Robert Blincoe (c.1792-1860) was orphaned at a young age and by 1796 was living in the St Pancras workhouse in London. Aged six he was sent to work as a chimney sweep's assistant but was soon returned to the workhouse. A year later he was sold to work in a cotton mill near Nottingham, tasked with picking up loose cotton waste from the cotton frames whilst the machines were operating, a dangerous occupation which resulted in the loss of half a finger. Conditions were extremely bad with long working hours, poor food and frequent beatings. When the mill closed in 1802 he was sent to Litton Mill in Derbyshire where his treatment remained the same. By 1813 Blincoe had completed his effective apprenticeship in stock weaving and continued as an adult worker until 1817. He then left to found his own cotton-spinning business and married two years later.

In 1822 journalist John Brown met Blincoe and interviewed him for an article on child labour. Brown decided to write Blincoe's biography and gave it to social activist Richard Carlisle who published it in five weekly instalments in his newspaper The Lion in early 1828. In 1832 it was published as a pamphlet which led the government to investigate the poor conditions in the mills. It has been claimed that Charles Dickens based his character Oliver Twist on Blincoe but there is no firm evidence to support this.