Amusements must now be provided. The first and most obvious were tea-parties, the usual rewards to school-children, and often made very tedious affairs by the enormous quantity of talk inflicted on them. However, Mr Wilson managed better. To the first, many of the boys came dirty and untidy; the second shewed a great improvement; the third, one still greater; until now, most of the factory-boys assemble to chapel, and other places where they ought to be decent, in plain suits of black, which give them a neat and even gentlemanlike appearance: yes, though the word applied to a set of factory-boys, candlemakers, may make many of our readers smile. But for all that constitutes real gentlemanlike feeling for order, obedience to authority, courtesy of manner, the absence of rudeness, quarrelling, and other petty vices of school-boys—these factory lads, taken from the very heart of a low population, shine pre-eminently, or rather have shone, since Mr Wilson has taken their educational training so much to heart. The first tea-party was held on Easter-Monday, as a counterpoise to the attractions of Greenwich and Camberwell fairs; and it succeeded in that object, evidencing that vice is not that necessary ingredient in the pleasures of the people which some people think.
In 1849, the cholera came, peculiarly severe about Lambeth and Battersea Fields, where many of the candlemakers lived. Mr Wilson's first thought was for the young people in the factory. He consulted with his brother, and they took additional counsel of first-rate medical men, and then added to the committee a Mr Symes, a gentleman holding a field that was waiting to be built on. The result of these consultations was, that Mr Symes giving them temporary possession of the field, the night-school was closed entirely, and all the boys set to work to learn cricket—cricket as the best antidote to cholera the directors of Price's Patent could devise. Wise men these directors, with some sterling common sense and rare old hearty benevolence mixed up with their generous Saxon blood! Mr Symes was not the only stranger—for stranger he was—eager to help the directors. A Mr Graham came forward, and many others joined in offering; and altogether, as Mr J. P. Wilson says, 'everybody's heart seemed to warm up to their object.' The plan was a success. Of the whole crowd of cricket-players, only one, an interesting lad of seventeen, was lost, though most of them had kinspeople dying and dead in their own homes. That cricket-ground was not, however, useful only for physical health; it presented a beautiful and striking scene, which must have carried home to every heart deep thoughts and holy purposes to strengthen the soul as well.
'Always when the game was finished,' says Mr Wilson, 'they (the boys) collected in a corner of the field, and took off their caps for a very short prayer for the safety of themselves and their friends from cholera; and the tone in which they said their amen to this, has always made me think, that although the school was nominally given up for the time, they were really getting from their game, so concluded, more moral benefit than any ordinary schooling could have given them.' This belief we heartily endorse. That informal prayer, made while the blood was warm with happiness and high with health, spoken in the open field, by themselves, direct to Heaven, without other interpreter between them, must have made a deep impression on the boys. Its very informality must have added to its solemnity; making it appear, and indeed making it in reality, so much more the genuine, spontaneous, heart-spoken expression of each individual, than the mere customary attendance on a prescribed form can admit. A field of six and a half acres is now rented, at the annual gross cost of L.80, the middle of which is kept for the cricket-ground, while the edges are laid down in gardens, allotted out.
During all the bright summer weather the boys worked eagerly at their gardens, and played perseveringly at cricket—making a happy and healthy use of time that otherwise must, if used well, have been spent in a dull school-room (not the most inviting of recreations, after a hard day's work at the candle-making), or idled away in the streets, amongst the unprofitable and unhealthy amusements provided for the people. Amongst other good results, Mr Wilson notices that of 'softening to the boys one of the greatest evils now existing in the factory—the night-work, for which the men and boys come in at six in the evening, to leave at six in the morning.' These workers do not go to bed, it seems, so soon as they leave work: in former days, they generally dawdled about, took a walk, or strolled into a gin-palace, as it might happen, or did anything else to kill the time until their sleeping-hour arrived. Since the cricket-ground has been established, however, they rush off to the field on leaving work at six in the morning, thoroughly enjoy themselves at gardening and cricket until about a quarter past eight; and then, after collecting in a little shed, where a verse or two of the New Testament and the Lord's Prayer are read to them, they go home to sleep, refreshed by the exercise after their unnatural hours, happy, peaceful, and healthy. These are the birches and canes of the Messrs Wilson's moral and scholastic training!
