My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

CHAPTER IVLONDON WORKERS, SECULARISTS AND OWENITESHaving finally left school at Christmas, 1836 (beforeI had completed my fourteenth year), I think it wasearly in 1837 that I was sent to London to live atMr. Webster's in Robert Street, Hampstead Road,where my brother John was apprenticed. My fatherand mother were then about to move to the smallcottage at Hoddesdon, and it was convenient for meto be out of the way till my brother William couldarrange to have me with him to learn land-surveying.Mr. Webster was a small master builder, who hada work-shop in a yard about five minutes' walk fromthe house, where he constantly employed eight or tenmen preparing all the joinery work for the houses hebuilt. At that time there were no great steamfactoriesfor making doors and windows, workingmouldings, etc., everything being done by hand,except in the case of the large builders and contractors,who had planing and sawing-mills of theirown. Here in the yard was a sawpit in which twomen, the top- and bottom-sawyers, were always atwork cutting up imported balks of timber into thesizes required, while another oldish man was at workday after day planing up floor-boards. In the shopitself windows and doors, cupboards, staircases, andother joiner's work was always going on, and the men