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The Life of the Industrial Worker in Ninteenth-Century England

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[The following material comes fromReadings in European History Since 1814, edited by Jonathan F. Scott and Alexander Baltzly (Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1930.) The headnotes preceeding each sections are by Scott and Baltzly.]

The Physical Deterioration of the TextileWorkers

The physical deterioration of the manufacturing class inEngland was still noticeable in the 1930s, more than a century after the height of theIndustrial Revolution. A medical observer's description of what the work did tothe worker follows.

Any man who has stood at twelveo'clock at the single narrow door-way, which serves as the place of exit forthe hands employed in the great cotton-mills, must acknowledge, that an uglierset of men and women, of boys and girls, taking them in the mass, it would beimpossible to congregate in a smaller compass. Their complexion is sallow andpallid--with a peculiar flatness of feature, caused by the want of a properquantity of adipose substance to cushion out the cheeks. Their stature low--theaverage height of four hundred men, measured at different times, and differentplaces, being five feet six inches. Their limbs slender, and playing badly andungracefully. A very general bowing of the legs. Great numbers of girls andwomen walking lamely or awkwardly, with raised chests and spinal flexures.Nearly all have flat feet, accompanied with a down-tread, differing verywidely from the elasticity of action in the foot and ankle, attendant uponperfect formation. Hair thin and straight--many of the men having but littlebeard, and that in patches of a few hairs, much resembling its growth among thered men of America. A spiritless and dejected air, a sprawling and wide actionof the legs, and an appearance, taken as a whole, giving the world but "littleassurance of a man," or if so, "most sadly cheated of his fairproportions..."

Factory labour is a species of work, in some respectssingularly unfitted for children. Cooped up in a heated atmosphere, debarredthe necessary exercise, remaining in one position for a series of hours, oneset or system of muscles alone called into activity, it cannot be wonderedat--that its effects are injurious to the physical growth of a child. Where thebony system is still imperfect, the vertical position it is compelled toretain, influences its direction; the spinal column bends beneath the weightof the head, bulges out laterally, or is dragged forward by the weight of theparts composing the chest, the pelvis yields beneath the opposing pressuredownwards, and the resistance given by the thigh-bones; its capacity islessened, sometimes more and sometimes less; the legs curve, and the whole bodyloses height, in consequence of this general yielding and bending of itsparts. [P. Gaskell,The Manufacturing Population of England.London, 1833, pp.161-162, 202-203.]

A Cotton Manufacturer on Hours of Labor

John Fielden, although himself a Lancashire factory owner, was oneof the staunchest fighters for protective legislation for the cotton worker.His difficulties are such as today in the Southern states of the United Statesare commonly urged by manufacturers.

Here, then, is the "curse" of ourfactory-system; as improvements in machinery have gone on, the "avarice ofmasters" has prompted many to exact more labour from their hands than they werefitted by nature to perform, and those who have wished for the hours of labourto be less for all ages than the legislature would even yet sanction, have hadno alternative but to conform more or less to the prevailing practice, orabandon the trade altogether. This has been the case with regard to myself andmy partners. We have never worked more thanseventy-one hours a weekbefore Sir JOHN HOBHOUSE'S Act was passed. We then came down tosixty-nine; and since Lord ALTHORP's Act was passed, in 1833, we havereduced the time of adults tosixty-seven and a half hours a week, andthat of children under thirteen years of age toforty-eight hours in theweek, though to do this latter has, I must admit, subjected us to muchinconvenience, but the elder hands to more, inasmuch as the relief given to thechild is in some measure imposed on the adult. But the overworking does notapply to children only; the adults are also overworked. The increased speedgiven to machinery within the last thirty years, has, in very many instances,doubled the labour of both.[John Fielden, M.P.,The Curse of the FactorySystem. London, 1836,pp. 34-35.]

Opposition to the Chimney Sweepers Regulation Bill

Sending boys up chimneys to clean them was acommon practice, and a dangerous and cruel one. Lord Ashley became the chiefadvocate of the use of chimney-sweeping machinery and of legislation torequire its use. Even earlier, however, such a law had been proposed, but itmet with strong opposition. In a debate on this subject in the House of Lordsin 1819 the Earl of Lauderdale well represented a large body of conservativeopinion.

Their lordships had lately heard complaints of theencouragement given to machinery, in preference to manual industry. Now,though he differed most completely from those who cherished the prejudice healluded to--though he was convinced that the introduction of machinery had notonly had the effect of enriching the proprietor, but also of enabling theworkman to live better and cheaper than he otherwise could have done--yet therecertainly was some difference to be drawn between their encouraging andenforcing the adoption of machinery, and especially when those persons who bestunderstood its application in the way of trade were against its introduction atall. ...If their lordships were determined to adopt such a course, they mustintroduce a code of moral legislation unknown to their ancestors, and quiteunsuited to their habits and laws. The better way, in his judgment, would be toleave reforms of this kind entirely to the moral feeling of, perhaps, the mostmoral people, on the whole face of the earth. [Hansard'sParliamentary Debates, March 8, 1819. NewSeries, 39 (8 March year??): 901.]

The Benefit of the Factory Legislation

When Sadler was defeatedfor reelection in 1833 byMacaulay, his successor as leader in the campaign forshorter hours was Lord Ashley, later Earl of Shaftesbury, whose achievements inthis field exceeded any other man's. More than a generation later the old Earlof Shaftesbury, speaking for a bill to relieve conditions of textile workers inIndia, commented on the great gains brought about by similar legislation inEngland.

The other is the old, the often-repeated,and as often-refuted, argument that the work is light. Light! Why, no doubt,much of it is light, if measured by the endurance of some three or fourminutes. But what say you, my Lords, to a continuity of toil, in a standingposture, in a poisonous atmosphere, during 13 hours, with 15 minutes of rest?Why, the stoutest man in England, were he made, in such a condition of things,to do nothing during the whole of that time but be erect on his feet and stickpins in a pincushion, would sink under the burden. What say you, then, ofchildren--children of the tenderest years? Why, they become stunted, crippled,deformed, useless. I speak what I know--I state what I have seen. When Ivisited Bradford, inYorkshire, in 1838, being desirous to see the condition ofthe children--for I knew that they were employed at very early ages in theworsted business....I asked for a collection of cripples and deformities. In ashort time more than 80 were gathered in a large courtyard. They were meresamples of the entire mass. I assert without exaggeration that no power oflanguage could describe the varieties, and I may say, the cruelties, in allthese degradations of the human form. They stood or squatted before me in allthe shapes of the letters of the alphabet. This was the effect of prolongedtoil on the tender frames of children at early ages. When I visited Bradford,under the limitation of hours some years afterwards, I called for a similarexhibition of cripples; but, God be praised! there was not one to be found inthat vast city. Yet the work of these poor sufferers had been light, ifmeasured by minutes, but terrific when measured by hours. [Hansard'sParliamentary Debates. 3rdSeries, CCXLV (4 April 1879): 355-56.]

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