Thus this hero, like many others, was workless. The unemployed grew restless and on November 6, 1833, a village meeting was held to demand food. The inhabitants of the parish of Marsham held a meeting which was largely attended, the unemployed turning up in strong force and showing a very threatening attitude. The meeting, however, commenced with the repetition of the Lord's Prayer. Following some very angry words, a resolution was moved demanding work and better wages. To the resolution were added the words: "The labourer is worthy of his hire."
This resolution was moved by Thomas Edwards, and a farmer who was present told him he might go and pluck blackberries again or starve, for he should have no work, and he kept his word.
What this threat meant was soon discovered. My father on his return home penniless, unable to get work, and without food, was forced to pick blackberries from the hedges to eat. One day this particular farmer caught him in his field and ordered him off, telling him he would have no —— tramps in his field picking blackberries.
So insult was added to injustice to this honest man who had fought, he was told, for his country.
Before Christmas in that year he sought shelter in the workhouse, which was then at Buxton. There he remained all the winter. In the following spring he took himself out and got work as a brickmaker.
The summer being over, he obtained employment as a cattle-feeder, but at 1s. per week less than other labourers; and although he had to work seven days, he received the noble sum of 8s. per week. The reason given for paying this low wage was that he had been in the Army and was not an able-bodied workman. No more unjust treatment could be meted out to anyone.
It was in the year of 1840—the year of Queen Victoria's marriage—that Thomas Edwards married the young widow, Mary Stageman. She had been left with three little children, and had herself been an inmate of the workhouse during her late husband's illness.
The first child born to this couple was a son, whom they named Joseph, the second was named John, and the third was a girl, whom they named Harriet. Between this child and the next to live there was a period of five years. All of this family are now dead with the exception of my sister and myself. As the family increased, their poverty increased. Wages were decreased, and had it not been for the fact that my mother was able to add a little to her husband's wages by hand-loom weaving (which was quite a village industry at that time), the family would have been absolutely starved. Hand-loom weaving was a most sweated industry. One man in the village would go to Norwich and fetch the raw material from the factory and take the finished work back. This weaving was principally done by women, who were paid for it by the piece, that is, so many yards to the piece at so much per piece. A certain sum was deducted to pay the man for the time spent in carrying the work backward and forward to Norwich. If there was any defect in the weaving, then another sum was deducted from the price which should have been paid, and the employers never lost an opportunity of doing this. Poor sweated workers were robbed at every turn.
I have known my mother to be at the loom sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, and for these long hours she would not average more than 4s. a week, and very often less than that.