C of Y Part 6: Factory Children

This is where the story turns sour. With the rise of industrialization, the skilled manual work of cloth dressers was no longer needed and machines... and children.... did most of the work.

(Note: In this one case, Walker's painting does not do the subject justice.)

Children did not work in the mills prior to this time. Children had small hands and the machinery simplified the work. There was no need for skilled men, except for a lucky few who maintained the machinary or oversaw a batch of ten machines. Most of the cloth dressers were thus unemployed. They naturally rebelled.

The revolt was known as the Luddite "movement"... not up to the standard of a "revolution" as the authorities quickly overcame any resistance from the cloth dressers and other workmen who were rebelling. John Dixon was 12 years old at the height of the struggle.

There were a few killed and injured on both sides. A very few mill owners were killed and some mills were torched. New equipment was stolen and destroyed as the owners attempted to transport it to their mills. Of course, more of those rebelling were killed... by hanging usually. The families of those hanged were not allowed to retrieve the bodies. The bodies were donated to medical schools so that proper burials could be given.

The term Luddite is now given to any group that opposes the growth of technology in the workplace. I can think of some who really struggled as computers initially replaced typewriters. And think of all of the lost jobs at GM due to the use of "robotics".

It's just my theory, but I believe John Dixon probably brought his family to America so that his son and grandchildren would not become "factory children".

C of Y Part 5: The Cloth Hall

The Cloth Hall was mentioned in one or both of the two novels that I read about the Luddite era in Leeds. See the earlier posts about these for more info.

Once the cloth was ready for sale, it was originally sold outdoors on the bridge or the street.

Then they built a Cloth Hall in Leeds. This was where the bargaining was done to get the cloth sold. The mill owners often made trips on these "market days" to the Cloth Hall, on horseback. It was only used for it's main purpose a couple of days per week, but I'm sure they thought of other uses for such a grand structure at other times.

Other than the churches, this would have been a natural meeting place.

C of Y Part 4: The Preemer Boy

Now I'd never heard of a job called "Preemer Boy". Now I have both a description and a painting.

John Dixon was probably a Preemer Boy before he became a cloth dresser.

Sort of like an apprentice. More like the kid who sweeps up in the barber shop.

C of Y Part 3: The Cloth Dresser

John Dixon was a "cloth dresser". But he may have been a "preemer boy" before becoming a cloth dresser.

I love the tongue in cheek writing of George Walker. His words are almost as good as his paintings.

All of us should note that several men working together in a small cottage can lead to some bad influences coming to the fore.

Before the industrial revolution, these skilled workers were somewhat independent. They weren't rich by any means and were not particularly well educated. However, they were not working in factories and did not work with machines. The fight over the industrialization of the wool industry was known as the Luddite movement and it occured at both the time and place where John Dixon worked as a young cloth dresser. This actually gives more detail about what it meant to be a cloth-dresser than anything I've seen yet. And, of course, a picture is worth a thousand words.

C of Y Part 2 The Cloth-Makers

The painting and text called "Cloth-Makers" appears early in the book. John Dixon was not one of these people as he was a "cloth-dresser" or one who worked with the wool after it was brought into town. However, as the text of this section indicates, there are several items that follow in the book that portray cloth workers that we will be more interested in.

The Costume of Yorkshire

Did I ever mention that the interlibrary loan system in this country is a great thing? I stopped by our local branch library to drop off a book when the clerk said that a book I had ordered had arrived. I didn't remember putting a book on hold... I've been reading a lot of presidential biographies and was up-to-date on the requests I had made in that arena.

Sure enough, he handed me a small green hardback copy of George Walker's The Costume of Yorkshire, which had arrived from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. I had forgotten that I made the request a few weeks prior. Oddly enough, our family's first geneologist, my dad's cousin Bob Elliot, lives in that area!

George Walker was a painter and naturalist, and the son of a wealthy merchant. He would have been well known in Leeds, and John Dixon probably would have heard of him. Walker produced a series of paintings of common folk and scenes in Yorkshire and a publisher talked him into publishing 40 of the paintings, along with explanatory text (originally in English and French... remember the original owners of Leeds were French so the folks who could afford to buy the book probably preferred the French text). The reprinting that I received only had the English text.

