Henry Clarke Biography Essay

Henry Clarke was born just 2 years before his parents Mary and John had died in 1797. Him and his 7 year old brother Walter find an orphanage to spend the rest of their lives in later that year. As Walter goes off to work everyday at the factory, Henry stays home and is taken care of by the owners of the orphanage.. Here he grows up and learns how to talk, and is soon old enough to work in a factory himself. Henry is now 5 years old and starts his first day at the factory. When he arrived, it was louder than he expected. The machines clanked so loud that he got a headache in minutes. The sound of screaming and crying filled the room and the air tasted like thick chalk. Dust particles were everywhere as if there was a light fog. It smelt stale.

He had slivers of wood stuck in his hands everyday. Life was tough for Henry, he had to get up at 5 AM for work, then got home around 9 PM with one break around noon that lasted about 45 minutes.. The first couple weeks, he was often beaten for being late because he was so tired and slept in too long and hadn’t gotten used to his new schedule. Walter was already out the door when Henry got up. He was always eating breakfast on the run to the factory because they didn’t serve andy food.The only thing he knew how to make was scrambled eggs, so that’s what he went with everyday. 2 years later, Henry is still a sweeper because he is one of the only people that are good at the job. He shows up to work on a monday 2 hours late and as a punishment he has to stick his arm in a machine and unclog it. Once he was told, he begged the floor bosses to be beaten instead, but they wouldn’t budge. He knew he wouldn’t get them to give in, so he walks to the machine. Sweat was dripping down his face and tears were coming from his eyes. He stuck his arm in the machine and pulls out a rock that was stuck between 2 gears. He tried to pull it out quickly so that nothing happened to him, but he knew that it was a low