ETHEL CARNIE (1882-1962)
Ethel Carnie was born in 1886 in Oswaldwhistle, Lancashire. Her parents worked in the local mills. When Carnie was six years old, the family moved to the larger, expanding textile town of Great Harwood. At the age of eleven, Carnie herself started work in a cotton mill as a half-timer, while she also attended school. When she was thirteen she began working full-time. Her father was a member of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) and took her along to political meetings with him. Young Ethel was an avid reader. She borrowed books from the local co-operative library to read the likes of Dickens, Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Walter Scott. She wrote poetry from an early age, and around the age of seventeen, she began to submit some of her verses to local newspapers. The editor W.H. Burnett, was very impressed, and he encouraged her to write more. Burnett was instrumental in the development of her literary career. In 1907, with Burnett’s assistance a small volume of Carnie’s poems was published, called Rhymes From the Factory. The first edition of her poems sold out fast, and a second, larger edition quickly followed.
Carnie was a highly politicized young woman who was profoundly aware of the material conditions in which she lived and worked. Her poems deal with social problems she experienced and witnessed in her own daily living. In the preface to Rhymes from the factory she describes how she would compose her verses while at work: ‘I went on ‘half-time at eleven as a reacher in the Delph Road Mill, at Great Harwood, after which I became a winder at the St Lawrence mill in the same town. I was a winder for some six years. ‘Twas in this period that I wrote ‘The Bookworm,’ which seems to have attracted the most attention of any of my writings. It was really composed one morning whilst working at my loom. I think it is no exaggeration to say that all my poems came into my head at the mill.’ Carnie championed the education of the lower classes, and she extolled the virtues of self-education. The volume Rhymes from the factory contains her celebrated poem ‘The Bookworm’. In it, she writes:
For I am heir to an estate
That fortune cannot take from me
The treasure rooms of intellect
With gates ajar eternally.
In the same volume, in the poem ‘The Rich and Poor’, Carnie critiques social inequality and argues for the breaking of class distinction based on heredity and money:
My heart is weary and my soul turns cold
With loathing. From all sides a cry for gold
Arises. Men with coffers flowing o’er
Still kneel at Mammon’s shrine and pray for more.
.
The second edition of Rhymes from the factory brought Carnie wide acclaim. Robert Blatchford, the well-known socialist and publisher of the popular Clarion newspaper, interviewed Carnie at her home, and an article about her in his newspaper The Women Worker ensued, entitled ‘A Lancashire Fairy’. In the article, Blatchford describes the industrial town in which Carnie lived: ‘Great Harwood is a monstrous agglomeration of ugly factories, of ugly gasometres, of ugly houses – bright boxes with slate lids. There is neither grace nor beauty in Great Harwood. It is the last place in which one would expect to find a poet.’ At the age of 22, encouraged by Blatchford, Carnie left her home and her work at the mill to go to London to work as a full-time writer and journalist. Whilst in London, she wrote for a number of newspapers including The Clarion and The Women Worker. Carnie was a member of the Social Democratic Federation. In her journalism, she is an ardent critic of the factory system, and challenged gender roles and the position of working-class women under socialism. In 1909, The Women Worker collapsed and, after a bitter split with Blatchford, Carnie returned to Lancashire and factory work for a while.
Nevertheless, Carnie continued to write. In 1911, she published another volume of poetry, Songs of a Factory Girl. In 1913, she published her first novel, Miss Nobody. In 1917, her second novel Helen of Four Gates was published. This novel was a best-seller, and in 1921 it was made into a silent film. The press compared the novel to Thomas Hardy’s Tess of The Durbervilles. Carnie’s fiction is generally set in gritty northern working-class scenarios, particularly in the domestic arena where the focus is on female issues such as motherhood, and the difficulties in achieving happy relationships with men under the constant rigours of poverty. Her fiction is generally light-hearted in tone, similar in style to the short romantic stories working-class women read in the popular weekly magazines of the period. However, in 1925 the tone changes dramatically in the novel for which she is best known, This Slavery. The political content of the novel is foreshadowed by the dedication at the beginning: ‘To my mother and father, slaves and rebels. I dedicate this little book, with a daughter’s affection and a Comrade’s greetings.’ Within the pages, Carnie explicitly exposes her socialist consciousness. The novel is abundant with socialist allusions and ideology, as well songs of the international labour movement. It is a scathing critique of economic inequality and the sexual division of labour, and a passionate plea for women’s liberation. The novel was not released by her usual publishers but by the Labour Publishing Company - a 1920s press which aimed to make cheap copies of left wing texts that were affordable to working-class people.
Carnie married Alfred Holdsworth, who was himself a poet, and a political activist. They had two daughters together. After the war, the family moved to Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, and from their home Carnie and her husband published The Clear Light, an anti-fascist journal. After enjoying somewhat of a celebrity status as an acclaimed writer, Carnie seems to have disappeared from literary life around the mid 1930s, and in course her work was forgotten. Her marriage broke down, and she and her husband separated. She died in Manchester in 1962. Nowadays, Carnie is recognised as the first working-class woman to publish a novel. She was perhaps fortunate in that she was writing at the time of the rise of the trade union movement and the militant women’s suffrage movement. These gave her a voice that people were ready to listen to, and her writing caught the public imagination. She never mentions having any allegiance to the suffragettes or of ever meeting the Pankhursts, but two of her poems were set to music by the composer Ethel Smyth, and dedicated to Emmeline and Christabel. Carnie’s life has much in common with other literary working-class women of the period, such as Mary Smith and Ellen Johnston. Considering the enormous constraints working-class women faced at the time, Carnie’s achievements are remarkable.
