Child Labor in Britain During the Industrial Revolution
Working Hours
William Hutton admitted that in the winter period he struggled to get to work on
time: "In the Christmas holidays of 1731 snow was followed by a sharp frost. A
thaw came on in the afternoon of the 27th, but in the night the ground was again
caught by a frost, which glazed the streets. I did not awake, the next morning, till
daylight seemed to appear. I rose in tears, for fear of punishment, and went to
my father's bedside, to ask the time. He believed six; I darted out in agonies, and
from the bottom of Full Street, to the top of Silk mill Lane, not 200 yards, I fell
nine times! Observing no lights in the mill, I knew it was an early hour, and the
reflection of the snow had deceived me. Returning, the town clock struck two."
Children who were late for work were severely punished. If children arrived late
for work they would also have money deducted from their wages. Time-keeping
was a problem for those families who could not afford to buy a clock. In some
factories workers were not allowed to carry a watch. The children suspected that
this rule was an attempt to trick them out of some of their wages.
David Bywater, worked in a textile factory in Leeds: "We started at one o'clock on
Monday morning, and then we went on again till eight o'clock, at breakfast time;
then we had half an hour; and then we went on till twelve o'clock, and had half an
hour for drinking; and then we stopped at half past eleven for refreshment for an
hour and a half at midnight; and then we went on again till breakfast time, when
we had half an hour; and then we went on again till twelve o'clock, at dinner time,
and then we had an hour: and then we stopped at five o'clock again on Tuesday
afternoon for half an hour for drinking; then we went on till past eleven, and then
we gave over till five o'clock on Wednesday morning." Bywater claimed that this
led to physical deformities: "It made me very crooked in my knees."
Elizabeth Bentley claimed that it was very difficult for young children to arrive at
the factory on time: "I worked from five in the morning till nine at night. I lived two
miles from the mill. We had no clock. If I had been too late at the mill, I would
have been quartered. I mean that if I had been a quarter of an hour too late, a
half an hour would have been taken off. I only got a penny an hour, and they
would have taken a halfpenny."
Food in the Factories
Factory owners were responsible for providing their pauper apprentices with
food. Sarah Carpenter was a child worker at Cressbrook Mill: "Our common food
was oatcake. It was thick and coarse. This oatcake was put into cans. Boiled milk
and water was poured into it. This was our breakfast and supper. Our dinner was
potato pie with boiled bacon it, a bit here and a bit there, so thick with fat we
could scarce eat it, though we were hungry enough to eat anything. Tea we
never saw, nor butter. We had cheese and brown bread once a year. We were
only allowed three meals a day though we got up at five in the morning and
worked till nine at night."
In most textile mills the children had to eat their meals while still working. This
meant that the food tended to get covered with the dust from the cloth. As
Matthew Crabtree pointed out: "I began work at Cook's of Dewsbury when I was
eight years old. We had to eat our food in the mill. It was frequently covered by
flues from the wool; and in that case they had to be blown off with the mouth, and
picked off with the fingers, before it could be eaten."
John Birley complained about the quality of the food: "Our regular time was from
five in the morning till nine or ten at night; and on Saturday, till eleven, and often
twelve o'clock at night, and then we were sent to clean the machinery on the
Sunday. No time was allowed for breakfast and no sitting for dinner and no time
for tea. We went to the mill at five o'clock and worked till about eight or nine when
they brought us our breakfast, which consisted of water-porridge, with oatcake in
it and onions to flavour it. Dinner consisted of Derbyshire oatcakes cut into four
pieces, and ranged into two stacks. One was buttered and the other treacled. By
the side of the oatcake were cans of milk. We drank the milk and with the
oatcake in our hand, we went back to work without sitting down."
