The outbreak of cholera, which was a real event, gave me an ideal way to bring Jennet back into the story with her fight for a washhouse for the town. I took inspiration for this from the real story of Kitty Wilkinson, who lived in Liverpool in 1832, and who, like Jennet, was a washerwoman. It was a story that my late father told me and one that has stayed with me. Kitty Wilkinson was eventually successful and some years later became the superintendent of a public washhouse on Frederick Street in Liverpool. If you ever visit Liverpool Anglican Cathedral you will find her memorialised in a stained-glass window in the Lady Chapel. Do go and see it if you can. There aren’t many memorials to ordinary working-class women who made a difference to society.

Another real person who was mentioned in the book is Mrs Kitchen. She founded the first Female Reform Union in Blackburn and was present at the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester. Although you will find her named as Kitchen in almost all online sources, my research shows she was actually named Alice Mitchard Hitchen. She was a widow with at least one daughter and went on to marry George Dewhurst, who was mentioned as a reformer in The Cotton Spinner. George is an interesting character. He served time in Lancaster Castle for his efforts to win the vote for the ordinary working man. He made such an impression that his friends and admirers presented him with a silver cup, which was recently discovered by a descendant of George’s in an antique shop in Bristol. With the help of a fundraising page, the cup was brought back to Blackburn and is now on display in Blackburn Museum, where you can also see a painting that depicts the 1832 election.

I think you’ve probably guessed by now how passionate I am about the history of my home town! I hope you’ll join me for book three and continue to follow the story of Jennet and her family and to learn more about Blackburn in the mid-19^th century.

Libby x

The Representation of the People Act 1832

The changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution meant that so many people had flocked into the towns to live and work that there needed to be a reform of the way Members of Parliament were chosen. Some boroughs, sometimes called ‘rotten boroughs’, were sending one, or even two, members to Parliament when there were only a handful of people to vote for them – and those electors were often forced or bribed to vote for the man their patron chose. On the other hand, places like Manchester and Blackburn that had rapidly growing populations returned no MPs at all.

The Act created 67 new constituencies of which Blackburn was one. The vote was also broadened to include small landowners, tenant farmers, shopkeepers and householders who paid a yearly rental of £10 or more. However this still left the majority of working men without a vote, and, as a voter was defined in the Act as a male person, it was the first time that women were formally excluded from voting in Parliamentary elections. Before 1832 there were occasional, although rare, instances of women voting.