>Gasp out loud<
What terrible ordeals! What trials and trib's for the poor folk and what a horrid committee for promoting the emigration of women to Australia, published pamphlets and all! No wonder then that our Thomas named his first son Job! Really. 
Good grief Rena, you are blowing my mind and thanks so much for all this, it is truly enlightening. As ever, I am struck by the way in which we are all so much more than ourselves.
Can’t find the potted history you mention on Flower and Salmon. Just potted salmon and a rather interesting recipe:
“Pickled caper berries with Caper berry flower buds, served with pinwheel of salmon and a warm salad of new potatoes”.
This was interesting but not necessarily the Flower of Salmon?
The visitation of Wiltshire 1565 (1897) – FLOWER of Potterne – Page 19/
https://archive.org/details/visitationofwilt00harvrich
You could argue that the ones who emigrated through assisted schemes had a lucky escape.
I think it is important to make the distinction between the old domestic system and the factory (mills) system. By the the late 1700s weaving and spinning was becoming mechanised. There was opposition to the new machinery and mills , most notably The Luddites. At Peterloo (1819) most of those attending were mill labourers. In 1842 there was a strike across the manufacturing districts aka the Plug Riots. Chartists too were connected to the industry and districts. During the industrial revolution textile manufacture became increasingly unskilled and wages were driven down. At first the mills were powered by water but in the early 1800s steam power was being introduced. Steam was coal powered and so mill towns and cities grew in areas were coal was available (coal mines also employed children) or easy to transport to. Lancashire , the West Riding of Yorkshire, Chesire, Nottinghamshire , parts of Scotland and so on. The famous chimneys and "dark satanic mills" and slums.
Some of these mills were huge . Listers (West Riding) for example
"At its height, Lister's employed 11,000 men, women and children -Floor space in the mill amounts to 27 acres (109,000 m˛) Every week the boilers consumed 1,000 tons of coal brought in on company rail wagons from the company collieries near Pontefract. Water was also vital in the process and the company had its own supply network including a large covered reservoir on-site "
For a large part of the 19th century the hours adults and children worked were unregulated. A child could start work at age 5 or 6 years old and work a 16 or even 18 hour day 6 days a week. Parents had little choice in sending their children to work. It was either work or starve. The constant action of the machinery could cripple a labourer by the age of 21. The average age of death for a mill labourer in Leeds in the 1830s was 19
There were campaigns to regulate the hours children worked . The Ten Hours Committee for example. Richard Oastler was probably the most famous . If you look up "Oastler Yorkshire Slaves" or "Oastler 1832" or his speeches there is contempory documentation online. Another campaigner was Joseph Rayner Stephens . Even after legislation came in it took decades for it to be implemented .
By the early in the 1900s many children still worked but "half - time"
This is a description by William Holt from Yorkshire who was born 1897.
"When I was twelve I began half-time at the mill. One week I had to work mornings starting at six o'clock; and then on alternate weeks I worked afternoons. Like the other half timers , I felt sleepy when I went to school in the afternoon. The teachers put all the half timers on the back row and if we fell asleep they didn't wake us. I didn't learn much at school. I went full time to the mill when I was thirteen."
Oastler 1832
http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/factmine/oastler.htmJoseph Rayner Stephens
(Warning contains graphic description)
http://spartacus-educational.com/IRstephens.htm
