The Lancashire Cotton Famine began just after the commencement of the American Civil War in 1861 and did not end until its conclusion in 1865 when United States shipments of raw cotton to England were again resumed.

At the beginning of the war, the mills of South East Lancashire and North East Cheshire supplied some 90 per cent of the world's production of cotton yarn and cloth. Indeed cotton cloth was known as Manchester cloth on every inhabited continent. At the height of the Famine over 630, 000 men, women and children were out of work, some two-thirds of the total working population.

In this work Edwin Waugh provides an eye-witness account of the distress suffered by that workforce and the resilience they exhibited in combating it.

Published in support of the Working Class Movement Library, 51 The Crescent, Salford, M5 4WX.