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 %(M Ml Mi
 
 THE 
 
 HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT 
 
 FKOM 
 
 THE YEAR 1802, TO THE ENACTMENT OF THE 
 TEN HOURS' BILL IN 1847. 
 
 By ALFRE 
 
 D. C V(vY3 
 
 n 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. 1. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO. 
 
 1857. 
 {The Author reserves the right of translation.']
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BT RETNELL AND WEIQBT, 
 LITTLE PDLTBNET 6TREET. 
 
 ^nttm at Stationers' li^all,
 
 &7K3 
 
 ■3 
 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 TO THE 
 
 RIGHT HOiN. LORD FEVERSHAM. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 " The highest humanity is the soundest policy." 
 Your lordship, early in your political career, appre- 
 ciated the truth and wisdom of this maxim. A 
 quarter of a century has elapsed since, at a county 
 g! meeting in the Castle-yard of York, by the bold 
 i expression of your sense of the responsibilities of the 
 rich to the poor, and of the government to society, 
 your lordship linked yourself to the hearts of, the 
 factory operatives. Your lordship has witnessed a 
 protracted conflict between the supporters and oppo- 
 nents of factory regulation, — you have taken therein 
 an important part; the social, moral, and educational 
 advantages which have followed the passing of the 
 Ten Hours' Bill, in 1847, cannot have failed to be 
 gratifying to your heart, and, in some degree, to 
 have rewarded you for your manifold exertions. 

 
 IV 
 
 When friends to the oppressed factory workers 
 were few, your lordship stepped boldly forth, and, 
 by your example, contributed to bring about a 
 salutary change in public opinion. When public 
 opinion had undergone a desirable transition, and the 
 mind of the legislature had become ripe for legislation ; 
 your lordship distinguished yourself by the earnestness 
 with which, in your legislative capacity, you sealed the 
 efforts of earlier years, with the approval of a majority 
 of the House of Lords. 
 
 Because of early,, consistent, and continuous exer- 
 tions, on behalf of the interests of those engaged in 
 factory labour, I esteem it a privilege to be allowed 
 to dedicate " The History of the Factory Move- 
 ment," to your lordship. 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 My Lord, 
 Your Lordship's humble and obedient servant, 
 
 ALFRED.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Custom has established the rule, that authors should 
 state the reasons why they write books. Recent discus- 
 sions in parliament, and the tone of a portion of the 
 periodical literature of the time, have convinced the 
 Author that the facts of the factories, as these existed 
 prior to factory regulation by law, were either 
 forgotten or misunderstood, and, that the means 
 taken to change that condition have been frequently 
 misapprehended ; he, therefore, considers it to be a duty 
 to present to the public and to statesmen a narrative, 
 compiled from authentic sources, embodying these 
 facts. The social condition of the working classes 
 is a subject of growing influence; the number of 
 persons, under the operation of the Factories' Regula- 
 tion Acts, is, probably, not fewer than half a million, 
 and is rapidly on the increase; the past history of 
 the factory operatives, as a class, can scarcely fail to 
 be of interest to many among themselves; the par- 
 liamentary records, of more than half a century, 
 bear witness to the importance of the factory 
 question in the eye of the legislature; as a subject
 
 VI rPtEFACE. 
 
 of social and political moment, it is worthy of special 
 study. The press, which in this country reflects 
 and leads public opinion, and prepares the national 
 mind for legislation, has long esteemed the factory 
 question as one of high importance 
 
 The leaders of the factory movement, in compa- 
 ratively recent times, have, by extraordinary exertions, 
 forced on an unwilling government, a recognition of 
 its duty, to protect by law the helpless ; it was re- 
 served for the promoters of the factory movement to 
 break through the commercial materialism of their 
 age, to compel society and the legislature to recognise 
 every woman, young person, and child, employed in 
 the textile branches of British manufacture, as a 
 human creature, having a mind and body to be 
 cared for, and, as being an object of higher regard 
 than merely a piece of factory furniture, whose 
 existence had no end to accomplish, beyond producing 
 the greatest possible quantity of goods at the lowest 
 possible cost. 
 
 To supply, in a condensed form, yet, with a fulness 
 sufficient for the ordinary purposes of the practical 
 student in history and politics, a narrative of these 
 exertions, is, the Author trusts, a work not incom- 
 patible with the wants of the age. Many efforts 
 are now being made on behalf of the social 
 improvement of the working classes; a circumstance 
 which renders a knowledge of the past more desirable 
 than it, otherwise, would have been. 
 
 The subject of factory regulation has, for years, 
 received a considerable share of the Author's attcuT
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 tion ; he believes that its importance, though generally 
 recognized, is not so fully appreciated, as it deserves ; 
 he has been personally familiar with some among 
 the principal leaders of the factory movement; 
 fi'om his own experience, he is certain that their 
 labours have not hitherto been duly acknow- 
 ledged. Historical justice, of which much has been 
 recently said, requires, that all efforts, for or against 
 the public good, should be registered; and, that 
 every necessary means should be applied for the 
 establishment and preservation of the whole truth, 
 without regard to the prejudices or interests of 
 parties or individuals. 
 
 The factory system is the result of a new power 
 in modern civilization, unknown to ancient states, 
 and having no parallel in the history of modern nations; 
 its origin, progress, and effects, as manifested in society, 
 consequently, claim close attention from all who are 
 interested in the present and future well-being of 
 those engaged in manufacturing industry. 
 
 The division of labour is an important condition 
 of modern production ; it is as applicable to the narra- 
 tion of events as to watchmaking, and will be found 
 advantageous for purposes of information and refer- 
 ence. 
 
 The vague sense often attached to the word con- 
 stitutional, induces the Author to observe that, when 
 used by him, it is to be understood by the reader 
 as meaning, in concordance with the general spirit of the 
 laivs of this country. 
 
 The Author has endeavoured to present facts and
 
 VUl PREFACE. 
 
 documents in the words in which he found them, 
 rather than in his own, but, he has not shrunk from 
 an expression of his opinions ; knowing, that every 
 discriminating reader will separate the statement 
 of things done, from the judgment expressed, and give 
 unto each due consideration. The Author has often 
 asked himself — "Why should the history of a move- 
 ment which occupied many years of the lives of 
 some self-sacrificing, strong-minded, persevering, and 
 benevolent men, ultimately commanded an over-ruling 
 share of public attention, and left the mark of its 
 existence on the legislation of the country, be to 
 society less interesting or valuable than the biogra- 
 phy of an eminent statesmen or divine ? " 
 
 The Author's desii^e to do justice to the services 
 of some public men whose motives, intentions, and 
 actions have, even in the highest places, been mis- 
 understood and misrepresented, constitutes tke warrant 
 for the work on which he has entered. 
 
 London, October, 1857.
 
 I 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 William Pitt, the English Manufacturers, and English Children. 
 — Prominent facts illustrating the social condition of Eng- 
 land, anterior to the introduction of the Factory System ■ 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Parish Apprentices under " the Factory System." — Origin of 
 Factory regulation. — Resuli3_^__h£altlx.-aniLj]aorals. — Par- 
 liamentary efforts of the first Sir Robert Peel - - 15 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The New Lanark mills. — Meeting of Scottish manufacturers 
 in Glasgow. — Repeal of the import duty on cotton. — Be- 
 ginning of the Ten Hours' Bill movement - - - 34 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Nature of the evidence taken before the Select Committee of 
 1816. — Condition of children_gxapl.Qy.ed_iiL Factories. — State 
 of the question - - - - - 48 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Renewed efforts of the supporters of factory regulation. — Power, 
 position, and arguments of opponents. — Debate in the 
 House of Commons in 1818 - - - - 60
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Proceedings in the House of Lords. — Appointment of a com- 
 mittee, — Nature of the evidence. — Arguments for and 
 against stated - - - - - 73 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 Anti-slavery feeling in Yorkshire. — Richard Oastler's principles 
 defined. — His letter on " Yorkshire Slavery.'' — Discussion 
 in the press. — Meeting of Bradford millowners, favourable 
 to factory regulation. — Opposition meeting at Halifax - 88 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The principle of factory regulation consoaant with the spirit of 
 the laws of England. — Mr Oastler's appeal to the working 
 classes. — The Fixby compact. — Choice by the supporters of 
 factory legislation of Michael Thomas Sadler, Esq , M.P., 
 as parliamentary leader. — Summary of his principles - 117 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Mechanical, social, and moral progress. — Letter of Sir John Cam 
 Hobhouse, Bart., M.P., on the difficulty of further legisla- 
 tion. — Mr Oastler's reply. — Opinions and letter of the Right 
 Hon. T. B. Macaulay on the factory question. — Speech of 
 Mr Sadler on introducing the Ten Hours' Bill to the 
 House of Commons. — Appointment of a parliamentary 
 committee ..... 135 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 M^ercy a leading feature in factory agitation.— PubHc meetings 
 in Yorkshire. — County meeting at York — Procession and 
 public entry of Mr Sadler and Mr Oastler into Man- 
 chester - - - - - - 211 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The social and moral condition of Manchester and district in 
 1831 and 1832, as described by Mr William Rathbone Greg, 
 of Bury, Lancashire, and Dr Kay (now Sir James Kay 
 Shuttleworth) - - - ■ - 259
 
 CONTENTS. X* 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Evidence before the Sadler committee. — Mr Sadler's extraor- 
 dinaiy exertions. — Precarious state of his health. — Growth 
 of public opinion. — Presentation of the great Yorkshire 
 petition. — " The Duke of Sussex and the Factory Bill.'' — 
 Persecution of working-men witnesses by their employers - 272 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Rejection of Mr Sadler, by Leeds and Huddersfield, under the 
 Reform Act.— The late Mr John Fielden, M.P. for Oldham, 
 his principles and character. — The Rev. G. S. Bull, his 
 preaching and practice. — Lord Ashley as the parliamentary 
 successor of Mr Sadler. — Renewal of the factory question 
 in the House of Commons . - - . 323
 
 THE 
 
 HISTORY OF THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WILLIAM PITT, THE ENGLISH MANUFACTURERS, AND ENGLISH CHILDREN. 
 — PROMINENT FACTS ILLUSTRATING THE SOCIAL CONDITION OP 
 ENGLAND ANTERIOR TO THE INTRODUCTION OF THE FACTORY 
 SYSTEM. 
 
 The history of the manufacturing industry of this country 
 has long been a subject of universal interest. The historians, 
 the social, political, and moral economists of France, have 
 devoted to the manufacturing industry of England a large 
 share of their attention. The proximity of the two nations, 
 the wide difference in their internal economy, in their in- 
 dustrial development, in the native bent of the genius of 
 their peoples, have opened to the thoughtful of each nation 
 a profitable and comprehensive range of inquiry and com- 
 parison in the study of the other. These circumstances 
 render it desirable that the information conveyed by the 
 authors of one nation regarding the industry of the other 
 should be trustworthy. 
 
 William Pitt was an eminent statesman. We esteem M. 
 Michelet, the French historian, as a man of genius and an 
 author of deservedly high reputation. For these reasons, 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 his words relating to a statesman whose name is represen- 
 tative of an important period of English history have 
 an especial interest. In a translation of The People, 
 there is the following statement: — "In the height of the 
 great duel between England and France, when the English 
 manufacturers represented to Mr Pitt that the rise in the 
 rate of wages incapacitated them from paying the taxes, he 
 pronounced the terrible words, ^ Take the children.' Those 
 words weigh heavily upon England as a curse. Ever since 
 that hour the race of its men have been deteriorating. 
 This people, heretofore so athletic, is growing nerveless 
 and enfeebled. What has become of that vividness and 
 freshness of complexion which was so great a charm of 
 EngHsh youth?— Faded, sullied. They listened to Mr Pitt. 
 Tliey took the children." Granting the truth, in all its ful- 
 ness, of the effects of the factory system, as narrated by M. 
 Michelet, the memory of so distinguished a statesman as 
 William Pitt demands an examination into the part which 
 he is represented to have taken. 
 
 In the absence of proof of the fact related, we cannot 
 admit the reasonableness of charging so terrible a national 
 calamity upon a statesman who, so far as liis public acts 
 and recorded declarations are representative of his opinions, 
 would have been the last of English statesmen to have 
 uttered a sentiment so unmanly — so umvise. On what 
 occasion was it that WiUiam Pitt, having been confronted 
 by the English manufacturers in distress, said to them, in 
 order that they should have been enabled to pay their 
 taxes, "Take the children"? 
 
 "In the height of the great duel between England and 
 France " the manufacturers of England were, as a rule, 
 eminently prosperous. That prosperity increased the cu- 
 pidity of some, and laid the foundation of the colossal 
 fortunes of others, whose benevolence in their own neigh- 
 bourhoods was beneficially exerted. True, there were times
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 3 
 
 of great distress, when, for a season, the manufacturing 
 industry was prostrated ; the remedy was not found by 
 William Pitt in the unnatural labour of children, but in 
 financial changes, in issuing exchequer-bills, the suspension 
 of cash payments, giving direct relief in money, and other 
 measures of a like kind. There is a passage in a speech 
 spoken by William Pitt on February 12th, 1796, which, 
 by misapprehension, may have led to the French historian's 
 assertion. Mr Wliitbread having in the House of Commons 
 moved the second reading of the Labourers' Wages Bill, 
 William Pitt said — " Experience had already shown how 
 much could be done by the industry of cliildren, and the 
 advantage of early employing them in such branches of 
 manufacture as they were capable to execute. The ex- 
 tension of schools of industry was also an object of national 
 importance. If any one would take the trouble to compute 
 the amount of all the earnings of the children who are 
 educated in this manner, he would be surprised, when he 
 came to consider the weight which their support by their 
 own labours took off the country, and the addition which, 
 by the fruits of their toil, and the habits to which they were 
 formed, was made to its internal opulence. The suggestion 
 of these schools was originally drawn from Lord Hales and 
 Mr Locke, and upon such authority he had no difficulty in 
 recommending the plan to the encouragement of the Legis- 
 lature. Much might be effected by a plan of the nature 
 susceptible of constant improvement." It is possible that 
 M. Michelet may have mistaken the industrial schools re- 
 commended by William Pitt, for the employment of children 
 in factories. William Pitt stated on whose authority the 
 industrial schools he approved were founded. 
 
 In 1697, the neglected state of the children of the poor 
 attracted the attention of the Government. The Board of 
 Trade was authorised by William III to inquire into the 
 subject; the Commissioners appointed were Lord Hales and 
 
 B 2
 
 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 John Locke. Their report, said to have been written by- 
 Locke, is the key to the objects contemplated by Pitt ; 
 these are faithfully conveyed in the following clause, extracted 
 from the "Heads of a Bill for the better support and 
 maintenance of the poor; prepared according to the plan 
 opened by Mr Pitt to the House of Commons, in the 
 present session of Parliament, 1796." 
 
 "That the persons appointed to the management of 
 
 the poor of any parish or united parishes, shall from time 
 
 to time provide, by all lawful means in their power, a 
 
 proper stock of hemp, flax, silk, cotton, iron, leather, or 
 
 other materials, and also proper tools and implements for 
 
 the employment of the poor ; and it shall be lawful for the 
 
 said parish, or united parishes, and for the poor thereof, and 
 
 the person, or persons appointed to the management of the 
 
 said poor, respectively to carry on all or any trades, 
 
 mysteries, or occupations whatever, within any school or 
 
 schools of industry established by virtue of this Act, and 
 
 the buildings thereunto belonging, or at the houses or 
 
 habitations of the poor persons of such respective parishes ; 
 
 any law, usage, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding ; 
 
 and that all persons whatever, who shall be lawfully 
 
 settled in any parish where he, she, or they, may reside, 
 
 or in any parish united therewith; and also all other persons 
 
 residing in any such parish, under the authority of the Act, 
 
 who shall be willing to be employed in any trade, mystery, 
 
 occupation, or employment, carried on in the school, or 
 
 schools of industry there, shall for themselves, respectively, 
 
 and such of their respective families who are able and wiUing 
 
 to work, be entitled to be employed in such school, or 
 
 schools of industry, and to be instructed in any such trade, 
 
 mystery, occupation, or employment there carried on, as 
 
 shall be suited to his, her, or their strength, or ability, at 
 
 such wages, or recompense, as shall be settled and established 
 
 to be paid or made for the work done or performed by
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 5 
 
 him, her, or them, in such school, or schools of industry, 
 according to the directions of this Act." 
 