Robert Blincoe argued that food in the mill was not as good as that he had been
given in St. Pancras Workhouse:"The young strangers were conducted into a
spacious room with long, narrow tables, and wooden benches. They were
ordered to sit down at these tables - the boys and girls apart. The supper set
before them consisted of milk-porridge, of a very blue complexion! The bread
was partly made of rye, very black, and so soft, they could scarcely swallow it, as
it stuck to their teeth... There was no cloth laid on the tables, to which the
newcomers had been accustomed in the workhouse - no plates, nor knives, nor
forks. At a signal given, the apprentices rushed to this door, and each, as he
made way, received his portion, and withdrew to his place at the table. Blincoe
was startled, seeing the boys pull out the fore-part of their shirts, and holding it
up with both hands, received the hot boiled potatoes allotted for their supper. The
girls, less indecently, held up their dirty, greasy aprons, that were saturated with
grease and dirt, and having received their allowance, scampered off as hard as
they could, to their respective places, where, with a keen appetite, each
apprentice devoured her allowance, and seemed anxiously to look about for
more. Next, the hungry crew ran to the tables of the newcomers, and voraciously
devoured every crust of bread and every drop of porridge they had left."
Factory Labor and Physical Deformities
William Whatton was a doctor in Manchester whose work involved examining the
workers at Peter Appleton's factory. He told a parliamentary committee in 1818
that child labour in factories "is so moderate it can scarecely be called labour at
all; and under those circumstances I should not think there would be any injury
from it." When he was asked: "Have you had, generally, an opportunity of
observing whether you work of the children tends to produce bad health among
them? Have you observed any particular symptoms of disease about the
children." He answered: "No; I cannot say that I did." He was then asked: "Do
you happen to know whether or not any particular effect is produced upon a
child's frame that is kept standing longer than his strenth will permit, or rather,
than he ought to be subjected to? He replied: "I am not aware of any effect."
However, another doctor, Michael Ward, argued before the committee: "The
state of the health of the cotton-factory children is much worse than that of
children employed in other manufactories.... Cotton factories are highly
unfavourable, both to the health and morals of those employed in them. They are
really nurseries of disease and vice."
On 16th March 1832 Michael Sadler introduced a Bill in Parliament that proposed
limiting hours in all mills to 10 for persons under the age of 18. After much debate
it was clear that Parliament was unwilling to pass Sadler's bill. However, in April
1832 it was agreed that there should be another parliamentary enquiry into child
labour. Sadler was made chairman and for the next three months the
parliamentary committee interviewed 48 people who had worked in textile
factories as children.
Dr. Samuel Smith was one of those who gave evidence to Sadler's committee:
"Up to twelve or thirteen years of age, the bones are so soft that they will bend in
any direction. The foot is formed of an arch of bones of a wedge-like shape.
These arches have to sustain the whole weight of the body. I am now frequently
in the habit of seeing cases in which this arch has given way. Long continued
standing has also a very injurious effect upon the ankles. But the principle effects
which I have seen produced in this way have been upon the knees. By long
continued standing the knees become so weak that they turn inwards, producing
that deformity which is called knock-knees and I have sometimes seen it so
striking, that the individual has actually lost twelve inches of his height by it."
William Blizard was especially concerned about the impact of this work on young
females: "At an early period the bones are not permanently formed, and cannot
resist pressure to the same degree as at a mature age, and that is the state of
young females; they are liable, particularly from the pressure of the thigh bones
upon the lateral parts, to have the pelvis pressed inwards, which creates what is
called distortion; and although distortion does not prevent procreation, yet it most
likely will produce deadly consequences, either to the mother or the child, when
the period."
Cripples in the yard of a children's home in London.
Elizabeth Bentley, who came from Leeds, was another witness that appeared
before the committee. She told of how working in the card-room had seriously
damaged her health: "It was so dusty, the dust got up my lungs, and the work
was so hard. I got so bad in health, that when I pulled the baskets down, I pulled
my bones out of their places." Bentley explained that she was now "considerably
deformed". She went on to say: "I was about thirteen years old when it began
coming, and it has got worse since."
