Joseph Livesey: the Walton weaver
 Following
the deaths of both of Joseph Livesey's parents, the family concern eventually
failed, and young Joseph's status fell from that of the rising manufacturer's
son, to that of a jobbing weaver: 'The cellar where my grandfather and uncle
worked held three looms, and so soon as I was able I was put to weaving; and
for seven years I worked in a corner of that damp cellar, really unfit for any
human being to work in -the fact that from the day it was plastered to the day
I left the mortar was soft - water remaining in the walls - was proof of this.
And to make it worse, the Ribble and the Darwen sometimes overflowed their banks,
and inundated this and other cellars adjoining. It has to me often been a subject
of surprise how I bore up and escaped with my life, sitting all the long day
close to a damp wall. I remember taking our pieces to Messrs Horrocks and Jacson's
warehouse, and I never wove for any firm but this, and the late Mr Timothy France
of Mount Street'.
Livesey married, and the young couple rented a small cottage in the village
and struggled to make a living in the trade: 'On the loom I was most industrious,
working from early in the morning often till ten and sometimes later at night,
and ... my wife ... not only did all the house work, but wound the bobbins for
three weavers, myself, uncle, and grandfather, and yet, with all this apparently
hard lot, these were happy days'.
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