 In the bill were provisions enabhng the parish authorities 
 to apprentice " to any respectable person in Great Britain," 
 every male child of the age of fourteen, female child at 
 twelve, or earlier if thought fit, for the purpose of being 
 taught a useful handicraft. In 1817, the fundamental 
 principle of the industrial training-schools projected by 
 Hales and Locke, was approved by a Poor-Law Committee 
 of the House of Commons. The pauperism and crime of 
 the present century are in a great degree attributable to 
 the neglect on the part of governments of the merciful and 
 wise suggestions of Hales and Locke, supported by Pitt, but 
 unfortunately not reduced to practice. The evil, as well as 
 the good in society, bears witness to the truth of the words : 
 "■ Train up a child m tlie way he should go, and when he 
 is old he will not depart from it." 
 
 All who know the writings of Locke will remember how 
 zealously, under all circumstances, he contended for health 
 and recreation. Locke knew that the love of action was 
 inseparable from childhood, and it was the constant aim of 
 his practical philosophy to render the apphcation of this 
 instinctive desire healthful in mind and body to its possessor ; 
 results incompatible with the unregulated factory system. 
 Not any statesman, having read the writings of Locke, could 
 fail to observe the importance he attaches to a full allowance 
 of sleep, and exercise in the open air, and, having approved 
 these writings, could name their author in support of any 
 practice opposed to these essential requisites. William 
 Pitt's known approval of the efforts of his friend, the 
 first Sir Robert Peel, is in itself decided proof that the fonner 
 could not have said to the manufacturers, in the sense conveyed 
 by M. Michelet, " Take the children." The children were 
 taken before " the great duel " was at its height, and 
 William Pitt was no obstacle to their emancipation and
 
 6 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 improvement. The respect due to the memory and character 
 of a departed statesman, a sense of the hnportance of the 
 words of a hving historian, full of sympathy for the 
 oppressed of all nations, and the close connection of his 
 statement with the subject under consideration, demand 
 from us, thus early, the remarks we have made. In 
 passing, we cannot avoid observiug that all the conditions 
 of health and strength associated with industry, contended 
 for by Locke, were compatible with domestic manufacture 
 as practised anterior to the introduction of complicated 
 machinery and steam power as agents of production. Had 
 British statesmen discovered and applied the means necessary 
 for uniting health and labour under the changed conditions 
 of productive industry, there would not now have existed 
 the necessity for that history which it is our duty to 
 narrate. 
 
 The affirmation which we have quoted from a translation 
 of M. Michelet's book, has been adopted and repeated by 
 other French authors of high reputation, and has, conse- 
 quently, assumed the character of an established truth. 
 Not any statesman ever maintained the industrial rights 
 of the labourers of England more earnestly than did 
 William Pitt ; he distinguished himself by his defence of 
 the Poor Law of Elizabeth. So far was William Pitt from 
 saying to the manufacturers of England, " Take the children," 
 that he, on the contrary, contended that every labouring 
 man and his family had a right to be made comfortable in 
 his own dwelling, and actually introduced into parhament 
 a bill, intended to supply every labouring man and his 
 family, when and where required, " with a cow or a, pig, 
 or some other animal yielding profit." The industrial 
 schools approved by William Pitt, were entirely opposed 
 in principle and practice to the unregulated factory 
 system. The schools were local and parochial, and 
 in their management health was a principal consideration.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 7 
 
 The Frencli authors who have arraigned the character of 
 William Pitt by so serious an imputation on his humanity, 
 and his wisdom as a statesman, have not given their 
 authorities for so grave a charge ; in the absence of those 
 authorities the weight of their declaration is lessened. We 
 have been unable to discover any grounds for the accusation, 
 beyond those already named, the misinterpretation of which 
 may possibly have misled M. Michelet and his followers. 
 
 A knowledge of the importance of the question of factory 
 labour, and a due appreciation of the efforts to secure factory 
 regulation under the law, require that some of the more pro- 
 minent facts illustrating the industrial condition of this country 
 anterior to the general introduction and development of 
 the inventions of Watt, Hargraves, and Arkwright should 
 be stated. An understanding of the past is the best key 
 to an apprehension of the present. This maxim has been 
 sanctioned by the experience and example of the wisest 
 among political philosophers. "Antiquity," said Bacon, 
 " deserveth that reverence that men should make a stand 
 thereupon, and discover what is the best way; but when 
 the discovery is well taken then to make progression." A 
 course in itself so necessary and recommended by so 
 great an authority will, we trust, be met by universal 
 approval. 
 
 In the year 1764, James Watt, the Scottish machinist, 
 began his improvements of the steam engine. In 1767, 
 James Hargraves, a Lancashire carpenter, invented the 
 spinning jenny. These inventions were followed by that of 
 the spinning frame^ generally ascribed to Richard Arkwright, 
 a native of Preston, and the unule^ by Mr Crompton, of Bolton. 
 The effects of these improvements in the means of production, 
 by substituting inanimate for animate power, were immense; 
 their social effects, rightly appreciated, were not less re- 
 markable than their productive results. Within the brief 
 period of twenty-one years, namely, from 1764, the date
 
 8 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 of the improvements of Watt, to 1785, the time of the 
 introduction of the mule of Mr Crompton, the means were 
 invented and applied, which, followed by others of a similar 
 kind, accomplished what no conqueror by the power of 
 armies and the force of decrees could have realized — they 
 changed the personal and relative condition, and, conse- 
 quently, the habits and character, of numerous sections of 
 the people ; they aggregated into a few districts what was 
 formerly a widely-spread cottage industry; they congregated 
 in hiige buildings, under no moral control, large numbers 
 of persons of both sexes and of all ages (in the place of 
 domestic cottage employment, under the control and superin- 
 tendence of parents); in the train of these inventions, and 
 their consequent changes, have followed others which have 
 very materially affected not only the domestic condition of 
 the manufacturing operatives, but the social condition of aU 
 engaged in manufacture, whether employers or employed ; 
 and also weakened the link which united the labouring popu- 
 lation to the Church, and, further, interfered with the practical 
 government of the country. 
 
 It is not an easy task for men living in the last half of 
 the nineteenth century, to represent by the aid of know- 
 ledge and reflection, within their own minds, the actual 
 circumstances existino- in the last half of the eighteenth 
 century. The present is to the majority all-engrossing, it 
 is to them everything, the beginning, the middle, and the 
 end. It is not possible to recall a complete picture of the 
 past, we must be content to state a few prominent facts, 
 and our authorities for the same. 
 
 Sir James Stewart, whose Inquiry into the Principles of 
 Political Economy was published in the year 1767, has 
 observed: — "Were the people of England to come more 
 into the use of living upon bread, and give over consuming 
 so much animal food, inhabitants would certainly increase, 
 and many rich grass fields would be thrown into tillage.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 9 
 
 Were the French to give over eating so much bread, the 
 Dutch so much fish, the Flemish so much garden stuff, and 
 the Germans so much sourkraut, and all take to the English 
 diet of pork, beef, and mutton, their respective numbers 
 would soon decay, let them improve their grounds to the 
 utmost." It will be noted by the reader that Su' James 
 Stewart has said that the diet of the people in England 
 of his time consisted of " pork, beef, and mutton." A 
 better informed, less prejudiced, and therefore more credible 
 witness than Sir James Stewart it would be impossible to 
 produce; he was a keen observer, a man well-travelled and 
 well-read. Adam Smith, in his great work, Tlie Wealth 
 of Nations, has borne very ample evidence on what, in 
 recent years, has been comprehensively called "The Con- 
 dition of England Question." This author, writing ante- 
 cedent to the year 1776, has said: — "The real recompense 
 of labour, the real quantity of the necessaries and conve- 
 niences of Hfe wliich it can procure to the labourer, has, 
 during the course of the present century, increased perhaps 
 in a still greater proportion than its money price. Not only 
 grain has become somewhat cheaper, but many other things, 
 from which the industrious poor derive an agreeable and 
 wholesome variety of food, have become a great deal 
 cheaper." " The common complaint, that luxury extends 
 itself even to the lowest ranks of the people, and that the 
 labouring poor will not now be content with the same 
 food, clothing, and lodging which satisfied them in former 
 times, may convince us that it is not the money price of 
 labour only, but its real recompense, which has augmented." 
 Adam Smith, after having referred to the seven years' 
 war with France, which closed in 1763, has remarked that 
 *' though more than 100,000 men, all accustomed to the use 
 of arms, and many of them to rapine and plunder," " were 
 at once thrown out of their ordinary employment," " not 
 only no great convulsion, but no sensible disorder, arose
 
 10 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 from so great a change." A circumstance which in itself 
 attested a morally and socially healthful condition of society. 
 The evidence of Sir James Stewart as to the food of our 
 forefathers in the last half of the eighteenth century is very 
 decided; the evidence of Adam Smith as to their social 
 condition is not less so. How our forefathers were clad 
 and lodged are subjects of interest, and we cannot be 
 justly charged with exaggeration when we state that their 
 linen and woollen garments served to protect them effici- 
 ently from the inclemencies and through the changes of 
 the seasons, and with these, as a rule, they were plentifully 
 supplied; it was matter of complaint that luxury had ex- 
 tended " itself even to the lowest ranks of the people, and 
 that the labouring poor would not be contented with the 
 same food, clothing, and lodging which satisfied them in 
 former times." With such testimony before us, we may 
 safely affirm that convenient plenty was at that time the 
 lot of the labouring population of England. Not any one 
 who has profited by the conversations of the aged 
 of both sexes, the latest living links in the chain of gene- 
 rations, serving to bind together the past and the present, 
 will fail to recall the " Goodmen " and " Notable House- 
 wives " as life-Hke as memory can do; the fathers and 
 mothers of such, he will associate with thrift and comfort. 
 "The spinning-wheel," which was forced from the cottages 
 in all districts, because of the mechanical inventions referred 
 to, was neither offensive to the eye nor the ear, its motion, 
 when in use, was distinctly visible, and its sound not un- 
 pleasant. The employment of spinning with the wheel was 
 not opposed to the agreeable exercise of conversation, it was 
 not injurious to health ; to the " housewife " it constituted 
 a constant and profitable exercise. Such domestic employ- 
 ment was favourable to the promotion of parental authority 
 and filial obedience, and to the growth of all the domestic 
 sympathies. The gradual acquirement of habits of industry
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 11 
 
 by children so situated was not inconsistent with the healthful 
 pleasures of infancy and childhood. Under such social 
 arrangements, the pastor had a ready access to his flock ; 
 by liis visits devotional feelings and moral habits were 
 encouraged. 
 
 A tolerably just notion of the effects on the operative 
 classes of the introduction of mechanical inventions in the 
 practice of spinning, may be formed by reading the follow- 
 ing resolutions, unanunously adopted at the quarter sessions 
 held at Preston, for the county of Lancaster, on November 
 the 11th, 1779 : — "Resolved that the sole cause of great 
 riots was the new machines employed in the cotton manu- 
 facture ; that the county, notwithstanding, had greatly 
 benefited by their erection ; that the destroying them in 
 one county would only be the means of transferring them 
 to another county ; and that, if a total stop were put by 
 the Legislature to their erection in Britain, it would only 
 tend to their establishment in foreign countries, to the 
 detriment of the trade of Britain." The struggle, for such 
 it must be called, indicated by these resolutions has been 
 of long continuance; it has not even now closed, the com- 
 petition of " the iron men " against the men of bone, flesh, and 
 muscle is still a source of controversy and complaint; the 
 claims of capital, real or supposed, and the claims of labour, 
 real or supposed, are in frequent opposition, of which strife 
 that same town of Preston, so late as 1853, afforded a 
 mournful example. 
 
 Dr Aikin, in his description of the country round 
 Manchester (pubHshed in 1795), has left on record a 
 graphic and faithful delineation of the results of what 
 is now known as " the factory system " on the health, 
 morals, and character of the labouring population: — " The 
 invention and improvement of machines to shorten labour 
 have had a surprising influence to extend our trade, and 
 also to call in hands from all parts, particularly children for
 
 12 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the cotton-mills. It is the wise plan of Providence that in 
 this life there shall be no good without its attendant in- 
 convenience. There are many which are too obvious in 
 these cotton-mills, and similar factories, which counteract 
 that increase of population usually consequent on the im- 
 proved facility of labour. In these, children of a very tender 
 age are employed, many of them collected from the work- 
 houses in London and Westminster, and transported in 
 crowds as apprentices to masters resident many hundred 
 miles distant, where they serve unknown, unprotected, and 
 forgotten by those to whose care nature or the law had con- 
 signed them. These children are usiially too long confined 
 to work, in close rooms, often during the whole night. The 
 air they breathe from the oil, &c., employed in the 
 machinery, and other circumstances, is injurious ; little 
 attention is paid to their cleanliness ; and frequent changes 
 from a warm and dense to a cold and thin atmosphere are 
 predisposing causes to sickness and debility, and particularly 
 to the epidemic fever which is so generally to be met 
 with in these factories. It is also much to be questioned 
 if society does not receive detriment from the manner in 
 which children are thus employed during their earlier years. 
 They are not generally strong to labour, or capable of 
 pursuing any other branch of business when the term of 
 their apprenticeship expires. The females are wholly un- 
 instructed in sewing, knitting, and other domestic affairs, 
 requisite to make them notable and frugal wives and mothers. 
 This is a very great misfortune to them and to the public, 
 as is sadly proved by a comparison of the families of 
 labourers in husbandry and those of manufacturers in 
 general. In the former we meet with neatness, cleanliness, 
 and comfort; in the latter with filth, rags, and poverty, 
 although their wages may be nearly double those of the 
 husbandman. It must be added, that the want of early 
 religious instruction and example, and the numerous and
 
 THE 'factory movement. 13 
 
 indiscriminate association in these buildings, are very un- 
 favourable to tlieir future conduct in life." In an earlier 
 part of the same book, Dr Aikin has observed: — "The 
 prevalence of fevers among persons employed in cotton-mills 
 might be lessened, by the attention on the part of the 
 overseers to the following circumstances. Besides a due 
 regard to ventilation, personal cleanliness should be strongly 
 recommended and encouraged ; and the parents of children 
 should be enjoined to wash them every morning and evening, 
 to keep their shoes and stockings in good condition, and 
 above all, never to send them to work early in the morning 
 without giving them food. 
 
 " It is greatly to be wished that the custom of working 
 aU night could be avoided. The continuance of such a 
 practice cannot be consistent -with health, and I am glad 
 to find that it does not prevail universally." The weighty 
 judgment of Dr Kay (now Sir James Kay Shuttleworth) 
 and Mr William Rathbone Greg, at a subsequent period, 
 fully verified the well-founded opinion of Dr Aikin. 
 
 It had appeared to the minds of some sincere and 
 able men, in various ranks, that it was possible to retain 
 all the " good " referred to by Dr Aikin, and, at least, 
 to mitigate in an important degree the ^' attendant incon- 
 veniences." It would be a fountam of never-ceasing sorrow, 
 if not any change and increase in the means and powers 
 of production could take place without an increase of human 
 suffering and depravity. If this were indeed an inevitable 
 law, then the genius of man would necessarily be his 
 enemy, for " inconveniences " of the nature and to the 
 extent named, with so much candour and mildness, by Dr 
 Aikin, would, in time, become evils of so great magnitude, 
 as to organically and progressively injure the whole frame- 
 work of the body pohtic. The promoters of factory 
 legislation acted under the conviction that the inventions of 
 man are useless, nay worse than useless, injurious, when.
 
 14 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 without regard to their personal, domestic, social, political, 
 moral, and religious effect on the people, those inventions 
 are used only as means " to heap up riches," making 
 many poor, that a few may become enormously rich. To 
 enjoy the use, to avoid the abuse of all such improvements, 
 were the objects of the promoters of factory legislation. 
 
 Full half a century elapsed between the description of 
 the evils of "the factory system," as witnessed and 
 narrated by Dr Aikin, and the passing of the Ten Hours' 
 Bill in 1847. These were upwards of fifty years of 
 efforts on the part of an energetic body of men, who 
 endeavoured to bring factory labour under the control of 
 Christian and constitutional principles. These efforts in 
 the factories, on the platform, through the press, the pulpit, 
 and the parliament, called into existence almost every 
 shade of controversy, religious, moral, social, economical, 
 poHtical, philosopHcal, and parliamentary; and it is to the 
 sayings and doings of the principal actors in so momentous 
 a conflict, that we desire to devote the following pages.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PAEISH APPRENTICES TJNDEE " THE FACTORY SYSTEM." — ORIGIN OF 
 FACTORY EEOULATION. — RESULTS ON HEALTH AND MORALS. — 
 PARLIAMENTARY EFFORTS OF THE FIRST SIR ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 It lias been held by the wisest and greatest of British 
 statesmen that the children of the poor have especial claims 
 on society; in the Church they are recognised as " God's 
 own poor." Under the constitution their rights in former 
 times were especially conserved, and made "part and 
 parcel " of the law of the land. Infancy is the period of 
 life which, because of its helplessness and hopefulness, has 
 especial claims on human sympathies — claims sanctified by the 
 words — " Suffer the httle children to come unto me, and forbid 
 them not." There can be no injustice greater than, 
 imder any pretext, the sacrifice of helpless infancy — the 
 tearing up of the roots of all the affections which, when 
 cherished, give unto life its dearest and most lasting ties, 
 thus robbing existence of its fairest fi'uits, forestalling the 
 strength of a state, and trampling under foot all the more 
 sacred duties of life. Man cannot present himself to the 
 consideration of his fellow-man in a more revolting cha- 
 racter than when, breaking through all the ties of nature and 
 the most hallowed principles of reHgion, he ventures for 
 his own lucre's sake to become the ensnarer and oppressor 
 of "the little children." Yet all this was done, under the 
 assumed sanction of law, and by those who claimed for
 
 16 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 themselves the protection of the avowedly Christian insti- 
 tutions of England. 
 
