Child labour in the Potteries

Sometimes even old cups and saucers have a slice of social history to relate. The above cup and saucer dates from round about 1840 and although unmarked is typical of wares made by the Hilditch and Hopwood pottery at Longton. It was made in part by child labour.

In Scriven's Report on Child Labour in the pottery industry in 1840, Richard Moreton – then aged 9 and working at Hilditch and Hopwood reported.

‘I am a figure maker for William Moreton [Richard’s father], I work by the piece and can make 40 dozen (480) small figures a day: I get 1d for ten dozen, that is about two shillings [10 pence] a week.’

So little Richard Moreton did not work for Hilditch and Hopwood, but for his father William who subcontracted figure making to his 9 year old son.

The 'figures' little Richard made in such vast quantities may have been something like the lilac coloured sprig mouldings on the above cup and saucer. The sprig mouldings were made from soft coloured clay rather like Plasticine. Richard would press them out of the clay using moulds, carefully remove them, then either he or someone else would stick them to the cup or saucer with liquid clay before firing.

These are not high class items of bone china; they were intended for middle class markets to be brought out the china cabinet for genteel afternoon tea parties.

Also from Scriven's report

employments of families

13) The processes being such as to admit of the employment of whole families father, mother, and some two, three, or more children - their united earnings are sometimes £3. or £4. per week: but, proverbially improvident, and adopting the adage,- "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof", they squander the proceeds of their labour in gaudy dress, or at the skittle-ground and ale-house; so that, when overtaken by illness or other casualty, and thrown for a few days out of work, they resort to their masters for a loan, or to the parish workhouse for relief.

Icy madness

When I read this nonsense reported by WUWT I passed over it as yet another example of academic insanity.

Glaciers, gender, and science: A feminist glaciology framework for global environmental change research

Abstract
Glaciers are key icons of climate change and global environmental change. However, the relationships among gender, science, and glaciers – particularly related to epistemological questions about the production of glaciological knowledge – remain understudied. This paper thus proposes a feminist glaciology framework with four key components: 1) knowledge producers; (2) gendered science and knowledge; (3) systems of scientific domination; and (4) alternative representations of glaciers. Merging feminist postcolonial science studies and feminist political ecology, the feminist glaciology framework generates robust analysis of gender, power, and epistemologies in dynamic social-ecological systems, thereby leading to more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions.

Yet the bilge was thought fit to publish and those who wrote it presumably thought they were adding to the sum of human knowledge. Or did they? Is this approach a covert form of special pleading? Has most modern feminism degenerated into a stridently obnoxious form of special pleading? 

Among the comments is this interesting observation from someone calling herself Aphan. Follow the WUWT link to read her comment in full.

Well, I’m a woman and I’ve read the article twice and it still makes no sense to me...

That isn’t equal treatment. That’s lowering the bar. That’s demeaning. That’s pandering. And it’s embarrassing to ALL women who feel like every woman (and man) should be allowed and encouraged to do whatever she wants to do with her life without ANY denigration or ridicule from anyone else. The ONLY “gender” that has ever tried to insult or demean me for making life choices that they personally didn’t approve of…is feminist women.

Political freak show

Although political life provides a staple diet for numerous bloggers, the EU referendum debate highlights a problem which has become somewhat embarrassing. Political life attracts freaks and in the end what does one say about freaks?

We have Cameron, Corbyn and Boris vying for attention and because of their prominence we have to give it to them or lose interest in the whole thing. It isn’t easy to dismiss them as freaks and move on.

These three men lead comfortable lives when judged by the people they aim to govern. Cameron is moderately wealthy but even wannabe pleb Corbyn with his Parliamentary salary and pension pot is assured of a well padded life after politics. They have no real contact with the world of the vast majority of voters. They are not even expert in anything useful.

The embarrassing point is easy enough to state because so many of us know it already. As candidates for high government office these three guys have nothing much to offer. They haven’t done much, don’t have much in the way of personal expertise and are only at the front of the queue because circumstances and their own freakish fascination with power put them there.

That’s the embarrassing bit. Circumstances shouldn’t have put them there. The political machine should have found people with more gravitas and more experience of life outside the Westminster bubble. Actually that’s not the only embarrassing bit. Another is that supposedly mature adult voters still vote for them.

It isn’t really embarrassing though is it? This is how things are with British politics, how things have been for a long time. We shouldn’t forget that people voted for Edward Heath, a political freak if ever there was one. A liar too, but that seems to be normal now.

Too much

Alexa - are the kids mine?

You said not on the fifteenth of February at 11.54 pm. 

Alexa - I was drunk at the time but I mean seriously - are they mine?

The one next door is.

Cash cows

source

From the BBC

Jeremy Corbyn has warned banks not to treat people as "cash cows", as he called for reform of the industry. "That is the job of government" he added.

Fond of lying

His talent for improvising useful falsehoods is innate; later on, at maturity, he is proud of this; he makes it the index and measure of "political superiority," and delights in calling to mind one of his uncles who, in his infancy, prognosticated to him that he would govern the world because he was fond of lying.

Hippolyte Taine on Napoléon Bonaparte

The other day Grandson tried to explain to me how the gases from cars kill people and harm the world. He was very confused about the details but there is no shame in that, the BBC is confused too. I don’t know where he picked it up, quite possibly in the playground, but I was reminded of The Global Goals and The World's Largest Lesson. For example, here is an education target.

By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development

Directly or indirectly Grandson's car ideas came from an adult. Perhaps the notion is not entirely untrue, but for youngsters that isn't good enough. The falsehoods arrive too early.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the internet is where we gain that faint but unmistakable sense of just how extensive the global web of politically useful falsehood really is. Honesty is not common in the public arena, but behind the arena it seems to be rarer still.

Children have little chance of avoiding a cascade of syrupy lies, misinformation and misdirection, little chance of being non-attached in Aldous Huxley’s sense. In future they may have even less chance.

The heavens are empty

“In any case,” she continued, “science has swept away all our past beliefs. The earth is bare, the heavens are empty, and what do you wish that I should become, even if you acquit science of having inspired the hopes I have conceived? For I cannot live without belief and without happiness.

On what solid ground shall I build my house when science shall have demolished the old world, and while she is waiting to construct the new? All the ancient city has fallen to pieces in this catastrophe of examination and analysis; and all that remains of it is a mad population vainly seeking a shelter among its ruins, while anxiously looking for a solid and permanent refuge where they may begin life anew.

You must not be surprised, then, at our discouragement and our impatience. We can wait no longer. Since tardy science has failed in her promises, we prefer to fall back on the old beliefs, which for centuries have sufficed for the happiness of the world.”

Emile Zola - Doctor Pascal (1893)

Rather late in the day, political elites have discovered that in itself science does not offer a mode of social control. It hasn't swept away all our past beliefs, but it made a pretty big mess of them. Over the past few decades we have seen changes which suggest that this situation is to be changed.

Science is to be used to repopulate not the heavens but our social mores, our modes of social control. Social controls are being recast as ‘scientific’ and therefore beyond challenge. ‘Settled’ one might say. We don't have to be smokers to be familiar with a trend which now touches us all in one way or another. The trend continues.

“Climate change is real, it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating. We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people out there who would be most affected by this. For our children’s children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed ... Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted.”

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Oscar-acceptance speech