Mill boy who became an author

A talk on one of Lancashire’s romantic radicals will reveal tonight how a former half time mill worker became a socialist author.

Oldham Local Studies and Archive in Union Street, Oldham, has organised the visit of Dr Paul Salveson, who will talk about his new book “Allen Clarke and the Factory System”.

Dr Salveson said Allen Clarke, who lived from 1863 to 1935, was one of Lancashire’s greatest but most neglected writers.

He started his working life at the age of 11 as a half-time in a spinning mill.

He produced his own socialist paper, “The Labour Light” in 1890, and went on to write over 20 novels, hundreds of poems and short stories, books on philosophy and an indictment of “the factory system” (translated by Tolstoy into Russian).

Dr Salveson added: “He was a passionate cyclist and walker, and an environmentalist before the term was invented. He wrote lovingly about the Lancashire and Yorkshire moors.

“Writing as ‘Teddy Ashton’, his Tum Fowt’ dialect sketches sold over a million copies.

“He was a close friend of Oldham’s J R Clynes who started his working life as alittle piecer’ in the local mills and went on to become a cabinet minister in the first Labour government.”

The free talk is at 7 pm and Dr Salveson will be signing copies of his new book, which is also available at the Chronicle offices.