 When the first factories were erected, it was soon dis- 
 covered that there was in the minds of the parents a strong 
 repugnance to the employment thus provided for children; 
 the native domestic labourers being then able amply to 
 provide for their children, rejected the tempting offers of 
 the millowners, the parents preferring to rear their children 
 in their own homes, and to train them to their own handi- 
 crafts. For a long period it was by the working people 
 themselves considered to be disgraceful to any father who 
 allowed his child to enter the factory, — nay, in the homely 
 words of that day, as will be remembered by the old men 
 of the present age, — '* that parent made himself the town's 
 talk," and the unfortunate girl so given up by her parents, 
 in after life, found the door of household employment closed 
 against her — "Because she had been a factory girl." It 
 was not until the condition of portions of the working 
 classes had been • reduced, that it became the custom with 
 working men to eke out the means of their subsistence by 
 sending their children to the mills. Until that sad, and 
 calamitous custom prevailed, the factories m England were 
 worked by " stranger- children," gathered together from 
 the workhouses. 
 
 Under the operation of the factories' apprentice system 
 parish apprentices were sent, without remorse or inquiry, 
 fi-om the workhouses in England, and the public charities 
 of Scotland, to the factories, to be " used up " as the 
 " cheapest raw material in the market." This inhuman 
 conduct was systematically practised — the millowners com- 
 municated vpith the overseer of the poor, and when the 
 demand and supply had been arranged to the satisfaction 
 of both the contracting parties, a day was fixed for the 
 examination of " the little children," to be inspected by the 
 millowner, or his agent, previous to which the authorities
 
 THE FACTORY IVFOVEMENT. 17 
 
 of tlic workhouse had filled the minds of their wards with 
 the notion that, by entering the mills, they would become 
 ladies and gentlemen. On the day appointed, the children 
 were drawn up to be inspected and selected ; those chosen 
 were then conveyed by coach, by waggon, or boat, to 
 their destination, and, as a rule, from that moment were 
 lost to their parents and relatives. It sometimes happened 
 that traffickers contracted with the overseers, removing 
 their juvenile victims to Manchester, or other towns, on 
 their arrival ; if not previously assigned, they were deposited 
 sometimes in dark cellars, where the merchant dealing in 
 them brought his customers; the raillowners, by the light 
 of lanthorns, being enabled to examine the children, their 
 limbs and stature having undergone the necessary scrutiny, 
 the bargain was struck, and those poor " innocents " were 
 conveyed to the mills. The general treatment of those 
 apprentices depended entirely on the will of their masters; 
 in very many instances their labour was limited only by 
 exhaustion, after many modes of torture had been unavailingly 
 applied to force continued action; their food was stinted, 
 coarse, and unwholesome; in "brisk times," their beds 
 (such as they were) were never cool, the mills were 
 worked night and day, and as soon as one set of children 
 rose for labour the other set retired for rest. Discrimination 
 of sexes was not regarded, vice, disease, and death, luxuriated 
 in those receptacles of human woe. We dare not trust 
 ourselves to write all we know on this subject, much less 
 all we feel, the cases stated hereafter are representative 
 of the system. The moral nature of the traffic between 
 parish authorities and the buyers of pauper children, may 
 be judged from the fact that in some cases one idiot 
 was accepted with twenty sane children. A question 
 arises — what was the fate of these idiots? — that secret 
 has not been revealed. " Prior to the show-day of the 
 pauper children to the purveyor or cotton-master," says 
 VOL. I.
 
 18 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the author of the Memoir of Hohert Blincoe, " the most 
 illusive and artfully-contrived falsehoods vs^ere spread, to 
 fill the minds of the poor infants with the most absurd 
 and ridiculous errors as to the real nature of the servitude 
 to which they were to be consigned. It was gravely stated 
 to them, according to Blincoe's statement, made in the most 
 positive and solemn manner, that they were all, when they 
 arrived at the cotton-mill, to be transformed into ladies and 
 gentlemen : that they would be fed on roast beef and plum- 
 pudding — be allowed to ride their masters' horses, and 
 have silver watches, and plenty of cash in their pockets. 
 Nor was it the nurses, or other inferior persons of the 
 workhouse, with whom this vile deception originated, but 
 with parish officers themselves. From the statement of 
 the victims of cotton-mill bondage, it seems to have been 
 a constant rule with those who had the disposal of parish 
 children, prior to sending them off to cotton-mills, to fill 
 their minds with the same delusions." 
 
 We have said that such was the general aspect of the 
 factory system in those days, — there were exceptions ; some 
 men there are who cannot rid themselves of natural feeling. 
 Of this class there were some factory masters ; they had 
 respect to the defenceless state of their apprentices, and 
 signalised themselves by occasional acts of kindness, but 
 even in their mills the hours of labour were unnatural and 
 excessive. Cotton factories were established in England 
 towards the close of the eighteenth century, and were 
 rapidly spread over the counties of Lancaster, York, Derby, 
 Nottingham, and other districts; they were usually built 
 on mountain streams, in the more secluded parts of the 
 country. Several were also erected in Scotland, among 
 these was the factory of Mr Dale, of Glasgow. It is very 
 pleasing to know that there were exceptions to the cruelties 
 above referred to, and conspicuously among such must be 
 ranked the factory of Mr Dale.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 19 
 
 About the year 1780, cotton factories were introduced 
 into the west of Scotland. In 1784, Mr Dale, a Glasgow 
 manufacturer, established a cotton-mill, near the falls of 
 the Clyde, in the county of Lanark. To found a factory 
 was then far from an easy task. The labouring population 
 of Scotland having been accustomed to comfort, traditionally 
 and by habit to personal freedom, refused to enter the cotton- 
 mills. Close confinement, and long hours of labour, were 
 by the vast majority of the working men and their families 
 detested. Water power was in those days, to the founder 
 of a factory, a condition of primary moment. The banks 
 of the river Clyde, now constituting one of the most populous 
 and best known districts in Scotland, contained in 1784 
 many a rugged path, seldom trod by the foot of a stranger, 
 and leading to secluded nooks hidden from common gaze. 
 In one of these retired corners was built Mr Dale's cotton 
 factory. Mr Dale applied to the managers of charities, and 
 the parish authorities of Edinburgh, for a supply of children. 
 The application was successful, and the children under Mr 
 Dale's control ultimately numbered five hundred. Mr Dale, 
 in exchange for the services of these children, undertook to 
 feed, lodge, and clothe them. It has been our lot to know 
 two women, who, in early life, had been Mr Dale's 
 apprentices. On the authority of these witnesses, Mr Dale 
 was a man of benevolent disposition, seldom visited his 
 factories; when he did visit them, it was remarked that 
 " things were put in better order," and he sometimes 
 brought the children little presents, and was at heart the 
 friend of his work-people. By way of encouragement to 
 settlers, Mr Dale caused houses to be built at New Lanark 
 Mills, and let them at very low rents, but so great was the 
 aversion of the Scotch peasantry to the then novel system 
 of working in factories, that very few, not being homeless 
 and friendless, would accept of house accommodation from 
 Mr Dale on the lowest possible terms. The ages of the 
 
 c 2
 
 20 THE HISTOllY OF 
 
 cliildren when apprenticed to Mr Dale were from five to 
 eight, the period of apprenticeship from seven to nine years, 
 the hours of labour in the factory from six in the morning to 
 seven in the evening. Mr Dale's was one of the most humanely 
 conducted factories in the empire; he was known as one 
 of the most spirited, enterprising, and benevolent men of his 
 age. The following notice of his labours, and their effects, 
 is copied from the Annual Begister, of 1792: "New Lanark 
 — Mr David Dale, of this place, in the course of six years 
 has reared a village on the banks of the Clyde, containing 
 2,000 persons; and erected five cotton-mills, each of which 
 contains 6,000 spindles. The various provisions which 
 this extraordinary man has made for the health of the 
 children employed by him are highly praiseworthy. They 
 have every day some hours allotted to them for exercise in 
 the fields, and their looks bespeak health and vigour. These 
 hours of relaxation the boys enjoy in succession, their 
 apartments are likewise cleaned and well aired, and ten 
 schoolmasters are daily employed in their tuition." 
 
 These facts will enable the reader to judge of the 
 operation of " the factory system " in Scotland, in its 
 mildest and most attractive fonn. 
 
 On the 21st of May, 1816, the first Sir Robert Peel 
 presented a paper to a Committee of the House of Commons, 
 as " the substance of what he knew respecting the state 
 and management of the cotton manufactories, within the 
 scope of his acquaintance, which was not less than five-and- 
 forty years." From a printed copy of that paper, we make 
 the following extract: — "Mr Arkwright was the inventor 
 of machinery, of great national importance, which was 
 employed at a time when steam power was little known in 
 large buildings, which were erected in situations commanding 
 considerable water power, but generally in country places 
 remote from inhabitants: to work these machines the surplus 
 population of large towns was sought after, and many
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 21 
 
 thousands of parish children were suppHed from London, 
 Birniinghara, and other populous districts. 
 
 " The house in which I have a concern gave employment 
 at one time to near one thousand children of this description. 
 Having other pursuits it was not often in my power to visit 
 the factories, but whenever such visits were made, I was 
 struck with the uniform appearance of bad health, and in 
 many cases stinted growth of the children ; the hours of 
 labour were regulated by the interest of the overseer, whose 
 remuneration depending on the quantity of work done, he 
 was often induced to make the poor children work excessive 
 hours and to stop their complaints by trifling bribes." This 
 statement of the first Sir Robert Peel will enable the reader 
 to judge of the nature and effects of " the factory system," 
 as manifested under the authority of one of the most humane 
 employers of parish apprentices in England. 
 
 In Scotland and in England there were factories, in com- 
 parison with which those of Dale and Peel were highly- 
 favoured retreats, affording to their inmates very superior 
 accommodation and unusual enjoyment. Waggon,- loads of 
 Httle boys and girls were sent by the parish authorities 
 and from the principal towns of England and Scotland to 
 the lonely banks of mountain streams and rivulets, there 
 to undergo hardships and torture, the bare mention of which 
 leaves a lasting impression of horror, and fills the soul with 
 shame for the crimes man has committed against his fellows. 
 Little children have been worked for sixteen hours and 
 upwards, with few and trifling intermissions, day and night 
 have been devoted to almost constant labour; a portion 
 of the Sabbath has been for these helpless ones appropri- 
 ated to toil. Li stench, in heated rooms, amid the constant 
 whirling of a thousand wheels, have little fingers and little 
 feet been kept in ceaseless action, forced into unnatural 
 activity by blows from the heavy hands and feet of the 
 merciless overlooker, and the infliction of bodily pain by
 
 22 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 instruments of punishment invented by the sharpened in- 
 genuity of insatiable selfishness. Tens of thousands of 
 " the little children " in those mills have been destroyed 
 because of their owner's lust of gold. The necessaries and 
 decencies of life were but little cared for in some cases; 
 in many, fatally neglected. Education was, as a rule, 
 entirely unprovided for. Children have, dropped down at 
 their frames exhausted, the fingers of little ones have been 
 snapped off instantly, their limbs have suffered in like 
 manner; there have been liviiig bodies caught in jthe_irqn_ 
 gripe of machinery in rapid motion, and whirled in the 
 air, bones crushed, and blood cast copiously on the floor, 
 because of physical exhaustion. We know those who have 
 seen little children standing at their spindles asleep, their 
 little_hands and. fingers, like the_mechanical hands of the 
 automaton, performing their accustomed evolutions among 
 the threads and spindles; it was at such times especially 
 that hands and fingers were lacerated. The factory appren- 
 tices have been sold by auction as " bankrupt's effects." 
 The scantiest share of coarsest food capable of sustaining 
 animal life has been day by day doled out to the parish 
 apprentices; in the bothies and outhouses of cotton factories 
 boys and girls, suffering from the unsatisfied cravings of 
 hunger, have watched for the swineherd, have stealthily 
 struggled with the pigs for food, and have been fed upon 
 the purloined contents of the pig-trough. The well-attested 
 memoir of Robert Blincoe contaias a circumstantial account 
 which we prefer giving in almost the words of the author; — 
 " The store pigs and the apprentices used to fare very 
 much alike ; but when the swine were hungry, they used 
 to grunt so loud, they obtained the wash first to quiet them. 
 The apprentices covdd be intimidated, and made to keep 
 still. The fatting pigs fared luxuriously, compared with 
 the apprentices. They were often regaled with meal balls, 
 made into dough, and given ui the shape of dumplings."
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 23 
 
 Blincoe and others, who worked in a part of the mill 
 whence they could see the swine served, used to say to 
 one another, ' Tlie pigs are served; it will he our turn 
 next.^ " Those who were in a part of the building con- 
 tiguous to the pig-sties used to keep a sharp eye upon the 
 fatting pigs and their meal balls, and, as soon as the swine- 
 herd withdrew, Blincoe used to slip down stairs, and stealing 
 slyly towards the pig-trough, plunge his hand in at the 
 loop-holes, and steal as many dumplings as he could grasp. 
 The food thus stealthily obtained from the pig-trough was 
 exultingly conveyed to a hiding-place, and there greedily 
 devoured. The pigs, though usually esteemed the most 
 stupid of animals, learned from experience to guard their 
 food by various expedients; made wise by repeated losses, 
 they kept a keen look-out, and the moment they ascertained 
 the approach of the hali-famished apprentices they set up 
 so loud a chorus of snorts and grunts, it was heard in the 
 kitchen, when out rushed the swineherd, armed with a whip, 
 from which combined means of protection for the swine 
 this accidental source of obtaining a good dinner was soon 
 lost! Such was the contest carried on for some time at 
 Litton Mill between the half-famished apprentices and the 
 well-fed swine." 
 
 Some of the helpless victims, though young in years, 
 were old in suffering, and nightly prayed that death would 
 come to their relief ; weary of prayer, some there were 
 who deliberately accomplished their ovra destruction. The 
 annals of Litton Mill afford an instance of an attempt of 
 this kind — one of many, for they were of frequent oc- 
 currence: — "Palfrey, the smith, had the task of riveting 
 irons upon any of the apprentices whom the master ordered, 
 and those were much like the irons usually put upon felons. 
 Even young women, if suspected of intending to run away, 
 had irons riveted on their ankles, and reaching by long 
 links and rings up to the hips, and in these they were
 
 24 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 compelled to walk to and from the mill and to sleep. 
 Robert Blincoe asserts that he has known many girls served 
 in this manner. A handsome-looking girl, about the age of 
 twenty years, who came from the neighbourhood of Crom- 
 ford, whose name was Phoebe Rag, being driven to despera- 
 tion by ill-treatment, took the opportunity one dinner-time, 
 when she was alone, and supposed no one saw her, to 
 take off her shoes, and throw herself into the dam at the 
 end of the bridge, next the apprentice-house. Some one 
 passing along, and seeing a pair of shoes, stopped. The 
 poor girl had sunk once, and just as she rose above the 
 water he seized her by the hair. Blincoe thinks it was 
 Thomas Fox, the governor, who succeeded Milner, who 
 rescued her. She was nearly gone, and it was with some 
 difficulty her life was saved. When Mr Needhara heard 
 of this, and being afraid the example might he contagious, 
 he ordered James Durant, a journeyman spinner, who had 
 been apprenticed there, to take her away to her relations 
 at Cromford, and thus she escaped." 
 