Carnie was a highly politicized young woman who was profoundly aware of the material conditions in which she lived and worked. Her poems deal with social problems she experienced and witnessed in her own daily living. In the preface to Rhymes from the factory she describes how she would compose her verses while at work: ‘I went on ‘half-time at eleven as a reacher in the Delph Road Mill, at Great Harwood, after which I became a winder at the St Lawrence mill in the same town. I was a winder for some six years. ‘Twas in this period that I wrote ‘The Bookworm,’ which seems to have attracted the most attention of any of my writings. It was really composed one morning whilst working at my loom. I think it is no exaggeration to say that all my poems came into my head at the mill.’ Carnie championed the education of the lower classes, and she extolled the virtues of self-education. The volume Rhymes from the factory contains her celebrated poem ‘The Bookworm’. In it, she writes:
For I am heir to an estate
That fortune cannot take from me
The treasure rooms of intellect
With gates ajar eternally.
In the same volume, in the poem ‘The Rich and Poor’, Carnie critiques social inequality and argues for the breaking of class distinction based on heredity and money:
My heart is weary and my soul turns cold
With loathing. From all sides a cry for gold
Arises. Men with coffers flowing o’er
Still kneel at Mammon’s shrine and pray for more.
.
The second edition of Rhymes from the factory brought Carnie wide acclaim. Robert Blatchford, the well-known socialist and publisher of the popular Clarion newspaper, interviewed Carnie at her home, and an article about her in his newspaper The Women Worker ensued, entitled ‘A Lancashire Fairy’. In the article, Blatchford describes the industrial town in which Carnie lived: ‘Great Harwood is a monstrous agglomeration of ugly factories, of ugly gasometres, of ugly houses – bright boxes with slate lids. There is neither grace nor beauty in Great Harwood. It is the last place in which one would expect to find a poet.’ At the age of 22, encouraged by Blatchford, Carnie left her home and her work at the mill to go to London to work as a full-time writer and journalist. Whilst in London, she wrote for a number of newspapers including The Clarion and The Women Worker. Carnie was a member of the Social Democratic Federation. In her journalism, she is an ardent critic of the factory system, and challenged gender roles and the position of working-class women under socialism. In 1909, The Women Worker collapsed and, after a bitter split with Blatchford, Carnie returned to Lancashire and factory work for a while.
Nevertheless, Carnie continued to write. In 1911, she published another volume of poetry, Songs of a Factory Girl. In 1913, she published her first novel, Miss Nobody. In 1917, her second novel Helen of Four Gates was published. This novel was a best-seller, and in 1921 it was made into a silent film. The press compared the novel to Thomas Hardy’s Tess of The Durbervilles. Carnie’s fiction is generally set in gritty northern working-class scenarios, particularly in the domestic arena where the focus is on female issues such as motherhood, and the difficulties in achieving happy relationships with men under the constant rigours of poverty. Her fiction is generally light-hearted in tone, similar in style to the short romantic stories working-class women read in the popular weekly magazines of the period. However, in 1925 the tone changes dramatically in the novel for which she is best known, This Slavery. The political content of the novel is foreshadowed by the dedication at the beginning: ‘To my mother and father, slaves and rebels. I dedicate this little book, with a daughter’s affection and a Comrade’s greetings.’ Within the pages, Carnie explicitly exposes her socialist consciousness. The novel is abundant with socialist allusions and ideology, as well songs of the international labour movement. It is a scathing critique of economic inequality and the sexual division of labour, and a passionate plea for women’s liberation. The novel was not released by her usual publishers but by the Labour Publishing Company - a 1920s press which aimed to make cheap copies of left wing texts that were affordable to working-class people.
Carnie married Alfred Holdsworth, who was himself a poet, and a political activist. They had two daughters together. After the war, the family moved to Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, and from their home Carnie and her husband published The Clear Light, an anti-fascist journal. After enjoying somewhat of a celebrity status as an acclaimed writer, Carnie seems to have disappeared from literary life around the mid 1930s, and in course her work was forgotten. Her marriage broke down, and she and her husband separated. She died in Manchester in 1962. Nowadays, Carnie is recognised as the first working-class woman to publish a novel. She was perhaps fortunate in that she was writing at the time of the rise of the trade union movement and the militant women’s suffrage movement. These gave her a voice that people were ready to listen to, and her writing caught the public imagination. She never mentions having any allegiance to the suffragettes or of ever meeting the Pankhursts, but two of her poems were set to music by the composer Ethel Smyth, and dedicated to Emmeline and Christabel. Carnie’s life has much in common with other literary working-class women of the period, such as Mary Smith and Ellen Johnston. Considering the enormous constraints working-class women faced at the time, Carnie’s achievements are remarkable.