Benjamin Gomersal worked at a mill in Bradford: "I commenced working in a
worsted mill at nine years of age." By the age of twenty-five he was severely
disabled: "I was a healthy and strong boy, when I first went to the mill. When I
was about eight years old, I could walk from Leeds to Bradford (ten miles)
without any pain or difficulty, and with a little fatigue; now I cannot stand without
crutches! I cannot walk at all! Perhaps I might creep up stairs. I go up stairs
backwards every night! I found my limbs begin to fail, after I had been working
about a year. It came on with great pain in my legs and knees. I am very much
fatigued towards the end of the day. I cannot work in the mill now."
William Dodd was one of those who became deformed because of his work as a
child in a factory: "In the spring of 1840, I began to feel some painful symptoms in
my right wrist, arising from the general weakness of my joints, brought on in the
factories. The swelling and pain increased. The wrist eventually measured twelve
inches round and I was worn down to a mere skeleton. I entered St. Thomas's
Hospital and on 18th July, I underwent the operation. The hand being taken off a
little below the elbow. On dissection, the bones of the forearm presented a very
curious appearance - something similar to an empty honeycombe, the marrow
having totally disappeared."
Factory Pollution
William Dodd talked about the work in his book, A Narrative of the Experience
and Sufferings of William Dodd a Factory Cripple: "One great cause of ill health
to the operatives in factories is the dust and lime which is continually flying about.
Animal skins are soaked in a strong solution of lime. The lime gets intermixed
with the wool and hair. It is put through the teaser in order to shake out the lime
and dust. The machine, and all around, are covered with the lime and dust. The
result is difficulty of breathing, asthma, etc."
Most young workers complained of feeling sick during their first few weeks of
working in a factory. Robert Blincoe said he felt that the dust and flue was
suffocating him. This initial reaction to factory pollution became known as mill
fever. Symptoms included sickness and headaches. Frank Forrest, a child
worker in Dundee, reported: "About a week after I became a mill boy, I was
seized with a strong, heavy sickness, that few escape on first becoming factory
workers. The cause of the sickness, which is known by the name of "mill fever",
is the contaminated atmosphere produced by so many breathing in a confined
space, together with the heat and exhalations of grease and oil and the gas
needed to light the establishment."
Workhouse Children
Many parents were unwilling to allow their children to work in these new textile
factories. To overcome this labour shortage factory owners had to find other
ways of obtaining workers. One solution to the problem was to buy children from
orphanages and workhouses. The children became known as pauper
apprentices. This involved the children signing contracts that virtually made them
the property of the factory owner.
Robert Blincoe was disappointed when he arrived at Lowdam Mill, ten miles from
Nottingham. "There was no cloth laid on the tables, to which the newcomers had
been accustomed in the workhouse - no plates, nor knives, nor forks. At a signal
given, the apprentices rushed to this door, and each, as he made way, received
his portion, and withdrew to his place at the table. Blincoe was startled, seeing
the boys pull out the fore-part of their shirts, and holding it up with both hands,
received the hot boiled potatoes allotted for their supper. The girls, less
indecently, held up their dirty, greasy aprons, that were saturated with grease
and dirt, and having received their allowance, scampered off as hard as they
could, to their respective places, where, with a keen appetite, each apprentice
devoured her allowance, and seemed anxiously to look about for more. Next, the
hungry crew ran to the tables of the newcomers, and voraciously devoured every
crust of bread and every drop of porridge they had left."
Pauper apprentices were cheaper to house than adult workers. It cost Samuel
Greg who owned the large Quarry Bank Mill at Styal, a £100 to build a cottage for
a family, whereas his apprentice house, that cost £300, provided living
accommodation for over 90 children. At first the children came from local
parishes such as Wilmslow and Macclesfield, but later he went as far as
Liverpool and London to find these young workers. To encourage factory owners
to take workhouse children, people like Greg were paid between £2 and £4 for
each child they employed. Greg also demanded that the children were sent to
him with "two shifts, two pairs of stockings and two aprons".