 There are those still living who can point out the spots 
 where there were buried the remains of those who were 
 once their own fellow-companions in wretchedness, but over 
 whose bodies no voice hath said " Earth to earth, ashes to 
 ashes, dust to dust." Many having died in the night, their 
 bodies were stealthily removed, and were buried without 
 ceremony in graves unknown to their former comrades — 
 these bodies were cast into the earth and buried with "the 
 burial of an ass." A clergyman of the Church of England, 
 revered by all who know him, and who has devoted much 
 of his time and attention to a consideration of the condition 
 of the working classes, has favoured us with the following 
 important statement : — 
 
 " An instance still living, and of high respectabihty, may 
 illustrate tlie practice ixnder the system of unprotected 
 ' factory apprentices.'
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 25 
 
 " At one of the earliest establishments for spinning by 
 "water-power in Wharfdale, Yorkshire, the apprenticeship 
 
 system had been carried out for some time, when A 
 
 S 's widowed mother was compelled by want to submit 
 
 her daughter to the system. Disgraceful as the widowed 
 mother felt it, at that time she had no alternative. The 
 mill was not very far distant from her cottage, but very 
 soon she was compelled to carry her little one to and from 
 it, for it was not possible for the child, without assistance, 
 to reach home in any reasonable time in heavy weather: 
 she was only six years old. This difficulty led the Widow 
 
 S to remove to a cheap tenement, next to one of the 
 
 'prentice houses, and there it was that A and her 
 
 mother became fully acquainted with the horrors of that 
 
 abominable system. One of A S 's statements, 
 
 confirmed frequently (many years after) by her mother, 
 was, that these wretched victuns of heartless avarice, the 
 factory apprentices, were fed chiefly on porridge, which was 
 seasoned with beef and pork brine, bought at the Govern- 
 ment stores, or those of contractors — the ' bottoms ' of casks 
 supplied to the navy. This nauseous mixture was sometimes 
 so repulsive, even to hungry stomachs, that it was rejected. 
 Whereupon, the overseer or overlooker was accustomed to 
 stand over the apprentices with an instrument of punish- 
 ment, a whip, or thong, or cow-hide, as the case might be, 
 and compel them to swallow this disgusting diet. They were 
 fed out of troughs, much resembling those used by pigs. 
 There were among them delicate, intelligent young people, 
 evidently oif-casts and outcasts of genteel progenitors, but 
 all wretched and reckless to the utmost degree. 
 
 "The deaths which occurred were not unfrequently 
 from cruel punishment, at work, or in the 'prentice house, 
 and were not always followed by any usual mode of burial. 
 A plantation hard by was believed to be the resting-place 
 from their sorrow of majiy who disappeared. A survivor
 
 26 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 of this 'prentice band — * Old Nanny ' was her only name 
 — was visited in September, 1833, by the writer, who had 
 been informed by a reputable person that ' Old Nanny' 
 could give information respecting those secret burials, she 
 having related them to him. She was a miserable-looking 
 creature, evidently deformed in the feet from mill work, 
 and when very quietly questioned about the plantation 
 burials, she became highly excited, and said, ' I won't tell 
 you — I can't. Who sent you here 1 I know nought about 
 it; don't ask me.' Her wild aspect was awful. But what 
 
 she chose to tell confirmed entirely the statement of A 
 
 S , who was found in a state of emaciated health by the 
 
 writer, whilst visiting some cottage neighbours in 1827. 
 She was then some thirty years old. At her own re- 
 quest she was taken into the family of the writer to try 
 her ability in domestic service, to which she had been un- 
 accustomed, weaving having recently been her work. Her 
 health rallied a little, but she was never able to fulfil the 
 duties, to which she applied herself very diligently; she at 
 length married a respectable small tradesman, who had been 
 her companion as a child, and when last heard of was living 
 
 as * Old A ' in her native village, a few miles from the 
 
 scene of her early sufi'erings. Her excellent character and 
 Christian deportment would not allow the writer to doubt 
 her statements. She never related the 'prentice house 
 tales without horror, and used to say that the cries of 
 the poor wretches under the lash of the overseer were 
 heart-rending. She and others had heard them often, es 
 pecially at feeding- time." 
 
 It has been customary to erect monuments for the good 
 and wise, whose memories the living desired should be 
 preserved for ages yet untold. The wicked and the foolish 
 have also their monuments. The greedy and negligent 
 men under whose rule the cruelties of " the factory system," 
 and its worst horrors, were perpetrated, have had, and now
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 27 
 
 have, their monuments, not tall columns, and statues on 
 pedestals, but stunted men and women, twisted spines, 
 distorted limbs, increased crime, and decreased manliness. 
 It was impossible that a system which jested with civilisation, 
 laughed at humanity, and made a mockery of every law of 
 physical and moral health, of the principles of natural and 
 social order, could remain unchecked. It is in the nature 
 of wrong and error to destroy the prey on which they 
 feast, or obhge man to check their force through the operation 
 of preventive laws: overseers, millowners, and statesmen, 
 had failed to fulfil their duties, but disease and death were 
 faithful to their functions. Fever, nourished in the crowded 
 sleeping-rooms, and in the iU-ventilated factories, could 
 not be confined to lonely dells and scattered villages. 
 Fever, and its follower death, are stern messengers, and 
 manifest a wondrous power of locomotion ; the first steals 
 along noiselessly and unseen, but in time both are felt. The 
 fevers generated under *' the factory system," necessarily 
 caused throughout the districts in which factories were most 
 common very considerable uneasiness, discussions in the 
 newspapers followed, and complaints were made that the 
 hospitals were crowded with factory patients. It is but 
 reasonable to suppose that these discussions led to consider- 
 able alarm among the negligent and guilty millowners. 
 Manchester and its district being then, as now, the centre 
 of the cotton manufacture, suffered most from the evils of 
 *'the factory system;" there, fever was most common and 
 malignant, not confined to the occupants of the mill, for it 
 had invaded the mansions of the rich ; there, consequently, 
 complaints of those not engaged in factories were most 
 frequent, and newspaper controversies most keen. In 
 January 1796, a committee was appointed to superintend the 
 health of the poor in the towns of Manchester and Salford, 
 and commonly designated " The Manchester Board of 
 Health." On the 25th of January, in the same year, Dr
 
 28 THE HISTORY OP 
 
 Perceval, an eminent physician of that town, submitted for 
 the consideration of the Board, the following heads of 
 resolutions: — "It has already been stated that the objects 
 of the present institution are to prevent the generation of 
 diseases; to obviate the spreading of them by contagion, 
 and to shorten the duration of those which exist, by affording 
 the necessary aids and comforts to the sick. In the prose- 
 cution of this necessary undertaking, the Board have had 
 their attention particularly directed to the large cotton 
 factories established in the town and neighbourhood of 
 Manchester; and they feel it a duty incumbent on them to 
 lay before the public the result of their inquiries: — 1st. It 
 appears that the children, and others, who work in the large 
 cotton factories, are peculiarly disposed to be affected by 
 the contagion of fever, and that when the affection is received 
 it is rapidly propagated, not only amongst those who are 
 crowded together in the same apartments, but in the families 
 and neighbourhoods to which they belong. 2nd. The large 
 factories are generally injurious to the constitution of those 
 employed in them, even where no particular diseases prevail, 
 from the close confinement which is enjoined, from the 
 debilitating effects of hot or impure air, and from the want 
 of active exercises, which nature points out as essential in 
 childhood and youth, to invigorate the system, and to fit 
 our species for the duties of mankind. 3rd. The untimely 
 labour of the night, and the protracted labour of the day, 
 with respect to children, not only tends to diminish fiiture 
 expectations as to the general sum of life and industry, by 
 impairing the strength and destroying the vital stamina of 
 the rising generation, but it too often gives encouragement 
 to idleness, extravagance, and profligacy of the parents, 
 who, contrary to the order of nature, subsist by the oppression 
 of their offspring. 4th. It appears that the children em- 
 ]jloyed in factories are generally debarred from aU oppor- 
 tunities of education, and from moral or religious instruction.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 29 
 
 5th. From the excellent regulations which subsist in several 
 cotton factories, it appears that many of these evils may, 
 in a considerable degree, be obviated; and we are therefore 
 warranted by experience, and are assured that we shall have 
 the support of the liberal proprietors of these factories, in 
 proposing an application for Parliamentary aid (if other 
 methods appear not likely to effect the purpose) to establish 
 a general system of laws for the wise, humane, and equal 
 government of all such works." 
 
 These heads of resolutions are important, they are in 
 themselves a condensation of the evils of "the factory 
 system." The natural repugnance of the labouring popu- 
 lation to factory labour, had in the cotton districts been 
 partly overcome, and some of the more depraved among 
 parents had begun to live on the wages of the labour of 
 their offspring, an inversion of the order of family economy, 
 which in time was followed by a fearful retribution. The 
 question of factory regulation was thus fairly raised in the 
 heart of Manchester ; the conditions, too, under which 
 factory regulation by Act of Parliament was rendered 
 necessary, were in the resolutions of Dr Perceval clearly 
 laid down. These facts scatter to the winds the hacknied, 
 false, and silly charges of the opponents of factory regulation, 
 that it had its origin in the sentimentality of " pseudo- 
 philanthropy, sham humanity, and Samaritanism." They 
 establish the fact that factory legislation had its origin in 
 self-preservation ; the enormities of the unregulated factory 
 system having burst their boundaries were already spreading 
 disease and death broadcast, their threatened victims were 
 thereby forced to apply for a power stronger than the will 
 of the factory occupiers. The evils of "the factory system" 
 having become subjects of popular discussion, were from 
 that time destined to command the attention of the Imperial 
 Parliament. Mr Wilbraham Bootle was the first to moot 
 the question in the House of Commons; his efforts, though
 
 30 
 
 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 they did not result in any practical measure, must have in 
 some degree contributed to prepare the mind of the country 
 and of Parliament for practical legislation. In 1802, the 
 first Sir Robert Peel brought the questions of factory llbour 
 and factory legislation under the notice of the House of 
 Commons. The first Sir Robert has left on record the 
 circumstances which induced him to plead the cause of 
 the factory cliild. 
 
 He found the mind of parliament fully prepared for the 
 adoption of the provisions of his bill for ^^the preservation 
 of the health and morals of apprentices and others employed 
 m cotton and other mills, and in cotton and other factories ^ 
 his difficulty was not in want of support, but in the urgency 
 of those who supported his efforts. "I remember very 
 well," said he (in 1816) "that in passing that bill (the 
 Act of 1802) I had a great deal of care upon my hands 
 to prevent the manufacturer suffering as well as the ap- 
 prentice; many gentlemen would have urged me in the 
 most earnest manner to shorten the hours of labour, much 
 below what I thought it proper to shorten them." "I was 
 desired to let that bill operate through every cottage in 
 the country; I deemed that so unreasonable, that I was 
 determmed to give up all management of the measure if it 
 was not left to me; in consequence of that, the opposition 
 which arose more from humanity than anything else was 
 withdrawn, and I brought in the bill in the state in which 
 It now appears, without any opposition of any consequence 
 being stated." 
 
 There was. notwithstanding, some opposition to the pro- 
 posed measure. On the third readhig of the bill in the 
 House of Commons, which took place on June the 2nd, 
 1802, some of the opponents of factory legislation having 
 spoken against the measure, the first Sir Robert Peel 
 rephed .--.-I am soiry to have to address the House again 
 on this late stage of the bill, after so great a majority of
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 31 
 
 the House and the country had declared in its favour. I 
 confess it does not go to the extent that might be wished, 
 but it is advisable to do as much as can be done in the 
 present instance without venturing on anything like hazardous 
 innovation. The great and first object I had in view in 
 bringing in this bill was to promote the religious and 
 moral education of the children ; and in my endeavours 
 to accomplish this end, the measure I hope will prove free 
 from harm, and productive of much real advantage. With- 
 out a measure like the present, no gentlemen of weight 
 in the coimtry could visit these mills, even though fever 
 raged in them, or other kinds of misery and distress; so 
 that there was no hope without it of introducing any 
 system of wholesome regulations." It was in this spirit 
 and for these objects that the power of parliament was first 
 successfiilly invoked to protect the young and helpless in 
 the mills. The exposure of the wrongs endured by factory 
 children did much towards immediate improvement. 
 
 The bill passed into a law in 1802, and from that 
 period was known as *' an Act for the 'preservation of the 
 health and morals of apprentices and others employed in 
 cotton and other mills, and in cotton and other factories^ 
 It enacted, that from and after the 2nd day of December, 
 1802, all such mills and factories within Great Britain 
 and Ireland, wherein three or more apprentices, or twenty 
 or more other persons shall at any time be employed, shall 
 be subject to the several rules and regulations contained 
 in the Act. The principal of these were as follow : — -The 
 hours of actual work were limited to twelve per day, 
 reckoning from six o'clock in the morning to nine at night, 
 as the portion of each day during which twelve hours 
 actual labour might be lawfully taken ; ' the Act also pro- 
 vided for the gradual abolition of night work, and that 
 night work in all mills should finally cease in June 1804. 
 [jj It provided for the instruction of all apprentices in reading.
 
 32 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 writing, and arithmetic, and that one complete suit of 
 clothing shall be supplied to each apprentice once a year. 
 tVThat factories shall be whitewashed twice a year, and at 
 all times properly ventilated ; also for the separation of the 
 sexes as regarded sleeping apartments. '^At the Midsummer 
 session of each year, in districts in which factories were 
 situated, the Justices of the Peace of these districts were 
 enjoined to appomt two Factory Inspectors, one a Justice 
 of the Peace, the other a Clergyman of the Established 
 Church,' the mills and factories under the Act were to be 
 registered annually with the Clerk of the Peace ; the 
 penalty following on the known violation of the Act was 
 a fine not exceeding five pounds nor under forty shillings, 
 at the discretion of the Justices before whom the offender 
 shall be convicted. This Act of Parliament judged by the 
 intention of its promoters deserved the title it assumed, and 
 was designed to "■ preserve the health and morals " of 
 factory workers. 
 
 The thought naturally suggests itself, — What was the 
 cardinal principle which actuated the majority of the Members 
 of the House of Commons, and made them so pressing in 
 their desires to reduce humanity to practice ? The answer 
 is important. It was then ruled by the judges that 
 " Christianity is part and parcel of the Laws of England." 
 It was then the current belief of our legislators that all 
 their Acts should be based on Christianity, and consequently 
 that all the arrangements of the internal industry of the 
 country should be subjected to Christianity. Fixedness of 
 purpose and resoluteness of will were then, more than now, 
 the characteristics of British statesmen; the theory was then 
 prevalent that circumstances must be made subservient to 
 principle, it was left to later times to reduce to practice the 
 opposite theory, namely, that principle must yield to circum- 
 stances. 
 
 The facts of the factories once made known to the
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 33 
 
 Legislature by an influential Member of Parliament, filled 
 many minds with grief and shame for the past, and made 
 them alive to their duties and responsibilities. They believed 
 that according to the theory of the British constitution the 
 state ought to be Christian; that the increase of knowledge, 
 of science, of art could alone be truly beneficial for all, by 
 being made subservient to the spirit of Christianity. The 
 over-working and cruel treatment of children were opposed 
 to the command " Love thy neighbour as thyself,'* and 
 were felt to be antagonistic to Christian civilisation, and 
 the majority of the Legislature desired the immediate removal 
 of so grave a reproach. These statesmen did not hope for 
 the regeneration of society by any new discovery of principles 
 or plans; they were contented to travel in "the old paths," 
 and to contemplate the probable future of their coimtry 
 while standing on the landmarks of the past. These con- 
 victions may by some among modern political economists 
 be considered erroneous, and find a place in their list of 
 " obsolete prejudices;" these convictions were conscientiously 
 entertained, the efforts made to reduce them to practice 
 were creditable to the actors, and deserve from all the respect 
 due to practical sincerity. 
 
 Vol. I.
 
 34 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE NEW LANAEK MILLS. — MEETING OF SCOTTISH MANTTFAC- 
 TURERS IN GLASGOW. — REPEAL OF THE IMPORT DUTY ON COT- 
 TON. — BEGINNING OF THE TEN HOUEs' BILL MOVEMENT. 
 
 In tracing tlie history of a nation's civilization, it is interesting 
 to observe the struggles between the acknowledgement of 
 sound maxims in theory and their violation in practice. 
 English literature is replete with the acknowledgement that 
 man considered physically, mentally, and morally, deserves 
 the constant watchfulness of philosophers and statesmen, 
 and that there is no surer or speedier road to national ruin 
 than the sacrifice of the physical strength and moral worth 
 of a population. This universal acknowledgement, notwith- 
 standing, there has been in all ages a desire manifested for 
 an opposing practice, and on the balance existing between 
 the forces of truth and error depends the strength or weak- 
 ness of a State. This view of a nation's interests com- 
 manded the attention of the supporters of factory regulation, 
 and was prominently set forth by the leaders of the question 
 in and out of Parliament. 
 
