3-012-037 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Cotton Famine: distributing tickets for bread, soup, meat, meal, coal etc, at the office of a district provident society, Manchester, 1862. From "Illustrated London News", 1862. Starving Lancashire textile workers queue for food and fuel. 'The soup-kitchen of the Society of Friends at the lower end of Mosley-street...was opened on the 8th of April, and has been in constant operation since...[View of] the antechamber to the kitchen, which is shown below. Here the distribution commences at eight o'clock, and a number of the Friends personally superintend the operation. A large proportion of tickets in exchange for which it is given are purchased by the various relief societies of the town for gratuitous distribution, as part of their relief, in addition to bread and meat. The arrangements are very complete. At present 1000 gallons a day can he made, and that quantity could be largely increased at a small outlay. The actual quantity delivered last week was 17,246 quarts, and the previous week 16,884. In addition to the amount sunk every week, the soup-committee have made considerable grants in soup-tickets to the Provident Society, the City Mission, Ragged School, and other public bodies'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.