The same approach was taken by the owners of silk mills. George Courtauld,
who owned a silk mill in Braintree, Essex, took children from workhouses in
London. Although offered children of all ages he usually took them from "within
the age of 10 and 13". Courtauld insisted that each child arrived "with a complete
change of common clothing". A contract was signed with the workhouse that
stated that Courtauld would be paid £5 for each child taken. Another £5 was paid
after the child's first year. The children also signed a contract with Courtauld that
bound them to the mill until the age of 21. This helped to reduce Courtauld's
labour costs. Whereas adult males at Courtauld's mills earned 7s. 2d., children
under 11 received only 1s. 5d. a week.
These children were sometimes taken from their parents by force: John Betts
wrote a letter to the radical journalist, Richard Carlile, to explain what was
happening: "In 1805 when Samuel Davy was seven years of age he was sent
from the workhouse in Southwark in London to Mr. Watson's Mill at Penny Dam
near Preston. Later his brother was also sent to work in a mill. The parents did
not know where Samuel and his brother were. The loss of her children, so preyed
on the mind of Samuel's mother that it brought on insanity, and she died in a
state of madness."
Owners of large textile mills purchased large numbers of children from
workhouses in all the large towns and cities. By the late 1790s about a third of
the workers in the cotton industry were pauper apprentices. Child workers were
especially predominant in large factories in rural areas. For example, in 1797, of
the 310 wortkers employed by Birch Robinson & Co in the village of Backbarrow,
210 were parish apprentices. However, in the major textile towns, such as
Manchester and Oldham, parish apprenticeships was fairly uncommon.
Drawing of workhouse children
Punishment in Factories
Children who worked long hours in the textile mills became very tired and found it
difficult to maintain the speed required by the overlookers. Children were usually
hit with a strap to make them work faster. In some factories children were dipped
head first into the water cistern if they became too tired to work. Jonathan Downe
told Michael Sadler and his committee in 1832: "When I was seven years old I
went to work at Mr. Marshalls factory at Shrewsbury. If a child was drowsy, the
overlooker touches the child on the shoulder and says, "Come here". In a corner
of the room there is an iron cistern filled with water. He takes the boy by the legs
and dips him in the cistern, and sends him back to work."
Children were also punished for arriving late for work and for talking to the other
children. Joseph Hebergram pointed out: "if we were five minutes too late, the
overlooker would take a strap, and beat us till we were black and blue." Sarah
Carpenter was beaten on a regular basis: "There was an overlooker called
William Hughes... He came up to me and asked me what my drawing frame was
stopped for. I said I did not know because it was not me who had stopped it. A
little boy that was on the other side had stopped it, but he was too frightened to
say it was him. Hughes starting beating me with a stick, and when he had done I
told him I would let my mother know. He then went out and fetched the master in
to me. The master started beating me with a stick over the head till it was full of
lumps and bled. My head was so bad that I could not sleep for a long time, and I
never been a sound sleeper since."
Samuel Fielden observed what happened in a textile factory in Lancashire: "The
infants, when first introduced to these abodes of torture, are put at stripping the
full spools from the spinning jennies and replacing them with empty spools. They
are put to work in a long room where there are about twenty machines. The
spindles are apportioned to each child, and woe be to the child who shall be
behind in doing its allotted work. The machine will be started and the poor child's
fingers will be bruised and skinned with the revolving spools. While the children
try to catch up to their comrades by doing their work with the speed of the
machine running, the brutal overlooker will frequently beat them unmercifully, and
I have frequently seen them strike the children, knocking them off their stools and
sending them spinning several feet on the greasy floor."
Parish apprentices who ran away from the factory was in danger of being sent to
prison. Children who were considered potential runaways were placed in irons.
