1851 CENSUS MAN.
Anna, Pottery worker, aged eight, the census man wrote down
As he asked the mother the questions, on his face, a frown.
He hated going into these hovels where the poor live
And sit at scrubbed tables, they have so little to give.

William, he is ten, working in the mine, pulling loads of coal,
His brother Frank, his twin, is the same, they have no goal.
How can they call this life, children working hard all day
I have three children the same age, they are out at play.

There is little Ben and Martha, they are four and two,
My husband died in the mines, soon they’ll work too.
Her eyes were sad, her head hung low, lifeless she seemed,
What must her life be like, hopeless, he deemed.

Yet she struggled through the hard life, through grief and pain,
Tried to feed the children on what little they did gain,
Deep down in dangerous mines or slaving a in dirty factory,
One day she would have them read and gain a victory.

She taught herself to read and write, taught her children too,
Taught them, they were good children through and through,
That poverty was not a sin, but giving in was wrong,
And when work got really bad to sing a little song.

The children grew and improved their lot in life,
All obtained a better station, overcame their strife,
They never forgot a mother who struggled through
To give them the very best, all that she could do.

The next census read better, no young child worked,
They put it down to a mother who duty never shirked,
The potter and the coalminer as children sick and poor,
Turned out much better than the census man at the door.

M Ann Margetson October 30, 1999 ©
99poems/1851

Return to Front Page