English Workers in the Early Industrial Revolution

English Workers in the Early Industrial Revolution

62 - TESTIMONY BEFORE PARLIAMENTARY

COMMITTEES ON WORKING CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND

A key to England's early industrial growth was the large pool of available workers willing to accept low wages for long hours of labor in factories and mines. Many of these workers were displaced farmers or farm workers, forced from rural areas because of land shortages caused by population growth and the consolidation of small farms into large agricultural estates by wealthy aristocrats. Rural families moved to cities or coal-mining towns, where parents and children, some as young as five years old, went to work in tile factories or mines. Even with whole families working, few avoided poverty, crowded housing, and poor health.

Eventually, the British government abandoned its commitment to unlimited free enterprise, and Parliament passed laws to protect factory workers and miners, especially children, from exploitation. When considering legislation, parliamentary committees held hearings to gather testimony from workers, employers, physicians, clergy, and local officials. Their statements present a vivid picture of working-class conditions in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Section 1 is testimony from the records of the Sadler Committee, chaired by Michael Thomas Sadler in 1831 and charged with investigating conditions of child labor in cotton and linen factories; section 2 is testimony taken by a parliamentary commission appointed in 1833 to investigate working conditions in other textile industries; section 3 presents evidence taken by the committee chaired by Lord Ashley in 1842 to investigate conditions in coal mines.

QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS

1. How young were children when they first began working in the textile factories, and how many hours did they work?

2. What differences were there between working conditions in the mines and in the cotton factories?

3. As revealed by the questions they asked, what did the committee members consider the worst abuses of working conditions in the factories and mines?

4. What does the testimony of Hannah Richardson and George Armitage reveal about (a) the economic circumstances of working class families, and (b) attitudes of working class families toward their children?

5. Consider the testimony of the workers themselves. Do the workers express anger? Do they demand changes?

6. What do the workers' answers reveal about the reasons for the weakness of the working-class movement in England in the first half of the nineteenth century?

7. Injury rates among factory workers were high. What in the testimony explains this phenomenon?

8. Many English commentators observed that most factory workers were making immense wages in comparison to what they had earned in the countryside. Yet the testimony in the parliamentary hearings paints a picture of worker poverty. What might explain this contradiction?

9. For what reasons do William Harter and Thomas Wilson oppose factory laws?

[1. Testimony before the Sadler Committee. 1831]

ELIZABETH BENTLEY, CALLED IN; AND EXAMINED

What age are you, -- Twenty-three. . . .
What time did You begin to work at a factory -- When I was six years old. . . .
What kind of mill is It., -- Flax-mill. . . .
What was your business in that mill, -- I was a little doffer. 1
What were your hours of labor in that mill? -- From 5 in the morning till 9 at night, when they were thronged.2
For how long a time together have you worked that excessive length of time, -- For about half a year.
What were your usual hours of labor when you were not so thronged? -- From 6 in the morning till 7 at night.
What time was allowed for your meals? -- Forty minutes at noon.
Had you any time to get your breakfast or drinking? -- No, we got it as we could.
And when your work was bad, you had hardly any time to eat it at all? -- No; we were obliged to leave it or take it home, and when we did not take it, the overlooker took it, and gave it to his pigs.
Do you consider doffing a laborious employment, -- Yes.
Explain what it is you had to do-, -- When the frames are full, they have to stop the frames, and take the flyers off, and take the full bobbins off, and carry them to the roller; and then put empty ones on, and set the frames on again.
Does that keep you constantly on your feet? -- Yes, there are so many frames and they run so quick.
Your labor is very excessive? -- Yes; you have not time for anything.
Suppose you flagged a little, or were too late, what would they do, -- Strap us.
Are they in the habit of strapping those who are last in doffing? -- Yes.
Constantly? -- Yes.
Girls as well as boys? -- Yes.
Have you ever been strapped? -- Yes.
Severely? -- Yes.
Could you eat your food well in that factory? -- No, indeed, I had not much to eat, and the little I had I could not eat it, my appetite was so poor, and being covered with dust; and it was no use to take it home, I could not eat it, and the overlooker took it, and gave it to the pigs . . .
Did you live far from the mill? -- Yes, two miles.
Had you a clock. -- No, we had not.
Supposing you had not been in time enough in the morning at the mills, what would have been the consequence? -- We should have been quartered.
What do you mean by that? -- If we were a quarter of an hour too late, they would take off half an hour; we only got a penny an hour, and they would take a halfpenny more. . . .
Were you generally there in time? -- Yes. my mother has been up at 4 o'clock in the morning, and at 2 o'clock in the morning; the colliers used to go to their work about 3 or 4 o'clock, and when she heard them stirring she has got up out of her warm bed, and gone out and asked them the time, and I have sometimes been at Hunslet Car at 2 o'clock in the morning, when it was streaming down with rain, and we have had to stay till the mill was opened . . . .

