Ellen Hooton
Ellen Hooton was a ten-year-old girl from Wigan who gave testimony to the Central Board of His Majesty's Commissioners for inquiring into the Employment of Children in Factories, 1833.
The piece work rates were reduced by 33% in 1828 and by 29% in 1829, effectively almost halving Mary's income.
For the first six months in the factory, Ellen received no wages and so was technically being trained, not employed.
It was no longer the "pretty market town built of stone and brick" as described by Celia Fiennes in 1698.
[5] It was a centre for coal production, and had a large number of handloom weavers who were struggling to exist.
Wigan's status as a centre for coal production, engineering and textiles in the 18th century had led to the Douglas Navigation in the 1740s, and later the diversion of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal to transport cloth and food grown on the West Lancashire Plain to the Port of Liverpool.
The Handweavers' Plight "The cotton weavers who reside principally in the neighbourhood of Bolton, Chorley, Wigan, Blackburn, Haslingden, Padiham, Burnley, Colne and Todmorden are by far the most wretched body in this part of the country.
The number of cotton weavers in the places above mentioned must exceed 60,000 and probably is near 100,000 and the utmost sum they can earn per week, on a fair average working diligently from six (am) till eight (pm), allowing out of that time an hour and a half for meals, is only 4 s., even if the loom be their own, but if they have to hire the loom, they pay 10d.
Extract from the Liverpool Commercial Chronicle, April 24th 1826 [6] To put these prices into perspective, in 1826 a pound of bread cost 2d.
Traditionally, Wigan had been a linen weaving area,[7] relying on the hand loom: by 1826 the fibre was cotton and wages were falling.
These mills swiftly became infamous for their dangerous and unbearable conditions, low pay and use of child labour.
The thread was collected on free spinning spindles which had a flyer above which acted as the twisting mechanism.
The flyer always maintains a uniform velocity, though the bobbin retarded by friction, is pulled around the spindle by the tension of the yarn allowing the variation needed to account for the increasing diameter.
She didn't like it, was un-co-operative and repeatedly absconded and when the opportunity arose would steal money or other small items.
She couldn't recite correctly the prayer that all children were expected to say as part of their bed-time ritual, it was over this that Ellen's mother asked the overseer to intervene.
The two loose ends are twisted back together in a way that keeps lumps out of the yarn, it is best done by small young fingers rather than large old arthritic ones.
While giving evidence to the examiner for the Central Board of His Majesty's Commissioners for inquiring into the Employment of Children in Factories, the overseer said: Her mother has told me to take her to myself, and have her earnings, and keep her on bread and water, and put a lock of straw in one corner of the room for her to lie on.
[17] Her mother, on cross examination said: I told him to take her, and he might have her earnings, and let her lie in one corner of his room all night, to frighten her.
On other occasions, probably five times or more Ellen was weighted down with mill weights attached to her back by straps of the style used in the mines and had an oversized cap placed on her head and made to parade through the factory carrying a stick.
Civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths in England and Wales was introduced on 1 July 1837.
From these primary sources we can surmise that Ellen Hooton continued to work as a throstle spinner.
