The Testimony of Patience Kershaw

Album: Here's The Tender Coming (2009)
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Songfacts®:

  • The Unthanks are a folk group from Northumberland in the North East of England. Fronted by sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank, they were previously known as Rachel Unthank and the Winterset until 2009. The quintet have won a series of awards for their bewitching contemporary take on folk music, including Best Album award at the BBC Folk Awards 2008, and were also nominated for the 2008 Mercury Music Prize.
  • In August 1842 the Children's Employment Commission drew up an act of Parliament which gave a minimum working age for boys in mines, though the age varied between districts and even between mines. This track from the Unthanks' third album, Here's the Tender Coming is centered around the actual account of 17-year-old Patience Kershaw when she spoke to the Ashley Mines Committee about child labor in coalmines in 1842.

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