1 A worker, usually a young child, whose job was to clean the machines used in textile manufacturing.
2 Busy.

[2. Commission for Inquiry Into the Employment of Children in Factories. Second Report. 1833]

HANNAH RICHARDSON

I've one child that works in the pit; he's going on ten. He is down from 6 to 8 . . . . he's not much tired with the work, it's only the confinement that tires him. He likes it pretty well, for he'd rather be in the pit than to go to school. There is not much difference in his health since he went into the pit. He was at school before, and can read pretty well, but can't write. He is used pretty well; I never hear him complain. I've another son in the pit, 17 years old . . . . He went into the pit at eight years old. It's not hurt his health nor his appetite, for he's a good size. It would hurt us of children were prevented from working till 11 or 12 years old, because we've not jobs enough to live now as it is . . . .

EDWARD POTTER

I am a coal worker, and the manager of the South Hetton colliery. We have about 400 bound people (contract laborers), and in addition our bank people (foremen), men and boys about 700 pits 427 men and boys; of these, 290 men, hewers and stonemen. The stonemen or shifters dig stone in the mine, make horse-ways and air-ways. On the banks are smiths, joiners, and other workmen.

Of the children in the pits we have none under eight, and only three so young. We are constantly beset by parents coming making application to take children under the age, and they are very anxious and very dissatisfied if we do not take the children; and there have been cases in times of brisk trade, when the parents have threatened to leave the cottlery, and go elsewhere If we did not comply. At every successive binding, which takes place yearly, constant attempts are made to get the boys engaged to work to which they are not competent from their years. In point of fact, we would rather not have boys until nine years of age complete. If younger than that, they are apt to fail asleep and get hurt; some get killed. It is no interest to the company to take any boys under nine . . . .

TESTIMONY OF JOHN WRIGHT3

Are silk-mills clean in general? -- They are; they are swept every day, and whitewashed once a year.
What is the temperature of silk-mills? -- I don't know exactly the temperature, but it is very agreeable.
Is any artificial heat required? -- In the winter it is heated by steam.
To what degree? -- I cannot speak positively; but it is not for the work, Only to keep the hands warm and comfortable.
Why, then, are those employed in them said to be in such a wretched condition? -- In the first place, the great number of hands congregated together, in some rooms forty, in some fifty, in some sixty, and I have known some as many as 100, which must be injurious to both health and growing. In the second place the privy is in the factory, which frequently emits an unwholesome smell; and it would be worthwhile to notice in the future erection of mills, that there be betwixt the privy door and the factory wall a kind of a lobby of cage-work. 3dly, The tediousness and the everlasting sameness in the first process preys much on the spirits, and makes the hands spiritless. 4thly the extravagant number of hours a child is compelled to labor and confinement, which for one week is seventy-six hours, which makes 3,952 hours for one year, we deduct 208 hours for meals within the factory which makes the net labor for one year 3,744; but the labor and confinement together of a child between ten years of age and twenty, is 39,520 hours, enough to fritter away the best constitution. 5thly, About six months in the year we are obliged to use either gas, candles, or lamps, for the longest portion of that time, nearly six hours a day, being obliged to work amid the smoke -- or of the same; and also a large portion of oil and grease is used in the mills.

