ABSTRACT
Mr. Biggs was born at Leicester in 1809. His father was from Warwickshire, but was settled in Leicester as a manufacturer in the hosiery trade. His brothers took active interest in the political life of their town, and were ardent supporters of the Liberal party of those days. Joseph, the youngest son, early made himself useful to his father In his business. Nothing delighted him more when home for the holidays than to be allowed to help in the warehouse in marking the bales for shipment and in other ways, such as a. lad could do. On one occasion, when he was little more than eleven years old, he was actually sent off, alone, on the night coach, all the way to Liverpool, in order to countermand some bales that had been sent for shipment to America. The firm to which they were consigned had failed, there was bare time to stop their being despatched, and no one could be £pared who could identify them except the young Joseph, by whom they had been marked. So he started for Liverpool, arrived just in time before the ship had sailed, identified the bales and returned joyful. On another occasion he was set to pay the men their wages; but when he had attained to so responsible a task as paying wages, he felt himself too old for school, and announced his determination not to go back. He was only a little over twelve, but his father, seeing the boy's eager desire for w.ork, wisely areed, on condition that he spent a certaIn number 0 hours each 'day in study, The
result was that he grew up widely read and well informed in many directions, but especially in history, far beyond the average.