 Mr Dale, of Glasgow, sold the New Lanark Mills; Mr 
 Robert Owen and partners, of Chorlton Mills, Manchester, 
 were the buyers. Mr Owen, subsequently well-known as 
 " Owen of Lanark," entered in 1799 on his official duties 
 as Resident-Manager of the New Lanark Mills. Mr Owen 
 had not then in public denounced what he afterwards do-
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 35 
 
 clared to be " the errors of all the religions in the world." 
 Mr Owen was then known as an efficient and practical 
 Manager of Factories. He had not been long resident at 
 New Lanark when he introduced important changes, in- 
 tended to improve, physically and morally, the condition 
 of those under his control. Mr Owen's experiments at the 
 New Lanark Mills were introduced and conducted with 
 the most scrupulous regard for the religious opinions of 
 all concerned; their success, together with Mr Owen's 
 writings in the Press, earned for him the sympathy and 
 approbation of many able and influential men without dis- 
 tinction of creed, rank, or party. 
 
 The kind of religious instruction imparted to the children 
 at the New Lanark Mills will be understood by the reading 
 of the following extract, from the evidence given by Mr 
 Owen before a Committee of the House of Commons, in 
 1816:— 
 
 '* What religious instruction do you give the children ? 
 — They have the same religious instruction in the Schools 
 of New Lanark as in all the other schools in Scotland. 
 
 *' Do they regularly attend Church on Sundays ? — 
 Those that are old enough and have accommodation in 
 the parish or other churches, which are all a mile distant, 
 very generally attend. 
 
 " What age do you think them old enough at ? — That 
 depends very much upon the opinion of the parents and 
 the inclination of the children; but there is a Sunday- 
 school also open three times a day; the young children 
 under ten years of age, who are considered too young to 
 go to church, and particularly to walk through snow and 
 bad weather in winter, attend the Sunday-schools for two 
 hours in the forenoon and two hours in the afternoon; the 
 young persons who are more advanced in life, and who 
 may not have accommodation in the parish church or in 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the public chapels, have an opportunity of meeting on the 
 Sundays. 
 
 " Are they examined as to their improvement in religious 
 knowledge? — They are. 
 
 "By whom? — By the parish minister." 
 
 In 1813, Mr Owen addressed a letter to the owners and 
 superintendents of manufactories, in which he with confi- 
 dence and satisfaction referred to his own efforts to improve 
 the workpeople of the New Lanark Mills. The spirit which 
 pervaded and the objects contemplated by the publication 
 of this remarkable letter may be understood by the reading 
 of the following extracts : — " Shall, then," said Mr Owen, 
 " large sums of money continue to be expended to procure 
 the last devised mechanism of wood, brass, or iron ; to retain 
 it in perfect repair ; to provide the best substance for the 
 prevention of necessary friction, and to save it from falling 
 into premature decay? Shall years of intense application 
 be devoted to understand the connection of the various 
 parts of these lifeless machines, to improve their effective 
 powers, and to calculate with mathematical precision all 
 their minute and combined movements ? And (when in 
 these transactions time is estimated by minutes, and the 
 money expended fur the chance of increased gain by 
 fractions), shall not some attention be afforded to consider 
 whether a portion of time and capital could not be more 
 advantageously employed to improve the living machines?" 
 " Since the general introduction of inanimate 
 
 mechanism into British manufactories, man, with few ex- 
 ceptions, has been treated as a secondary and inferior 
 machine; and far more attention has been given to perfect 
 the raw materials of wood and metals than those of body 
 and mind. Give but due reflection to the subject, and you 
 will find that man, even as an instrument for tlie creation of 
 wealth, may still be greatly improved." At a meeting of
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 37 
 
 the Scottish cotton- spinners, held in Glasgow in 1815, 
 Mr Owen proposed that the cotton-spinners and manu- 
 facturers of Scotland should solicit the Government to repeal 
 the import duty on cotton of fourpence and a fraction per 
 pound, and, as a contemporaneous measure, enact a law 
 limiting the ages at which children should be employed in 
 factory labour, to reduce the working hours to ten per 
 day, and to render instruction in reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic compulsory; in fact, to establish an educational 
 test as a condition to precede employment in factories. The 
 resolution for the abolition of the import duty on raw 
 cotton was unanimously adopted ; that in favour of the 
 limitation of the ages at which it should be lawful to employ 
 children in factory labour, the limitation of the hours of 
 labour, and the application of an educational test to those 
 seeking employment in factories, was rejected. Mr Owen 
 subsequently published a letter in the newspapers, addressed 
 to the chairman of the meeting of the Scottish cotton- 
 spinners and manufacturers, setting forth his reasons for 
 both resolutions. The Government repealed the fourpence 
 per pound import duty on cotton, and retained the fraction. 
 Mr Owen resolved to persevere in his efforts to obtain, 
 through the medium of parliament, a Ten Hours' Act. In 
 pursuance of this object, he had interviews with the 
 leading members of both houses of parliament. Through 
 Mr Owen's exertions several meetings of the most active 
 members of the House of Commons were held in London. 
 The objects of these meetings were to consider the condition 
 of factory workers, and the propriety of factory regu- 
 lation by Act of Parliament. At one of these meetings 
 the draft of a bill, prepared by Mr Owen, was adopted as 
 the basis of future action. At the request of Mr Owen and 
 others, the first Sir Robert Peel agreed to re-introduce 
 the questions of factory labour and factory regulation to 
 the notice of the Lcuislature. It was not remarkable that 
 
 *< ^: ^~ Q rr rr
 
 38 THE HI8T0KY OF 
 
 the first Sir Robert Peel should have been chosen to lead 
 in parliament on the factory question. He was the most 
 prosperous and experienced cotton-spinner distinguished by 
 a seat in the House of Commons, a practical and clear- 
 headed speaker. His decided success as a cotton-spinner 
 gave to his words additional weight on aU that related to 
 cotton manufacture ; the ease and satisfaction with which 
 he carried his Bill of 1802 through parliament warranted 
 the hope of speedy success. Between 1802 and 1815 a very 
 decided change had taken place as regarded the cotton 
 manufacture and those employed in mills. This change has 
 been very distinctly stated in the first Sir Robert Peel's 
 paper, "iAe substa7ice" of his '■^ Jive-and-forty years^ ^' ex- 
 perience. "Large buildings," said the first Sir Robert, "are 
 now erected, not only as formerly on the banks of streams, 
 but in the midst of populous towns, and instead of parish 
 apprentices being sought after, the children of the surround- 
 ing poor are preferred, whose masters being free from the 
 operation of the former Act of Parliament are subjected 
 to no Hmitation of time in the prosecution of their business, 
 though children are fi'equently admitted there to work 
 thirteen or fourteen hours per day at the tender age of seven 
 years, and even in some cases still younger. I need not 
 ask the Committee to give an opinion of the consequence 
 of such a baneful practice upon the health and well-bemg 
 of these little creatures." . . . "I most anxiously press 
 upon the Committee that unless some parHamentary inter- 
 ference takes place, the benefits of the Apprentice Bill will 
 soon be entirely lost, the practice of employing parish ap- 
 prentices will cease, their places will be wholly supphed by 
 pther children, between whom and their master no perma- 
 nent contract is Hkely to exist, and for whose good treat- 
 ment there will not be the sHghtest security. Such indis- 
 criminate and unlimited employment of the poor, consisting 
 of a gre^t proportion of the inhabitants of trading districts.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 39 
 
 will be attended with effects to the rising generation so serious 
 and alarming, that I cannot contemplate them without dis- 
 may, and thus that great effort of British ingenuity, whereby 
 the machinery of our manufactures has been brought to 
 such perfection, instead of being a blessing to the nation 
 will be converted into the bitterest curse." The deteriorated 
 condition of the population of the factory districts was a 
 fact within the experience of the first Sir Robert Peel, and, 
 naturally, filled his mind with serious apprehensions. He 
 had watched the downward progress; had witnessed the 
 aversion of the working classes to send their children to 
 the factories ; had marked that aversion yield, of necessity, 
 to a forced compliance ; had observed the progress of a 
 system which in practice supplanted the labour of parents 
 by that of children ; his keen perception enabled him to 
 apprehend that, eventually, the places of the factory appren- 
 tices would be taken by the children of the neighbouring 
 working population; to such children he was anxious to 
 extend the legal protection which had proved beneficial to the 
 factory apprentices. The lesson is instructive, and deserves 
 the attention of those statesmen who pretend to have dis- 
 covered that unchecked and acknowledged evils contain 
 within themselves their own remedies. 
 
 The actual change in the circumstances of the cotton 
 manufacture, so simply and graphically stated in the ex- 
 pressive words of the first Sir Robert Peel, fully warranted 
 the proposed change in the regulation of factories. The 
 first Sir Robert Peel, and Mr Owen, were agreed on the 
 desirableness of factory regulation, and the attention of 
 both, though unknown each to the other, had been directed 
 to the great fact that a new and great power had been 
 introduced into the national economy, for whose entrance 
 and development not any provision had been made. Both 
 were conscious of the nature of the evils likely to flow 
 from the unregulated introduction and development of
 
 40 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 mechanical power. The first Sir Robert Peel was as ardent 
 an admirer of genius as any modern political economist, 
 but his vision was not darkened by the mechanical ingenuity 
 he observed and admired; and he rightly apprehended that 
 that which might under some circumstances be a great 
 and positive blessing, might imder others be converted 
 into "the bitterest curse." 
 
 Under the force of these convictions, preparations were 
 entered into for bringing one of the most important and 
 most disputed questions of the past and present ages under 
 parliamentary discussion. It is not unreasonable to suggest 
 that neither the first Sir Robert Peel, nor any of his 
 supporters, foresaw the long and arduous struggle that 
 awaited their followers in and out of parliament. The actual 
 evils, as witnessed by themselves, the first Sir Robert Peel 
 and Mr Owen knew, and they hoped for the speedy success 
 of their remedial efforts. The extent and full force of 
 the evils of the factory system, in all their varied ramifications, 
 as subsequently made known by searching inquiry, certainly 
 few men could have conceived. 
 
 The recorded experience of the first Sir Robert Peel on 
 all that related to the past is invaluable; although even in 
 the past that experience was by himself declared to be 
 limited vdthin a comparatively narrow range. If under 
 the benevolent rule of Mr Dale evils did exist, sufficient in 
 enormity and magnitude to quicken into active life the 
 naturally mechanical mind of Mr Owen, and force it to 
 search for a remedy, if that remedy readily recommended 
 itself to the wary and ripened judgment of the first Sir 
 Robert Peel, the mind accustomed to contemplate the proneness 
 of the human heart to become hardened by the constant 
 practice of cruelty and continuous association with misery, 
 may , by imagination and reasoning, be enabled to approach 
 the possibility of the horrors to which helpless children 
 enclosed within the walla of cotton factories were sometimes
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 41 
 
 subjected; but even these reasoners would fail fully to 
 comprehend the reality, until made plain to the under- 
 standing by the penetrating force of untiring investigation. 
 It will for ever remain creditable to the judgments of the 
 first Sir Robert Peel and of Mr Owen, that they boldly 
 raised the question, — Whether a system which sacrificed 
 man to aggregated productive power, health and morals 
 to mammon, ought, unimpeded, to establish its iron sway 
 over hundreds of thousands of human beings I It is to 
 the honour of the better qualities of the human heart, and 
 may be, perhaps, profitably remembered in this age, when 
 "the separation of classes " has, because of its prominence, 
 become to the bench, the pulpit, and the press, subject of 
 exposition, lamentation, and reproach, that a millowner and 
 a capitalist was the projector of the Ten Hours' Act, and 
 one of the same class its first leader in the House of Commons. 
 These were followed by others, not less remarkable for their 
 desires practically to benefit the whole factory population, 
 cousistently with the interests of their country. The good 
 services of all such ought assuredly to be placed on record. 
 Concurrently with the arrangements entered into with 
 the leading members of the House of Commons, the first 
 Sir Robert Peel, on June 6th, 1815, reintroduced the 
 questions of factory labour and factory regulation to the 
 notice of parhament. The following report of the speeches 
 then delivered cannot now fail to be of interest to all whose 
 duties or studies have led them to consider the past and 
 present condition of the labouring population of this 
 country. 
 
 "Apprentices in Cotton Mills. 
 
 " Sir Robert Peel called the attention of the house to 
 the expediency of some legislative regulation, for the purpose 
 of restricting the employment of young children in manu- 
 facturing labour. It was well known that a bad practice
 
 42 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 had prevailed, of condemning children, whose years and 
 strength did not admit of it, to the drudgery of occupations 
 often severe, and sometimes unhealthy. What he was 
 disposed to recommend was, that no children should be so 
 employed under the age of ten years, either as apprentices 
 or otherwise, and the duration of their labour should be 
 limited to twelve hours and a half per diem, including the 
 time for education and meals, which would leave ten hours 
 for laborious employment. The accouiita_Ji£.JiadL^ecently 
 seen, showed that it was not so much the hardship as the 
 duration of the labour, which had produced mischievous 
 effects on the health of the rising generation. It was to be 
 lamented, however, that the inspectors, appointed under a 
 late Act, had been very remiss in the performance of their 
 duties. He should, in consequence of this misfortune, 
 propose that proper persons be appointed at quarter sessions, 
 and that they should be paid in due proportion for their 
 trouble. It was gratifying, however, to learn, that the 
 loss of Hfe had been exceedingly small, not exceeding 
 one per cent, per annum ; a loss falHng short of the average 
 loss sustained in every other class of manufacturing industry. 
 As he was desirous that the measure he was now suggesting 
 should be put into the most perfect state that was attain- 
 able, he should submit that the bill for which he intended 
 to move should be read a first time, and then printed. 
 During the recess it might be circulated through the 
 country, and receive the proper amendments. It could, 
 if it should be found necessary to guard against the arts 
 of designing men, be afterwards made a part of this bill, — 
 that no engagement contracted after this period, in violation 
 of the provisions of the bill, should be lawful. Under these 
 considerations, he moved for leave to bring in a bill, 'to 
 amend and extend an Act, made in the 42nd year of his 
 present Majesty [George the Third], for the preservation 
 of the health and morals of apprentices, and others em-
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 43 
 
 ployed in cotton and other mills, and cotton and other 
 factories.' 
 
 " Mr W. Smith expressed his cordial approval of the 
 bill, &c. 
 
 *' Mr Horner observed, that the former measure, and 
 even the present bill, as far as he could understand its 
 object, fell far short of what parliament should do on the 
 subject. The practice which was so prevalent of appren- 
 ticing parish children in distant manufactories, was as re- 
 pugnant to humanity as any practice which had ever been 
 suffered to exist by the negligence of the Legislature. 
 These children were sent often one, two, or three hundred 
 miles from the place of their birth, separated for life from 
 aU their relations, and deprived of the aid and instruction 
 which in their humble and almost destitute situation they 
 might derive from their friends. The practice was altogether 
 objectionable on this ground, but even more so from the 
 enormous abuses which had existed in it. It has been 
 known that with a BaAkrupt's effects, a gang, if he might 
 use the word, of these children, had been put up to sale 
 and were advertised publicly as part of the property. A 
 most atrocious instance had been brought before the Court 
 of King's Bench two years ago, in which a number of 
 these boys, apprenticed by a parish in London to one 
 manufacturer, had been transferred to another, and had 
 been found by some benevolent persons in a state of 
 absolute famine. Another case more horrible had come 
 to his knowledge while on a Committee up-stairs ; that 
 not many years ago an agreement had been made between 
 a London parish and a Lancashire manufacturer, by which 
 it was stipulated that with every twenty sound children 
 one idiot should be taken ! A practice in which there 
 was a possibility that abuses of this kind might arise 
 should not be suffered to exist, and now, or in the next
 
 44 THE HISTORY OP 
 
 session when tlie bill should be discussed, should meet 
 with the most serious consideration. 
 
 " Leave was given, and the bill was afterwards brought 
 in and read a first time." 
 
