When we were married, thirty-one years ago, my husband was a framework knitter. Having learnt his trade thoroughly, he was capable of earning from £2 to £3 weekly, but we had only been married a fortnight when, through the introduction of machinery, he was out of work. In less than two years his earnings was 11s. to 16s. weekly. Our rent was 5s. 3d., but I let the two front rooms. The third year he was out twelve weeks, only earning 2s. 6d. the whole time. No one would employ him; he looked pale, and his hands, owing to using silk and cotton, were soft and clean. One man told him he was not the sort of man for field-work. However, he got a job as rural postman, earning 15s. a week, leaving home 5 a.m., returning 7 p.m. In order to supplement his earnings, he hired a room and mended boots, but some people did not pay him, and he had to give it up. Then a manufacturer found he could still do with a little hand-work, but alas! things were no better; some weeks he earned 20s., some weeks less.
There were five of us to keep, so I got some work from the factory, and if I worked hard I could sometimes earn 8s. I would rise at 6 a.m., get my housework done by 10 a.m., sending the two little ones to school, and, except for meals or attending to my little ones, worked till 12 p.m. I was then within a few weeks’ birth of my little one, but—oh, how can I tell you!—one night on looking up from my work, my husband was looking ghastly. But that looking up saved my life; he told me after he was anticipating taking my life and my little ones’ and his own. But he feared his courage would fail him before he finished. I reached my Bible from the shelf (it was my custom to read every night) and went to bed. But think of it!—a kinder, better man it would be difficult to find.
When I could not get shirt-finishing, I used to seam hose—2¾d. for twelve pairs—and when my baby was born I had 5s.; I gave it to the midwife. My husband had influenza, and we were both in bed ill. He had earned 8s., and I gave that to nurse and dismissed her. The ninth day I was downstairs doing some washing—sitting, of course—and I sent for some work, but could not do much, my eyes were so weak. I never thought to appeal to our friends to help us, but I wrote and told of the birth and said work was very bad.
A builder wanted a handyman, and sent for my husband, and gave him work—20s. a week. My husband was so handy he kept him on as carpenter, and he attended continuation classes with our elder son, and from that he went to the Technical Institute, and about eight years after we came to ——, he had learned the second trade of carpenter, and gets the rate because he is trade unionist, and has been ever since he started as carpenter. It was he who tried to instil co-operative principles into me, but I think it was the “divi” had the greatest influence, and the rest I learnt in the Guild room; and I say, God speed co-operation, the greatest blessing possible for the people. We seldom ever refer to our dark days, we are so happy now with our children. The baby No. 8—it was all right. I could draw a £2 divi—the most I ever had for confinement.
Wages 11s. to £1; eight children, three miscarriages.
135. Rag-Sorting.
Her husband was a bricklayer’s labourer, and the woman did rag-sorting to help with the living, and used to wheel sacks full of rags on a sack-barrow to the warehouse. The wonder to me was that the babies were born alive, though it was never stated that it was through this that the children died soon after. My own impression was that it had something to do with it. As a mother myself I would not have dared to have attempted to do what that poor woman had to do, and I am thankful to know that something is being done to try and alleviate these poor women. As a Bible woman who visits in and out of the homes of the poor, my heart aches as I see how some of these poor women have to work during pregnancy, and how little comfort they have at the time, and how soon they have to begin work again, before they are fit, and I believe many poor women suffer for life through having to get about too soon.
Wages 23s.
136. “I Wonder how I Lived.”
I do not know that my experience of child-bearing has differed much from the women of my class. I was a factory girl, and an only child. I was married at twenty, and the mother of three children by the time I was twenty-three. I was totally ignorant of the needs of my children or how to look after myself as I should do, and now I look back, I wonder how I muddled through, for that is really what it was, a muddle all the time, and it was more by fortune than wit that I have reared my first two children to maturity.