As we have seen, Waugh drew little solace or pride from his work. Though he applauded the objects of the Association, and supported them strongly, he found the actual nature of clerical labour irksome. The particular terms of his work for the Association were doubly irksome: his wages depended on how many contributions he canvassed. This he hated, as it contravened the independence he so earnestly sought: he felt that he lacked the ‘beggarly eloquence’ necessary for this task. There is little sign that he felt manual work to be any more rewarding in itself: as he says in September 1847, when he was working as a typesetter for the Tory newspaper proprietor Thomas Sowler in Manchester (the murders and ‘police news’ of newspapers he found disgusting), ‘I have nothing for it but my labour – tis for the bare life.’ Work is seen without sentiment, as a necessity. However, as a necessity, it is to be valued in so far as it leads to independence of character: as was seen in Waugh's favourable comparison of his wife with idle, ‘misbred’ young ladies, hers is the dignity which comes of being able to get a living with one's own hands.

Want and the necessity it brings are also registered in an unsentimental way. Debt was at times a consuming concern.