Letter To MP ( The Victorians )

CHILD  LABOUR  REFORM  APPEAL  TO  LOCAL  MP                                                                                                May 12th 1832

Dear Mathias Reginald Percy Warne MP,

I am writing to your honourable self in your capacity as Member Of Parliament for Bradford West, and also to you directly as a man of pity and of means.I apologise in advance for the strong tone of this letter. My disgust at injustice has no bounds.

I read in The Times recently that the totalled assets of The Warne Enterprises Company and all her sister companies happen to make you the third wealthiest man in this land. On that basis I beseech you to read this letter in full and to digest and deliberate on the plight of working children county and countrywide. I am afraid this letter may take you on an undesired journey through the squalor and misery of infants who may normally be invisible to your good self. I will present you with facts and information that may shock and surprise you. Please read this letter in good faith and I pray that on considering my words you will, with God's help and the love of your wife and children, use your influence to legislate through parliament and reform your own and other's industrial concerns. Imagine for one moment that you are at the fairground about to witness a traditional freaks show, or that you have just paid the museum entry for a waxwork chamber of horrors. Brace yourself ! Be prepared! Be strong and fearless in your resolve for change! Let the journey commence! Facts and figures may pop out at you at any unexpected time and the lives of miserable half-dying children may touch you on the shoulder when least expected! Please forgive my melodramatic tone ,but this is not a novel this is real Victorian life today. Show patience at this seemingly endless list of shocking truth in our time.I shall begin.

Every day a child somewhere is performing a dangerous or even deadly job. Children under nine years of age are regularly seen working in such areas as factory work and mining ( concerns close to your very heart, what with your cotton mill and coal mining enterprises ).They labour for periods longer than ten hours with some poor wretches recording a working day that starts at three in the morning and terminates at ten at night. We see chimney sweep boys suffering abuse at the hands of their masters. Would you appreciate a lit fire underneath your posterior to stimulate you in the speed of your work? Current evidence suggests that our children in the hat making sectors may be suffering mercury poisoning. Is this what we want for our future generation?

We find innocent abandoned orphans who rot and wilt in the terrible conditions of our workhouses. Does it make us proud to refuse to cross the road if our crossing sweepers did not first sweep away all the unsavoury detritus caused by the carriages of the wealthy! We find young lads or lasses acting as birdscarers in our countryside. They freeze their bones and miss out on school. Are they considered cheaper than scarecrows?

A great acquantance of yours is known to have extensive interests in the matchmaking industry. Yeadon-Swan-Luckman Ltd is the second largest producer of worldwide matches. I know that you are fellow club and hunt club members. I therefore call on you to consider this. Every day children suffer in these factories. Latest investigations show that the white phosphorus contributes to the horror of 'phossy jaw'; the horrible deformity of teeth,gums and jaw that leads to painful abscesses, the eruption of pustules, brain damage and death. In God's name help to reform!

Let me tell you about the mudlarks, young children who wade in the contaminated mud of our major city rivers ( especially the Thames of London ) looking for anything that they can clean and sell.They risk disease from the offensive nature of our rivers, used like a privy by the city-dwellers, and what flows through them.

Have you heard of the trappers? These young, tiny, lonely children who sit in darkness for twelve hours in our coal mines and risk blindness for their efforts. They do this dangerous work in order to open a trapdoor for coal carts! Have you heard of the putters? They heave huge heavy carts, loaded with coal, despite their feeble body frames.What about their education and welfare? Surely compulsory schooling would put paid to children as young as three to four suffering in this way. We should also look to charitably fund placements for the schooling of children to avoid this temptation of hard-up parents who work their children in industries at home.

Shall I tell you about the cotton mills? Or do you already know since you own half of this industry.

Juveniles employed for their fine elaborate thread work, or used to crawl under the active machinery to collect waste. For this they risk horrific injury including head injuries, dislocations and limb amputations. Eighty four thousand minors currently work in these factories. Their overseers ,spurred on by the incentive of increased productivity boosting their own wages,regularly abuse and use corporal punishment on undeserving youngsters.

To summarise let me provide you with more facts. Almost one million children under the age of fifteen find themselves, not necessarily willingly, working in farming, mining, woodworking;cloth and clothes making industries, docklands, matchmaking; brick-making, pottery making,building trades, shopkeeping and working within their own homes( their parents their overseers! ).

Children now form a quarter of the total labour force in the entire land. Are we truly enlightened Victorians?!

Yours Sincerely,

Jacob Henry Sebastian Barnardo.