Memorialising forgotten child labourers of the Industrial Revolution.

‘Scavengers’ - A study on child workers, predominantly in the silk mills, during the Industrial Revolution

Being born and raised in Derby, the historical influence of the Industrial Revolution has always been overtly apparent; in the abundance of factories, enduring presence of industry through names such as Rolls Royce, Bombardier and more, the working class suburbs. Even the architecture and streets bare industrial marks, all these years on. The most obvious of which is Derby’s Silk Mill pub and, a stones throw up the road, The Museum of Making at Derby Silk Mill which further expands on Derby’s industrial past.

It was this rich history that took me down a deep rabbit hole of research and intrigue, ultimately exposing me repeatedly to the recurring mention of child workers that filled the mills and factory floors and toiled on and under and around the whirring machinery. The more I read about the throngs of unnamed children who were thrust into work, some as young as 6, the more compelled I felt to expose their stories and pay homage to the countless families that suffered as a result.

Collectively, child workers in silk mills were nicknamed ‘Scavengers’ due to the nature of their work requiring them to crawl beneath dangerous, whirring machinery to search for scraps. It was this specific detail that really ignited the idea to work on this collection. This dehumanisation of referring to them as scavengers and reducing them to animals at the very bottom of the food, distanced the idea of dangerous exploitation from the reality of every day life, making it easier for the concept to become accepted.

It is here in this uncomfortable anthropomorphism that I wanted to explore and create. The ‘Scavengers’ collection aims to recreate glimpses into the lives of these working children; to put faces, bodies, names, personalities, emotions and real stories to what historical records have neglected as mere ghosts.

Photo courtesy of the Derby Telegraph

All paintings in the series were created on wooden board using emulsion, acrylic and oil paint, as well as photographs and newspaper cuttings woven throughout.

Avarice

It was not unusual for factory owners to put children to work for 12 hour shifts, though sources state “it [was] not unusual to work from 6am to 6pm or even 10pm.” The children’s’ pay would be little, yet profits soared and greedy owners grew increasingly wealthy as a result.

Scavenger

The most literal representation of the collection’s namesake - Scavenger depicts an overbearing, muddled expanse of dangerous machinery, spinning wheels and cogs, intertwined with wings, claws and beaks. My aim was to try to render the indecipherable chaos that the children must have crawled beneath on a daily basis.

Phossy Girls

In the matchstick industry, workers (mainly young girls) were exposed to white phosphorus as part of their daily work. The fumes from this white phosphorus caused necrosis of the jaw - commonly called ‘phossy jaw’. This condition would begin with swelling and tooth pain, developing into tooth loss, abscesses and pus, and eventually full necrosis of the jaw bone, regularly leading to the jaw detaching entirely or being surgically removed. The affected bones would glow a white-green colour in the dark as a result from the phosphorus exposure. After decades of white phosphorus use in matchstick production, the much safer red phosphorus eventually saw common use.

I wanted the repetitive composition of the piece to feel as if we were moving along an endless line of workers, all afflicted with phossy jaw, with infinite factories belching fumes.

Late

Punishments in textile mills were commonplace, with children naturally slowing down and tiring due to the demanding work and long hours. Beatings, often with leather straps or sticks, were the most applied method of chastising the children, however a particularly cruel method involved forcing the child to stand in a barrel or cistern, filled with ice cold water for being a mere five minutes late. Occasionally the children were even dunked head first and dangled by their feet.

In this piece, we view 2 children from the point of view of an overlooker, or mill owner, who has thrown open his door to cast long, foreboding shadows onto them. The closest child has arrived late and must face their punishment, whilst the distant child has already done so.