Charles Shaw

When I Was a Child: Growing Up in the Potteries in the 1840s Charles Shaw

Charles Shaw was born in Tunstall, Staffordshire in 1832. When I Was A Child is an autobiographical account of his early life working in the pottery industry-first, at the age of seven, as a mould-runner, and later as a handle maker. He describes many incidents in his life, including a brief spell in the workhouse, a rare outing to Trentham, the Pottery Riots of 1842, and how he eventually became a local preacher. The book is a moving, first-hand record of social conditions and child labour in the pottery industry, and provides a fascinating insight into the social history of The Potteries. Shaw's work originally appeared in 1893 as a series of anonymous articles in the Staffordshire Sentinel and, in 1903, it was published as a book under the title An Old Potter. 110 years later, this re-issued edition brings his recollections to a new, twenty-first century audience, revealing what life was really like for the working classes in the 1840s.