The book was originally published in 1814 and a copy of the original faceplate was included in the reprinting I reviewed. I'll do a series of posts about the most relevant engravings (from Walker's original paintings) and text.

One of the items in the book is a portrait of the local regimental commander, a Colonel Dixon. However, he is unlikely to be related to our family. There were a lot of Dixon's in the area and throughout England.

Be sure to click on all of these pictures to enlarge the text.

More Leeds History

Some of this information isn't new, but is presented in a nice format.

First, the Leeds city website has some interesting history of the period from 1790 to 1840. Remember that John Dixon was born at the turn of the century and that Joseph Dixon, Sr. was born in Leeds before they came to America. During the surge of the population, I'm not sure whether life got better for most residents of Leeds or not.

John Dixon, being a "cloth dresser" was one of the craftsmen/cloth workers who made up the middle class which emerged at this time. Not the upper middle class that was more exclusive.

The second find was mention of a book by a painter named George Walker. He published a book of paintings he did called Costume of Yorkshire, which included pictures of various tradesmen of the time. I am now on the search for a copy of this book. Here's a link to a poster for sale on the web.

The third item is a short historical article about Leeds on an educational site in the U.K. It centers on the growth of two industries... the wool industry and the railroads.

When John Dixon and family got to Albion, railroads were on the ascendancy there also. One of the major players there was the lawyer for one of the largest railroads in Illinois and the midwest... Abraham Lincoln.

The Duchess of Leeds

... at the time that John Dixon brought his family to America... was an American girl!

Louise Caton, daughter of a wealthy and famous Catholic businessman and politician from Baltimore, married Mr. D'Arcy before his father, the Duke of Leeds, died. When her father-in-law died, she became the Duchess of Leeds.

So what brought me to this story?

I was reading the bio of James Buchanan, the president just before Abe Lincoln and the Civil War, and she and her family was mentioned. Now I can't find the spot in the book, so I'm going on memory. James Buchanan never married (there are many rumors... and much talk even at the time... that he was our only gay president). However, he had lots of nieces and nephews, most of which he supported and served as guardian to in the 1840's and 1850's. (Many of his siblings, and several other friends, died as adults due to TB.) It seems that the Caton family took in some of these nieces and nephews of Buchanan, at least for a few summers, and the families were friendly. I'm not sure it was Louisa or one of her two sisters that James Buchanan wrote some "friendly" letters to for a few months. One theory is that the letters were a front. The other two sisters also married royals in England.

One of the things I found on the web is an old newspaper article (from New Zealand, no less) that appears to be a society notice about royal doings back in England. Another is a page in a Catholic Encyclopedia detailing brief facts about the Caton family.

Remember that there were major wars between the Catholics and the Protestants earlier in English history... the times of Henry VIII and Shakespeare. But the original owners of Leeds... that right... the owners....were Normans... which means they were French and thus Catholic. Things seemed to have improved by the 1840's since the Catholics were back in royal good standing.

Note: Upon proofing, I remembered something in the Encyclodpedia article that was interesting. It mentions that the Xavarians built the St. Mary's Industrial School on land that was known as The Duchess of Leeds Estate. I remember from boyhood reading of Babe Ruth's biography that he attended St. Mary's and learned to play baseball there!

Inheritance by Phyllis Bentley

Charlotte Bronte wrote about the Luddite movement in the West Riding of Yorkshire in the time of our John Dixon... the John Dixon who immigrated to Albion, Illinois from Leeds, England in the 1840's. Although Bronte’s book is relatively unknown and underappreciated compared to Jane Eyre, I discovered that it was a surprisingly good book.

Inheritance, by the English "regional" writer Phyllis Bentley, was very popular when it was published in 1932 and when it was made into a TV miniseries by the BBC in the 1970's. I just finished reading Inheritance and highly recommend it. Someday I will find a way to access the BBC movie. I also think we’ll see Hollywood or an independent film producer remake the film... one of those with all of the great English actors taking part. It’s a great story. It reminds me of James Michener’s books like Centennial, where he follows a few interrelated families over several generations in the process of telling the history of a place.

Bentley is known as a regional novelist, but she sold a lot of books. In Florida, she would equate to Carl Hiassen (South Florida wacky mysteries) or Randy Wayne White (Southwest Florida romance/action stories). Who would be a regional novelist of the Albion or Anderson areas?

