CHAPTER VI 



WORK IN MANCHESTER, 1 862 1872 



Cotton Famine Recreative Evenings Penny Science Lectures Marriage 

 Public Lectures in London Faraday Herschel Vanadium 

 and other Researches Oxford Professorship Literary Work 

 Macmillan. 



IN the winter of 1862 the Cotton Famine was at its 

 height in Lancashire, and thousands of mill-hands, 

 both male and female, were thrown out of work 

 through no fault of their own. It was felt by some 

 friends and myself that whilst the behaviour of 

 the people in these most trying circumstances was 

 in the highest degree creditable to them, yet there 

 was some danger of a depression of spirits occur- 

 ring, which might lead to serious results if the 

 attention of the unemployed was not turned in some 

 new direction. Hence a committee, of which my 

 late friend Dr. John Morgan and myself were the 

 secretaries, was formed with the object of providing 

 recreation in the evenings for these unemployed opera- 

 tives. We hired some disused mills and other large 

 rooms and started a series of entertainments of various 

 kinds. I see from a circular which we issued that 

 during the four winter months of the above year 

 more than one hundred recreation evenings were given 

 to audiences averaging upwards of 4,000 a week. 