What are the effects of the present system of labor? -- From my earliest recollections, I have found the effects to be awfully detrimental to the well-being of the operative; I have observed frequently children carried to factories, unable to walk, and that entirely owing to excessive labor and confinement. The degradation of the workpeople baffles all description: frequently have two of my sisters been obliged to be assisted to the factory and home again, until by-and-by they could go no longer, being totally crippled in their legs. . . .

3 A silk factory worker in his mid thirties.

TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM HARTER

What effect would it have on your manufacture to reduce the hours of labor to ten? -- It would instantly much reduce the value of my mill and machinery, and consequently far prejudice my manufacture.

How so? -- They are calculated to produce a certain quantity of work in a given time. Every machine is valuable in proportion to the quantity of work which it will turn off in a given time. It is impossible that the machinery could produce as much work in ten hours as in twelve. If the tending of the machines were a laborious occupation, the difference in the quantity of work might not always be in exact proportion to the difference of working time; but in my mill, and silk-mills in general, the work requires the least imaginable labor; therefore it is perfectly impossible that could produce as much work in ten hours as in twelve. The produce would vary in about the same ratio as the working time.

What may be said about the sum invested in your mill and machinery? -- It is not yet near complete, and the investment is a little short of 20,000 pounds.

Then to what extent do you consider your property would be prejudiced by a bill limiting the working hours to ten? -- All other circumstances remaining the same, it is obvious that any property in the mill and machinery would be prejudiced to the extent of value, or upwards of 3,000 pounds.

How would the reduction in the hours of labor affect the cost of your manufactures? -- The cost of our manufactures consists in the raw material and of the expense of putting that said material into goods. Now the mere interest of the investment in buildings and machinery, and the expense of keeping the same in repair, forms a large item In the cost of manufacturing. Of course it follows, that the gross charge under this head would be the same upon a production of 10,000 pounds and 12,000 pounds, and this portion of the cost of manufacturing would consequently be about 16%.

Do you mean to say, that to produce the same quantity of work which your present mill and machinery is capable of, it requires an additional outlay of upwards of 3,000 pounds? -- I say distinctly, that to produce the same quantity of work under a ten-hours bill will require an additional outlay of 3,000 or 4,000 pounds; therefore a ten-hours bill would impose upon me the necessity of this additional outlay in such perishable property as buildings and machinery, or I must be content to relinquish one-sixth portion of my business.

[3. Testimony before the Ashley Committee on the Conditions in Mines. 1842]

MR. GEORGE ARMITAGE

I am now a teacher at Hoyland school; I was a collier at Silkstone until I was 22 years old and worked in the pit above 10 years. . . . I hardly know how to reprobate the practice sufficiently girls working in pits; nothing can be worse. I have no doubt that debauchery is carried on, for which there is every opportunity; for the girls go constantly, when hurrying, to the men, who work often alone in the bank-faces apart from every one. I think it scarcely possible for girls to remain modest who are in pits, regularly mixing with such company and hearing and such language as they do - it is next to impossible. I dare venture to say that many of the wives who come from pits know nothing of sewing or any household duty, such as women ought to know - they lose all disposition to learn such things; they are rendered unfit for learning them also by being overworked and not being trained to the habit of it. I have worked in pits for above 10 years, where girls were constantly employed, and I can safely say it is an abominable system; indecent language is quite common. I think, if girls were trained properly, as girls ought to be, that there would be no more difficulty, in finding suitable employment for them than in other places. Many a collier spends in drink what he has shut up a young child the whole week to earn in a dark cold corner as a trapper. The education of the children is universally bad. They are generally ignorant of common facts in Christian history and principles, and, indeed, in almost everything else. Little can be learned merely on Sundays, and they are too tired as well as indisposed go to night schools. . . .