A statue of Joseph Brotherton on New Bailey Street in Salford. It bears the legend ‘My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions but in the fewness of my wants’. Brotherton himself was exceptionally generous, founding schools, a lending library, and a fund for the victims of the ‘Peterloo’ massacre at St Peter’s Field in Manchester on 16th August, 1819. He was also instrumental in introducing democratic local government to Manchester and similar industrial cities outside London.
WHEN the late Joseph Brotherton,* member for Salford, in the course of the discussion on the Ten Hours Bill,** detailed with true pathos the hardships and fatigues to which he had been subjected when working as a factory boy in a cotton mill, and described the resolution which he had then formed, that if ever it was in his power he would endeavour to ameliorate the condition of that class, Sir James Graham rose immediately after him,*** and declared, amidst the cheers of the House, that he did not before know that Mr. Brotherton’s origin had been so humble, but that it rendered him more proud than he had ever before been of the House of Commons, to think that a person risen from that condition should be able to sit side by side, on equal terms, with the hereditary gentry of the land.
Joseph Brotherton MP (1783-1857) was an active campaigner against both slavery and the death penalty. His father, originally a tax collector from Derbyshire, took a chance and opened a cotton mill in Manchester, unsentimentally putting his boy to work alongside the rest of the workforce from the age of fifteen. For more information, see the website dedicated to him at Joseph Brotherton M.P. (‘Mr Salford’). Joseph’s wife Martha published the first vegetarian cookery book in 1812.
The Ten Hours Act of 1847, which was however poorly drafted and had to be renewed in 1874, was designed to ensure that industrial and agricultural employers did not overwork their employees.
Sir James Graham MP (1792-1861) was a baronet and a Cabinet minister in the government of Robert Peel. Born in Cumberland, his mother was the daughter of the Earl of Galloway. He was a radical Liberal, vigorously opposed to the Corn Laws and committed to free markets.
Précis
During a debate in the House of Commons, Joseph Brotherton described from personal experience the hardships of a young boy working in the Manchester Cotton mills. Sir James Graham, from a much more elevated social background, was so moved by this proof of Victorian social mobility that he declared he had never been more proud of the British Parliament. (59 / 60 words)