more than twelve hours a day. Later Acts have still further shortened the hours of work for women and children, and in many other respects have made the lot of all the working classes more tolerable. Manufacturers are now compelled to keep their factories clean and wholesome, and fit to work in. Factory inspectors are appointed to see that the laws are carried out, and those whose lives are spent in dangerous occupations, such as coal-mining or the making of chemicals, are protected by strict rules which lessen the danger to life and limb.

The greatest evil from which the poorer classes suffered in the early years of the nineteenth century was the high price of bread. This was due to the heavy duty put on corn imported from foreign countries. In S. Peter's Square, Stockport, is a statue of Richard Cobden, who for six years was Stockport's member of Parliament. Cobden saw that the poverty of the working classes could not be lessened until this corn-tax was removed. He pleaded eloquently on their behalf, and in the end he was successful. The growers of corn grumbled, but as Cheshire is not so much a corn-growing as a pastoral county, the farmers of Cheshire were not greatly hurt.

Cobden also persuaded Parliament to take away or to lessen the duties on imported raw materials, such as cotton, wool, and silk, on which the prosperity of the Cheshire workers so much depended. The result was that the manufacturers were able to pay the people who worked in their mills better wages. Thus, with cheaper bread and wages higher, the lot of the industrial classes became brighter. Soon also the duties on manufactured goods brought to Cheshire from abroad were removed, and the system of Free Trade, under which Cheshire has become rich and prosperous, came into being.

Among the leaders of the working classes were some who wanted far greater changes. In the museum at Vernon Park are some iron pike-heads taken from these men when they tried to arm the people and urge them to fight for their 'rights'. The aims of the Chartists, as these reformers were named, were set forth in a document which they called the People's Charter. Among other things, they demanded votes for all men, yearly Parliaments, vote by ballot, and payment of members of Parliament. But the bulk of the people took alarm, for it was thought that if every man had a vote, too much power would be put into the hands of the working classes. The Chartists were tried for causing riots, and many were put in prison. One of the Chartist leaders was James Stephens, who is buried in Dukinfield churchyard.

In 1861 a great disaster befell the cotton trade. In that year civil war broke out in America between the Northern and the Southern States of the Union. The Southern States were the seat of the cotton-growing plantations, which were worked by millions of negro slaves. The English people had put an end to slavery in their own colonies, and the Northern States of America wished to do the same. When the Southerners desired to extend the cotton industry to other new States, the Northern States refused to allow it, and war broke out.

The war brought much distress to the cotton workers of Cheshire, for the ports of the Southerners were blockaded by the warships of their enemies, and the ships which had brought their cargoes of raw cotton to the Mersey could do so no longer. The result was a cotton famine. The looms were idle, and thousands of workpeople were thrown out of employment in Stockport, Stalybridge, and the other towns and villages which depended for their daily bread on a constant supply of the raw material.

Attempts were made by ships sent from England to run the blockade of the ports of the Southern States. At Birkenhead a ship called the Alabama was built in the dockyard of Messrs. Laird for the use of the cotton planters. The ship entered the harbours in the night-time or during fogs, and succeeded several times in bringing small supplies of cotton. She was caught at last, but not before she had destroyed sixty or seventy vessels of the Northern fleet, and she very nearly brought about a war between England and America.

The war lasted four years. Then peace was restored, and the cotton was once more brought to the starving spinners and weavers of East Cheshire. During the famine the poor had been supported by sums of money raised in the large towns of England, and many years passed before the cotton industry reached its former prosperity.

The memory of the hard days of the cotton famine has been handed down to the grandchildren of those who suffered. Within the last few years the cotton merchants and manufacturers have started an association for growing cotton in our own English colonies, so that the workers may not depend entirely on the cotton produced by foreign States.