Ellen Johnston
Ellen Johnston was a notable figure in the 19th century, recognized as one of the few factory girls who articulated the experiences and conditions of the British working class through her writing. Born in 1835 in Hamilton, Scotland, she faced a harsh upbringing marked by her father's early emigration to America and her mother's struggles as a milliner. Johnston began working in a factory at age eleven, and her life was marred by personal trauma, including alleged abuse from her stepfather and the challenges of raising a child born out of wedlock at seventeen. Despite these adversities, she found some solace in writing, producing poetry that captured the hardships of factory life. Her work gained attention, particularly a poem published in the Glasgow Examiner, which provided temporary financial relief for her family. Johnston's collected works, published in 1867, reflect her feelings of persecution and frustration with both her peers and the literary world. Tragically, her life ended in poverty at the Glasgow Barony Poorhouse in 1873, leaving behind a significant, though often overlooked, literary legacy.
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Subject Terms
Ellen Johnston
Writer
- Born: 1835
- Birthplace: Muir Wynd, Hamilton, Scotland
- Died: 1873
- Place of death: Glasgow, Scotland
Biography
Ellen Johnston was one of the few “factory girls” to write about the conditions of the British working class in the 1800’s. She was born in 1835 at Muir Wynd, Hamilton, Scotland, the only child of Mary (Bisland) and James Johnston, a stonemason in the employ of the Duke of Hamilton. Before Johnston was one year old, Johnston’s father had emigrated to America, where he subsequently was thought to have died, while her mother remained with the child at her home in Bridgeton, working as a milliner. After the supposed death of Johnston’s father, her mother married an unnamed man who put Johnston to work at the age of eleven as a power-loom weaver; although she never explicitly says so, Johnston also implies in her autobiography that he sexually abused her. Unhappy, she repeatedly ran away, but was continually brought home and returned to work. Johnston also states that her factory coworkers were jealous of her intelligence and spoke badly of her; thus, her work life and home life were both distressing to her.
Johnston gave birth out of wedlock to Mary Achenvole Johnston in 1852, at the age of seventeen. Abandoned by her lover and living at home with her mother, child, and abusive stepfather, Johnston notes in her autobiography that she “wished [to die] a thousand times” and more than once attempted suicide. However, a poem she wrote, “Lord Ragland’s Address to the Allied Armies,” earned ten pounds by being published in the Glasgow Examiner, enough money for her family to survive for nearly half a year. Her own health declining, as well as that of her mother and stepfather, Johnston tried writing for a living, but was forced by financial circumstances to return to factory work in Glasgow until 1857. After moving to Belfast, she began increasingly to write poetry about her life as a factory worker, becoming known as “the little Scotch girl” poet.
Even this slight happiness was denied her, however, by a remarkable series of events: Her real father, thought dead for twenty years, had revealed himself as still alive in America. After being told Johnston’s mother had remarried, he had then apparently committed suicide, and shortly thereafter, in 1861, Johnston’s mother also died. Johnston then moved to Dundee to work in the Verdant Works factory, but was discharged in December of 1863. Johnston claimed she was repeatedly slandered and even physically attacked by her coworkers, behavior she attributed to jealousy. However, it is sometimes difficult to credit her relentlessly self-praising writing.
The best of Johnston’s poetry followed, mostly picturing factory life. With the assistance of editor Alex Campbell, Johnston eventually collected about 130 poems and twelve fragmentary pages of autobiography, published as Autobiography, Poems, and Songs of Ellen Johnston, The “Factory Girl” (1867, revised edition 1869). This volume evidenced Johnston’s feelings of persecution by the “ignorant” among her coworkers and her anger at the literary establishment which refused to grant, in her view, the recognition she deserved. This single volume proved to be her only book; after 1869, Johnston seemed to stop publishing poetry altogether. She died in the Glasgow Barony Poorhouse in 1873 at the age of thirty-eight.