Ancestry of James Henry Whittaker of Manchester, Lancashire/Saugus, Massachusetts

WHITTAKER

1. WILLIAM-

m. 10 Jan. 1782 St. Mary's, Stockport, Cheshire, FRANCES ACKERS

St. Mary's Church- Stockport, Cheshire

Issue- all children bpt. at Manchester Cathedral

  • I. Alice- bpt. 23 Oct. 1785, d.s.p.
  • II. John- bpt. 17 Feb. 1788
  • III. Elizabeth- bpt. 10 Jan. 1790
  • 2IV. WILLIAM- bpt. 9 Oct. 1791, m. 15 June 1810 JANE LYMN
  • V. Frances- bpt. 16 June 1793, d.s.p.
  • VI. Frances- bpt. 1 Feb. 1795, d.s.p.
  • VII. Alice- bpt. 5 Feb. 1797
  • VIII. Frances- bpt. 25 Feb. 1801

    Ref:

    Parish Registers for Manchester Cathedral


    2IV. WILLIAM (WILLIAM 1)-

    bpt. 9 Oct. 1791 Manchester Cathedral
    m. 15 June 1810 Manchester Cathedral, JANE LYMN

    Manchester Cathedral

    William's age was given as 50 in the 1841 census and was listed as being from Manchester. The only possible William baptized in Manchester at the appropriate time was the son of William and Frances.

    William's occupation was given as "baker" in his son George's marriage certificate.

    Aunt Dorothy (Robert Whittaker Jr's daughter), was famous for her Eccles cakes that she stated was an old Whittaker family recipe. It seems that families making Eccles cakes (or Eccles biscuits as Aunt Dorothy called them) kept their recipes a closely guarded secret. A famous Eccles expression is "The secret dies with me!" Unfortunately, the secret did die with Aunt Dorothy, however, the recipe below from Lancashire is close to what I remember as a child. So, did Aunt Dorothy's knack for making Eccles cakes come from our ancestor William Whittaker the baker? Perhaps, as the Eccles Cake was first sold at James Birch's shop in Eccles in the 1790's.

    Eccles Cakes

    Ingredients

    2 tablespoons butter
    1 cup dried currants
    2 tablespoons chopped candied mixed fruit peel
    3/4 cup demerara sugar (a natural brown sugar or turbinado sugar or in Mexico "Azucar Morena")
    3/4 teaspoon mixed spice
    1/2 (17.5 ounce) package frozen puff pastry, thawed
    1 egg white, beaten
    1/4 cup white sugar for decoration

    Directions

    Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Sprinkle a baking sheet with water. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in currants, mixed peel, demerara sugar and mixed spice (I've also seen brandy or rum added for flavour). Stir until sugar is dissolved and fruit is well coated. Remove from heat. On a lightly floured surface, roll out pastry to a 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out 8 (5 inch) circles, using a saucer as a guide. Divide the fruit mixture evenly between the circles. Moisten the edges of the pastry, pull the edges to the center and pinch to seal. Invert filled cakes on the floured surface and roll out gently to make a wider, flatter circle, but do not break the dough. Brush each cake with egg white and sprinkle generously with white sugar. Make three parallel cuts across the top of each cake, then place them on the prepared baking sheet. Bake in preheated oven 15 minutes, until golden.

    Issue-

  • 3I. GEORGE- bpt. 31 Dec. 1815 Manchester Cathedral, m. 19 May 1842 Manchester, Lanc., LOUISA ANN PARTINGTON

    Ref:

    General Register Office- St. Catherine's House, London


  • 3I. GEORGE (WILLIAM 1, WILLIAM 2)

    bpt. 31 Dec. 1815 Manchester Cathedral
    m. 19 May 1842 Manchester Cathedral, LOUISA ANN PARTINGTON (bpt. 21 May 1820 Manchester Cathedral) d. of HENRY & EMELIA PARTINGTON

    George's occupation was given as "piecer" and he was living at 2 Porter St., Manchester at the time of his marriage. Louisa was also living on Porter St.

    George and "Eliza" were living at 26 Cobden St., St. Phillips Parish, Manchester at the 1861 census. His occupation was listed as Cotton Spinner and his age given as 41. "Eliza" was listed as being age 42. Also listed was a daughter "Eliza" (at least the scribe was consistent in his error!), age 14, occupation piecer, Mary, age 9, Robert age 7, and Elizabeth age 5. All of them were born in Manchester.(1)

    1861 Census for Manchester

    George and E.A. were living at 68 Cobden St. in Manchester at the 1871 census. He was a spinner, age 53, his wife, E.A. was age 52, their son Robert, age 17 was also living with them as was Eliz Blundell, age 25[probably their daughter Louisa], and grandson Walter Blundell, age 3 as well as Joseph Chappell, listed as "head" of household, age 19 and Mary Ann Blinkham, age 19. (2)

    1871 Census for Manchester

    A Knocker Up- Blackburn

    George and Louisa were living at 84 Cobden St. in Manchester at the 1881 census. He occupation was listed as a "knocker up" in the cotton mills. His (probably) sister-in-law Sarah, age 68, a widow, a housekeeper, was also living with them as was their daughter Elizabeth age 25, a frame tender in the cotton mills.(3) What's a knocker up? A knocker up was a person, who for a small fee, would "knock you up", ie. wake you up. To do this they carried a long pole with a piece of metal wire attached to the top which was long enough to reach the bedroom window which they tapped or knocked. The knocker up was often the Lamplighter. Elizabeth was a frame tender or spinner meaning that she tended a machine for spinning the cotton threads, a spinning frame. The cotton 'throstle' is the machine for the continuous spinning of cotton onto long rows of 3-400 bobbins with the actual piecing of the thread during the process done by the 'piecer'. Improvements were made and a multi-thread spinning machine known as the 'self acting mule' was invented by Samuel Crompton of Bolton. The 'minder' or 'spinner' was in charge of the machine and would have his assistants or 'piecers' who would repair the broken threads during the spinning process. He also had teams of 'doffers', children, who would move the bobbins when they became full on his 'mule'. A weaver was the person who actually ran the loom that made cloth.