Robert Blincoe explained: "The blacksmith had the task of riveting irons upon any
of the apprentices, whom the master ordered. These irons were very much like
the irons usually put upon felons. Even young women, if they suspected of
intending to run away, had irons riveted on their ankles, and reaching by long
links and rings up to the hips, and in these they were compelled to walk to and
fro from the mill to work and to sleep." Samuel Davy of Preston claims that:
"Irons were used as with felons in gaols, and these were often fastened on young
women, in the most indecent manner, by keeping them nearly in a state of nudity,
in the depth of winter, for several days together."
Thomas Savage in Wandsworth Prison
John Birley was an orphan living in Bethnal Green Workhouse when he was sent
to become an apprentice at Cressbrook Mill. Birley later commented: "Mr.
Needham, the master, had five sons: Frank, Charles, Samuel, Robert and John.
The sons and a man named Swann, the overlooker, used to go up and down the
mill with hazzle sticks. Frank once beat me till he frightened himself. He thought
he had killed me. He had struck me on the temples and knocked me dateless. He
once knocked me down and threatened me with a stick. To save my head I
raised my arm, which he then hit with all his might. My elbow was broken. I bear
the marks, and suffer pain from it to this day, and always shall as long as I live."
Sarah Carpenter claimed that she saw children beaten to death: "There was a
young woman, Sarah Goodling, who was poorly and so she stopped her
machine. James Birch, the overlooker knocked her to the floor. She got up as
well as she could. He knocked her down again. Then she was carried to the
apprentice house. Her bed-fellow found her dead in bed. There was another
called Mary. She knocked her food can down on the floor. The master, Mr.
Newton, kicked her where he should not do, and it caused her to wear away till
she died. There was another, Caroline Thompson. They beat her till she went out
of her mind."
Some of the children tried to run away: "We were always locked up out of mill
hours, for fear any of us should run away. One day the door was left open.
Charlotte Smith, said she would be ringleader, if the rest would follow. She went
out but no one followed her. The master found out about this and sent for her.
There was a carving knife which he took and grasping her hair he cut if off close
to the head. They were in the habit of cutting off the hair of all who were caught
speaking to any of the lads. This head shaving was a dreadful punishment. We
were more afraid of it than of any other, for girls are proud of their hair."
William Rastrick, who worked as an overlooker at Shute's Silk Mill, admitted: "I
have been compelled to urge them on to work when I knew they could not bear it;
but I was obliged to make them strain every nerve to do the work, and I can say I
have been disgusted with myself and with my situation; I felt myself degraded
and reduced to the level of a slave-driver in such cases."
Factory Accidents
Abraham Whitehead was a cloth merchant from Holmfirth who joined the
campaign for factory legislation. He was concerned about the impact the work
was having on the children. He told a parliamentary committee in 1832: "I have
seen a little boy, only this winter, who works in the mill, and who lives within two
hundred or three hundred yards of my own door; he is not yet six years old, and I
have seen him, when he had a few coppers in his pocket, go to a beer shop, call
for a glass of ale, and drink as boldly as any full-grown man, cursing and
swearing." He believed that the tiredness of the children often caused accidents.
Robert Blincoe saw several accidents while working in the textile industry: "A girl
named Mary Richards, who was thought remarkably handsome when she left the
workhouse, and, who was not quite ten years of age, attended a drawing frame,
below which, and about a foot from the floor, was a horizontal shaft, by which the
frames above were turned. It happened one evening, when her apron was
caught by the shaft. In an instant the poor girl was drawn by an irresistible force
and dashed on the floor. She uttered the most heart-rending shrieks! Blincoe ran
towards her, an agonized and helpless beholder of a scene of horror. He saw her
whirled round and round with the shaft - he heard the bones of her arms, legs,
thighs, etc. successively snap asunder, crushed, seemingly, to atoms, as the
machinery whirled her round, and drew tighter and tighter her body within the
works, her blood was scattered over the frame and streamed upon the floor, her
head appeared dashed to pieces - at last, her mangled body was jammed in so
fast, between the shafts and the floor, that the water being low and the wheels off
the gear, it stopped the main shaft. When she was extricated, every bone was
found broken - her head dreadfully crushed. She was carried off quite lifeless."