Whereas Charlotte Bronte was writing in the early Victorian era, Phyllis Bentley was writing at the end of the roaring 20's, and an early romantic scene, complete with a short description of a couple succumbing to their feelings for each other... resulting in the birth of an important second generation character... is not written in the "fainting novel" style of Bronte. Then again, it’s not a 1970's steamy sex scene either. But it’s interesting to compare the treatment of romance and love by authors writing sixty years apart.

I actually intended to read just the first part of the book, knowing that it covered the 1812 Luddite movement. But I couldn’t stop reading. I found that the next period she covered was perhaps also relevant to Dixon history, as it covered the child labor era of the early years of the industrial revolution in the wool industry around Leeds. Was that a reason John Dixon left for America with his wife... and son Joseph Freemont Dixon (Sr.)? The book also covered the fight of working men and children to achieve "The Ten Hour Rule" and the rise of unionism in general.

A side note: I found the book through interlibrary loan from our Alachua County Library branch. The book that arrived was sent by the Upsula College Library in New Jersey. The book was an early edition that had been rebound in 1954, the year of my birth, and had not been checked out since the rebinding. What a shame!

The book follows the fictional mill owning Oldroyd family, as well as several nearby (and eventually interrelated by marriage) families... some richer, but most poorer families. Families of working men and working children.

These families are followed from the opening scenes in 1812 until the postwar generation, when the Oldroyd family businesses are liquidated due to widespread economic fallout from World War I. The action takes place in several small settlements in the fictional Ire River Valley, near Leeds and York. Leeds is only briefly portrayed as the nearest large town, which most of the early characters never experience as they never travel that far from home. York is the nearest government center, and the site of the trial of three Luddites who are hanged for the murder of the original Oldroyd mill owner. The court even decrees that the bodies be turned over to medical colleges for dissection rather than permit return of the bodies to the families for burial!

In this book, there is slight mention of the church or religion, although I’m not sure if there is historical meaning in this fact. Remember that Bronte was very hard on the established church and explored briefly the Quaker and other movements of the time in her book.

One of the men hanged for the murder of William Oldroyd was Joe Bamforth, the mill foreman, who is a tragic figure caught between loyalties to his fellow working men and to the mill owner who has been good to him. The Luddite fight is, of course, about the introduction of new "frames", technology which can increase production and put many working men out of work. The new industrial model ironically also creates a "need" for child labor in large quantities. Children begin in the mill at the age of 7. Joe Bamforth was also the best friend of the young son of the murdered mill owner. This younger Will Oldroyd is also the one who has seduced Joe’s sister Mary in the first scene of the book! (The couple... much later on...marries.)

Much of the dramatic tension of the book is the comparison of the hard driving, but not so bright, and often spineless, mill owning Oldroyds and the dirt poor, but highly ethical, stubborn and smart, Bamforth descendents. This tension works throughout six generations of intermarrying, partly because the Oldroyd men have a tendency to fall for Bamforth women who are a giant step below them on the economic class scales which were and still are important in England.

I highly recommend this book and look forward to hearing what you think of it. It is better than Bronte’s book, which is also a very good book. If your literary tastes are more Michener than Jane Austin, this is definitely the West Yorkshire/Luddite era book for you!
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Luddite History

This is one paragraph of an article by a Murray State professor describing Luddite activity in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Note the primacy of cloth dressers (or croppers), in the movement in West Yorkshire.

John Dixon, who moved the family to Albion in the mid 1800's, was probably a cloth dresser in West Yorkshire. He would have been 12 at the time of these activities... well beyond the age when children went to work full-time.