    1881 Census for Manchester

    DEATH OF THE FIRST POWER LOOM WEAVER

    On tues last Mr Andrew KINLOCH, aged 89 died at the house of his son in Preston. In 1793 he set up the first power loom in Glasgow, with which the propelling power was his own hand, he managed after an outlay of 100 guineas to produce 90 yards of cloth. This sum, we may explain was jointly subscribed for the experiment by four members of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. Shortly afterwards Andrew got the loom conveyed to Milton Print-field at Dumbuck where 40 looms on the same principle were erected under his special direction.. These machines can still be seen at POLLOCKSHAWS and PAISLEY. He left for England in 1800 setting up similar looms in different towns in Lancashire, the first at Stalybridge nr Manchester. Fifteen of these in a short time where moved to Westhoughton were they remained till 1812 when the hand loom weavers jealous of their interests being affected burned the factory to the ground along with 170 looms.(5)

    Friedrich Engels- 1845

    One of the people who was living in Manchester at this time was Friedrich Engels, the co-author, with Karl Marx, of The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848. In 1844 he had written The Condition of the Working-Class in England. Friedrich was the son of a German manufacturer, who was working as his father's agent in a Manchester factory and was in a position to record the living and working conditions of the people at the time. Granted he and Marx had an agenda, however, the following exerpts from his book is a cause for a sobering reflection on our ancestor's plight:

    The Mills at Burnley- c.1900

    "Manchester lies at the foot of the southern slope of a range of hills, which stretch hither from Oldham, their last peak � The whole assemblage of buildings [contains] about 400,000 inhabitants, rather more than less. The town itself is peculiarly built, so that a person may live in it for years, and go in and out daily without coming into contact with a working-people's quarter or even with workers, that is, so long as he confines himself to his business or to pleasure walks. This arises chiefly from the fact, that by unconscious tacit agreement, as well as with outspoken conscious determination, the working-people's quarters are sharply separated from the sections of the city reserved for the middle-class�

    I may mention just here that the mills almost all adjoin the rivers or the different canals that ramify throughout the city, before I proceed at once to describe the labouring quarters. First of all, there is the old town of Manchester, which lies between the northern boundary of the commercial district and the Irk. Here the streets, even the better ones, are narrow and winding, as Todd Street, Long Millgate, Withy Grove, and Shude Hill, the houses dirty, old, and tumble-down, and the construction of the side streets utterly horrible. Going from the Old Church to Long Millgate, the stroller has at once a row of old-fashioned houses at the right, of which not one has kept its original level; these are remnants of the old pre-manufacturing Manchester, whose former inhabitants have removed with their descendants into better built districts, and have left the houses, which were not good enough for them, to a population strongly mixed with Irish blood. Here one is in an almost undisguised working-men's quarter, for even the shops and beer houses hardly take the trouble to exhibit a trifling degree of cleanliness. But all this is nothing in comparison with the courts and lanes which lie behind, to which access can be gained only through covered passages, in which no two human beings can pass at the same time. Of the irregular cramming together of dwellings in ways which defy all rational plan, of the tangle in which they are crowded literally one upon the other, it is impossible to convey an idea. And it is not the buildings surviving from the old times of Manchester which are to blame for this; the confusion has only recently reached its height when every scrap of space left by the old way of building has been filled up and patched over until not a foot of land is left to be further occupied.

    "A Lancashire Rushcart"- in Long Millgate- Alex Wilson, 1821

    The south bank of the Irk is here very steep and between 15 and 30 feet high. On this declivitous hillside there are planted three rows of houses, of which the lowest rise directly out of the river, while the front walls of the highest stand on the crest of the hill in Long Millgate. Among them are mills on the river, in short, the method of construction is as crowded and disorderly here as in the lower part of Long Millgate. Right and left a multitude of covered passages lead from the main street into numerous courts, and he who turns in thither gets into a filth and disgusting grime, the equal of which is not to be found � especially in the courts which lead down to the Irk, and which contain unqualifiedly the most horrible dwellings which I have yet beheld. In one of these courts there stands directly at the entrance, at the end of the covered passage, a privy without a door, so dirty that the inhabitants can pass into and out of the court only by passing through foul pools of stagnant urine and excrement. This is the first court on the Irk above Ducie Bridge � in case any one should care to look into it.

    Below it on the river there are several tanneries which fill the whole neighbourhood with the stench of animal putrefaction. Below Ducie Bridge the only entrance to most of the houses is by means of narrow, dirty stairs and over heaps of refuse and filth. The first court below Ducie Bridge, known as Allen's Court, was in such a state at the time of the cholera that the sanitary police ordered it evacuated, swept, and disinfected with chloride of lime. Dr Kay gives a terrible description of the state of this court at that time ["The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes Employed in the Cotton Manufacture in Manchester"- James Kay, M.D., 1832]. Since then, it seems to have been partially torn away and rebuilt; at least looking down from Ducie Bridge, the passer-by sees several ruined walls and heaps of debris with some newer houses. The view from this bridge, mercifully concealed from mortals of small stature by a parapet as high as a man, is characteristic for the whole district. At the bottom flows, or rather stagnates, the Irk, a narrow, coal-black, foul-smelling stream, full of debris and refuse, which it deposits on the shallower right bank.

