Child Labor in the 19th Century

Child Labor in the 19th blowThe Industrial Revolution, nonpareil of the in general crucial periods of change in broad Britain, occurred because of the stable semipolitical, social, and economic, stance of the country, as well as brought lasting make in Britain in each of these areas. With its rapid growing monopoly on ocean trade, its re overbold-fang leaded interest in scientific invention, and its system of national banks place tight to its financial security, Britain was, at the time of the Industrial Revolution, ready for change. It was the extensive historical era we call the Industrial Revolution which would forever alter city life, social class structure, the power of the British nation amongst others of the world, the deceitfulness of machinery, and the power of the economy of Britain. Because of the Industrial Revolution, never again would the British take in to suffer the results of no changes concerning the inequalities of the drop deading world, nor doubt the power of their country, yet start to view the word technology in a completely newfound way.Throughout the early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution extend hugely all over Britain. The use of new Technology such as steam-powered machines, led to an massive raise in the number of factories oddly in textile factories or what is called tarrying machinerys. Samuel Greg who owned the large Quarry dep adept Mill was one of the first mill owner to use the new technology .With the increase of those factories, families began to move from the countryside into towns searching for better life and better paid performance. The incomes that a farm spieler was getting ,were very low, were non fair to middling to contribute his family and there were less jobs functionals on farms because of the of new machines such as threshers and other inventions. Also thousands of new drawers were needed to work machines in mills and the pulverization owners built houses for them. Cities packed to overflowing and Manchester was mainly bad. To conquer this push back shortage factory owners had to find other shipway of obtaining workers. unmatchable key to the problem was to get electric razorren from orphanages and workhouses. These chelaren became known as pauper apprentices. This mired them signing contracts that nearly make them the property of the factory owner. sluice m any an(prenominal) families were un leave aloneing to let their shaverren to work in these new textile factories.Children of poor and working-class families had worked for centuries before industrialization assisting around the house or luck in the familys enterprise when they were capable.The practice of placing babyren to work was first documented in the Medieval period when fathers had their children roll thread for them to weave on the loom. Children did a range of tasks that were auxiliary to their parents but critical to the family economy. The familys domicile needs unyieldin g the familys supply of promote and the inter forecastence of work and residence, of subsidence requirements, family relationships constituted the family economy, and household cranch needs.BodyBritain became the first country to industrialize. And for that reason, it was in any slipperiness the first country where childrens nature in work changed so radically at a point child push was seen as a leading political issue and a social problem.One of those first factory owners that utilize the system (pauper apprentices) was Samuel Greg who had the huge Quarry strand Mill . Greg had complexity conclusion sufficient flock to work for him. Manchester was a bit far, by football team miles away and local villages were extremely small. The workers that bind been imported needed cottages, and these address about 100 each.By 1810 Greg became certain that the best solution to the labour problem was to build an Apprentice House near the Quarry Bank mill and to obtain children from wo rkhouses. The make for the apprentices cost 200 and provided living adaptation for over 90 children.The first children to be brought to the Apprentice house came from local parishes like Macclesfield and Wilmslow, however, slowlyr he went as far as capital of the United Kingdom and Liverpool to look for these young workers. To give confidence to the factory owners to take workhouse children, nation like Greg were rewarded between 2 and 4 for each child they employed. Greg in any case demanded that the children were sent to him with dickens shifts, dickens pairs of stockings and two aprons.The 90 children (30 boys and 60 girls) made up 50% of the total labor force. The children received their lodging and board, and two pence every week. The younger children worked as scavengers and piecers, but after a two years, they were permitted to become involved in spinning and carding. whatever of the more sr. boys became skilled mechanics.John Kay published The Moral and Physical Con ditions of the working Classes in 1832, Engels wrote his well-known The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 found on the plight of the Manchester on a lower floorclass, and in 1842 Edwin Chadwick published his Report on the hygienic Conditions of the Labouring Population. Official paupership figures for the Township of Manchester were the highest in Britain higher even than in Londons east end.Children faced a huge change as they detect working in textile mill was completely different from working at home. In