Child Labor
Many factory workers were children. They worked long hours and were often
treated badly by the supervisors or overseers. Sometimes the children started
work as young as four or five years old. A young child could not earn much, but
even a few pence would be enough to buy food.
Mills
While thousands of children worked in coal mines, thousands of others worked
in the cotton mills. The mill owners often took in orphans to their workhouses;
they lived at the mill and were worked as hard as possible. They spent most of
their working hours at the machines with little time for fresh air or exercise.
Even part of Sunday was spent cleaning machines. There were some serious
accidents, some children were scalped when their hair was caught in the
machine, hands were crushed and some children were killed when they went
to sleep and fell into the machine.
Factories and Brick Works
Children often worked long and grueling hours in factories and had to carry out
some hazardous jobs. In match factories children were employed to dip
matches into a chemical called phosphorous. This phosphorous could cause
their teeth to rot and some died from the effect of breathing it into their lungs.
Children in the Industrial Revolution
Source 1: Testimonies from South Wales Mines
Six year old girl:
"I have been down six weeks and make 10 to 14 rakes a day; I carry a full 56 lbs. of coal in a wooden bucket. I work with
sister Jesse and mother. It is dark the time we go."
Mary and Rachell Enock, ages 11 and 12 years.
"We are door-keepers in the four foot level. We leave the house before six each morning and are in the level until seven
o'clock and sometimes later. We get 2pence a day and our light costs us 2 1/2 pence a week. Rachel was in a day school
and
she can read a little. She was run over by a tram a while ago and
was
home ill a long time, but she has got over it."
Men v. Women in the Industrial Revoltion
Source 1) Courtauld Silk Mill Workforce: Samuel Courtauld built a silk mill in 1825 in Halstead, Essex (South East England).
Before the Industrial Revolution, Halstead was an agricultural community with a cottage industry producing woolen cloth. In Halstead, as
elsewhere in England, unemployment among depressed farming households and former wool workers forced people to find work outside the
home. Because their labor was much cheaper, women more than men were recruited into the textile factories that sprang up all over Britain in
the 19th century. This is a chart of the Courtauld workforce in 1860. The wages are in British schillings.
Number
Weekly
Wages
MALES
Number
Weekly Wages
FEMALES
1
1000 pounds
per year
Mill Manager (Also got 3 per cent of the
profits)
4
10s-11s
Gauze examiners
26
15s-32s
Overseers and clerks
4
9s-10s
Female assistant overseers
6
17s-25s
Mechanics and engine drivers
16
7s-10s
Warpers
3
14s-21s
Carpenters and blacksmiths
9
7s-10s
Twisters
1
15s
Lodge keeper
4
6s-9s
Wasters
16
14s-15s
589
5s-8s
Weavers
18
10s-15s
2
6s-7s
Plug winders
5
5s-12s
83
4s-6s
Drawers and doublers
-
7s-10s
Watchmen
188
2s-4s
Winders
-
5s-10s
Coachmen, grooms and van driver
899
38
2s-4s
Winders
Power loom machinery attendants and
steamers
Mill machinery attendants and loom
cleaners
Spindle cleaners, bobbin stampers and
packers, messengers, sweepers
Total Females
114
Total Males
GRAND TOTAL WORK FORCE = 1013
Men vs. Women in the Industrial Revolution
Source 2: Thoughts of men and women on their working conditions
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."
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."
Women in the Industrial Revoltion
Source 1): Evidence of Textile Workers in Wilson's Mill, Nottingham:
Hannah Goode: "I work at Mr. Wilson's mill. I think the youngest child is about 7. I daresay there are 20
under 9 years. It is about half past five by our clock at home when we go in....We come out at seven
by the mill. We never stop to take our meals, except at dinner.
William Crookes is over looker in our room. He is cross-tempered sometimes. He does not beat me; he
beats the little children if they do not do their work right....I have sometimes seen the little children
drop asleep or so, but not lately. If they are catched asleep they get the strap. They are always very
tired at night....I can read a little; I can't write. I used to go to school before I went to the mill; I have
since I am sixteen."
Jane Peacock Watson.
"I have wrought in the bowels of the earth 33 years. I have been married 23 years and had nine
children, six are alive and three died of typhus a few years since. Have had two dead born. Horse-work
ruins the women; it crushes their haunches, bends their ankles and makes them old women at 40. "
Pollution and Growth of Cities in the Industrial Revolution
From Country to Town
As the number of factories grew people from the countryside began to move into the towns looking for better paid work. The wages of a farm worker were
very low and there were less jobs working on farms because of the invention and use of new machines such as threshers. Also thousands of new workers
were needed to work machines in mills and foundries and the factory owners built houses for them. Cities filled to overflowing and London was particularly
bad. At the start of the 19th Century about 1/5 of Britain’s population lived there, but by 1851 half the population of the country had set up home in
London. London, like most cities, was not prepared for this great increase in people. People crowded into already crowded houses. Rooms were rented to
whole families or perhaps several families. If there were no rooms to rent, people stayed in lodging houses.
Housing
The worker's houses were usually near to the factories so that people could walk to work. They were built really quickly and cheaply. The houses were
cheap, most had between 2-4 rooms - one or two rooms downstairs, and one or two rooms upstairs. Victorian families were big with 4 or 5 children. There
was no running water or toilet. A whole street would have to share an outdoor pump and a couple of outside toilets. Most houses in the North of England
were "back to backs" (built in double rows) with no windows at the front, no backyards and a sewer down the middle of the street. The houses were built
crammed close together, with very narrow streets between them. Most of the houses were crowded with five or more people possibly crammed into a
single room. Even the cellars were full. Most of the new towns were dirty and unhealthy. The household rubbish was thrown out into the streets. Housing
conditions like these were perfect breeding grounds for diseases. More than 31,000 people died during an outbreak of cholera in 1832 and lots more were
killed by typhus, smallpox and dysentery.