    In dry weather, a long string of the most disgusting, blackish-green, slime pools are left standing on this bank, from the depths of which bubbles of miasmatic gas constantly arise and give forth a stench unendurable even on the bridge forty or fifty feet above the surface of the stream. But besides this, the stream itself is checked every few paces by high weirs, behind which slime and refuse accumulate and rot in thick masses. Above the bridge are tanneries, bone mills, and gasworks, from which all drains and refuse find their way into the Irk, which receives further the contents of all the neighbouring sewers and privies. It may be easily imagined, therefore, what sort of residue the stream deposits.

    Poverty and Squalor- Blue Gate Fields, 1872

    Below the bridge you look upon the piles of debris, the refuse, filth, and offal from the courts on the steep left bank; here each house is packed close behind its neighbour and a piece of each is visible, all black, smoky, crumbling, ancient, with broken panes and window frames. The background is furnished by old barrack-like factory buildings. On the lower right bank stands a long row of houses and mills; the second house being a ruin without a roof, piled with debris; the third stands so low that the lowest floor is uninhabitable, and therefore without windows or doors. Here the background embraces the pauper burial-ground, the station of the Liverpool and Leeds railway, and, in the rear of this, the Workhouse, the 'Poor-Law Bastille' of Manchester, which, like a citadel, looks threateningly down from behind its high walls and parapets on the hilltop, upon the working-people's quarter below.

    Above Ducie Bridge, the left bank grows more flat and the right bank steeper, but the condition of the dwellings on both banks grows worse rather than better. He who turns to the left here from the main street, Long Millgate, is lost; he wanders from one court to another, turns countless corners, passes nothing but narrow, filthy nooks and alleys, until after a few minutes he has lost all clue, and knows not whither to turn. Everywhere half or wholly ruined buildings, some of them actually uninhabited, which means a great deal here; rarely a wooden or stone floor to be seen in the houses, almost uniformly broken, ill-fitting windows and doors, and a state of filth! Everywhere heaps of debris, refuse, and offal; standing pools for gutters, and a stench which alone would make it impossible for a human being in any degree civilised to live in such a district.

    Home in Blackburn- The Coal Fire Used for Heat, Cooking and Drying the Wash

    The newly-built extension of the Leeds railway, which crosses the Irk here, has swept away some of these courts and lanes, laying others completely open to view. Immediately under the railway bridge there stands a court, the filth and horrors of which surpass all the others by far, just because it was hitherto so shut off, so secluded that the way to it could not be found without a good deal of trouble. I should never have discovered it myself, without the breaks made by the railway, though I thought I knew this whole region thoroughly. Passing along a rough bank, among stakes and washing-lines, one penetrates into this chaos of small one-storied, one-roomed huts, in most of which there is no artificial floor; kitchen, living and sleeping-room all in one. In such a hole, scarcely five feet long by six broad, I found two beds � and such bedsteads and beds! � which, with a staircase and chimney-place, exactly filled the room. In several others I found absolutely nothing, while the door stood open, and the inhabitants leaned against it. Everywhere before the doors refuse and offal; that any sort of pavement lay underneath could not be seen but only felt, here and there, with the feet. This whole collection of cattle-sheds for human beings was surrounded on two sides by houses and a factory, and on the third by the river, and besides the narrow stair up the bank, a narrow doorway alone led out into another almost equally ill-built, ill-kept labyrinth of dwellings.

    Enough! The whole side of the Irk is built in this way, a planless, knotted chaos of houses, more or less on the verge of uninhabitableness, whose unclean interiors fully correspond with their filthy external surroundings. And how could the people be clean with no proper opportunity for satisfying the most natural and ordinary wants? Privies are so rare here that they are either filled up every day, or are too remote for most of the inhabitants to use. How can people wash when they have only the dirty Irk water at hand, while pumps and water pipes can be found in decent parts of the city alone?..

    If we leave the Irk and penetrate once more on the opposite side from Long Millgate into the midst of the working-men's dwellings, we shall come into a somewhat newer quarter, which stretches from St. Michael's Church to Withy Grove and Shude Hill � Here, as in most of the working-men's quarters of Manchester, the pork-raisers rent the courts and build pig-pens in them. In almost every court one or even several such pens may be found, into which the inhabitants of the court throw all refuse and offal, whence the swine grow fat; and the atmosphere, confined on all four sides, is utterly corrupted by putrefying animal and vegetable substances�

    Such is the Old Town of Manchester, and on re-reading my description, I am forced to admit that instead of being exaggerated, it is far from black enough to convey a true impression of the filth, ruin, and uninhabitableness, the defiance of all considerations of cleanliness, ventilation, and health which characterise the construction of this single district, containing at least 20-30,000 inhabitants. And such a district exists in the heart of the second city of England, the first manufacturing city of the world. If any one wishes to see in how little space a human being can move, how little air � and such air! � he can breathe, how little of civilisation he may share and yet live, it is only necessary to travel hither. True, this is the Old Town, and the people of Manchester emphasise the fact whenever any one mentions to them the frightful condition of this Hell upon Earth; but what does that prove?

    Inmate at the Blackburn Orphanage

    Everything which here arouses horror and indignation is of recent origin, belongs to the industrial epoch... Here live the poorest of the poor, the worst paid workers with thieves and the victims of prostitution indiscriminately huddled together... and those who have not yet sunk in the whirlpool of moral ruin which surrounds them, sinking daily deeper, losing daily more and more of their power to resist the demoralising influence of want, filth, and evil surrounding... So, too, may be found in streets... which, though not fashionable, are yet "respectable", a great number of cellar dwellings out of which puny children and half-starved, ragged women emerge into the light of day... The abominable dwellings... bring in the following rents: two cellar dwellings, 3s; one room, ground-floor, 4s; second-storey, 4s 6d; third floor, 4s; garret-room, 3s. weekly, so that the starving occupants... pay the house owners a yearly tribute of £2,000...

