John Fielden

John Fielden (17 January 1784 – 29 May 1849), also known as Honest John Fielden, was a British social reformer and benefactor. He was the third son of Joshua Fielden, and began working in his father's mill at the age of 9. With his brothers, he expanded the family cotton business at Todmorden to become a wealthy businessman. In 1811, he married Ann Grindrod of Rochdale, and they had 7 children. In 18??, he married Elizabeth Dearden. In turn, a Quaker, Methodist, and Unitarian Methodist, he was a Radical Member of Parliament for Oldham from 1832 to 1847, first elected alongside William Cobbett with whom he had been a key figure in the campaign leading to the Reform Act 1832.

In 1829, Fielden Brothers introduced the power loom to the Calder Valley. Fielden fought for shorter working hours, promoting the Ten Hours Act also known as the 1847 Factory Act. He also protested against the new Poor Law. In 1833, he seconded a resolution to remove Sir Robert Peel from the Privy Council.

In 1832, he published his The Mischiefs and Iniquities of Paper Money, and, in 1836, a pamphlet The Curse of the Factory System of which the preamble reads:

"A Short Account of the Origin of Factory Cruelties; of the Attempts to Protect the Children by Law; of Their Present Sufferings; Our Duty Towards Them; Injustice of Mr Thomson's Bill; the Folly of the Political Economists; a Warning Against Sending the Children of the South into the Factories of the North"

Following local riots, the government sent a group to investigate whether he had incited, encouraged or supported the rioters. He is buried at Todmorden Unitarian Chapel. During the Cotton famine of the 1860s, he and his family paid unemployed workers to build roads and buildings in the Todmorden district.

References

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

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