 / The renewed exertions of the first Sir Robert Peel, in 
 1815, called into existence the germs of what subsequently 
 became an active opposition. Those among the millowners 
 who were opposed to factory regulation, used their energies 
 
 f to delay the passing of the Ten Hours' Bill, as introduced 
 to the House of Commons; their supporters in parliament 
 were successful in persuading the first Sir Robert to 
 abandon his design of immediate legislation, and to move 
 for a Committee of Inquiry. He was ever anxious to 
 conciliate his opponents, a desire very creditable to his 
 heart, but in the then existing state of parties by no 
 means favourable to the speedy success of the measure of 
 which he was the exponent. To the anxiety of the first 
 Sir Robert Peel to conciliate opposition, then comparatively 
 powerless in numbers and influence, may be attributed in 
 a great degree the protracted struggle for factory regulation. 
 He was conscious of the justness and practical utihty of 
 the cause he advocated, and like many other men of good 
 intentions, gave to opponents credit for openness to con- 
 viction and conscientious candour not always well placed 
 Boldness and rashness in legislation have been the prolific 
 parents of many evils; some evils have been prolonged 
 from the want of steadfast energy in those who desired 
 their suppression. It is a misfortune greatly to be re- 
 gretted, that men . of enlarged experience and known 
 integrity, who have introduced to the notice of Parliament 
 necessary remedial measures for positive social evils, have 
 frequently increased their own labours and the labours of 
 others, from the fear of giving ofience. This was the case 
 with the fii'st Sir Robert. Peel: he made concessions to
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 45 
 
 opponents who sought for and used those concessions, not 
 to discover the truth, but as a means of delay necessary 
 to enable them to organise and direct a previously-con- 
 ceived scheme of opposition. The first Sir Robert Peel, 
 having listened to the counsels of timid friends and the 
 solicitations of known opponents, abandoned the thought 
 of immediate legislation, and resolved on a motion for 
 inquiry. On April the 3rd, 1816, he consequently moved 
 for the appointment of a Committee to consider the state 
 of the children employed in manufactories. The perusal 
 of the debate that followed the motion in the House of 
 Commons will unfold the growing importance of the 
 question. Factory legislation, principally because of the 
 rapid expansion of the interests thereby affected, had 
 become a subject of national moment. 
 
 "State of Children in Manufactories. 
 " Sir Robert Peel rose, in pursuance of a previous 
 notice, to submit a motion to the House respecting the 
 state of children employed in cotton manufactories. The 
 object of his motion was altogether national, as it affected 
 the health and morals of the rising generation, and went 
 to determine whether the introduction of machinery into 
 our manufactories was really a benefit. The principal 
 business in our cotton manufactories was now performed 
 by machinery, and of course interrupted the division of 
 work suitable to the respective ages, which formerly was 
 practised in private houses. The consequence was that 
 little children of very tender age were employed with 
 grown persons at the machinery, and those poor little 
 creatures, torn from their beds, were compelled to work, 
 even at the age of six years, from early morn to late at 
 night, a period of perlaaps fifteen or sixteen hours ! PTo 
 allowed that many masters had humanely turned their 
 attention . to the regulation of this practice ; but too
 
 46' THE HISTORY OF 
 
 frequently the love of gain predominated, inducing tliem 
 to employ all their hands to the greatest possible advantage. 
 Some time ago he had introduced a bill into the House 
 for regulating the work of apprentices, which was attended 
 with the happiest results, and their time was limited; but 
 children were still subjected to all the hardships to which 
 carelessness or cupidity might expose them. The House 
 were well aware of the many evils that resulted from the 
 want of education in the lowest classes. One object of 
 the present bill was to enable manufacturing children to 
 devote some of their time to the acquirement of a little 
 useful simple knowledge, such as plain reading and writing. 
 He hoped those poor children would experience the pro- 
 tection of the House, Tor if it were not extended to them 
 all our excellent machinery would be productive of injury. 
 It might, perhaps, be said that free labour should not be 
 subjected to any control ; but surely it could not be 
 inconsistent with our constitution to protect the interests 
 of those helpless children. The honourable Baronet con- 
 cluded with moving that a Committee be appointed to take 
 into consideration the state of the children employed in the 
 different manufactories of the United Kingdom, and to 
 report the same, together with their observations thereupon, 
 to the House. 
 
 " Mr Finlay defended the character of the cotton manu- 
 facturers as a body. He would venture to affirm that the 
 cotton mills of Glasgow were not only situated most advan- 
 tageously for health, but were conducted on the most liberal 
 plan. 
 
 " Lord Lyttleton said, he was persuaded it would be 
 found impossible, when the committee went into the business, 
 to apply such a bill as was brought forward last session 
 to all the manufactories in the kingdom. 
 
 " Mr Cur wen took that opportunity of protesting against 
 the principle of legislation for the regulation of the authority
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT 47 
 
 of parents over their children, who must be best aware 
 of the quantity of work those children were able to bear, 
 and who must undoubtedly feel most for their distresses. 
 Such a proceeding was a libel on the humanity of parents. 
 He had, however, no objections to a committee. 
 " Mr Gordon earnestly supported the motion. 
 " The motion was agreed to, and a committee appointed." 
 It is a law of nature that parents should love their own 
 children, but the perversion of that law is of frequent occurrence, 
 and confined to no race or country. Mr Curwen indicated 
 what parents ought to do, which was not a satisfactory 
 answer to the first Sir Robert Peel, he having rested his 
 efibrts for compulsory regulation on an acknowledgement 
 of duty, and his own hnowledge of its non-fulfilment: in 
 some cases the parents themselves were not free agents, 
 they having had the value of their own labour reduced by 
 the introduction of machinery, not a few having been forced 
 into unwilling idleness, sought for, and found a defence for 
 the cruel injustice done to their children, in the sense 
 of their own undeserved poverty. Mr Curwen, in common 
 with many others, failed to perceive that factory legislation 
 was necessary because of the palpable violation of the laws 
 of nature — a truth, the want of the perception of which 
 was a stumbling-block in the path of improvement.
 
 48 THE HISTORY OP 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 NATURE OP THE EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE SELECT COMMITTEE 
 OF 1816. — CONDITION OF CHILDREN EMPLOYED IN FACTORIES. — ■ 
 STATE OF THE QUESTION. 
 
 Reasonable men habitually accept the judgment of those 
 who, from their special studies and experience, understand 
 special subjects. This is the homage which common sense 
 pays to scientific knowledge, and it may be ranked amongst 
 the " signs of the times " that this kind of homage is not 
 on the increase; Mammon- worship has usurped the place 
 of the respect due to solid acquirements and scientific 
 research. Unverified theory is frequently preferred to 
 the decided convictions of the ablest professional authorities, 
 and subjects of the most \atal moment are viewed through 
 the lens of self-interest. The results are in keeping with 
 the process ; the mystifications, incongruities, and contra- 
 dictions consequent are appalling. It is not any longer 
 considered to be the duty of a statesman to understand 
 principles, or to endeavour to be guided by the voice of 
 experience; society pays heavy penalties for the empiricism 
 and inconsistencies of its chosen guides. The propounders 
 of factory legislation were not of this class ; they knew 
 that safe action could only follow from sound judgment, 
 and they were guided by that knowledge: — "The wisdom 
 of the prudent is to understand his way;" the result of 
 extended experience ; " but the folly of fools is deceit."
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 49 
 
 The principal members of tlie medical profession have 
 rightly earned for themselves a distinguished post among 
 the leaders of every social improvement. Quackery, it 
 must be owned, is everywhere too common; it is an old 
 disease, having its origin in audacity and ignorance, and 
 is not by any means easily eradicated. The most intense 
 study, the widest experience, and the closest observation 
 of all that relates to life, health, and disease, are the requisites 
 of an efEcient physician. In proportion as the union of 
 these requisites in the same person is rare, and when 
 existing, important, so is the worth of his testimony. This 
 being so, it was but reasonable that among the witnesses 
 examined before the Select Committee of the House of 
 Commons, appointed in 1816, to take evidence on the state 
 of the children employed in the manufactories of the 
 United Kingdom, should have been the most eminent medical 
 men of the time. The importance of such evidence it is 
 almost impossible to over-rate ; from knowledge or experience, 
 the witnesses were eminently qualified to give sound opinions 
 on the subjects brought under their consideration by the 
 members of the committee. These subjects having been 
 life, health, disease, and their principal coincident conditions, 
 have not, with the lapse of time, lost any portion of their 
 value. We feel that it is due to the memories of medical 
 authorities so distinguished, to give portions of their 
 evidence in their own words. 
 
 " Ashley Cooper, Esq., called in and examined: 
 *'You are by profession a surgeon? — Yes. 
 " You have had very great experience in your profession? 
 —Yes. 
 
 *' Has your attention been directed to children in the 
 course of your practice? — Yes, certainly. 
 
 " At what age may children, without endangering their 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 health, be admitted to close labour for thirteen hourg per day ? 
 — I tliliik at no age. 
 
 " What is the length of the day that you would 
 recommend? 
 
 " Upon a subject of this kind one must answer upon 
 general principles; for the preservation of health three 
 things are certainly necessary, air, exercise, and nourish- 
 ment ; and I conceive that if a child has not a due pro- 
 portion of exercise, if it is confined for a great number 
 of hours in air of a certain temperature, and if it has 
 not a proper proportion of nourishment, it cannot be in 
 health. 
 
 " Do you not think that the labour many children in 
 manufactories undergo is of itself sufficient exercise to 
 answer the purposes of health? — Not if it is in a confined 
 situation. 
 
 " Do you think that children, of from seven to ten 
 years of age, can be employed more than ten hours per 
 day without injury to their health ? — I think not. 
 
 " What do you consider to be the eiTect upon the 
 development and growth of the bodies of children fi-om 
 six to ten years of age, if so many hours of confinement 
 are imposed upon them? — The result of confinement, 
 commonly, is not only to stunt the gro^vth, but to ])roduce 
 deformity; and to that point I can answer, from a good 
 deal of experience, that deformity is a common consequence 
 of considerable confiement. 
 
 " What is your opinion as to the effect of confining 
 children of from six to seven years of age in manufactories, 
 with aU the circumstances attendant, where they work, 
 chiefly standing, from fourteen to fifteen, and sixteen 
 hours a-day'? — That it must be very injurious to general 
 health."
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 51 
 
 " Sir Gilbert Blane, Baronet, M.D., called in and 
 examined : — 
 
 " You are by profession a physician ? — I am. 
 
 "It is well known you have had much experience in 
 your profession ? — I have. 
 
 *' Supposing that children are employed in close rooms, 
 regularly day by day, for thirteen hours and a half, one 
 hour and a half being occupied in meals, is it your opinion 
 that the children so employed at the early age of from six 
 to twelve woiJd receive no injury in their health ? — It is 
 necessary I should premise, I have no experience as to 
 manufactories, and, therefore, my answer must depend on 
 general analogy. From what I have observed in the course 
 of my experience, for the last three and thirty years, in all 
 ranks, and from being twelve years physician to one of the 
 largest hospitals in London, I certainly should say it was 
 greatly too much for the health of children. My grounds of 
 inference are founded on the natural appetency of all young 
 creatures to locomotive exercise, and the open air ; from 
 what I have witnessed in the lower orders, and particularly 
 from the bills of mortality in this town, in wliich I have 
 observed, in the course of the last century the mortality 
 diminished from one in twenty to one in thirty-eight ; and 
 upon casting my eyes upon the different periods of hfe, I 
 find that the great difference has arisen from the diminished 
 mortality of children : and this diminished mortality has, I 
 apprehend, arisen from children being brought up in purer 
 air, with more cleanliness and greater warmth ; that cleanli- 
 ness, warmth, and ventilation, are the great causes of the 
 health of young persons, and to which the diminution of 
 mortaUty, in this metropolis, has been chiefly omng. The 
 diminution of mortality in grown persons has been o^ing 
 chiefly to the same causes, preventing the generation and 
 propagation of infectious fevers." Testimony to the same 
 effect was given by Christopher Pemberton, Esq., M.D., and 
 
 e 2
 
 52 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 George Leman Tutliill, Esq, M.D. The next important 
 portion of the inquiry was, in what degree do the necessary- 
 conditions for health and strength exist? In a tabular 
 statement of the hours of labour in forty-three cotton factories 
 in Manchester and neighbourhood, made by the proprietors 
 of the factories referred to, the actual hours of work per day 
 were 12, 12^, 13, and 14,— one 14^, and one lOi. This 
 labour was performed in an atmosphere of from 70 to upwards 
 of 78 degrees, often in iU-ventilated rooms. These conditions 
 were incompatible with health, and there was no lack of 
 circumstantial evidence proving the soundness of the judg- 
 ment expressed, from a knowledge of natural laws, by the 
 most eminent medical authorities of the age. Mr Kinderwood, 
 a surgeon, whose practice was confined exclusively to Oldham 
 and district, gave the following evidence : — " Have you 
 perceived any effect on the digestive organs from employment 
 in cotton factories ? — The digestive organs become debiHtated 
 with the other parts of the system: it is a function that is 
 easily injured; a child may eat a sufficient quantity of food, 
 and not turn it into nutrition. If there is not a digestive 
 power in the stomach, no matter what food he takes, the food 
 is not converted to nutrition, he does not get any flesh." 
 M r Kinderwood also spoke as to the prevalence of scrofula 
 and consumption, to the frequent occurrence of serious and 
 fatal accidents from unfenced machinery and low-roofed mills. 
 The following extract of Mr Kinderwood's evidence is im.por- 
 tant, in so far as it relates to exercise, rest, and meals : — " As 
 far as you have had opportunities of observing, are the 
 
 children universally kept to their employment without 
 
 •elaxation ; during the hours of work before and after dinner 1 
 — The most common thing is to have breakfast sent, .during 
 which the machinery is working ; but I have stated, I think, 
 there is one mill where there is a recess from the mill for 
 
 breakfast, and they go out for twenty minutes, the same in. 
 
 the aflernoon for bagging (tea -drinking) as it is termed.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 53 
 
 " You mean a sort of watering time, or for refresh- 
 ment ? — Yes. 
 
 " Is that usual in other mills in that neighhourhood ? 
 — I mention it as a singular instance. 
 
 " In those mills where the children are kept in to 
 breakfast, and where no time is allowed in the afternoon, 
 do you know whether the children are kept constantly at 
 the employment between the meals ? — Certainly, they are 
 kept constantly at the employment, for they eat the break- 
 fast with the machinery employed which they are paid to 
 look after ; perhaps one child may look after the machinery 
 of another, and the compliment may be returned, I do not 
 know how that is." 
 
 Mr Bill, a Manchester surgeon, of twenty years ex- 
 perience in the Manchester infirmary, had been long 
 seriously impressed with a sense of the ill effect of spinning- 
 factories, " both as to health and morals." " These works 
 crowded the Infirmary with patients." — Mr Boutflower, 
 a surgeon resident in Salford, forwarded a paper which was 
 given in evidence as follows : — "That of seven or eight 
 thousand patients who are annually admitted to the Man- 
 chester Infirmary, one half of the surgical complaints are 
 scrofulous. A difference very striking occurs at Liverpool: 
 in a report of 15,000, only 152 are marked as scrofulous." 
 — Mr Simmons, senior surgeon of the Manchester Infirmary, 
 having had in that capacity an experience of twenty -five 
 years, also gave very decided testimony on the evil effects 
 of factory labour on health. 
 
 Of late years Manchester has become celebrated for 
 educational efforts ; public schools, rival schemes for edu- 
 cating the young, free libraries, lecture halls, and reading 
 rooms, bear witness to the enterprise of rival sects and 
 parties, and warrant the behef that many have found out 
 " that the soul to be without knowledge it is not good." 
 One of the effects of the factory system, as stated in
 
 54 THE HISTORY OP 
 
 evidence before the committee of 1816, was, to lessen the 
 opportunities of education afforded to the young. Con- 
 venient schoolrooms had been erected for the instruction 
 of the children of the labouring population in reading, 
 Visiting, and arithmetic, but the forms were not half filled, 
 the Lancasterian and National schools of other towns in 
 which factories had not been erected commanded a much 
 better attendance. In Manchester the average time of 
 attendance at the Lancasterian school was about four 
 months, at Newcastle-on-Tyne four years ; " the sole 
 reason of which was that the parents of the children in 
 Manchester were tempted to send the children to the 
 works at an early age (for there was no Hmitation by law), 
 and, on the contrary, there was no inducement at New- 
 castle for the employment of children under twelve, 
 thirteen, and fourteen, and therefore they remained during 
 that period, upon the average, in the school." — Before 
 the committee much evidence was given on the habits of 
 persons employed in factory labour. — Mr Nathaniel Gould, 
 a Manchester merchant of great respectability, and who for 
 thuty years had attended to the rehgious, moral, and 
 social condition of his humbler fellow-citizens, made known 
 the results of his careful and lengthened observation. Mr 
 Gould, on being asked his opinion on the causes that 
 prevented children engaged in factory labour from attend- 
 ing Sunday schools, answered : — " There are two causes : 
 the one is, I think, that the parents of the cliildren that 
 do not work in factories, are more attentive to their 
 children, than those whose children do work in factories ; 
 I am speaking generally on this. The other great cause, 
 in my mind, is, that the children having been confined 
 so very much in the factories all the week, have less 
 inclination to go to the Sunday schools, as well as their 
 parents to send them ; I think it is natural for many 
 parents to wish their children to be as much as may be
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 55 
 
 in the open air on the Sabbath-day, in order that they 
 may get some strength against they begin the work next 
 week, and recruit themselves a httle. 
 
