Ellen Johnston
Ellen Johnston’s (1835-c.1873) poetic persona, “the factory girl,” was very much based on her life experiences. She was born to a stone mason and a milliner in Hamilton. When her father decided to emigrate to the United States, a few months after her birth, Johnston’s mother refused to accompany him, fearing for her daughter’s safety. When her mother later remarried, the family moved to Glasgow, where there was abundant employment for working-class families in the textile mills. Johnstone received some formal education, possibly less than a year, before she went to work in mill at the age of eleven.
Johnston’s autobiography suggests that she read whenever and whatever she could, and was particularly fond of Walter Scott’s Waverley novels. Her first published poem appeared in the Glasgow Examiner in 1854, when she nineteen, and after this she regularly published poems in the weekly Penny Post. In 1867 Alexander Campbell, editor of the Post, solicited subscriptions to support the publication of a book of Johnston’s poetry, and the Autobiography, Poems and Songs of Ellen Johnston, “Factory Girl,” appeared the same year.
Poetry writing did not pay, of course, and Johnston remained a factory girl until her early death at the age of 38.
Bibliography
Florence Boos, Memoirs of Victorian Working-Class Women: the hard way up (New York: Palgrave, 2017).