Education

Abstract

Thomas Wood (1822–81) was the son of a woollen hand-loom weaver of Bingley in the West Riding of Yorkshire. On leaving school at the age of eight he worked in a woollen mill, until, at the age of fourteen, he was apprenticed to a local mechanic. After working in Oldham and Stockton-on-Tees, he finally settled in Keighley, where he died in 1881. His Autobiography, describing his brief education, the hardships of factory employment, the repercussions of the trade cycle on the lives of working men, and the impact of Methodism, bears all the marks of authenticity: his brief picture of a working-class education may therefore be accepted as typical of that available in a textile community of this period.