The Resources Available to Those At Risk of Poverty in Clitheroe’s Cotton Famine

The Resources Available to Those At Risk of Poverty in Clitheroe’s Cotton Famine

In 1860 Lancashire cotton district was at its peak, by 1861 it was

fast collapsing as was the economy and people’s welfare, surrounding

it.

The American Civil War in 1861 not only created dire consequences for

American civilians and over four million slaves, but the North

blockaded the southern ports preventing mills from receiving raw

cotton supplies. Mills imported cotton from other countries but

social factors, such as the peasant economy in India, equated in

supplies being slow and inefficient. By Autumn of 1861 prices for

cotton had soured and mills were closed or merely opened part time.

Lancashire was thrown into a state of poverty and distress. One town

in particular, Clitheroe, saw its economy dramatically collapse from

the previous peak of prosperity in 1860 dragging down with it the

personal finances, and livelihoods, of its cotton labourers making up

almost 40% of the town. These labourers were temporarily, possibly

permanently, unemployed, at risk of poverty, susceptible to

peasantry.

As a poor town Clitheroe was at first ignored whilst larger Towns such

as Blackburn and Darwin were almost immediately provided with relief

and observational attention

A new Poor Law Act had been passed in 1852 called ‘the Outdoor

Regulation Order’ stating labour tests should be undertaken by

able-bodied men enabling them to work in return for outdoor relief,

the Clitheroe board of Guardians objected to this. Perhaps to save

the cotton weavers from damaging their ability of fragility on return

to the mills, as the unemployed steadily increas...

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...iss the ‘problem’. When placing some of the males into Outdoor

Labouring the men were thoroughly distraught and angered, as their

hands and feet became that of labourers, unfit for return to the

mills.

An overriding factor of the Clitheroe cotton famine is that the people

of Clitheroe did retain their pride, no violent riots occurred, they

remained self-sufficient until the last moment and no health epidemics

or incredulous death rises occurred,

“Clitheroe are proud folk, and many of ‘em ‘ll clam before they’ll

deign to come to us for relief;”.

Bibliography

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The Hungry Mills by Norman Longmate

A poor cotton weyver; poverty and the cotton famine in Clitheroe by

Rosalind Hill

http://www.cottontown.org/page.cfm?language=eng&pageID=887

The Lancashire Cotton Industry by Mary Rose