Why did some of the disabled mill workers who gave testimony to factories commissions specify that they used crutches made of blackthorn wood? Because blackthorn makes the best walking sticks, the wood is strong, durable and supportive.
Blackthorn walking sticks are highly sought-after, even collectible, nowadays. As well as being robust, the knots left where the shoots have been cut off leave interesting textures and patterns. They can be expensive, but 19th century mill workers would have cut their own from nearby countryside.
In Becky Moore and Becky Cherriman’s artwork, My Sisters Hugged Me to Work, they quote William Pickles who described how he was now disabled through working in the mills and had to be carried or hugged to work:
I support myself with a blackthorn crutch. I have to creep up the stairs backwards way.
Isaac Openshaw, a piecer at Taylor and Indles mill at Sharples near Bolton also had to be carried to work. He was questioned by the commissioners:
You have said that you had very great pain while performing your labour; when you became so crooked how could you get to your work?—I went a bit with a stick on the road, and afterwards they carried me by turns, three of them.
Did certain boys consent to carry you by turns to your work?—Yes, and back.
You could not at length have got there otherwise?—No.
Had you to use a crutch then as well as a stick?—Yes, always a crutch; a blackthorn crutch.
And John Jowett from Bradford, another piecer, said that he “Can’t walk without a stick.”
Shoddy exhibition 