 " Have the children at Manchester, who work in factories, 
 any means of instruction after they enter the factories, 
 except what they derive from the Sunday schools 1 — The 
 length of their time of labour in the week-days precludes 
 all chances of any other opportunity than Saturday 
 evenings, when it seems too much to expect or wish them 
 to go to a school, and the only schools I have heard of 
 for the occasion are two in connexion with Sunday schools, 
 the scholars of which amount together only to about 170." 
 Mr John Moss, who had been from February 1814, to 
 March 1815, master of the apprentices at a cotton-mill — 
 Backbarrow — had on one occasion known children work 
 from eight on Saturday night to six on Sunday morning; 
 the same children had resumed work at twelve o'clock on 
 Sunday night, and worked until five in the morning. 
 Every Sunday children were employed in cleaning the 
 machinery; their orders were to work from six to twelve — 
 had known children work for three weeks together, from 
 five in the morning until nine or ten at night, with the 
 exception of an hour for meals — had frequently found the 
 children asleep upon the mill floors after the time they 
 should have been in bed. Injuries from machinery often 
 occurred — several of the children were deformed. The same 
 causes which operated to prevent the attendance of cliildren 
 at Sunday schools contributed to prevent their attendance 
 at churches and chapels." On the authority of Mr Nathaniel 
 Gould, and other witnesses, a considerable proportion of 
 the whole rising population of Manchester, and district, 
 received but a very limited secular education, and were 
 shut out from the force of religious influences conveyed 
 through the means of Sunday school and pulpit. The 
 witnesses stating these facts, reasonably therewith, con-
 
 56 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 eluded that there were among the factory populat'on 
 with whose circumstances they were familiar, an increased, 
 and increasing, depravity of character and morals. 
 
 Not any stronger proof could be given of an utter want 
 of common sense and self-reliance on the part of a nation, 
 of the power of money over the mind and morals, than 
 the fact that it was found necessary to examine medical 
 witnesses to prove that cleanliness, and exercise in the 
 open air, were necessary for the health of children. Any 
 cottager's wife could have settled the question. Who 
 that ever nursed a child could doubt that close confinement, 
 excessive labour, and a tainted atmosphere, were injurious 
 to health? Selfishness and obstinacy could alone require so 
 uncalled-for an exhibition of physiological knowledge — 
 instinct itself had, from the birth of the first living animal, 
 proved all that reason, humanity, and science, had contended 
 for. These circumstances notwithstanding, so darkened 
 and perverse were the minds of the opposing millowners, 
 that they hoped to shake the confidence of intelligent men 
 in the laws of nature, and to over-rule the force of the 
 liighest authorities by an array of testimony opposed to 
 nature, facts, and reason. The evidence hitherto stated on 
 the evils of " the factory system " could, to a just and 
 comprehensive mind, lead to only one conclusion, namely, 
 the desirableness of improvement. Numerous sections of 
 the owners of factories had become alarmed, they conceived 
 that " their craft was in danger," had prepared for the 
 production of witnesses, intended to prove very different 
 results from those in the preceding pages. Mr WiUiam 
 Taylor, manager "of a considerable part of the spinning 
 concerns of Horrocks, Miller, and Co., of Preston," and 
 who represented before the committee twenty-four cotton- 
 factories (being, in fact, the deputy of the cotton-spinners 
 of Preston and neighbourhood, with two exceptions), Avas 
 opposed to all parliamentary interference, he thought it
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 57 
 
 would *' create great misunderstandings and unhappiness 
 in families." Tlie firm with which Mr Taylor was connected 
 at Preston, had factories in various towns of the county of 
 Lancaster, and employed 7,000 persons, and his evidence 
 had been prepared with much care, intended to prove that 
 employment in cotton factories was not, more than other 
 employments, injurious to health or morals, but on the 
 contrary, individually and nationally advantageous, 
 
 Mr William Sandford, a Manchester cotton-spinner, pro- 
 duced before the Committee a tabular statement intended 
 to prove the superiority of the health of children employed 
 in factories over those employed in other trades. From the 
 data on which Mr Sandford based his calculations, ''the 
 balance of health in favour of factories in money appeared 
 to be as three shillings are to two shillings; the balance of 
 health in favour of factories in number of persons, as five to 
 four." Mr Sandford produced a document signed by the 
 head master and principal visitor of a Sunday school in 
 Manchester, showing that the children that work in factories 
 were '' equally regular (or more so) in their attendance, more 
 clean in their persons, more orderly in their conduct, and 
 better clothed than those who did not." Mr Hollis, a Not- 
 tinghamshire manufacturer, was of opinion "that the children 
 employed in his own manufactory were in a trifling degree 
 inferior in point of appearance to those children in the 
 neighbourhood belonging to farmers and agriculturists, but 
 they were equally healthy." Mr HolKs handed in docu- 
 ments signed by clergymen, magistrates, and others, setting 
 forth the excellent condition of all employed in cotton 
 factories in various parts of the counties of Nottingham and 
 Derby. 
 
 Mr Augustus Lee, of the firm of Phillips and Lee, Man- 
 chester, was of opinion that the reduction of the hours of 
 labour would be injurious to the morals of the fiictory 
 workers of Manchester, and " perhaps injurious to the
 
 58 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 tranquillity of" the town." Mr Augustus Lee, from *' long 
 experience and observation in cotton mills," was of opinion 
 "■ that an attempt to regulate free labour by legislation would 
 in its consequences inflict the severest injury upon the class 
 of persons it was designed to serve; that the alleged evils 
 principally arising from the difference of skill, care, and 
 management, would have their best remedy in the direct 
 interests of the parties concerned, which has been exem- 
 plified in the progressive and humane improvements of 
 the most successful manufacturers; the circumstances of trade 
 are so complicated and different, that no general rule can 
 be devised without great unequal pressure; that restrictive 
 regulations were no more applicable to the cotton, flax, or 
 woollen manufacturers than to many others; therefore they 
 appeared to him partial and unjust. The reasons for them 
 were chiefly derived from speculative opinions in opposition 
 to experience ; and many of the reasons might be directed 
 equally against manufactures altogether. The restrictive 
 regulations must increase the enormous poor-rates, by less- 
 ening the quantity of industry from the same population 
 and subsistence, as well as diminish the demand for its 
 labour, by enhancing its price. They would give foreign 
 countries in which there were no restrictions an advantage over 
 our own, and at a crisis when we were still straggling for 
 the existence of our manufactures under an enormous load 
 of taxes ; they would probably produce an emigration of 
 workmen and a transfer of capital to foreign countries ; by 
 their operation an immense revenue is at stake ; the safety 
 of three manufactures, equal to more than sixty millions 
 sterling per annum, may be hazarded, of which more than 
 one-half, according to the official reports, is dependent upon 
 foreign demand, and, of course, upon foreign competition." 
 
 Mr George Augustus Lee " had travelled on the conti- 
 nent and personally examined into the state of manufacture 
 in France ; at Rouen he had visited two cotton manu-
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 59 
 
 factories, each employing 1,000 people; the proprietor had 
 been protected from conscription, encouraged, and deco- 
 rated with the Legion of Honour by the first Napoleon. Mr 
 Lee assured the committee that the progress of the cotton 
 manufacture in France gave him great alarm." Mr Lee 
 was evidently convinced that the only road open for the 
 improvement of the health and morals of the population 
 was through the increase of accumulated riches, and the 
 extension of foreign trade. He stated facts, enunciated 
 principles, and foretold results with that air of confidence 
 which alone belongs to men who fancy that they know 
 the whole truth. 
 
 The disafijreement of the witnesses examined was distinct 
 and irreconcilable. Men of the highest respectabiUty gave 
 evidence on the same subject, leading to opposite con- 
 clusions. The evidence was not, to many minds, conclusive 
 for or against legislative interference. This perplexity was 
 itself a result, evidence of an important change in the minds 
 of legislators. One-tenth part of the medical testimony 
 against over-work given in 1816, would, in 1802, have 
 been considered irrefragable proof The subject was still 
 open for investigation and controversy, and the first Sir 
 Robert Peel and his supporters could, at this time, only 
 have anticipated that any renewed appeal to parhament for 
 factory regulation would be met by an organised and ener- 
 getic opposition.
 
 60 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 EENEWED EFFORTS OF THE SUPPOETEES OF FACTORY REGULATION.— 
 POWER, POSITION, AND ARGUMENTS OF OPPONENTS. — DEBATE IN 
 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN 1818. 
 
 When a truth has once gained possession of the mind of 
 an earnest man who measures the fulfilment of his duties 
 by the sense he feels of his responsibilities, it will not be 
 allowed to slumber in indolent and fruitless inactivity. 
 Important truths take stronger root in the minds of sincere 
 men than with the majority of mankind. Such men cannot 
 be dismayed. Obstacles will arise, delays ensue, and some- 
 times doubts intervene to check the realisation of thoug-hts 
 in practice ; good thoughts, seriously entertained, will live 
 on, and cannot possibly be neutralised by the existence 
 of difficulties. A strong sense of duty is proof against 
 obloquy and slander, and steadfast amidst the novelties and 
 exigencies of current times. The frivolous and the weak 
 are easily thwarted in their designs : in the understanding 
 of the frivolous, life has but few serious duties ; in the case 
 of the weak, timidity renders them impotent : — " A double- 
 minded man is unstable in all his ways." 
 
 The opponents of factory legislation were not slow to 
 profit from the contradictory nature of the evidence given 
 before the committee of the House of Commons in 1816. 
 The combined cotton-spinners opposed to factory regu- 
 lation were rich and well-organised, advantages which their
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 61 
 
 energy and business habits enabled them to turn to acconnt. 
 They secured a widely-extended circulation to such por- 
 tions of evidence as were favourable to their opinions, they 
 omitted the portions opposed thereto. They were not 
 sparing in their insinuations against the supporters of the 
 Ten Hours' Bill. Slander is a very powerful weapon, and, 
 like the assassin's dagger, wounds most fatally when the 
 hand that strikes is hidden from the eye of the victim. 
 This treacherous and dangerous weapon was often and 
 powerfully used by some among the opponents of factory 
 regulation. The motives of the first Sir Robert Peel 
 were misrepresented, the character of a truly good man — 
 Mr Nathaniel Goidd, traduced; others suffered in their 
 degree. 
 
 Here we must pause: it has been the habit of the oppo- 
 nents of factory legislation, for want of better arguments, to 
 represent its original supporters as men of little worth, of me- 
 diocre talent, as^ mere visionaries — speculative dreamers 
 devoid of every quality calculated to give weight and 
 force to their opinions. We have already spoken of the 
 first Sir Robert Peel, and have given judgment on his 
 talent and character as a parliamentary leader. We 
 cannot, in justice to the memory of Nathaniel Gould, 
 proceed without recording our testimony to liis worth. 
 Nathaniel Gould was a prosperous and universally 
 respected Manchester merchant, faithful in the discharge of 
 every duty ; his time, his talents, and his wealth were 
 used in the service of liis fellow-creatures ; his active be- 
 nevolence called forth the admiration of his neisrhbours 
 and the gratitude of the poor, his sympathies for their 
 children led him to constant and active exertions in their 
 schools, every measure calculated to improve their con- 
 dition, religiously, mentally, and physically, found in him 
 a wilHng supporter. In Manchester there was not a more 
 respectable, there was not a more respected citizen than
 
 62 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 Nathaniel Gould ; he became the out-of doors leader In the 
 great question which now engages onr attention. With the 
 self-sacrifice of a Christian indeed, he threw himself into 
 the gap between the oppressor and the oppressed, his days 
 and nights, Ms physical and mental energies, his great in- 
 fluence and wealth, were all willingly devoted to the cause 
 he had resolved conscientiously to maintain. Until then 
 his name had been without reproach, all admired his be- 
 nevolence, his perseverance, his self-sacrifice, but now the 
 anger of the oppressors of the factory children was 
 kindled against Mm, their malice dared to impugn his 
 motives ; slander was their weapon, tales, malicious as they 
 were false, were spread to Ms disparagement, one of the 
 best men in Manchester was represented to have been one of 
 the worst; even then, he was true to the cause he had 
 espoused, and he defended it as a duty he owed to God 
 and man. 
 
 Conscious of the frail tenure of himian life, but firm and 
 sincere in purpose, before the passing of Peel's Bill in 1819, 
 Nathaniel Gould allotted in Ms will the sum of 5,000/. for 
 the realisation of the good work in which he had engaged. 
 He lived to see that work accomplished, and spent not less 
 than twenty thousand pounds in the expenses attendant 
 on the passing of what is called "Peel's Bill," but which, 
 in its labour and expense, was eminently " Gould's Bill." 
 During one of Nathaniel Gould's visits to London, he took 
 lodgings in Dover street, Piccadilly, purposely to be " in the 
 track of members of both Houses." One evening, when 
 busily engaged writing notes to members of parliament, on 
 the necessity of supporting the first Sir Robert Peel in the 
 House of Commons, his bill for factory regulation then 
 being before parliament, there entered a neatly-dressed, 
 sedate, pleasant-looking young man : — " Well, Mr Gould 
 how arc you getting on, do you see much ground for hope 
 yetl " — " Aye, Robert," said Mr Gould, " it is hard work, but
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 63 
 
 we shall succeed, depend upon it." — " Well, Mr Gould, I 
 have told you that you have much to contend with in the 
 House, and many that won't oifend you, you will find voting 
 against the bill in the House." — " No doubt, Robert, but 
 our cause is good, and must succeed ; a matter of time and 
 a matter of money, but, Robert, it is a righteous cause, and 
 must succeed." After a few more words, this gentlemanly, 
 looking young man walked up to Mr Gould ; a slight inter- 
 ruption followed. Mr Gould said, " Aye, Robert, thou art 
 a good fellow — good night," and familiarly patted liis youth- 
 ful friend on the shoulder as he retired. Nathaniel Gould's 
 assistant, whom he loved and trusted, now a most reputable 
 London merchant, said, — " Well, Sir, what was all that 
 about ? " — " We'll see," said Nathaniel Gould, stepping near 
 to a candle, and opening liis hand, which contained a fifty- 
 pounds bank note; he then observed — "Robert is a good 
 fellow, he Httle knows what I am spending in this business, 
 but he means well, and I will not offend him." That young 
 man was the second Sir Robert Peel ; his donation was a 
 proof of liis desire to serve the cause which his father and 
 he had in parHament supported. While living (apart from 
 personal exertions, which were incessant), Nathaniel Gould 
 contributed munificently to the principal public charities 
 in Manchester ; in justice to the memory of this truly 
 pious and christian man, we append a list of some of the 
 sums set apart in his will for pubHc purposes ; it is not for 
 the world's benefit that the good which men have done 
 should be forgotten in the grave. 
 
 Legacies for charitable purposes bequeathed by the late 
 Nathaniel Gould, of Manchester. 
 
 £ 
 
 To the Public Infirmary of Manchester 200 
 
 „ House of Recovery . . 500 
 
 „ Lying-in Hospital . .200 
 
 ,, Jubilee Charity . . 200
 
 64 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 £ 
 
 To the Lancasteriau School . . 100 
 
 Sunday School . . . 500 
 
 Auxiliary Society for Education . 500 
 Auxiliary Bible Society . 500 
 
 Christian Knowledge Society . 500 
 British and Foreign Bible Society 500 
 National School . . 500 
 
 Poor pious Clergy . . 100 
 
 Misses Young (two daughters of 
 a recruiting officer at Man- 
 chester, who died there, leaving 
 his children destitute) . 500 
 
 At the meetincr called to establish " the Town Wards 
 and Infirmary," since called, "The House of Recovery," 
 Mr Gould contributed 300Z. ; the subscription not equalling 
 on the whole his expectation, he contributed anonymously 
 an additional 200/., making with the legacy named above 
 1,000/. It was his desire that " the Gospel should be 
 preached to the poor ; " as a means to this end he bought 
 the galleries of St Stephen's Church, Manchester, intending 
 these to be free sittings. This purchase, notwithstanding, 
 he was compelled to pay an assessment on the value. When 
 the property came into the hands of the Reverend Joseph 
 Gould, nephew of the late Nathaniel Gould, he too was 
 charged the assessment ; by legal advice, he let the front 
 seats, and eventually conveyed the whole to the poor for 
 ever, — thus realising the intention of his uncle, of whom 
 it may be truly said: — "He loved his God, and served 
 his kind." 
 