Then came the summer-excursion. The first experiment was in June 1850, when 100 of them went down to Guildford early in the morning, and returned late in the evening. It was a beautiful day, bright and cloudless; and as those London boys wandered about the country lanes and meadows of Guildford, and heard the ceaseless hum of insect life, and the uncaged birds singing high in the blue sky, and saw the wild-flowers in the hedgerows, and the glancing waters in their way, we may be sure that more than mere enjoyment was stored up in their minds, and that thoughts which might not be brought out into set phrases, but which would be undying in their influence through life, were raised in each heart that drank in the glories and the holy teaching of nature, perhaps on that day for the first time. It was something for them to think of in the toil and heat of the factory; a beautiful picture, to fill their minds while their hands were busy at their work; and the rippling rivers and singing birds would sing and flow again and again in many a young head bending carefully over its task. The excursion of the next year was on a grander scale: 250 started from Vauxhall Bridge, to go down the river to Herne Bay, which, though it may sound ludicrously Cockneyfied, was quite as much as the strength, and more than the stomachs of the little candlemakers could stand; yet very delightful, notwithstanding the qualmishness and face-playing of the majority. This year, they are all invited by the Bishop of Winchester to the brave old castle of Farnham—a treat to which they are looking forward with all the headlong eagerness of youth, and which, we trust, will have other and even better results than the pleasures we wish them. A bishop entertaining a set of factory children will be a welcome sight in these days of clerical pomp, when the episcopal purple so often hides the pastoral staff. It will be a rare occurrence, but a good practice begun—to be followed, we would fain hope, by its like in other districts.
The expense of the day at Guildford was L.28; of that at Herne Bay, L.48; the estimated expense of the excursion for the present year is L.55. This seems a heavy item for a single day's amusement, but the Messrs Wilson have proved the immense advantage which their boys derive from these excursions: the hope, the stimulus to exertion—as only those who have worked hard at school, and behaved well generally, join the cricket-club and the excursionists—the health, the incentive to good conduct, and the preservation from evil habits; all these varied good effects have convinced the directors that it is money well spent—money that will bring in a richer percentage than government securities or Australian gold-fields could give, for it brings in the percentage of virtue. Not always in the power of money to gain that! And right thankful ought we to be, when we have found any investment whatever which will return us such rich usurious interest for what is in itself so intrinsically valueless.
So much, then, for the Belmont Factory—for the light of that busy wax-candle making. Turn we now to the Night-Light Factory, though our notice of this must be brief; but brevity befits those thick, short candle-ends.
In the autumn of 1849, the night-light trade came into the possession of Price's Patent Candle Company. Amongst the Child's Lights we have girls to deal with as well as boys—an element not to be provided for in the Belmont arrangements, and causing a little difficulty as to their proper disposition on first starting. But nothing seems to daunt Mr Wilson. Give him but a square inch for his foothold, and his moral lever will raise any given mass of ignorance, and remove any possible amount of obstruction. After a little time, and some expense, one of the railway arches near the night-factory was taken possession of, fitted up, made water-tight, and turned into a school-room for the boys and girls of the adopted concern. The expense of preparing and furnishing that arch was L.93. Still, the girls remained as a doubtful and untried version of the Belmont success; but by the energetic aid of a lady, much experienced in such matters, and by the untiring cares of a chaplain recently appointed to the factory, and who is in reality the moral and educational superintendent of the whole, something of the uncertainty hanging over the result has been removed, and all matters have greatly improved. Inasmuch as the character of women is of more delicate texture than that of men, so are the managers of the Night-Light School more careful to secure an unexceptionable set of girls in the school, that prudent parents may send their children there without alarm, and without more danger of contamination than must always arise where a number of human beings, adults or youths, are assembled together.
Everything seems prospering. Church-organs in the school-rooms, chapel-services at various times as the different sets of workmen come and go, and flourishing schools for the mere child up to the actual young man, supply all the spiritual, intellectual, and devotional requirements of the work-people; games, gardening, excursions, and a general friendliness between masters and people, form their social happiness; and useful arts taught and about to be taught, help to make up the wellbeing of the community. Tailoring and shoemaking are to be learned, not as trades, but as domestic aids, many working-men having found the advantage, in various ways, of being able to do those little repairs at home which perishable garments are always requiring; and a shop full of young coopers employs another section of tradesmen in rather large numbers. For this last improvement, Mr J. Wilson was obliged to take up his freedom of the city, that he might apprentice the lads to himself, as it is a rule among the coopers that no one follows this trade, which is a close one, without having learned it by regular apprenticeship. However, a freeman can take apprentices in any trade, whether close or open, provided he does teach them a bonâ fide business; and Mr Wilson availed himself of this privilege, and netted to himself a batch of young coopers, as we have said. So much can one earnest wish to be of real use to a cause or a generation enable a single individual to do! We may be sure that when we talk of our inability to do good, we mean our inattention to means, not our incapacity from want of them.
The expenses we have quoted were all originally borne by Mr J. P. Wilson. In three years, he spent L.3289 in payments to teachers, in fitting up schools, in cricket-grounds, excursions, chaplain's salary, &c. His own salary is L.1000 per annum. And though the proprietors have refunded all moneys spent by him on these things, and have taken on themselves the future expenses of the institutions commenced by him, yet that does not diminish the worth of his magnificent intentions, or take from the largeness of his self-sacrifice and generosity. Add to this simple expenditure—for it was made in good faith, and in the belief that it was a virtual sacrifice of income—the labour, want of rest, the constant thought at all times and under all sorts of pressure—illness and business the most frequent—and we may form a slight estimate of what this glorious work of educating his young charge has cost a man whose name we must ever mention with respect.