| Description | DOB: 1819
DOD: Unknown
He was born in Great Coggeshall, Essex to a mother who was local to Coggeshall, and a father from Soulbury in Buckinghamshire.
At the age of five, after having lived just over two years in Soulbury with his family, his father died, aged 27, leaving his family destitute.
His mother was temporarily confined with another son, Isaac, before returning to Coggeshall with a parish allowance to raise her children.
He attended Church School on Sundays and a “womans day school”.
When he was eight, he was sent to a writing school.
He was sent to a silk factory when he was nine, to learn how to be a draw boy.
Married Elizabeth Sandford, who died in 1844.
He married again to Esther Groves, with whom he had three daughters and a son, who died after three months.
Whilst at the Silk Factory he learned how to become a weaver, and started working at four shillings per week.
He ended up in a Union Workhouse for two weeks, before going to Soulbury’s workhouse, which he got expelled from for speaking out.
He later worked in Spitalfields, as a porter and winder, and horse cleaner.
He then found work at Bethnal Green for Ratcliff and Dicking before another slump in the industry.
He reunited with his family in Colchester where he weaved satin and worked as a householder.
He spent ten years working for Messrs Henderson and Co., No. 1 Gutter Lane, before another slump in the trade, resulting in secured employment at Messrs Campbell and Co.
Later became a Rate Collector/the Collectorship of the First District.
He took it upon himself to teach his wife’s little brother how to read.
Helped with a Co-operative Society in Colchester.
Discusses the slump of the silk trade in Britain and America.
Was in London during the death of King William IV.
Discusses sending his weavers to the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park.
The autobiography is typed with 41 pages, including occasional handwritten annotations, predominantly at the start and end.
Workhouses, [Poverty], [Petitions], [Illnesses], Silk Trade, [Religion] |