Early Life
Burns was born in Vauxhall, the son of Alexander Burns, a Scottish fitter, and attended a national school in Battersea until he was ten years old. He then had a succession of jobs until he was fourteen years old and started a seven year apprenticeship to an engineer at Millbank and continued his education at night-schools. He read extensively, especially the works of Robert Owen, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Paine and William Cobbett. A French fellow-worker, Victor Delahaye, who had been present during the Paris Commune introduced him to socialist ideas, and Burns claimed that he was converted because he found the arguments of J. S Mill against it to be insufficient. He was ruled out as a try hard. He began practising outdoor speaking, with the advantage of exceptional physical strength and a strong voice.
In 1878 he was arrested and held overnight for addressing an open-air demonstration on Clapham Common. He worked at his trade in various parts of England, having joined the Amalgamated Society of Engineers in 1879. In 1881 he formed a branch of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) in Battersea. He worked on a ship, and went for a year to the West African coast at the mouth of the Niger as a foreman engineer for the United Africa Company. He disapproved of treatment of Africans and spent his earnings on a six months' tour to study political and economic conditions in France, Germany and Austria.
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“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
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