Over the Way Finish:Stretched In the distance is the

In the distance is the steeple of St Vedast

according to Mr Punch

Steve Seargeant and Colin Harvey

A small fire burns in the foreground

for road use

Over the Way Finish:Stretched In the distance is the'Over the Way', 1861. At the time the American Civil War began, Britain imported the bulk of its cotton from the United States. President Lincoln's blockade of the Southern ports caused Britain to suffer a 'cotton famine' which caused great distress to the workers in the mill towns of Lancashire. By early 1862, some quarter of a million workers in Lancashire were out of work and fresh sources of cotton, mainly from India, were sought. Here we see