John Fielden also known as
Honest John Fielden, was a British social reformer and benefactor. He was the third son of Joshua Fielden, and began working in his father's mill at the age of 9. With his brothers, he expanded the family cotton business at
TodmordenTodmorden is a market town and civil parish, located 17 miles from Manchester, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, in West Yorkshire, England. It forms part of the Upper Calder Valley and has a total population of 14,941....
to become a wealthy businessman. In 1811, he married Ann Grindrod of Rochdale, and they had 7 children called Jane (1814), Samuel (1816), Mary (1817), Ann (1819), John (1822), Joshua (1827) and Ellen (1829). In 18??, he married Elizabeth Dearden. In turn, a Quaker, Methodist, and
UnitarianUnitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
Methodist, he was a Radical
Member of ParliamentA Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for
OldhamOldham was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Oldham, England. It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom...
from 1832 to 1847, first elected alongside
William CobbettWilliam Cobbett was an English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist, who was born in Farnham, Surrey. He believed that reforming Parliament and abolishing the rotten boroughs would help to end the poverty of farm labourers, and he attacked the borough-mongers, sinecurists and "tax-eaters" relentlessly...
with whom he had been a key figure in the campaign leading to the
Reform Act 1832The Representation of the People Act 1832 was an Act of Parliament that introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of England and Wales...
.
In 1829, Fielden Brothers introduced the power loom to the Calder Valley.
Fielden fought for shorter working hours, promoting the Ten Hours Act also known as the 1847 Factory Act. He also protested against the new
Poor LawThe English Poor Laws were a system of poor relief which existed in England and Wales that developed out of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws before being codified in 1587–98...
. In 1833, he seconded a resolution to remove Sir Robert Peel from the Privy Council.
In 1832, he published his
The Mischiefs and Iniquities of Paper Money, and, in 1836, a pamphlet
The Curse of the Factory System of which the preamble reads:
"A Short Account of the Origin of Factory Cruelties; of the Attempts to Protect the Children by Law; of Their Present Sufferings; Our Duty Towards Them; Injustice of Mr Thomson's Bill; the Folly of the Political Economists; a Warning Against Sending the Children of the South into the Factories of the North"
Following local riots, the government sent a group to investigate whether he had incited, encouraged or supported the rioters. He is buried at Todmorden Unitarian Chapel. During the
Cotton famineThe Lancashire Cotton Famine, also known as The Cotton Famine or the Cotton Panic , was a depression in the textile industry of North West England, brought about by the interruption of baled cotton imports caused by the American Civil War. The boom years of 1859 and 1860 had produced more woven...
of the 1860s, his family paid unemployed workers to build roads and buildings in the
TodmordenTodmorden is a market town and civil parish, located 17 miles from Manchester, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, in West Yorkshire, England. It forms part of the Upper Calder Valley and has a total population of 14,941....
district.
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