Narrative

15. Published for the Cheap Repository for Moral and Religious Tracts and sold for one penny, The Lancashire Collier Girl (London: Evans, c. 1800) by Hannah More and her sisters is aimed at the rural labourers, miners, domestics, women and the lower or working classes more generally. Set in the industrial centre of mining and textiles in northern England, it tells the tale of the daughter of a hardworking miner. At nine-years-old Mary is taken down into the pit. In the face of tragic events, she works, saves, helps her family, and is rewarded with a position as a servant in a middle-class home. In short, Mary exhibits the middle-class values and characteristics advocated by both the Religious Tract Society and the Cheap Repository: she is modest, content, sober, obedient, industrious, thrifty and religious – all of which leads to upward mobility and security.