The real Esther Price

2 July 2014

Esther Price was one of the 900 children apprenticed at Quarry Bank Mill between 1785 and 1847. She was indentured to Samuel and Robert Hyde Greg by the parish of Liverpool on 14 November 1833. According to the indenture, she was 12 years old and was to serve until the age of 18.

After the signing of her indenture, Esther doesn’t appear in the record books until an account by Robert Hyde Greg of ‘misdemeanours’ in November 1835 when Esther and another girl assaulted a fellow apprentice with such violence that Samuel Greg sent them before the magistrate. They received no punishment. In August 1836, Esther appears in the records again, having run away with a fellow Liverpool girl, Lucy Garner. The two girls received a term of solitary confinement – Lucy three days and Esther a week. Esther was confined to a room in the Apprentice House with the windows boarded-up to prevent her escape and to deter communication. She slept on the floor and received only milk, porridge and bread twice a day.

It seems Esther was feeling frustrated at this time, which is illustrated by the copy of her baptismal certificate that is attached to her indenture. It was unusual for indentures to be accompanied by such paperwork and it is dated October 1836, shortly after her term of solitary confinement. At the top of it is written by hand, “Esther claims she will be 18 in March 1838”. Dr Holland had estimated her age on her arrival in 1831 as nine (really eleven), and her indenture had given her age as twelve (in reality thirteen). We do not know who had obtained the copy of this certificate but it suggests that Esther was determined to get out of the Apprentice House as quickly as possible.

After all this, it is astonishing that Esther was given the opportunity to stay on after her apprenticeship had expired. It is true that there was an acute shortage of labour at the time but it is even more surprising that Esther made the decision to stay on. The wages books for 1837 to March 1840 have not survived but we can assume that from May 1838 Esther was an adult worker in the mill. The first time Esther’s name occurs in the wage books is in April 1840 when she is listed in the third spinning room, being paid 7 shillings a week. At the end of May, however, Esther was transferred to the reeling room where she remained until April 1841. During this period Esther earned up to 8 shillings a week. In April 1841 Esther was moved to the third spinning room where she remained until March 1842 when she is listed under the heading ‘hands learning to weave’. Her induction lasted until the end of June when she moved to the fourth weaving room.

After leaving the Apprentice House we know that in May 1839, Esther gave birth to an illegitimate child, William. The father is named as William Whittaker, a shoemaker. The birth certificate for William Price reveals that Esther was illiterate, since she could only make her mark in the appropriate place. William Price died in infancy in November 1840. We know from the 1841 census that during this period Esther was living at 5 Oak Cottages, Styal, with two other families – the Howletts and the Holts. William Whittaker lived with his family in Holts Lane. However, the relationship continued, for in September 1843 she gave birth to another child by him, Thomas Price.

Whether William provided any financial support for Esther is questionable. It is also unclear where Esther was living at the time of the birth of her second child. The rent books for Oak Cottages during the mid-to-late 1840s have survived, but Esther’s name is not recorded there. The 1851 census taken in March shows Esther and her son Thomas living in Styal Green while William remained in his father’s house. However, in October 1851 William and Esther were finally married. William and Esther may have waited so long to marry due to family opposition to the marriage. It seems a reasonable assumption as in June 1851, William’s father, Abraham, who was 84 and blind, had passed away. William and Esther had two more children.

Esther died on 17 November 1861, she was 41 years old. The cause of her death is given as ‘disease of stomach dropsy’. Esther was buried in St Bartholomew’s Churchyard in Wilmslow on 21 November 1861 but there is no stone to mark her grave.