The factory owners and cloth merchants of the woolen industry in the West Riding of Yorkshire were the targets of Luddism in that county. Although West Riding Luddites represented a variety of skilled trades, the most active and numerous by far were the cloth dressers, called croppers, whose work was threatened by the introduction of the shearing frame. The croppers' work consisted of using forty- or fifty-pound handheld shears to cut, or crop, the nap from woven woolen cloth in order to make a smooth and salable article. They were threatened by two types of machines. The gig mill, which had been prohibited by law since the rule of Edward VI, was a machine that raised the nap on woolen cloth so that it might be sheared more easily. The shearing frames actually mechanized the process of shearing and reduced the level of skill and experience necessary to finish an article of woolen cloth, even though the machines could not attain the quality of hand-cropped cloth. From January 1812 through midspring, Luddite attacks in Yorkshire concentrated on small cropping shops as well as large mills where frames were used. In April Luddites began to attack mill owners and raided houses and buildings for arms and lead. Luddism began to fail after the failed attack upon Rawfolds Mill and the murder of mill owner William Horsfall by George Mellor and other Luddites. By the next winter, West Riding Luddism had run its course, even though after the January 1813 executions of Mellor and other Luddites a few more threatening letters were sent to public officials.

Source:

http://campus.murraystate.edu/academic/faculty/kevin.binfield/luddites/LudditeHistory.htm

Charlotte Bronte's Shirley

Charlotte Bronte wrote a book you’ve heard about, if not read, called Jane Eyre. It was her first and most famous book. Or maybe you’ve seen one of the movies based on that novel.

But you probably didn’t hear about her novel Shirley, her second novel. I just finished reading it, after finding a copy in our extensive public library system.

Charlotte Bronte, (and her other famous writer/sisters) was born in Yorkshire in 1816, making her younger than John Dixon and older than Joseph Freemont Dixon, Sr., my grandfather George’s great-grandfather and grandfather.

She wrote Shirley (one of the main characters is named Shirley Keeldar) in 1849, just after the Dixon’s left for America. Most of her immediate family, including both sisters, died while she was writing the book.

The book is based in the years 1811-12 in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the area where the Dixon’s lived in England. One of the features of the book is a wool mill and serious battles between mill owners and out of work mill workers. This was the era of a rebellion of mill workers, called the Luddite movement, which was caused by the displacement of skilled workers in the wool industry by two things... new technology that required fewer workers, and the financial drain of fighting Napolean Bonaparte. Parliament passed a law in support of the war, opposed by mill owners and workers alike, which prohibited trade with neutral countries, like America, that also traded with the French. The wool industry in West Yorkshire was seriously hurt by the loss of trade.

One of the minor characters, William Farren, could have been based on John Dixon. Both were mill workers called "Cloth Dressers". William Farren is very favorably portrayed by the author. Another character, the mill foreman Joe Scott, could have been based on my dad had the book been based in America 150 years later.

Much of the book reminds you of other Bronte novels, which I call "fainting romance novels". The main characters, members of the leading and secondary ruling classes, express their emotional distress ( linked inevitably to unrequited love) by taking to their sick beds. It’s still a pretty good book. It was popular when released, but has since been panned by critics and therefore isn’t well known. I agree with the author of the preface, that the book is better than the critics give credit for, and the cause may be that the critics just couldn’t appreciate that she meant the book to be a different kind of novel than Jane Eyre.

There’s a lot of talk in the book, although mostly among the gentrified characters, about going west to America. There are also lots of references... intended to be positive because of the portrayal of the ruling classes negativity towards them... to two "radical" religions... Methodism and Quakerism.

When mom was in Florida last month, she reminded me that she was able to eventually get dad to travel to many places in the world and they enjoyed their trips to China, Australia, the Panama Canal, and many other places. However, she said he was always adamant that he would never set foot in England because he despised the British class system. My dad didn’t despise much of anything in this world, even though he disagreed with a lot of folks... from Vietnam War protesters to Democrats in general. After reading Shirley, I’m wondering if his extreme disdain of high society in England was passed down from our English ancestors? Dad would have been one of the "levellers" (someone who advocated the end of class privileges) described in the book. The English fought the French during this time in part because of the fear that the French revolution would spread to England and the English royalty and gentry would "lose their heads"!

The book also gives the reader a good sense of the community structure in rural England at the time, which was based on the "parish" structure of the Church of England. At the end of the book, in the summer of 1812, the local powers, now enlightened about the needs of the poor, prepare to divvy up the local "commons", land jointly used but previously controlled by the church, into private plots for the mill workers and other lower classes. They also expand the local schools serving the poor who didn't have private tutors. However, there was no mention of instituting child labor laws, as many of the mill workers apparently continued to be children. I wonder if Joseph Freemont Dixon, Sr. worked in a mill as a child. I feel sure that his father did.

