Original cover of This Slavery published 1925

This Slavery by  Ethel Carnie Holdsworth (Trent Editions, 2011)  ISBN 9781842331415

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist is  often lauded by trade union leaders as the book of choice for their members, though I am not sure how many of them have ever actually read it!  But This Slavery is a much more dynamic story of women activists as sisters and  union activists and the choices they make  as they face unemployment, and deserves to be much better known

Written  by Ethel Carnie Holdsworth  this novel shows a different world to the usual portrayal of  a young Lancashire woman who didn’t get an education beyond the school leaving age, works in a factory  and lives with their family in rented  housing.   Set in her home town amongst  the cotton mills in Lancashire, the author  shows that working class people can be political, can be feminist, can  be active in campaigning for  a better world and can  enjoy  classical music and  poetry.

Ethel Carnie was born in 1886  in Oswaldtwistle near Blackburn. Like her family and friends she went to work in a mill at aged 11 years, whilst going to school on a half-time basis. At 13 years she went into the mill full-time as a winder. Working ten hours shifts she was self taught through using the local Co-operative library, with her reading ranging  from Dickens to the Persian poet Omar Khayyam.  She started to write  poetry and eventually had some  published in the local paper. Spotted by socialist author Robert Blatchford she eventually left the mill and took up a writing career. She was clear that she  wanted to write  books about her own class: “What I feel is that literature up till now has been lopsided, dealing with life only from the standpoint of one class.”

Half Timer by  Patti Mayor

In This Slavery  Ethel wrote from her own experience of the factory system and the specific viewpoint (although not the only one) of the lives of women.  Set before the First World War it’s the story of a family of women cotton workers (the Martins)  and it is    through their story, and the effects of poverty  and unemployment that Ethel educates the reader in the historical traditions of why there was a vibrant labour movement during this period.  It is not a story of victims but  of real  people: women and men who took militant action against the factory system.

What I like about the book is the anger felt by the Martin sisters; Hester and Rachel. Rachel becomes active in the fight against the factory owners; “So long as this system remains as it is I’ll attack it.” Her sister, Hester, on the other hand,  decides to marry a factory owner to escape poverty; “I am tired of being a slave. I don’t want to spend my life like my mother has spent hers” Although the sisters then end up on different sides during the dispute,  the story shows how they both struggle in their own ways against two systems of slavery; the factory and marriage.

In October 1923 it was serialised in the labour movement paper the Daily Herald which made it more accessible to a working class audience. Two years later the labour movement published a cheap edition of the novel, making it more affordable for  the audience it was written for.

This Slavery is very much a polemic. Ethel spent her life campaigning for justice,  and specifically the rights of working women.  Some of the language seems old-fashioned and reads like a political tract,  but running through the book is a sense of anger at a system that makes slaves of people who are denied not just roses  but bread too. In many ways it’s a story for 2023, showing that even the poorest people can make changes to the lives they live,  not just as individuals but also  in society generally.

Buy it here