Robert Blincoe (c. 1792-1860) became famous during the 1830s for his popular "autobiography" detailing the horrific account of his childhood spent as a labourer in English cotton mills. This work, however, is not technically an autobiography as his story was told to journalist John Brown, who wrote the manuscript but died before publishing it. The manuscript was given to a friend who published the resulting book, A Memoir of Robert Blincoe, in five episodes in the magazine The Lion in 1832. Historian John Waller has asserted that Charles Dickens based his character Oliver Twist on Blincoe, but no firm documentary or anecdotal evidence exists that this is true. Still, the publication of Blincoe's "memoir" had an impact on bringing the horrors of child labour to a wider audience, which in turn led to legislation to limit working hours and improve working conditions for child labourers.

Factory Lives contains four works of great importance in the field of nineteenth-century working-class autobiography: John Brown’s A Memoir of Robert Blincoe; William Dodd’s A Narrative of the Experience and Sufferings of William Dodd; Ellen Johnston’s “Autobiography”; and James Myles’s Chapters in the Life of a Dundee Factory Boy. This Broadview edition also includes a remarkably rich selection of historical documents that provide context for these works. Appendices include contemporary responses to the autobiographies, debates on factory legislation, transcripts of testimony given before parliamentary committees on child labour, and excerpts from literary works on factory life by Harriet Martineau, Frances Trollope, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, among others.

From a parish workhouse to the heart of the industrial revolution, from debtors' jail to Cambridge University and a prestigious London church, Robert Blincoe's political, personal and turbulent story illuminates the Dickensian age like never before. In 1792 as revolution, riot and sedition spread across Europe, Robert Blincoe was born in the calm of rural St Pancras parish. At four he was abandoned to a workhouse, never to see his family again. At seven, he was sent 200 miles north to work in one of the cotton mills of the dawning industrial age. He suffered years of unrelenting abuse, a life dictated by the inhuman rhythm of machines. Like Dickens' most famous character, Blincoe rebelled after years of servitude. He fought back against the mill owners, earning beatings but gaining self-respect. He joined the campaign to protect children, gave evidence to a Royal Commission into factory conditions and worked with extraordinary tenacity to keep his own children from the factories. His life was immortalised in one of the most remarkable biographies ever written, A Memoir of Robert Blincoe. Renowned popular historian John Waller tells the true story of a parish boy's progress with passion and in enthralling detail.

This book surveys the lives and experiences of hundreds of thousands of eighteenth-century non-elite Londoners in the evolution of the modern world.

In writing this book, Elena Stevens' aim is to respond to calls for a more diverse, decolonised curriculum - calls which have become more insistent following the reinvigoration of the Black Lives Matter movement, the #MeToo movement and other landmark events. Highlighting the lived experiences of women, the working classes, and BAME and LGBTQ+ communities in particular, 40 Ways to Diversify the History Curriculum draws upon a wide range of personal stories to exemplify significant historical moments and shed new light on topics that have traditionally been taught through narrower lenses. The book serves as a resource bank for teachers wishing to enliven and diversify history lessons at Key Stages 2-3, GCSE, A level and beyond.Elena helpfully opens with a discussion of the theoretical/historiographical developments that lay behind calls to diversify the curriculum - and, to accompany each of the 40 historical case studies, she provides ideas and activities for translating the case studies into lesson plans and enquiries. Furthermore, Elena also guides teachers in shaping new enquiries from scratch.Suitable for teachers of secondary school and Key Stage 2 history.