    During my residence in England, at least twenty or thirty persons have died of simple starvation under the most revolting circumstances, and a jury has rarely been found possessed of the courage to speak the plain truth in the matter... But indirectly, far more than directly, many have died of starvation, where long continued want of proper nourishment has called forth fatal illness, when it has produced such debility that causes which might otherwise have remained inoperative, brought on severe illness and death. The Enlgish working men call this "social murder", and accuse our whole society of perpetrating this crime perpetually... he knows that he has something today, and that it does not depend upon himself whether he shall have something tomorrow. He knows that every breeze that blows, every whim of his employer, every bad turn of trade may hurl him back into the fierce whirlpool from which he has temporarily saved himself, and in which it is hard and often impossible to keep his head above water...

    On Monday, Jan. 15th, 1844, two boys were brought before the police magistrate because, being in a starving condition, they had stolen and immediately devoured a half-cooked calf's foot from a shop. The magistrate felt called upon to investigate the case further, and received the following details from the policeman: The mother of the two boys was a widow of an ex-soldier, afterwards policeman, and had had a very hard time since the death of her husband, to provide for her nine children... When the policeman came to her, he found her with six of her children literally huddled together in a little back room, with no furniture but two old rush-bottomed chairs with the seats gone, a small table with two legs broken, a broken cup, and a small dish. On the hearth was scarely a spark of fire, and in one corner lay as many old rags as would fill a woman's apron, which served the whole family as a bed. The poor woman told him that she had been forced to sell her bedstead the year before to buy food. Her bedding she had pawned with the victualler for food. In short, everything had gone for food...

    Children Waiting for Soup at the Wood Street Mission- Manchester, c.1900

    The potatoes which the workers buy are usually poor, the vegetables wilted, the cheese old and of poor quality, the bacon rancid, the meat lean, tough, taken from old, often diseased cattle... On the 6th of January, 1844... a court leet was held in Manchester when eleven meatsellers were fined for having sold tainted meat. Each of them had a whole ox or pig, or several sheep, or from fifty to sixty pounds of meat, which were all confiscated in a tainted condition. In one case, sixty-four stuffed Christmas geese were seized which had proved unsaleable in Liverpool, and had been forwarded to Manchester, where they were brough to market foul and rotten... The refuse of soapboiling establishments also is mixed with other things and sold as sugar... Cocoa is often adulterated with fine brown earth, treated with fat to render it more easily mistakable for real cocoa... pepper is mixed with pounded nutshells... and tobacco is mixed with disgusting substances of all sorts... the villany of mixing gypsum or chalk with flour... The small dealers usually have false weights and measures... Potato parings, vegetable refuse, and rotten vegetables are eaten for want of other food... The food of the labourer, indigestible enough in itself, is utterly unfit for young children, and he has neither means nor time to get his children more suitable food.

    Moreover, the custom of giving children spirits, and even opium, is very general... One of the most injurious of... patent medicines is a drink prepared with opiates, chiefly laudanum, under the name Godfrey's Cordial. Women who work at home, and have their own or other people's children to take care of, give them this drink to keep them quiet, and, as many believe, to strengthen them...

    The children... are, as a whole, utterly wanting in all that could be in the remotest degree called a useful education... a boy, seventeen years old, did not know that twice two are four, nor how many farthings in two pence even when the money was placed in his hand. Several boys had never heard of London nor of Willenhall, though the latter was but an hour's walk from their homes... Several had never heard the name of the Queen nor other names, such as Nelson, Wellington, Bonaparte... had never heard even of St. Paul, Moses or Solomon...

    In a word, we must confess that in the working-men's dwellings of Manchester, no cleanliness, no convenience, and consequently no comfortable family life is possible; that in such dwellings only a physically degenerate race, robbed of all humanity, degraded, reduced morally and physically to bestiality, could feel comfortable and at home...

    The modern art of manufacture has reached its perfection in Manchester. In the cotton industry of South Lancashire, the application of the forces of Nature, the superseding of hand labour by machinery... and the division of labour, are seen at the highest point; and... we must confess that the cotton industry has remained in advance of all other branches of industry from the beginning down to the present day...

