Conditions for workers in a woollen mill in 1830
Read the following two extracts and answer the questions that follow.
This is an extract taken from the evidence given to the Parliamentary
Commission of 1830 by John Wood, who owned a woollen mill in Bradford.
Q
When does your regular day’s work begin?
A
The mills start at six in the morning and end at seven in the evening.
Q
How many holidays do your workpeople have?
A
Eight days’ holiday throughout the year, at the fairs, Lent, Easter,
Whitsuntide and Christmas.
Q
Explain your rules about charging fines for absence or bad behaviour or to
make your workers obedient.
A
There are no fines. The children under eighteen years of age are allowed
one hour per day, during working hours, for attending school, where they
are taught reading, writing, arithmetic, sewing or needlework. To make the
children obedient, they are sometimes punished by being kept away from
school.
Q
Is corporal punishment allowed?
A
No.
Q
Do you have to employ children under twelve years old?
A
Some work can only be done by children under that age. Their main work
is joining the threads as they break in the process of weaving. This
requires children with small hands.
Q
Do you want to say anything about regulating the number of hours that
can be worked in a factory?
A
Ten hours a day working is sufficient for all who are employed in mills;
more than this cannot be done without permanent injury to health.
This is the evidence given to the same Commission about the same mill. This
time it was given by John Hall, a man employed as an overseer by John Wood.
Q
What happens if any children are ill?
A
We have authority from Mr Wood to send them to Dr Sharp ourselves and
Mr Wood pays for it himself.
Q
Have you any baths in the works?
A
We have cold and warm baths now on the premises, for use of the
workpeople.
Q
For the children?
A
For the children and for the men, too, I have used them myself many a
time.
Q
When new workers have been employed for some time, do you notice a
change in them?
A
Yes. They come in rosy-faced and plump and fat. They are generally lively
and spirited. After a month or five weeks I can see a falling in their faces
and a paleness. They become spiritless and languid.
Q
Do you use rewards or punishments?
A
Mr Wood has always allowed a penny a week to every child as a reward if
the child does his work well and is obedient. The way I punish the children
is this: I have a card and write the crime on it. I make the child stand up in
the room, holding the card. If a child has done something worse, I make
him walk up and down the room and make every child read his card. If the
crime is greater, I make him tell every child in the room what he has done.
If the crime is even greater, I make the child pass into the next room and
do the same thing there.
Q
Does this method of punishment keep the children attentive to their work?
A
In ordinary cases, yes. But in obstinate cases they are beaten.
Q
Why are children not employed to join broken threads together after the
age of fourteen?
A
They get too big for that sort of work.
Q
Could people aged more than fourteen do the work if the frames were
made higher?
A
Yes.
Q
Would there be much difficulty in altering the height of the frame?
A
The only difficulty would be that we could not afford to pay older children
more wages than the younger ones for doing this work.
Q
What do you think is the most time that a child could work without
becoming ill?
A
I think if they are ever so well treated, they should not work for more than
ten hours.
Questions
1.
According to the evidence, how many hours do children work in John
Wood’s mill? How could you check to see whether or not this was typical
of all textile mills?
2.
On which points do John Wood and his overseer, John Hall, agree?
3.
Is there anything that John Wood tells us that John Hall doesn’t? Is there
anything that John Hall tells us that John Wood doesn’t?
4.
On which points do John Wood and his overseer disagree?
Why do you think this is?
Whose account do you believe, and why?
5.
Using the evidence of John Wood and John Hall, what were working
conditions like in John Wood’s woollen mill?
6.
How could you check that working conditions for children were like this in
all woollen mills?