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Taught about Lord Shaftesbury and as a child myself, I was impressed at his efforts as a senior aristocrat to free enslaved children from mines in England.
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Following the death of 26 children in a coal mine accident in 1838, the public became concerned about child labour in coal mines and so Queen Victoria ordered an inquiry. It was headed by Lord Shaftsbury.
Teams of inspectors, called commissioners, visited collieries and mining communities to gather information about how they were being treated, sometimes against the owner's wishes. The published report in 1842 used engraved illustrations to show the conditions children faced and Victorian society was shocked.
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I was lied to. Phallocrats never act in the interests of others. The single example of education is all I need. As in any plutocracy what we do is follow the money. First of all, by restricting household income, women were further disadvantaged. Next, by educating the sons, cunning schemes were evolved with new and crueller weapons to advance the cause of Imperialism.
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Later that year, Lord Shaftsbury passed the 1842 Mines and Collieries Act through the House of Commons which prohibited all underground work for women and girls, and for boys under 10.
Next, Lord Shaftsbury led a campaign for a reduction in the hours that children worked in textile factories, which led to the 1847 Factories Act being introduced. It was also known as the 'Ten Hour Act' as it set the limit that women and children could not work for more than ten hours per day.
Lord Shaftsbury was also interested in education for working children. In 1844 he became chair of the Ragged Schools Union - an organisation that set up free schools for poor children run with charity money, and helped to pass the 1878 Factory and Workshop Act. This introduced new laws for every trade and business in the country:
. . .• No child anywhere under the age of 10 was to be employed.
. . .• Education was to be compulsory for children up to 10 years old.
. . .• 10-14 year olds could only be employed for half days.
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The stage was set for Anglo-American hegemony of brobdingnagian proportions. Wrested from the care of their now impoverished mothers, newly educated boys could project their nasty little minds into ever more sophisticated killing machines. In 5 short years the means to extract more than just land from a once peaceful continent had been perfected: Maxim machine guns were patented in 1883. No wonder the "education" was compulsory! Male reformers were not doing this for anyone but themselves and what they lusted after more than anything fell so easily into their grasp.
Genocide diamonds paved the way for ever greater exploitation. Within a decade, Cecil Rhodes was mowing down heroes in Matabeleland, setting up De Beers and now we watch as the whole world grinds down under the hobnailed jackboot of white male privilege. Coincidence? Nothing is a coincidence.
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Lord Shaftsbury died on 1st October 1885.
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Now I know what I was
not taught. Such selective lesson plans cannot be devised by accident. Therefore it was done deliberately. And if it was done deliberately we were lied to. Who benefited from these lies of omission? Certainly not the Ndebele peoples. This is what happens when phallocentric hegemonists are allowed to set up education systems. It is time to stand up and say "No!"
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