    We shall begin... with the factory workers, i.e., those who are comprised under the Factory Act. This law regulates the length of the working-day in mills in which wool, silk, cotton, and flax are spun or woven by means of water or steam power, and embraces, therefore, the more important branches of English manufacture. The class employed by them is the most intelligent and energetic of all the English workers... Hand-work is superseded by machine-work almost universally, nearly all manipulations are conducted by the aid of steam or water, and every year is bringing further improvements... Every improvement in machinery throws workers out of employment... whereas one spinner, with a couple of children for piecers, formerly set six hundred spindles in motion, he could now manage fourteen hundred to two thousand spindles upon two mules... in one factory alone, where eighty spinners were employed a short time ago, there are now but twenty left; the others having been discharged or set at children's work for children's wages... Similar imporvements have now been made in carding frames... The same process has gone on in the weaving industry; the power-loom has taken possession of one branch of hand-weaving after another... every improvement in machinery throws the real work, the expenditure of force, more and more upon the machine, and so transforms the work of full-grown men, into mere supervision, which a feeble woman or even a child can do quite as well, and does for half or two-thirds wages... The so-called fine spinners (who spin fine mule yarn)... do recieve high wages, thirty to fourty shillings a week... their craft requires long training; but the coarse spinners who have to compete against self-actors (which are not as yet adapted for fine spinning)... receive very low wages. A mule spinner told me that he does not earn more than fourteen shillings a week... the coarse spinners earn less than sixteen shillings and sixpence a week, and that a spinner, who years ago earned thirty shillings, can no hardly scrape up twelve and a half... I know several women, widows with children, who have trouble enough to earn eight to nine shillings a week... That wages in general have been reduced by the improvement of machinery is the unanimous testimony of the operatives... Of all the workers in competition with machinery, the most ill-used are the hand-loom cotton weavers. They receive the most trifling wages, and, with full work, are not in a position to earn more than ten shillings a week...to reach this sum he must sit at his loom fourteen to eighteen hours a day. Most woven goods require moreover a damp weaving room, to keep the weft from snapping, and in part, for this reason, in part because of their poverty, which prevents them from paying for better dwellings, the work-rooms of these weavers are usually without wooden or paved floors. I have been in many dwellkings of such weavers, in remote, vile courts and alleys, usually in cellars. Often half-a-dozen of these hand-loom weavers, several of them married, live together in a cottage with one or two work-rooms, and one large sleeping-room. Their food consists almost exclusively of potatoes, with perhaps oatmeal porridge, rarely milk, and scarcely ever meat... The human labour, involved in both spinning and weaving, consists chiefly in piecing broken threads, as the machine does all the rest. This work requires no muscular strength, but only flexibility of finger. Men are... less fit for it than women and children, and are, therefore, naturally almost superseded by them... In the spinning mills women and girls are to be found in almost exclusive possession of the throstles; among the mules one man, an adult spinner (with self-actors, he, too, becomes superfluous), and several piecers for tying the threads, usually children or women, sometimes young men of from eighteen to twenty years, here and there an old spinner thrown out of other employment. At the power-looms women, from fifteen to twenty years, are chiefly employed, and a few men; these, however, rarely remain at this trade after their twenty-first year. Among the preparatory machinery, too, women alone are to be found, with here and there a man to clean and sharpen the carding frames.

    Besides all these, the factories employ numbers of children, doffers, for mounting and taking down bobbins, and a few men as overlookers, a mechanic and an engineer for the steam engines, carpenters, porters, etc... here are hundreds of young men, between twenty and thirty, employed as piecers and otherwise, who do not get more than 8 or 9 shillings a week, while children under thirteen years, working under the same roof, earn 5 shillings, and young girls, from sixteen to twenty years, 10-12 shillings per week... Of 419,560 factory operatives of the British Empire in 1839... near half were under eighteen years of age... At nine years of age it is sent into the mill to work 6 1/2 hours... daily, until the thirteenth year; then twelve hours until the eighteenth year... In the report of the Factories' Inquiry Commission of 1833... relates that the manufacturers began to employ children rarely of five years, often of six, very often of seven, usually of eight to nine years; that the working-day often lasted fourteen to sixteen hours... that the manufacturers permitted overlookers to flog and maltreat children... The accidents to which little children fall victims multiply in the factory districts to a terrible extent. The list of the Coroner of Manchester showed for nine months: 69 deaths from burning, 56 from drowning, 23 from falling, 77 from other causes, or a total of 225 deaths from accidents...

    The work between the machinery gives rise to multitudes of accidents of more or less serious nature... The most common accident is the squeezing off of a single joint of a finger, somewhat less common the loss of the whole finger, half or a whole hand, an arm, etc., in the machinery. Lockjaw [tetanus] very often follows, even upon the lesser among these injuries, and brings death with it... a great number of mained ones may be seen going about in Manchester; this one has lost an arm or part of one, that one a foot, the third half a leg; it is like living in the midst of an army just returned from a campaign. But the most dangerous portion of the machinery is the strapping which conveys motive power from the shaft to the separate machines, especially if it contains buckles... Whoever is seized by the strap is carried up with lightening speed, thrown against the ceiling above and floor below with such force that there is rarely a whole bone left in the body, and death follows instantly... In the year 1843, the Manchester Infirmary treated 962 cases of wounds and mutilations casued by machinery...

    The unfavourable influences of mill-work upon the hands are the following: (1) The inevitable necessity of forcing their mental and bodily effort to keep pace with a machine moved by a uniform and unceasing motive power. (2) Continuance in an upright position during unnaturally long and quickly recurring periods. (3) Loss of sleep in consequence of too long working hours, pain in the legs, and general physical derangement. To these are often added low, crowded, dusty, or damp workrooms, impure air, a high temperature, and constant perspiration. Hence the boys especially very soon and with but few exceptions, lose the rosy freshness of childhood, and becomes paler and thinner than other boys... the mill child has not a moment free except for meals, and never goes into the fresh air except on its way to them. All male spinners are pale and thin, suffer from capricious appetite and indigestion... the factory system... has engendered a multitude of cripples, and that the effect of long continued labour upon the physique is apparent...

    Dr. Hawkins, in speaking of Manchester: 'I believe that most travellers are struck by the lowness of stature, the leanness and the paleness which present themselves so commonly to the eye at Manchester, and above all, among the factory classes. I have never been in any town in Great Britain nor in Europe, in which degeneracy of form and colour from the national standard has been so obvious. Among the married women all the characteristic perculiarities of the English wife are conspicuously wanting. I must confess that all the boys and girls brought before me from the Manchester mills had a depressed appearance and were very pale. In the expression of their faces lay nothing of the usual mobility, liveliness, and cheeriness of youth. Many of them told me that they felt not the slightest inclination to play out of doors on Saturday and Sunday, but preferred to be quiet at home... Intemperance, excess, and want of providence are the chief faults of the factory population... After twelve hours of monotonous toil, it is but natural to look about for a stimulant of one sort or another; but when the... diseased conditions are added to the customary weariness, people will quickly and repeatedly take refuge in spirituous liquors...'

