Once the silk weavers of Spitalfields, London led a gentle life. They were sought after artisans with a comfortable living as employment rates were high. They had leisure hours on Sundays and garden beds with flowers to attend to. Many were descended from the French weavers who emigrated in the 17C.

As more factories opened up in London, competition became greater. Factory owners undersold each other. They paid fewer wages and workers’ hours went up. The workers were obliged to take whatever price they could get. They realized that if they did not take the work offered there would be someone else who did. There was also increased competition from foreign markets. By the 1830’s the value of silk manufacture in Great Britain was £10,480,000. Approximately 9,300 looms were at work with five people working every two looms. Workers were at labour for up to 14 hours per day. Many could not find work at all. They lived little better than paupers often living eight people to a house. They were lucky to eat meat once a week. The children were too valuable as weavers to be sent to school so many, like Thomas Skuce, remained illiterate.

Weavers' houses often consisted of two rooms on the ground floor and a workroom above. The workroom always had a large window so that light could be maximized. Entire streets in Bethnal Green consisted of these houses constructed especially for weaving purposes. Many weavers lived only in one room. Up to seven or eight people may have worked and lived in one room. They would be without a wardrobe, cupboard, sink or sanitary arrangements. The looms, their only source of income took up most of their valuable space. Beyond the tiny income from the looms lay destitution and crime.

This was the life that Thomas Skuse lived in Bethnal Green with his sister Elizabeth, brothers Richard and Samuel, and niece, all silk weavers. They lived at No. 8 Half Nicholl Street – William Goode was their landlord. In December 1834, Thomas had been out of work for some time, however his sister Elizabeth and brother Samuel were weaving a piece of silk for Mr. Thomas Field Gibson. When they completed and returned the piece he would pay them their wages, although their wages would be not be anything like what the silk was worth. Arthur Dear, also employed by Mr. Thomas Field Gibson estimated Elizabeth’s silk to be worth about 21 pounds. Elizabeth did not go to sleep on the 2^nd of December until 11pm. Like many of the silk weavers she had to work long arduous hours just to make ends meet. She left her silk ‘perfectly safe in the loom, bolted the street door and tied her bedroom door with a string’. When she awakened at seven o’clock the next morning the work was gone as well as three rollers that the silk was rolled on. Thomas also was nowhere to be found.

When Thomas’ sister Sarah Plummer asked Thomas of the robbery saying it would clear their sisters reputation if he confessed to the robbery, Thomas admitted that he had taken his sister's silk and that George Taylor had taken Samuel’s silk cutting them away from the loom late on the night of the 2^nd of December.

In his defence Thomas stated that the next day after the robbery he had been out of work for some time and had gone into the country to make a few pounds with his songs. He stated that he had almost a hundred songs. George Taylor went with him to sell the songs. When Thomas returned he found his mother’s shop empty. He did not, he says, trouble his head about his sister. Certainly he did not go back to live with his sister Elizabeth and their brothers. He was arrested by policeman Joseph Cricks at the Fryingpan public house in Brick lane in the middle of December. It seems that Thomas was discharged after being arrested because in the following April, on the 15^th he again stole some silk. This time it was 83 yards and 1 roller valued at 12 pounds from the house of his sister Sarah and her husband Robert. The silk belonged to Robert. Perhaps Sarah and Robert had taken Thomas into their home when he returned from selling his songs.

This time Thomas pleaded guilty and was sentenced to be transported for Life on the 11 May 1835 at the Central Criminal Court. He was never to see his brothers and sisters again. Aged 18, he was transported to Australia on the Royal Sovereign arriving on 12 December 1835.

At age 22 he was assigned to J.R. Hume in Yass and received a Ticket of Leave for this district in 1844. The Ticket of Leave was cancelled in 1857 for being absent from his district.

Thomas may have died in Inverell in 1879 aged 64.

While the appalling conditions of the silk weavers led many like Thomas to a life of crime, many others resisted. They continued to eke out their existence day-by-day, piece-by-piece with destitution always close by. Nathaniel, Thomas’ brother who searched for Thomas after he robbed their sister Elizabeth, remained in London all his life. Born in Kidderminster Worcestershire in 1814, he was taken into the Whitechapel Union Workhouse, South Grove, Mile End Rd, Mile End Old Town, London,  in 1881 and still gave his occupation as weaver.  The decision for him to enter the workhouse was probably not easy. He may have been too ill to support himself, weighed down by the years of hard toil and inadequate food. Perhaps he had no family who could care for him in his old age.  His life span outlasted that of Thomas although probably not by very many years.