Salesman Richard Cobden wondered why his employers left a full warehouse in his hands without any kind of security.
Richard Cobden, the great liberal statesman, began with few advantages in life. His father, a bankrupt Sussex farmer, handed him over to relatives, who hastily packed the ten-year-old boy off to a Yorkshire boarding school — a veritable Dotheboys Hall. At fifteen, he was released from this captivity, but sweeping the floors for his rich uncle did not seem to promise much better.
Travelling salesman Richard Cobden was still in his twenties when he bought a loss-making mill for a hundred times his annual salary.
At sixteen, poor relation Richard Cobden accepted a menial job from his uncle, who let him know how great a favour it was. Resolutely, Cobden freed himself from family obligations, and by his late twenties he was a trusted broker at the London office of a Manchester textile mill. His next step up was a daring leap.
When Elizabeth Fry asked if she could lead prayers for the women inside Newgate gaol, the Governor was momentarily confused.
Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) sprang to the public’s attention in 1813, after asking the Governor of Newgate prison if she might be allowed to read prayers for the female inmates. To his amazement she wanted to do it not through the railings of the outer courtyard, but inside the gaol. And to his credit the Governor, feebly informing her that there was no precedent for such a thing, said Yes.