    The men wear out very early in consequence of the conditions under which they live and work. Most of them are unfit for work at forty years, a few hold out to forty-five, almost none to fifty years of age... of 22,094 operatives in diverse factories in Stockport and Manchester, but 143 were over 45 years old... a list of 131 spinners contained but seven over 45 years [so George Whittaker working as a spinner at age 53, at the time of the 1871 census was VERY unusual]... In Manchester this premature old age among the operatives is so universal that almost every man of forty would be taken for ten to fifteen years older, while the prosperous classes, men as well as women, preserve their appearance exceedingly well if they do not drink too heavily...

    That factory operatives undergo more difficult confinement than other women is testified to by several midwives... when pregnant, continue to work in the factory up to the hour of delivery, because otherwise they lose their wages and are made to fear that they may be replaced if they stop away too soon. It frequently happens that women are at work one evening and delivered the next morning, and the case is none too rare of their being delivered in the factory among the machinery... if these women are not obliged to resume work withing two weeks they are thankful, and count themselves fortunate. Many come back to the factory after eight, and even after three to four days, to resume full work...

    And such rules...

    1. The doors are closed ten minutes after work begins [0530 usually], and thereafter no one is admitted until the breakfast hour; whoever is absent during this time forfeits 3d. per loom.

    2. Every power loom weaver detected absenting himself at another time, while the machinery is in motion, forfeits for each hour and each loom, 3d. Every person who leaves the room during working-hours, without obtaining permission from the overlooker, forfeits 3d.

    3. Weavers who fail to supply themselves with scissors forfeit, per day, 1d.

    4. All broken shuttles, brushes, oil-cans, wheels, window panes, etc., must be paid for by the weaver.

    5. No weaver to stop work without giving a week's notice. The manufacturer may dismiss any employee without notice for bad work or improper behaviour.

    6. Every operative detected speaking to another, singing or whistling, will be fined 6d.; for leaving his place during working hours, 6d...

    A witness... relates having repeatedly seen women in the last period of pregnancy fined 6d. for the offence of sitting down a moment to rest. Fines for bad work are wholly arbitrary; the goods are examined in the wareroom, and the supervisor charges the fines upon a list without even summoning the operative, who only learns that he has been fined when the overlooker pays his wages, and the goods have perhaps been sold, or certainly been placed beyond his reach... a new supervisor was dismissed for fining too little, and so bringing in five pounds too little weekly...

    The truck system, the payment of the operatives in goods, was formerly universal in England. The manufacturer opens a shop... here goods of all sorts are sold to them on credit... the 'Tommy shops' usually charging twenty-five to thirty per cent more than others, wages are paid in requisitions on the shop instead of money... the passage of the Truck Act of 1831, by which... payment in truck orders was declared void and illegal...

    The supervision of machinery, the joining of broken threads, is no activity which claims the operatives thinking powers, yet it is of a sort which prevents him from occupying his mind with other things... this work affords the muscles no opportunity for physical activity. Thus it is... not work, but tedium, the most deadening, wearing process conceivable. The operative is condemned to let his physical and mental powers decay in this utter monotony, it is his mission to be bored every day and all day long from his eighth year. Moreover, he must not take a moment's rest; the engine moves unceasingly; the wheels, the straps, the spindles hum and rattle in his ears without a pause, and if he tries to snatch one instant, there is the overlooker at his back with the book of fines. This condemnation to be buried alive in the mill, to give constant attention to the tireless machine is felt as the keenest torture by the operatives, and its action upon mind and body is in the long run stunting in the highest degree. There is no better means of inducing stupefaction than a period of factory work... The wearisome routine of endless drudgery, in which the same mechanical process is ever repeated, is like the torture of Sisyphus... They are worse slaves than the negroes in America..."(4)

    "It's Grim Oop North"- John Bulmer's Photos of Northern England in the 1960's- Nelson, Lancashire

    Little wonder George's son Robert decided to leave and move to America. It's one of those times when you just wish you could talk with George or his son Robert and ask them about what life was like in Manchester at that time. I don't think any of us can imagine what the family must have lived through. What happened to Robert's sisters? Did they succumb to the "torture of Sisyphus" as Engle mentions? Did "Eliza's" husband perhaps die from working in the mills or was he living away from the family in 1871? And what of Mary's husband? If they came to America no mention of them was ever made by the family here.

    Issue-

  • I. Sabina- bpt. 3 Sept. 1843 Manchester Cathedral, ?m. _____ Kershaw (lived in Blackburn at 1911 census)
  • II. Emily- bpt. 1 Jan. 1846 Manchester Cathedral
  • III. Louisa Ann- bpt. 27 June 1847 Manchester Cathedral, m. ______ Blundell
  • IV. Mary- b.c.1852, m. ______ Blinkham
  • 4V. ROBERT- b. 8 Apr. 1854 Manchester, m. 7 Dec. 1873 Manchester, RACHEL ELIZABETH ISHERWOOD, d. 17 Nov. 1931 Somerville, MA
  • VI. Elizabeth- bpt. 7 Dec. 1856 Manchester Cathedral

    Ref:

    (1) 1861 Census for Manchester, Lancashire- RG9, piece 2937, folio 85, p. 22, schedule 110
    (2) 1871 Census for Manchester, ward of New Cross, District of St. Philips- p.28 (3) 1881 Census for Manchester, Lancashire- RG11, piece 3985, folio 111, p.11
    General Register Office- St. Catherine's House, London
    (4) The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844- Friedrich Engels, available at: www.gutenberg.org or books.google.com (5) Liverpool Journal- 27 Jan. 1849


