Poverty of Upbringing
Key was born in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, where his father worked in the brickfields. At the age of six, his father died and he was brought up by his mother alone; the family were very poor and not only did his mother have to work as a charlady, Key himself was needed to work on deliveries for a local draper. The family were largely dependent on poor relief under the Poor Law: in later life Key often remembered collecting 1s. 6d. and two quartern loaves of bread, being two-fifths of a pound. He claimed to have promised his mother at the age of nine that he would get into Parliament and repeal the Poor Law.
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