COLNE 1843. ARTICLE

[Stanley]

COLNE 1843
" Extract from "Colne and Nelson Times" Friday , September 11th, 1903 " submitted by Margaret Heap
HERE AND THERE  - COLNE  60 YEARS AGO " A description of a visit to Colne over 60 years ago, when the country had in operation a fiscal system to which people would prefer to return, may be of some interest to our readers."
Dr Cooke Taylor, an Irish physician, made a long tour of the manufacturing districts of Lancashire in the summer of 1842, and he gave us some striking word-pictures of those "good old times".  Concerning his visit to Colne he says :-  "I went into the market place and addressed myself to the most intelligent looking of the many idle operatives by whom it was crowded.   I asked him to guide me to the streets where the unemployed people resided, that I might see with my own eyes the conditions to which they had been reduced.  As I had never been in this part of the country before, it was impossible for me to select specimens, and I took care that my guide should not select them, for though he had led me to the street, I took the houses at random.
In all I visited 83 dwellings selected at hazard.  They were destitute of furniture, save old boxes for tables and stools, or even large stones for chairs.  The beds were composed of straw, or shavings, sometimes with torn pieces of carpet or packing canvas for a covering and sometimes without any kind of covering whatsoever.  The food was oatmeal and water for breakfast, flour and water with a little skimmed milk for dinner.  Oatmeal and water again formed the third meal for those who were lucky enough to get three meals a day.   I was informed in 15 families that their children went without blue milk on alternate days,  and I was an eye-witness to children appeasing the cravings of hunger by eating the decayed vegetables and roots they could pick up in the market.  I saw a woman in the last stages of attenuation, suckling an infant, which could scarcely draw a single drop of nutriment from her exhausted breast.  I enquired of the child's age, and was told it was 15 months.  The mother had not weaned it for fear that if she added another mouth to her scant supply of oatmeal, they would all starve together.  I was told there had been several deaths from sheer starvation. Their neighbours were in no better position.
From Colne, this observer rode to Burnley, and this is what he saw:-  Groups of idlers stood in the middle of the street,  their faces haggard with famine.  I went up to some of them and entered in conversation.  They were perfectly candid and communicative,  for the men of this part of Lancashire retain much of the sturdy independence of the ancient foresters.  They will go miles to do you a service, but they will not stir an inch to homage to wealth or station.  They assured me they did not want charity, but employment, and they willingly travelled miles to obtain a job, however heavy the labour, and however wretched the remuneration.