    4I. ROBERT (WILLIAM 1, WILLIAM 2, GEORGE 3)

    b. 8 Apr. 1854 Manchester, Lanc.
    m. 7 Dec. 1873 Manchester, RACHEL ELIZABETH ISHERWOOD (b. 20 Mar. 1856 Manchester, d. of JAMES & ELIZABETH ANN (ETTICK) ISHERWOOD, d.29 June 1913 Everett, MA of lobar pneumonia, bur. Woodlawn Cemetery, Everett, grave No.3890)
    d. 17 Nov. 1931 Somerville, MA, bur. Woodlawn Cemetery, Everett, grave No.3890

    Robert Whittaker's birth certificate

                      Rachel (Isherwood) Whittaker's birth certificate

                      Robert and Rachel Whittaker's marriage certificate

    Robert was a nail maker and lived at 9 Taylor St. in Manchester.(1) Rachel arrived on the Kansas 19 Sept. 1888 age 32 with the children: Robert age 9, James 7, Florence 5, and Clara 1. A girl named Polly age 16 also came with them although her relationship to the family is unknown. Robert evidently arrived before the rest of the family although when and on what ship is unknown.(2)

    In the 1900 census they were living at 22 Lewis St. in Everett, MA and Robert was listed as being a labourer at the Coke Works and his son Robert was an iron moulder.(3) In 1902/3 they were living at 61 Lewis St.(4) and then at 7 Appleton St. at Rachel's death.(5)

    Rachel (Isherwood) Whittaker

    Rachel Whittaker's death certificate

    Robert unfortunately suffered from alcoholism and because of this problem and its consequences Rachel moved in with the Riders, her daughter-in-law's parents in 1912. After her death his personality mellowed and alcohol became less of a problem. Robert then lived on Blackstone St. in Boston and finally moved to the Home for the Aged in Somerville.(6)

    Late in life Robert converted to Catholicism and carried his rosary beads in a mint box. Why this conversion occurred is unknown, but it has been stated that he lived with a Catholic woman in Boston and thus was converted. The other explanation is that he converted because his daughter Clara had adopted this faith. In any event, Robert was an interesting character indeed!

    Robert was a lodger living on Dudley St. in Roxbury with Sarah Johnson at the time of the 1920 census. His occupation was given as janitor in a factory.

    To date I have been unable to locate Robert in the 1930 census. He was living at the Home for the Aged in Somerville at the time of his death the following year, however, he is not among the residents living there at the time of the census.

    In 2010 several of the family took a road trip to find Robert and Rachel's grave at Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett. It was sad to find out that the family had never erected a marker to the first of our Whittaker clan to arrive in this country. Hopefully in the near future we will have a suitable memorial to mark their resting place.

    Grave No. 3890- Final Resting Place of Rachel and Robert Whittaker

    Issue-

  • I. Robert- b. 5 June 1879 Manchester, Lanc., bpt. 27 July 1879 St. Philips, Manchester, m. 15 May 1901 Malden, MA, Anna Eveylena Rider (b. 13 Aug. 1881 Granville, Nova Scotia, d. Nov. 1977 Marborough, MA). Robert was an iron moulder and was living at 43 Glendale St., Everett in 1902 and were living in Revere at the 1920 census. Uncle Bob, Auntie Eveylena and Dorothy with the Rider family c.1905, Uncle Bob and Charles Martin
  • 5II. JAMES HENRY- b. 18 Mar. 1881 Manchester, Lanc., m. 4 Aug. 1903 MARY BELL (3) STRONG, d. 12 Apr. 1964
  • III. Florence- b. May 1883 Manchester, Lanc., bpt. 24 June 1883 St. Philips, Manchester, Florrie was an epileptic and lived at the State Mental Hospital in Monson, MA... such were the times! Florrie and the nurse from the hospital, Pappa, Florie, Mary and nurse, postcard of the state hospital, postcard 2, postcard 3, Census reports for Florrie: 1900; 1910; 1920
  • IV. Clara- b. Aug. 1886, m. 4 June 1915 Marlborough, MA, Joseph F. Spencer (b. 29 June 1887 Brockton, MA). Living in Everett at the 1920 census. 1910 census

    Ref:

    (1) 1881 Census for Ancoats- film 2856, municipal ward of Newcross, enumeration district No.43, p.39
    (2) Passenger lists for Boston- Mass. Archives
    (3) 1900 Census for Everett, MA
    (4) Everett Directory- 1902/3
    (5) City Clerk- Everett, MA
    (6) City Clerk- Somerville, MA

    General Register Office, St. Catherine's House, London


    5II. JAMES HENRY (WILLIAM 1, WILLIAM 2, GEORGE 3, ROBERT 4)

    b. 18 March 1881, 9 Taylor St., Manchester, Lancashire
    m. 4 Aug. 1903 Everett, MA, MARY BELL (3) STRONG (b. 10 Mar. 1888 Old Perlican, Nfld., d. July 1970 Saugus, MA)
    d. 12 Apr. 1964 Union Hospital, Lynn, MA

    James Whittaker's birth certificate, Mary Strong's baptismal certificate, James & Mary's marriage certificate, James' Certificate of Naturalization, James' death certificate

    By the 1910 census James and his brother Robert and their families were living on Arden st. in Quincy. James and Mary B are listed with their children Ruth, Hattie, and Lester. Robert Jr. and Eveylena and their children Dorothy and Stuart. James was a core maker and Robert was a brass moulder.

    The family lived at, what is now, 117 Lebanon St. in Melrose in the 3rd floor apartment. While Mary was attending the Ripley School there she won the SPCA medal for her poster.

