I noted the letter from Marie Heseltine (June 11) concerning Sidgwick’s Mill, up Chapel Hill, in Skipton.
Perhaps an appropriate time to outline the associated history in light of the present time of civil unrest and links to slavery. For - nothing new in my life - bearing caring thoughts for all the many who suffered through ”black” slavery, there also existed in dark Victorian times and previously a substantial degree of “white” slavery for good measure.
Indeed, not too far distant in our family history.
Amongst it all my grandfather’s brother was killed in 1865 while working in Sidgwick’s Mill at just eight years of age.
And, around the same time, other family children were having to hike in clogs a thirteen-mile round trip in all weathers from Skipton workhouse for a twelve-hours-a day shift in the mill at Addingham.
Meanwhile, on my mother's side of the family - where we might actually be related to the royal family - my grandmother – while still a child – worked in a stately home before being “sacked in disgrace”. This being the landed gentry’s terminology for a young girl becoming pregnant as a result of the lord of the manor demanding one of his servants perform for his own pleasure.
Little care and humility therefore concerning the treatment implicated to many of the “white” race!
Roger Ingham
Aldersley Avenue
Skipton
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