Leeds, West Yorkshire, England

John Dixon brought his family, including his wife Ann and teenage son Joseph Freemont Dixon (Sr.), to America from Leeds, England.

Leeds is in West Yorkshire. That's due north of London and about halfway from London to the border with Scotland. It's landlocked rather than coastal.

Wikipedia has a couple of great articles. The main article on Leeds has a good introduction and an abbreviated history. You can stop after the introduction, when the article's table of contents appears in a box.

Wikipedia has links (in blue) and you probably don't want to click on all of them. However, in this main article, you might want to click on West Yorkshire, River Aire, West Riding, and Elmet. Didn't our Geography teachers explain that major human activities historically always centered around water... either the coast or a river? Notice that Leeds is a major city today, the 4th largest in England and one of 8 cities that are regional hubs outside of London. Leeds, however, wasn't so large when John Dixon was born around 1800. It grew rapidly between the time of his birth and the day he left for America, increasing from 30,000 to 150,000 in population in just 40 years. The cause? Ever hear about the Industrial Revolution?

Learn about that and more in the History of Leeds article on Wikipedia. I have listed below some points of interest, arranged like the article by major eras in the history of England. Where there are links associated with these points, you might click on them in the Wikipedia article. By opening the Wikipedia article in another browser window, you can move back and forth between this post and the Wikipedia History of Leeds page easier.

Roman and Anglo Saxon Period

Click on Norman, Domesday, William the Conqueror and Harrowing of the North. Most of the history covered here is during the Norman period. The Normans were from Normandy in France (as in D-Day in WWII). This is the period where the French ruled England for a long time and our English language and customs were influenced by the French language and customs.

First Charter

Leeds was the property of a single family... the de Lacy family, for many years. They even rented out the place for many years to another family! Leeds wasn't so much a town as a region back then... very, very rural and sparsely populated. Eventually, the area was merged through marriages with the personal property of the royal family of England. They literally "owned the place". Click on Duchy of Lancaster. Apparently the Duchy still exists!

Late Middle Ages

Click on "modern one", which takes you to the article on the Leeds Parish Church.

Tudor Period

Click on Leeds Grammar School. The establishment of a school was very important, and there were some slots provided for poor kids initially. However, as an English "public school" it is essentially a very expensive, private school. The school still exists and has a web site listed.

Read especially the last paragraph of this section. This paragraph reminds us that the people living in England were not free people during much of history. Some significant rights, but nothing like a representative democracy, were established in this period.

English Civil War

This section describes The English Civil War, a series of wars between Parliament (sometimes led by Puritans) and Royalists in England, Scotland and Ireland. Charles I was eventually defeated, and executed. The Crown was later restored under Charles II. In between, parliament ruled by committee and then Oliver Cromwell ruled as a military dicator. Two end results of this era were the modern relationship wherein Parliament has much more say compared to the King or Queen and that protestant groups other than the Church of England had more freedom. Tolerance still did not extend to Catholics and Catholic-Protestant issues resurfaced later in history.

Woolen Cloth Trade

Raising sheep and producing wool for clothing bloomed in West Yorkshire in the 1700's. This brings to mind that John Dixon's occupation was once listed as "cloth dresser", meaning that he worked with wool as it came out of a loom. Interestingly, I remember Uncle Warren raising sheep on the farm in Spencer, Indiana when I was a teenager. Not many sheep are raised in Indiana.

Industrial Revolution Expansion

New canals, the development of rail transportation, and large steam-powered machines in mill "factories" came to Leeds in the early 1800's. Not covered in this article is the Luddite movement, which our John Dixon could have participated in, even though he would have been about 12 years old. If he didn't know Ned Ludd personally, he surely knew of him! It was essentially a short rebellion of wool trade craftsman who felt that powerful mill owners where abusing them.

Interestingly, there are two novels, including Charlotte Bronte's second novel, (Shirley) and one by Phyllis Bentley (Inheritance), that are based on this theme of struggle between mill workers and mill owners in the Leeds area in the early 1800's. Both are generally favorable to the workers. The Bentley novel, was made into a 1967 TV movie in England and was very popular. So far, I have been unable to locate a copy.