    James also worked in the foundries and was a mould maker. He also worked as a car mechanic and had his own shop in Chelsea for several years. About 1940 the family moved to 2 Lilly Pond Ave. in Saugus having purchased a home previously owned by their son-in-law's family (Edwin Weeks) as a summer camp on Lilly Pond. The pond was later drained and is now a housing development.

    "Grammie" worked as a nurse (what we would now call a PCA or CNA) for the elderly mother of Mr. Faunce who was an undertaker in Chelsea. My mother would tell stories of sitting in the embalming room with Mr. Faunce when she was a girl and play cribbage with him! His mother was quite ancient (at least to a young girl) and my mother would sit in her room and draw for her. 1920 Census for Charles Faunce. 1880 census for Faunce family of Somersworth, NH. Photo of James Whittaker, 2 Photo of Mary (Strong) Whittaker, Mary c. 1918 , Gram and a piece of her "art work" , Photo of the Whittaker Family c. 1918, ?Lester, ?, Ruth, Gram, Mary, Pappa, Mary Whittaker, William Bursey of Chelsea and Mary c.1920 , Mr. & Mrs. Emeraux from Chelsea , the Davis family , ?Ruth, Gram and Mary, at the Weeks' cottage on Lilly Pond, Saugus, Mary at York Beach August 1930 , Mary and friends, Buddy and Fred 30 May 1931 , Mary and friends 30 May 1931 , Ruth and Mary at Gloucester July 1931 , Mary on Aunt Ruth's porch- 1931 , Mary and Ruth at Lynn Beach 4 July 1934 with Ruth's bridge club , Uncle Eddie, Aunt Ruth, Uncle Lester and Ma with Ruth's bridge club at Lynn Beach- 4 July 1934 , Gram- Aug. 1931 , Gram and Hobo , Gram and ? , Aunt Muriel, Ma, Gram, Aunt Louise, Debbie, Aunt Ruth, Uncle Lester, Whit, Uncle Eddie, Nancy, Papa , Papa and ? , Photo of the Whittaker Family Oct. 1943, Lilly Pond, Saugus, whittaker clan photos , Whittaker home on Lilly Pond, Saugus, Several photos of the house on Lily Pond Ave. , Pappa, Mary, Sandy, Gram at Lilly Pond c.1945, "Hatetoquitit", the Faunce's cottage at York, The Whittaker Family at York Beach , Uncle Ed, Ma, Vera Stavchuck, Gram, Pappa "Gram" at the trailer,

    Issue-

  • I. Ruth Elizabeth- b. 17 Jan. 1905 Lynn, MA, m. Edwin Weeks, d. 4 Oct. 1998 Queen Creek, AZ, bur. Saugus, MA Aunt Ruth and Aunt Hattie- Aug. 1919 , Mary and Aunt Ruth, Aunt Ruth and Ma at Lake Winnipasaukee- 1922 , Aunt Ruth, Gram and Mary, Cottage at Forest Lake, Ruth and Mary at Forest Lake, Gram at Forest Lake , Greenfield's camp- Ellsworth- 1923 , Aunt Ruth and her friend Ann , Aunt Ruth- 1927 , Aunt Ruth , 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, Uncle Eddie, Eddie at the beach , Ruth and Eddie with Katherine and John , Aunt Ruth and Katherine , Eddie a P'town, Aunt Ruth, Uncle Harold and Aunt Dorothy
  • II. Hattie Adella- b. 30 Jan. 1907 Lowell, MA, m.1. Winston Green (b. 19 May 1904, d. Aug. 1965), 2. John Groupper, 3. Edward Gammage (b. 15 Aug. 1910, d. 25 Dec. 1988 Palm Beach), d. 29 Nov. 1993 Charlotte, NC, bur. Palm Beach, FL Hattie and her friends , Hattie- 1920 , Hattie next to the family car, Harriette- Papa's new Dodge touring car , Ma and Aunt Harriet, 2 , c.1925, 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , Aunt Harriet and Uncle Ted, Aunt Harriet and Uncle Ted's boat- Palm Beach, On the boat, Pamela and Uncle Ted, 2, Aunt Harriet, Gram and Uncle Ted at York Beach, Painting by Aunt Harriet and Uncle Ted
  • III. Lester George- b. 14 May 1908 Quincy, MA, m. 1940 Muriel Livingston (b. 28 Dec. 1912, d. 26 Jan. 2008 Winchester, MA), d. Oct. 1985 Lester and Mary , Uncle Lester , Uncle Lester and the family car, Uncle Lester, Football Player, Lester's gang, Lester as a gangster- 1926 , Lester and a friend at Revere Beach , Whit Whittaker , Gram, Pappa, Aunt Louise at Aunt Muriel and Uncle Lester's home in York Harbor, 1940 census for Lester & Muriel.
  • IV. Fredrick James- b. 10 Jan. 1912 Chelsea, MA, m. Louise Teagle, d. 18 Feb. 1992 St. Petersburg, FL - Uncle Fred , Uncle Fred in the Navy, Uncle Fred's ship, another photo of his ship, Gram and Petty Officer Fred , Aunt Louise,
  • 6V. MARY EDITH- b. 24 Jan. 1915 Chelsea, MA, m. 10 Oct. 1936 MILTON TRUSSELL (5) MARTIN (b. 25 Oct. 1913 Revere, MA, d. 1 Nov. 2000 York, ME), d. 10 Sept. 1999 York, ME. For photos of Mary and her biography, go to the Martin family page.

    Ref:

    General Register Office, St. Catherine's House, London
    Mass. Registry of Vital Records & Statistics


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