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Child Labor In The Industrial Revolution
Dr. Linda Karen Miller
Fairfax High School, VA
The Industrial Revolution had an enormous and deplorable effect on children and
family life. During the 19th century, children worked in various industries such as textile
mills, foundries or coal mines. Wages, often essential for the family’s survival, varied.
The jobs involved physically hard work and were dangerous. Wages in coal mines were
high but children always received less than men. Some work involved long hours and
poor working conditions affecting people’s health and ability to work. Children as young
as five or six could easily be trained to do many of the simpler tasks. Labor wants of
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factory owners were also supplied by pauper children sent through workhouses around
the country. The children lacking families, were maltreated in the factory. If some died
because of harsh treatment they could easily be replaced by others in “apprentice”
houses.
My interest in this topic has been long standing as I have played the character of
Elizabeth Bentley of Leeds, England who testified before Michael Sadler’s
Parliamentary commission in 1832 investigating factory conditions. I have also used a
slide from the 1840 book entitled “Michael Armstrong Factory Boy” showing poor
factory children eating from a pig’s trough. With this background in hand, I was
surprised to read that some of the “historians” we read doubted the validity of the Sadler
Report. I thus started my own investigation. I used Parliamentary Papers and debates
and primary sources from various historical spots. My investigation revealed the
following insights.
The consciences of a few humane men were being awakened and the reports of
commissions of 1832, 1842 and 1862 did much to bring the stark facts to light and led
eventually to a gradual improvement in working conditions. Sadler lost no time in
bringing the subject before the House of Commons and obtained the appointment of a
parliamentary committee of inquiry.
In investigation the primary sources I found out the following. For the Sadler
Report Elizabeth Bentley was questioned on June 4, 1832, She was 23 at the time. She
had been employed in the flax mill where she worked from 5 AM until 9 PM cleaning
and changing the frames. She worked from the age of six. Children were beaten if they
were too slow. Later if she went to another mill where she moved heavy baskets and
dislocated her shoulders ( I saw the baskets at one of the mills and could understand why
this happened). Many people got sick from the dust. The work caused Elizabeth to
become bent over from the age of thirteen. She ended up in the poor house because she
couldn’t work.
Various statistical information support her claims and others all over England.
From 1813-33 in the county of Derby, there were 1, 927 deaths of children under 9 in 20
years. There were several medical reports such as the one from Dr. Kirkland who said
that the spinning room was wet and filthy. There was always a disagreeable odor. There
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was also little time for education. The employers were asked a series of 35 questions by
the Children’s commission which included such questions as ventilation and danger of
machines but the answers were far from truthful. So one of the historian’s accusations
that the Sadler report was invalid because it did not interview the factory owners was far
from truthful.
However conditions at home were not much better. Most of the working class
lived in “back to back” housing. Some had their bedroom over the “outhouses” which
were only emptied once a week. Working mothers added to the problems by
administering laudanum to keep their infants quiet. Many infants died.
The mills were not the only problems. There was much child labor regarding
chimney sweeps and the mines also had problems. The high accident rate in the mines
especially in the Black Country led to the mining commission and laws to improve
safety. The mines were not regulated until 1872 in Wales.
During the testimony of the commission December elections supervened and
Sadler was defeated by the youthful Macalay. When he lost his seat in 1832, Anthony
Ashley Cooper (who became the 7th Earl of Shaftsbury in 1851) assumed Parliamentary
leadership. When finally passed, the Act of 1833 was the first to be enforced because it
appointed inpectors, forbade the employment of children under 9 at any time and persons
under 18 at night and a maximum of 9-12 hours a day.
However many industries were not covered by this act and in 1840 another
commission was appointed for further investigation. Lord Ashley reasserted to prevent
all children under 18 from working underground. However, members of Parliament such
as Lord Londonberry, a powerful coal miner, fought against the change. The result was
the 1842 Employment Act which prohibited all women but allowed children under ten in
the mines. The ten hours bill finally passed in 1847. Further laws were needed in 185053 to make ten hours a reality. The lace factories were not regulated until 1861.
Sweeping extensions followed in 1867. Although the real object of the bill was the
protection of adults, it was very unsuccessful in providing for the protection of children.
The ten hour day was too much for a child of ten.
Lord Ashley’s bill did not concern itself with the use which the child worker
should make of this hours of leisure when his work was done. The commissioners
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proposed that every child employed in a factory should be compelled to attend a schoool
and the bill finally passed provided that the children whose work was restricted to 48
hours a week must attend school for two hours every working day. However the State
provided no funds. This was left up to manufacturers,.
However even with these various acts over a number of years, the abuse
continued. The law was obeyed in some areas but not in others. In 1873 Lord Shaftsbury
after a long life spent in public service, drew attention in the House of Lords to an
investigation of a climbing boy 7 ½ years of age who had suffocated on a flue in the
county of Durham. Lord Ashley said that the condition of factory children was 10 times
better than that of chimney sweeps. “After years of oppression and cruelty, death has
given me the power of one more appeal.” A bill introduced in 1875 but Shaftsbury
brought these scandals to an end. No chimney sweeps could carry on his trade without a
license from the police.
If there was any doubt about the validity of the Sadler and other commission
reports, one should visit the Black Country living museum. There you can experience
first had the conditions in the mines and in the iron works factories. Also Corry Bank
Mill gives another useful insight. I am sure it will make everyone glad that they got a
college education.
