Month: Aug 2024

A song for the Potters,
The Staffordshire Potters,
A lay for their children so tender and young,
Who treading the jiggers,
Toiling as slaves,
Suffer, with them, much oppression and wrong.

Chorus: Who treading etc.

At six in the morning,
Ere daybreak is dawning,
Mere infants in Petticoats stand at the wheel,
Privations enduring,
While barely securing,
The means of procuring the requisite meal.

Chorus: Privations etc.

And when evening shadows,
Flit over the meadows,
And songsters are snug and asleep in their nest,
Still heavily laden,
The meek little maiden,
Has much to endure ere retiring to rest.

Chorus: Still heavily etc.

Their poor little brothers,
In common with others,
Their equal in stature, who toil through the day,
Not one duty shunning,
Are either 'mould running',
Or working like slaves in the wedging of clay.

Chorus: Not one duty etc.

A whip for the fathers,
A rod for the mothers,
So early for labour, who drag them from school, 
Thus changing their nature,
While stunting their stature,
And dwarfing their energies, body and soul.

Chorus: Thus changing etc.

The eye of the nation,
Winks not at oppression,
Philanthropists soon to their rescue will come,
While public opinion,
The sword of the million,
Will smite all the minions of slavery dumb.

Chorus: While public etc.

Ye stalwart and strong ones,
Oh pity the young ones,
By parents consigned to the doom of the slave!
Let it be your mission, 
To change their condition,
By rescuing them from a premature grave,

Chorus: Let it be etc.

All ye that are healthy,
All ye that are wealthy,
And willing to help them with heart and with hand,
Come on like a river,
And banish for ever,
The remnant of slavery, far from the land.

Chorus: Come on like a river etc.

Anonymous 
Written 1864