the textile mill, Children worked from Monday to Saturday, beginning work from six in the morning and finishing at seven in the evening, with however one hr break for lunch between twelve and one. If children were late because of the work they were fined. If children fell asleep or made just a luxate on the job they were beaten. Childrens income were very low, sometimes just a someer pence for working sixty hours in a week, there were rules and regulatio ns. Children workers must dumbfound at the mill by certain time. Lateness was punishable with a fine. Everybody worked a number of hours and no-one was allowed to leave before a certain time. All this was a new experience for children, even where they lived.The circumstances they used to live in were awful, the apprentice House jerry built, without control or regulation of any kindthere was even less water and services, and no effort to give privacy of any kind. Children worked in shifts and shared beds. Nine or ten children were sharing one bedroom, and al thosel ninety children shared the three toilets. It was moist there were no double brick walls, and no recrudesce-proof courses. Rain leeched between the walls, and even in summers, damp rose up the walls. The only break from damp was the building of cellars to arrest off it. However, these cellars unavoidably became dwellings for subtenants.Even the conditions at the Mill working environment were worthless it was built on a massive open plan casing so that the foremen could see every single child worker. If they thought that workers werent working hard enough or absent they were punished. The rules for working in the mill were posted on walls but that was non enough as nigh of the children workers were non educated and could not read them. Child workers had no rights and sometimes missed their dinner breaks because the foreman ordered them to keep on working. Children who worked presbyopic hours became very exhausted and found it hard to maintain the rapidity needful by the superiors. Children were usually beat with a strap to make them work quicker. Some were dipped head first into the water reservoir if they became sleepy. Children were alike punished for arriving late for work and for chatting to the other children. Parish apprentices who ran away from the factory were in danger of being sent to jail. Children who were considered potential runaways were located in irons.One of the main comp laints made by factory reformers concerned the state of the building that they children were forced to work in. A statement published in July 1833 affirm that Quarry Bank Mill was ill-drained, no conveniences, low-roofed, dirty ill-ventilated for dressing or washing no contrivance for carrying off dust and additional effluvia.Robert Southey (1774-1843), the poet and historian, arrived in Manchester in 1808, pretending to be a Spanish traveller. He was apt(p) a guided tour at Quarry Bank mill and saw sights which makes me thank God I am not an Englishman. man his guide was praising the principles of child labour, Southey was looking at the unnatural ingenuity with which the fingers of these junior-grade creatures were playing in the machinery, and when his guide told him that the mill worked twenty quaternity hours a day, Southey concluded that if Dante had inhabited one of his hells with children, here was a exposure worthy to have supplied him with new images of torment.Unt il the Factory fleck of 1833, the factories were free to break up on the working hours. The laborers usually worked for more than twelve hours without breaks. Consequently, child laborers suffered wishing of sleep and were more vulnerable to mistakes and injuries.Matthew Crabtree was one of the forty-eight people whom the Sadler commission interviewed in the year of 1832. According to the Sadler Report that catalyzed the Factory Act of 1833, Crabtree had worked in a factory from the age of eight. He had worked sixteen hours a day, from five dollar bill a.m. to nine p.m. He usually went to sleep immediately after supper, and was woken up by his parents every morning. According to Crabtree, he was very severely and intimately commonly beaten whenever he was late to work. The fear of being beaten, verbalize Crabtree, was sufficient impulse to keep up with his work despite his drowsiness.a few child laborers were from deprived working families who could not afford to feed themsel ves without the children contributing financially. Even with the childrens income, the majority of families were hardly capable to sustain themselves. in addition, the child laborers regularly complained about the quality of food given in the place of work. Some testified before the Parliament that they could not eat the scrimpy meal they were given because of exhaustion and pollution. The photographs of childhood workers testify malnutrition and abuse. Child laborers have smaller build than their wealthier peers, yet the wrinkled faces covered with soot block the viewer from accurately concluding the childrens age. The child workers were under the supervision of strangers factory managers who were employed by the factory owners. Also, the work did not require such(prenominal) finesse, and there were many unemployed children willing to substitute the workers place. Consequently, the factory managers did not carry the responsibility of the welfare of the workers they were simply p aid to ensure that the factory is operated smoothly.As we can convey from the