John Allett reported: "I have known more accidents at the beginning of the day
than at the later part. I was an eye-witness of one. A child was working wool, that
is, to prepare the wool for the machine; but the strap caught him, as he was
hardly awake, and it carried him into the machinery; and we found one limb in
one place, one in another, and he was cut to bits; his whole body went in, and
was mangled." In 1842 a German visitor noted that he had seen so many people
in the streets of Manchester without arms and legs that it was like "living in the
midst of the army just returned from a campaign."
A report commissioned by the House of Commons in 1832 said that: "there are
factories, no means few in number, nor confined to the smaller mills, in which
serious accidents are continually occurring, and in which, notwithstanding,
dangerous parts of the machinery are allowed to remain unfenced." The report
added that he workers were often "abandoned from the moment that an accident
occurs; their wages are stopped, no medical attendance is provided, and
whatever the extent of the injury, no compensation is afforded."
Weight of Factory Children
Table showing the Comparative Weight of Factory and Non-Factory
Children (in lbs.)
Age
Average
weight of
males in
factories
Average weight
of males not in
factories
Age
Average
weight of
females in
factories
Average weight
of females not
in factories
9
51.76
53.26
9
51.13
52.40
10
57.00
60.28
10
54.80
54.44
11
61.84
58.36
11
59.69
61.13
12
65.97
67.25
12
66.08
66.07
13
72.11
75.36
13
73.25
72.72
14
77.09
78.68
14
83.41
83.43
15
88.35
88.83
15
87.86
93.61
Average Height in 1836
Age
Average height of
males in Factories
Age
Average height of
females in Factories
9
3ft. 11in.
9
4ft. 0in.
10
4ft. 2in.
10
4ft. 1in.
11
4ft. 2in.
11
4ft. 2in.
12
4ft. 4in.
12
4ft. 4in.
13
4ft. 6in.
13
4ft. 7in.
14
4ft. 8in.
14
4ft. 9in.
15
4ft. 10in.
15
4ft. 10in.
16
5ft. 0in.
16
4ft. 11in.
Deaths in Leeds
Leeds: 1813-1830
Leeds: 1780-1782
Ages
Percentage of Deaths
Ages
Percentage of Deaths
0-5
44
0-5
53
5-9
9
5-9
9
10-14
4
10-14
5
15-19
7
15-19
7
20-29
11
20-29
17
30-39
16
30-39
19
40-49
21
40-49
23
50-59
27
50-59
31
60-69
47
60-69
44
70-79
68
70-79
67
80-89
89
80-89
88
Wages in Lancashire in 1830
Wages in Lancashire in 1830
Age of Worker
Male Wages
Female Wages
under 11
2s 3d.
2s. 4d.
11 - 16
4s. 1d.
4s. 3d.
17 - 21
10s. 2d.
7s. 3d.
22 - 26
17s. 2d.
8s. 5d.
27 - 31
20s. 4d.
8s. 7d.
32 - 36
22s. 8d.
8s. 9d.
37 - 41
21s. 7d.
9s. 8d.
42 - 46
20s. 3d.
9s. 3d.
47 - 51
16s. 7d.
8s. 10d.
52 - 56
16s. 4d.
8s. 4d.
57 - 61
13s. 6d.
6s. 4d.
Age of Workers
Age of workers in cotton mills in Lancashire in 1833
Age
Males
Females
under 11
246
155
11 - 16
1,169
1,123
17 - 21
736
1,240
22 - 26
612
780
27 - 31
355
295
32 - 36
215
100
37 - 41
168
81
42 - 46
98
38
47 - 51
88
23
52 - 56
41
4
57 - 61
28
3