John Keith Atkinson was the son of former farm laborers James and Mary Atkinson. They moved to Holmeside to work at Outcote Mill when their agricultural employer's farm was sold by the landowner to another landowner to make his holdings larger and more profitable. Without work and home, they followed other migrants into the city. John was an infant when they moved. In Holmeside the Atkinson family, including five children, lived in the dusty cellar of an already crowded house which provided rough shelter for four families besides themselves. Two families occupied two bedrooms upstairs and two more lived in a single room on the ground floor. The parents of all five families and the eldest children worked at the mill in Staithes. An eight-year-old girl remained at home to care for eleven young children, including John Atkinson. One Sunday morning, while the families rested at home, John and some of the neighbors' children were playing in the dirty street. Without warning, the entire terrace rumbled and fell in a pile of flying bricks and dust killing everyone inside. John and seven other children were orphaned. They were subsequently locked up in an institution together with two hundred other orphaned and poor children. They were held until they could be sold as apprentices to tailors and factory owners. Under the Apprentice Act, they were obliged to work without pay or care until they reached the age of twenty-one. John Atkinson did not live long enough to understand the apprenticeship system. He took his own life when he was still young. This act was his condemnation of the English child slave system. He remembered little of his father, mother and sisters, all of whom died in the collapse. He often wanted to get rid of... half a sheet of paper... children as quickly as possible by finding a place for them. The need for places in orphanages and asylums was so great that the policy was to retain children no longer than necessary. If they sent the underage kids out, well, no one gave a damn. One hundred and sixteen orphans and paupers left a London orphan hospital in a single day to meet the demands of northern textile mills. Although the best orphan institutions made reasonable efforts to ensure that only good masters took in the children, there was no control over the children's progress and treatment, and their welfare was unknown to those who selflessly raised them. Defenseless innocents were entrusted to men who were completely unfit to care for children. Some teachers obtained certification of good character through dishonesty and treated children with barbarity and, in many cases, murderous cruelty..