Now with all of this documentary evidence, I thought how best to get it across to
the students. I decided to do a documentary based essay question (DBQ) and then later I
hope to expand it into a documentary teaching unit which I will present to the National
Center for History in the Schools which I hope they will publish.
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DOCUMENT BASED ESSAY
DIRECTIONS: The following question is based on the accompanying Documents.
(Some of the documents have been edited for the purpose of this exercise.) This question
is designed to test your ability to work with historical documents. As you analyze the
documents, take into account both the sources of documents and the authors’ point of
view. Write an essay on the following topic that integrates your analysis of the
documents. Do not simply summarize the documents individually. You may refer to
relevant historical facts and developments not mentioned in the documents.
Was the regulation of child labor necessary? Historians support both views.
Based on the following documents, discuss the political, social and economic effects of
regulating child labor. What kinds of additional documentation would help assess the
impact of regulation on the factory system?
DOCUMENT 1
SOURCE: Reprinted from Women, Work and the Industrial Revolution 1750-1850 by
Ivy Pinchbeck 1930.
The 1843 Report of the Children’s Employment Commission states: “One of the
most appalling features connected with the extreme reduction that has taken place in the
wages of lace runners, and the consequent long hours of labor is that married women
having no time to attend to their families or even to suckle their offspring, freely
administer opium in some form or other to their infants, in order to prevent their cries
interfering with the protracted labor by which they obtain miserable subsistence. ..The
result is that a great number of infants perish. Those who escape with life become pale
and sickly children, often half idiotic, and always with a ruined constitution.
DOCUMENT 2
SOURCE: Parliamentary Debates Vol IX London Hansard 1832, House of Commons
February 1, 1832
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Mr. Sadler presented a petition from ten thousand operatives of Leeds chiefly
employed in factories praying to adopt some means for limiting the duration of labor of
children employed in the factories…The petitions witnessed the sufferings and cruelties
practiced upon the unhappy and miserable children who were subjected for sometimes
even thirty hours successively in an overheated and most atmosphere without any
relaxation…
DOCUMENT 3
SOURCE: Parliamentary Debates Voil X London Hansard 1832, House of Lords Debate
March 1, 1832
The Archbishop of Canterbury presented a petition from the inhabitants of
Rochester to support the proper regulation and limitation of the hours of labor for
children…that it was attended with the most serious injury to their morals; it was a
disgrace to a Christian and civilized community to allow putting money in the pockets of
master manufacters…
DOCUMENT 4
SOURCE: British Parliamentary Papers Children’s Commission 1832 Vol. 4 , p. 8
In the Western District, Mr. Rice of Painwick, Glocestershire, woollen
manufacturer: “We have no objection to the restriction of children from work until they
are nine years of age, provided the legislature will adopt means for the maintenance and
education of such children; and a limitation of hours for those from nine to fourteen years
of age, and after fourteen years of age to be allowed to work to the advantage of
themselves and at the convenience of their employers.”
DOCUMENT 5
SOURCE: British Parliamentary Papers Vol. 9 p. 11
In Nottingham it appears that Children begin to work at this employment as early
as five years of age. Jonathan Barber, forty years old: Is a mechanic employed in
stocking and silk glove making. In the hosiery and lace trade the children begin to work
at five years old. Six of the witness’s children began about five years of age.
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DOCUMENT 6
SOURCE: Children’s Commission Report 1862 p. 32
Thomas Roebuck, fork-grinder at Askham’s wheel. Began fork grinding when I
was 10 years old and have been at it for 28 years. I had two boys, but I told their parents
they had better take them away and I have none now. If they begin young they go off
like dyke water, so quick. I know one that began at 8 years old. He was quite fresh up to
17 and died at 19. His lungs were completely gone with the grinder’s complaint.
Sometimes a stone flies out. This is very dangerous if it is a boy at work because he has
not sense to get out of the way.
DOCUMENT 7
SOURCE: Report of John Leigh 1849, member of Manchester Salford Sanitary
Association
No, 3 Thomas Cavanagh, age 5..Constitution a very fine healthy child. Natural
susceptibility, not ascertained. Predisposing cause, half starved. Localty, crowding, fifth.
No source of contagion.
DOCUMENT 8
SOURCE: 1847 Commission report
No. 206 Fanny Drake aged 15. May 9. I have been 6 years last September in a
pit. I hurry by myself. It has been a very wet pit and I have to hurry up to the calves of
my legs in water. I go down at 7 and come out at 5.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Blincoe, Robert. Memoir, Sussex, Caliban Books, 1977.
Douglas, David, Ed. English Historical Documents, p. 251, 949, 967.
Giffen, Robert. The Progress of the Working Class in the Last Half Century, London
George Bell and Sons, 1881.
Halevy, Epie, A History of the English People 1830-41, London, Fisher University 1927.
Iliffe, Richard. Victorian Nottingham, A Story in Pictures, Vol. 17, Nottingham
Historical Files, Derby and Sons.
Hansard, T. C. Hansard Parliamentary Debates Vol. IX-X, London 1832.
Parliamentary Papers, Children Employment Commission 1832, Reprinted by Irish
University Press, 1842, p. 95-97, 196-99.
Spicer, Suzanne. Victorians at Work, education department Ironbridge Gorge Museum
Trust Ironbridge, Telford Shopshire.
Victorian Workers, National Coal Mining Museum, 1997.