Samuel
Scriven interviewed employees from Stoke-on-Trent pottery works for the
Royal Commission on Children’s Employment in 1841. Some of the evidence
taken at Messrs Benjamin Godwins works — is reproduced below.
Mr. BENJAMIN GODWIN’s Earthenware Factory, Cobridge.
No.
202. Joseph Booth aged 9:
I
turn jigger for Wm. Lowe ; I cannot read, I cannot write ; I never went to
day- school ; I do go to Sunday-school and learn to read in spelling book ;
have been to work two years; drove gin at Walsall one year ; Bessey Boother,
my mother, balls at Blackbank ; have two brothers, two sisters ; one brother runs moulds ; I get 2s. 3d.
a-week ; brother gets 1s.
; don’t know what mother gets—oh, yes, I do, she gets between 10 and
11s:. I bring breakfast with me, it is stir pudding ; go home to dinner and
get stir pudding, and stir pudding for supper; get home between eight and nine
; come at six. I got a jacket at home, and a shirt for Sundays ; no better
trousers ; would sooner work 13 hours than 15 ; if I only worked ‘till four
o’clock I should get home, sit me down, and learn to say my catechism.
This
Child was literally in rags.
No.
203. William Mumford, aged 12:
I
brush ware and attend the dipper ; I cannot read or ‘write ; my father is an
engine man, he works at pit ; his name is Maller, and so is my mother’s ;
her name was Mumford ; her does nothing ; I have gotten three sisters, no
brothers ; they does nothing ; I get 4s. a-week ; the dip has never hurt me
yet ; don’t know how long I have been there ; don’t know how many months
there are in the year ; went to a school by day some time ; go to a
Sunday-school now, and to church ; I go home at four or five ; I said I had
but 4s. a week, master says I had 5:. ; I did not count it ; gave it to mother
; don’t know how much it may have been; I arn’t no scholar!
