The Factory Acts

Assembled from 20 blocks · 3 evidence · 14 related

1. Story
2. The sequence of British statutes by which the state took power over the hours and conditions of industrial work, and one of the clearest cases anywhere of legislation learning from its own failure. The Health and Morals of Apprentices Act of 1802 limited pauper apprentices in cotton mills to twelve hours and required some schooling, and achieved almost nothing, because enforcement was left to local magistrates who were frequently mill owners themselves. The 1819 Act extended limits to all children in cotton mills and was likewise unenforced. The Act of 1833 is the one that mattered, and not principally for its limits — no child under nine in textile mills, restricted hours for those aged nine to thirteen and for young persons under eighteen, some compulsory schooling — but because it created a small salaried inspectorate answerable to central government, with the right to enter any mill and prosecute. The Acts of 1844 and the Ten Hours Act of 1847 built on that machinery. The lesson is that a limit without an inspector is a preference, and the Acts are the point at which Britain conceded that an industrial economy will not regulate itself.
3. Knowledge
4. Industrial child labour
5. The Factory Acts
6. Connections
7. Industrial child labour
8. The Factory Inspectorate
9. The first factory statute is passed and largely ignored
10. The Factory Act creates an inspectorate
11. The Ten Hours Act limits the working day for women and young persons
12. Coal
13. The Factory Acts
14. The first factory statute is passed and largely ignored
15. The Factory Act creates an inspectorate
16. Women and young boys are barred from working underground
17. Evidence
18. Supports the prohibition on employing children under nine in textile mills, the graduated hour limits for children and young persons, and the creation of a salaried factory inspectorate with powers of entry. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted — legislation.gov.uk is blocked from this session, so the regnal chapter citation is deliberately not given and the hour limits are stated only in summary.
19. Supports the ten-hour limit on the working day of women and young persons in textile mills. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted; the regnal citation is omitted for the same reason as the 1833 Act.
20. Supports the existence and working method of the inspectorate created in 1833, and stands as the principal contemporary record of hours, evasions, relay working and accidents on mill floors. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted in this session; the series is real and widely digitised but no volume was opened here.