The Factory Inspectorate

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Created by the Factory Act of 1833, initially as a handful of inspectors — four is the number usually given — with superintendents under them, and made responsible for the whole of Britain's textile industry. The staffing was absurd against the task and the inspectorate was nonetheless one of the most consequential administrative inventions of the century, because it established three things at once: that central government could send an official into private premises as of right; that the official reported publicly and periodically; and that the resulting reports would themselves become evidence for the next round of legislation. The published Reports of the Inspectors of Factories are, in consequence, both an instrument of regulation and the best single source on what actually happened on mill floors — including the evasions, the falsified time books, the relay systems used to disguise over-long hours, and the accident returns. Marx drew heavily on them, and so does every subsequent historian of the subject.