3-011-504 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Cotton Famine: receiving clothes at Bridewell Hospital, London, for the distressed operatives, 1862. '[In Lancashire], the committees for the supply of bedding and clothing [to unemployed textiles workers] are hard at work. They are receiving large supplies from London, where the Bridewell Hospital is set apart as a depot, as well as from other sources...The Artist has shown the sorting and packing room. At this place, since its opening, three weeks since, some 2000 packages of clothing have arrived, some weighing 5 cwt. At the onset some fourteen used to arrive each day, but now the bales come at the rate of 150 a day. They are, unless specially directed, unpacked there, sorted, and repacked in large bales containing a certain number of various articles of dress. The clothing is described by the sorters as excellent, and requiring but little repair. Many bales contain perfectly new suits, especially for children, and the pairs of blankets which arrive are surprising. Two sorters, two packers, a clerk, and a porter to receive the goods are the staff employed. Messrs. Pickford and the Parcels Delivery deliver the bales free of charge, and the London and North-Western Railway Company conveys them without charge to Manchester'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.