...now valued both as a moving firsthand account of child labour in the pottery industry, and as a narrative of his ‘pursuit of knowledge under difficulties’, inspired by the values of self-help and his religious faith, which enabled him to escape from a life of manual labour. The book vividly illuminates many aspects of Potteries social history, such as popular recreations, life in the workhouse, and the riots of 1842, in a way unequalled by any other source. The popularity of ‘history from below’, and academic interest in working-class autobiographies, have established ''When I was a Child'' as not only an essential source for Potteries history, but also a classic of its kind and a memorial to its otherwise obscure author.〔