entangled in a cogwheel and mangled so badly it had to be amputated ten days later. As was typical for the era, he did not receive any compensation. According to biographer Carla King, the accident helped save Davitt from a lifetime of mill drudgery. When he recovered from his operation, a local philanthropist, John Dean, helped to send him to a Wesleyan school. In August 1861, at the age of 15, he found work in a local post office owned by Henry Cockcroft, who also ran a printing business. He joined the Mechanics' Institute and continued to read and study, attending lectures on various topics. The Chartist movement lasted longer in Lancaster than elsewhere, and Davitt later recalled that Chartist leader Ernest Charles Jones was the first Englishman Davitt had heard denounce landlordism in Ireland. Although he was on a path to be an "upwardly mobile working-class radical", in King's words, Davitt instead chose to join the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) in 1865. Irish Republican Brotherhood The IRB was a secret society that promoted the use of violence to end British rule in Ireland. At the time it was popular among working-class Irish emigrants, and according to another IRB member, "every smart respectable young fellow" from the Irish community in Haslingden joined. Davitt enjoyed the approval of his parents and was soon elected leader of the local Rossendale chapter of about fifty IRB members. In February 1867, Davitt led fifty Fenians on a failed raid on Chester Castle to obtain arms for the planned Fenian Rising that took place later that year. He learned that the police had heard of the plan and were lying in wait and managed to extricate his men from the situation without being caught. In 1868, he left Cockcroft's printing firm to work full-time for the IRB, as organising secretary and arms agent for England and Scotland, posing as a travelling salesman as cover. Although he was wanted by the authorities from 1867, they did not grasp his importance to the IRB. In 1869, authorities obtained a letter that Davitt had written to IRB member Arthur Forrester, urging him not to go through with the execution of a suspected informer. Believing that a direct order would not be effective, Davitt asked Forrester to wait until Davitt could obtain the permission of two members of the IRB council. He therefore appeared to approve of the murder.