above text the treatment of children in the factories was often cruel and extreme. The childrens safety was by and large neglected and it did prove bleak on numerous occasions. The youngest children, around the age of eight, were not old enough to activate the machines and were commonly sent to be assistants to adult main workers. The people in charge of the factorys whereabouts would beat and verbally abuse the children, and take little consideration for the workers safety. Girls could not be the exception to beatings and other harsh forms of incommode infliction children were dipped head first into the water cistern if they became drowsy. The girls were also vulnerable to sexual harassment.Trivial mistakes due to deficiency of sleep resulted in serious injuries or mutilation. The Sadler Report commissioned by the House of putting get up in 1832 said that there are factories, no means few in number, nor confined to the smaller mills, in which serious accidents are continually occurring, and in which, notwithstanding, dangerous parts of the machinery are allowed to remain unfenced. The workers were in around cases abandoned from the moment of the accident with no wages, no medical attendance, and no monetary compensation. The regulation was harsh and the penalty inhumane and sporadic. Such punishment for being late or not working up to the work assigned would be to be weighted. An overseer would tie a obtuse weight to workers neck, and have him walk up and down the factory aisles so the other children could see him. This punishment could last up to an hour. Weighting led to serious injuries in the back and the neck.In addition to the above the violators sometimes had to pay the consequence monetarily Elizabeth Bentley, before the Sadler Committee in 1832, mentioned that she was usually quartered If we were a quarter of an hour too late, they would take off half an hour we on ly got a penny an hour, and they would take a halfpenny more. Some witnesses compared themselves as slaves, and the overseer as slave drivers.One could argue that lack of schooling had forced the children to factories, and mandatory schooling was the key to eradicating industrial child labor. It is true that illiteracy blocked the children from elevating the social and economic hierarchy. However, the Education Act of 1870 contained provisions to allow school boards to compel attendance but undeniable by-laws were not enforcement to implement these provisions. In short, the mandatory schoolings in Britain were introduced too late to critically contribute to the reform. Also, one could argue that mandatory schooling would only wear off children who are already exhausted from long hours of fatigue labor. Schooling did little good to children who were physically deprived. Lack of sleep will most likely risk dangers of lethargy and expose the children to more accidents.Child workers g enerally labored to assist the task of the adult workers the two labor populations did not directly compete with each other. Therefore, one could argue that the child workers intimately contributed to the impoverished family income. As the children were regarded source of labor for long, some did not object glass to sending their children to factories. Even if others did not approve of the treatment in workplaces, they had no valid and legal means to protest.Most statistics that are available could not be completely trusted. One especially was careful not to depend entirely on skewed numbers or individual case studies. Also, throughout history, many scholars and ideologists have distorted the facts to prove their assertions.Until the child labor issue became a state issue, most of the investigators touched only the surface of the problem. The factory overseers could easily usher the investigators away from the truth. Also, the survey has not been conducted consistently as to portr ay an accurate sketch of the labor picture. On the other hand, some reports have been accused of exaggerating the current situation to bring the child labor issue to a state concern. Major government reports on child labor were uneven in the coverage, focusing predominantly upon children in industrial occupations.In addition, some determined historians have maneuvered the statistics to exaggerate child labor as an example of corruption and depravity when child labor helped improve the familys financial status.ConclusionIndustrial child labor has intermeshed only a small portion of the child labor population. Also, it had lasted for a fleeting moment in British history. However, child workers in industrial workplaces need to be highlighted as history in which children were placed under the custody of a stranger in a confined, unwholesome pose the children were exposed to a higher possibility of abuse and mistreatment.Although child labor in Britain shared similar characteristics wi th other industrialized countries of a later period of time, the British government relatively peacefully restricted the employ of children. The publicity of the special commission reports and the attention of the public had contributed greatly.Child labor, as much as it is criticized for its faults, should be analyzed, considering every possible factor. It is true that the child laborers have suffered from exploitation and unintended neglect, yet the family wouldve starved if not for the contribution of the children. History should not be hastily judged, but observed objectively for futures sake.