Upwards of one hundred pounds were subscribed on this occasion; but, though great exertions were made to obtain the requisite funds, it was not until March 1858, that the committee considered they had a sufficient amount in hand to warrant the prosecution of their design. In the list of contributors to the Building Fund will be found names of members of the Established Church, the Society of Friends, Independents, Wesleyans, and Baptists. It is the determination of the committee to carry out the first resolution in its strictest integrity, trusting that all the members will be enabled to act in harmonious concert in the one grand object of promoting the moral and religious training of the poor people of the Potteries. The Infant and Ragged School-rooms, erected under the able direction of Mr Sim, the Honorary Architect, are remarkable alike for simplicity of design, excellence of ventilation, and space. They were opened by Lord Shaftesbury in June.
CHAPTER II.
Illustrations of Character.
“The same rains rain from heaven on all the forest trees;
Yet those bring forth sweet fruits, and pois’nous berries these.”Trench.
In my first visit to the Potteries, I was accompanied by the City Missionary, who introduced me to some fourteen or sixteen families residing there.
I was, as usual, at once impressed with the great deficiency of home comforts; and the miserable countenances of many of the children told of neglect and bad management more forcibly than words could have done.
I told them I had just come to reside near them, and I hoped we should be good neighbours. Like them, I was so occupied with my home duties, that I feared I should not be able to visit them frequently; but it had occurred to me, that if they could spare an hour one evening in the week, I would try to do so also, and we would spend it together in conversing over our various duties and difficulties, more especially those relating to our children, and by this means I hoped we might mutually benefit each other, as well as get more intimately acquainted.
This invitation was by no means warmly responded to at first, but it was the first step taken towards the formation of the Kensington Potteries Mothers’ Society.
One morning, a very decent elderly woman, whom I had seen at the Mothers’ Meetings, asked me to call upon her husband, who had not been able to leave his house for some weeks, and was too ill to read. In the afternoon I went to the Potteries. Fortunately, I met a boy of my acquaintance in the street, and he conducted me to the dwelling, which, with the direction given me that “it was in no street in particular,” would have proved difficult to find. I had to pass through a kind of shed to reach the room in which this old couple lived; it was filled with feeding-troughs, tubs, old hoops, and wheel-barrows. I managed to steer safely through all this, and ascended two or three steps into the one chamber which served at once for bed-room, kitchen, and living-room. The man was sitting in a comfortable arm-chair by a neat little fire, and the room was very clean. His hair was perfectly white, and scantily covered one of the finest-formed heads I have ever seen. The features of his face were of a very uncommon order, and everything marked him as one of nature’s “men of power.” He scarcely noticed me when I entered; but his wife said, “This is the lady, John, as has the meeting.” He said, “Oh,” and gave me a kind of nod. The woman seemed annoyed at his want of cordiality, and said again, “John, I have told you about the lady often, and I went myself this morning to ask her to come and see you.”
“I know,” was the laconic answer.
I saw the first advances must come from me, so I took a seat by him, and said, “I am sorry to hear you have been suffering from illness so long.”