 Much has been said and written about the power of the 
 feudal barons over their dependants, in ages long past ; the 
 theme has been a favourite one with those who prefer the 
 palliation of the crimes of their own age by a comparison 
 with extreme cases in other ages. The power of punish- 
 ment, reduced to practice, by barons in feudal times, was
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 65 
 
 unequal to the searching and direct despotism frequently 
 manifested by the unscrupulous owners of some cotton 
 manufactories over their infant labourers. True, the un- 
 scrupulous factory-owner could not with impunity hang a 
 refractory servant by the neck until life was extinct, a 
 power which the ancient barons possessed, but then the 
 baron's means of knowing those among his vassals who 
 dared to think differently from himself were few, in com- 
 parison with those at the command of the factory-owner; the 
 serfs of the soil, spread over a wide domain, except in 
 times of war, the toils and excitement of which they 
 courted rather than feared, were seldom interfered with; 
 it was in the very nature of feudalism to depend more upon 
 attachment than terror, the love of the chief and the 
 honour of the clan were more potent influences in securing 
 servitude than the dread of personal punishment. A few 
 hundreds of individuals, cooped up within the walls of a 
 cotton manufactory, were well known to the owner, under 
 the immediate inspection of himself, any one of whom 
 was easily singled out for punishment. This was frequently 
 done; an operative who dared to give evidence on 
 the factory system, to tell others what he had himself 
 endured, or known others endure, was a marked man, and 
 his name once in the "black book," he and his were 
 objects of relentless persecution. What persecution ? The 
 persecution of being refused to " earn his bread by the 
 sweat of his face :" — think of it, for there is none greater. 
 
 The opponents of factory legislation were unceasing in 
 their efforts to make popular the doctrine that it was not 
 consonant with the duties of an " enlightened government," 
 in any way to interfere with the relations of capitalists and 
 labourers. In the estimation of these millowners, the 
 beginning and the end of the duties of a government con- 
 sisted in protecting their property, and allowing them to 
 treat all those under their control as to themselves seemed 
 VOL. I. P
 
 66 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 best. " Let all things alone," is the approved maxim of 
 indolent statesmen and satisfied capitalists, but though 
 supported by much plausible reasoning, did not meet 
 with the approval of the factory operatives, or the more 
 humane among their employers. It is deserving of re- 
 mark, that the popular doctrine of "letting all things 
 alone," has grown up in this country at the vety period 
 of her history when the old moorings of society have been 
 sundered. In any country which, like England, had 
 risen to influence through the slow growth and gradual 
 evolutions of many ages, a country in which security of 
 person and property had from habit and law been firmly 
 established, so long as agriculture and manufacture remained 
 nearly in their relative proportion, one to another, " letting 
 all things alone " would, in all that related to industry, 
 have been, if not a safe, at least not a suddenly dangerous 
 course. A people wedded to the soil, attached to family, 
 property, and country, required but little attention from 
 statesmen ; their industry, thrift, and patriotism, were the 
 sources of national strength, and bonds of health, comfort, 
 and order. To such a people, the modern maxim of "do 
 nothing" would have had the negative merit of saving 
 their interests from the blight of official incapacity, and 
 its result — ill-judged intermeddling. When numerous 
 
 sections of the population forsake the parishes of their 
 forefathers, and all the associations which connect the 
 cordings of society (binding men and women to home 
 and duty), and are concentrated in indiscriminate masses, 
 subject to conditions which they every day feel to be 
 injurious to health and virtue, but which, by their own 
 confession, they are unable to change, to preach to such 
 a population, *' Let all things alone," is to hand them 
 over defenceless to the cruelties attendant on graduated 
 death, to prepare for future generations an incalculable 
 increase of misery and crime. The primary distinction
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 67 
 
 between a wisely adjusted system of national economy, 
 and " letting all things alone," is, that in the former, all 
 known, serious, and dangeroa"? evils are restricted in their 
 operation by law; in the latter, they are left to the full 
 force of their unrestrained action, to become in time deeply 
 seated organic diseases; in the one case social despotism is 
 bridled, in the other, it may kill its victims by tens of 
 thousands, none daring to make it afraid. Of all kinds 
 of absolutism, no matter by what name known, the most 
 destructive and relentless is the absolutism of Mammon 
 over human sinews. Such was the conscientious conviction 
 of the most active among the principal supporters of factory 
 regulation, and although they, because of circumstances 
 already named, were delayed in the labour in which they 
 had engaged, they were far from being disheartened or 
 doubtful of ultimate success. These untoward circumstances, 
 united with the faihng health of their parliamentary leader 
 in the House of Commons, prevented for a season the 
 re-introduction of the Factories' Regulation Bill as origin- 
 ally intended. 
 
 Early in 1818, the supporters of factory regulation were 
 active in their operations, resolved that not any further 
 delay should take place on their part. In the hope of 
 disarming opposition, they, chiefly through the solicitation 
 of the first Sir Robert Peel, had agreed in their bill to 
 lengthen the restricted hours from ten to eleven per 
 day. The opponents of the measure were equally active, 
 and took the lead in parliament. On February the 18th, 
 1818, Lord Stanley presented a petition firom the owners 
 and occupiers of cotton mills in Manchester and vicinity. 
 The petitioners condemned the evidence given before the 
 committee of 1816, and prayed, " that if the House required 
 further information upon the subject, they would be pleased 
 to appoint a special commission of its own members for 
 the purpose of examining v;pon the spot into the actual 
 
 F 2
 
 68 
 
 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 condition of persons employed in the various cotton and 
 other manufactories." The question was now fairly before 
 the House of Commons; on February the 19th, the first 
 Sir Robert Peel introduced to the notice of the House his 
 promised motion; "the importance of which increased more 
 and more on every consideration of it." .... "In Man- 
 chester alone, about 20,000 persons were employed in the 
 cotton manufactories, and in the whole of England about 
 three times that number," .... "It was notorious that 
 children of a very tender age were dragged from their beds 
 some hours before daylight, and confined in the factories 
 not less than fifteen hours ; and it was also notoriously 
 the opinion of the faculty that no children of eight or 
 nine years of age could bear that degree of hardship with 
 impunity to their health and constitution." .... " Those 
 who were employers of the children, seeing them from day 
 to day, were not so sensible of the injury that they sus- 
 tained from this practice as strangers who were strongly 
 impressed by it. In fact, they were prevented from grow- 
 ing to their full size. In consequence, Manchester, which 
 used to furnish nmnerous recruits for the army, was now 
 wholly unproductive in that respect." The honourable 
 baronet concluded, by moving " that leave be given to bring 
 in a bill to amend and extend an Act made in the forty- 
 second year of his present Majesty, for the preservation of 
 the health and morals of apprentices and others employed 
 in cotton and other mills, and cotton and other factories." 
 A debate ensued, Mr Peel (the second Sir Robert) spoke 
 with much point and force in favour of the motion. The 
 principal opponent was Mr Finlay; he said, " that excepting 
 in one instance, in the county of Lancaster, there was no 
 proof of the existence of any evils which could justify 
 legislative interference." 
 
 The bill was brought in and read a first time. 
 
 The second reading of the bill took place on February
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 69 
 
 23rd, 1818 ; Sir Robert Peel said, " In the bill brought in 
 in 1815, the age at which the children might be employed 
 was fixed at ten. He now proposed the age of nine years, 
 and that the powers of the Act should terminate when the 
 child reached the age of sixteen, and could be considered 
 a free agent. He, therefore, now recommended that children 
 employed in cotton factories should from nine to sixteen 
 be under the protection of parliament, and before nine that 
 they should not be admitted ; that they should be employed 
 in working eleven hours, which with one hour and a half 
 for meals made in the whole twelve hours and a half. It 
 was his intention, if possible, to prevent the recurrence of 
 such a misfortune as that which had lately taken place — 
 he alluded to the fourteen poor children who were lately 
 burnt in the night in a cotton factory. [At Colne bridge, 
 near Huddersfield.] He knew that the iniquitous practice 
 of working children at a time when their masters were 
 in bed, too often took place. He was ashamed to own that 
 he had himself been concerned where that proceeding had 
 been suffered ; but he hoped the house would interfere and 
 prevent it for the future. It was his wish to have no 
 night work at all in the factories." The honourable baronet 
 concluded by moving " that the bill be read a second time." 
 The debate which followed, though conducted with earnest- 
 ness on both sides, elicited not any new facts or views 
 on the subject. The principal sj)eakers for the bill were 
 the first Sir Robert Peel and Mr Peel (the second Sir 
 Robert) ; against the bill, Mr Philips and Mr Finlay. The 
 bill was read a second time and committed, the report 
 received and ordered to be taken into consideration on 
 the 6th of April, On April the 10th, the first Sir Robert 
 Peel presented a petition from all the cotton-spinning 
 factories in Stockport, in favour of the Cotton Factories* 
 Bill. To this petition Sir Robert attached the greatest 
 importance. Sir James Graham, on the contrary/, assui'ed
 
 70 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the house "that these petitioners were no other than a 
 set of idle, discontented, discarded, and good-for-nothing 
 workmen, who conceived that they did too much when 
 in employment for the wages which they received. He 
 knew them to be of the description which he had stated, 
 and he had no doubt, if the bill before the house were 
 carried in the present session, these men would endeavour 
 next year to have a bill carried to limit their hours of 
 employment to a much smaller number than those which 
 were fixed by the bill." 
 
 The first Sir Robert Peel defended the character of the 
 petitioners against the charges of Sir James Graham. The 
 petition was ordered to lie on the table. 
 
 Between the second reading and the time appointed for 
 the third reading, petitions for and against the bill were 
 presented from various towns and villages in the factory 
 districts of the United Kingdom. 
 
 The discussion on the Factories' Regulation Bill in the 
 House of Commons on April 27th, 1818, was, in all im- 
 portant respects, a repetition of leading portions of the evi- 
 dence given before the Committee of the House of Commons 
 in 1816. The first Sir Robert Peel stated at length his 
 motives for introducing the bill, and explained its provisions. 
 The principal speakers in opposition were Lord Stanley, 
 Mr Philips, and Mr Finlay. The ablest speech in support 
 of the bill was that of Mr Peel (the second Sir Robert). 
 He denied that either parents or children were free agents. 
 Referring to the nature of the evidence against the bill, he 
 said, — " Indeed, if all that the honourable members had 
 said of the healthiness of cotton mills were true, apphcation 
 ought to be made to the Legislature for the erection of 
 cotton mills, for the purpose of further and more efiectually 
 providing for the health of his Majesty's Hege subjects. 
 The instances produced from the evidence were certainly 
 strong enough to support the most unqualified of the asser-
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 71 
 
 tions which had been made as to the healthiness of cotton 
 mills. One of the Instances was that of a mill at Glaserow, 
 in which he believed an honourable gentleman opposite 
 was concerned. It was given In evidence that In this mill 
 873 children were employed in 1811, 871 in 1812, and 
 891 in 1813. Among the 873 there were only three deaths; 
 among the 871 two deaths; among the 891 two deaths; 
 being In the proportion of one death In 445 persons. So 
 very extraordinary a small proportion had naturally excited 
 the astonishment of the Committee [1816], and therefore, 
 as was to be expected, they questioned medical gentlemen 
 as to the proportion of deaths in different parts of the king- 
 dom. When this statement was shown to Sir Gilbert Blane, 
 he expressed his surprise, and observed, if the fact was not 
 asserted by respectable persons he should not believe it ; and 
 being asked ' why he distrusted it ? ' he said that ' the 
 average number of deaths In England and Wales was 1 in 
 50 (in 1801 there had been 1 In 44). There were favoured 
 spots, certainly — Cardigan, in which the deaths were as 
 1 in 74; Monmouth, in which there was 1 in 68 ; Cornwall, 
 1 in 62 ; and Gloucester, 1 In 61 ;' yet in the cotton factories 
 they were stated to be as one in 445 ! In one of Warton's 
 beautiful poems which begun with these lines — 
 
 ' Within what mountain's craggy cell 
 Delights the Goddess, Health, to dwell.' 
 
 After asking where the abode of this coy goddess was to 
 be found, whether on ' the tufted rocks,' and ' fringed de- 
 clivities ' of Matlock, near the springs of Bath or Buxton, 
 among woods and streams, or on the sea-shore, It would 
 certainly have been an extraordinary solution of the per- 
 plexity of the poet, if, when he inquired — 
 
 * In what dim and dark retreat 
 The coy nymph fixed her fav'rite seat?' — 
 
 it had been answered, that It was in the cotton mills of
 
 72 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 Messrs Finlay and Co., at Glasgow ; yet sucli was the 
 evidence respecting this mill, that its salubrity appeared six 
 times as great as that of the most healthy part of the king- 
 dom. This was the sort of evidence which had been brought 
 to disprove the evidence of disinterested persons, of medical 
 men, and even of persons who had an interest opposed to 
 the measure before the house." The house divided — Ayes, 
 91; noes, 26. 
 
 The opponents of factory laws have ever been ready with 
 their demand for renewed investigation, and each fresh in- 
 quiry has closed by strengthening the cause of factory legis- 
 lation. " The reason why " is obvious ; the evils of the 
 factory system were real, deeply rooted, and widely spread; 
 as light was reflected on the system, its hideousness became 
 the more apparent. Yet there were method and poHcy in 
 the cry for " more light." Those from whose lips the cry 
 issued did not desire "more light," but more opportunities 
 for delay; they cherished the hope that they would weary 
 their opponents and force them to capitulate or compro- 
 mise. Nor were these hopes always without foundation. 
 The policy was, to a Hmited extent, successful ; the first Sir 
 Robert Peel did make concessions ; he departed from the 
 original proposition of ten hours per day as the working 
 hours in factories, and he reduced the age of admission from 
 ten to nine years, but he did not thereby conciliate his 
 opponents. On the contrary, he increased their determina- 
 tion and increased their hopes of success. After so memorable 
 an illustration of the undesirable results of concession and 
 compromise, only ignorance and weakness could at any 
 future time be urged in excuse for the repetition of so 
 dangerous a lesson. The experience thus gained was not 
 lost on the acti\'e leaders of the factory regulation move- 
 ment, who, at a subsequent period, nailed their banner 
 aloft, and on that banner inscribed their motto, "The 
 Ten Hours' liill, and no surrender."
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 73 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PEOCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE OF LOEDS. — APPOINTMENT OF A COM- 
 MITTEE. — NATT7EE OF THE EVIDENCE. — AEGUMENTS FOE AND 
 AGAINST STATED. 
 
 Whenever one portion of society, either from an ignorance 
 of the conditions necessary for healthful, physical, mental, 
 and moral action, or from self-interest, have resolved to per- 
 petuate an existing order of things injurious to the interest 
 of their fellow-men, the supporters of the predominant con- 
 ditions find many plausible reasons of defence; among these 
 is frequently an appeal to some popular sentiment. One of 
 the chief sources of delusion in all ages has been the use 
 of the words freedom and liberty: these words are responded 
 to by a deeply seated hatred to restraint implanted in the 
 heart of man, and their studied and crafty application has 
 oftentimes done more to continue positive slavery, and to 
 prevent the formation of requisite conditions for rational 
 freedom, than the united action of all other agencies. It 
 was, therefore, not surprising that the opponents of factory 
 regulation should have claimed for themselves the proud, and, 
 when justly used, honourable distinction of being " the advo- 
 cates of liberty and freedom," arrayed in opposition to men 
 whom they by inference, and sometimes openly, condemned 
 as the enemies of both. It had probably occurred to b\it 
 few among the influential opponents of all legislative inter- 
 ference between capitalists and labourers, that the limits of
 
 74 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 justifiable Interference depended at all times upon the rea- 
 sonable control manifested by man over his desires and iu 
 his conduct towards his fellow-man, and that he cannot be 
 called free whose wants oblige him unwilHngly to submit to 
 conditions of existence positively injurious to his own health 
 and morals, nay, even, if man, from ignorance and long 
 habits of subjection, should without murmur or complaint 
 toil for his daily bread to the certain injury of body and 
 mind, and against the interests of those dependant on him, 
 such a one is not a free man, but a being simk even beneath 
 the meanest conditions of ordinary serfdom, and any inter- 
 ference by law to check the operation of the power that 
 forces man into such degrading and undesirable submission, 
 whether willing or unwilling, is an Interference on the side 
 of true freedom, and a preliminary step towards the establish- 
 ment of rational liberty. The force of these truths, with tlieir 
 practical operations in his father's mills, no doubt, led the 
 second Sir Robert Peel to deny "that either parents or 
 children were free agents." It has been one of the misfortunes 
 of the present century to hear too much about capitalists 
 and labourers and too little about man and his duties, a mis- 
 fortune that repeated discussions on factory regulation were 
 destined in some degree to modify. It sounds exceedingly 
 well to say to a working man — '* You are sixteen years of 
 age, you are an adult, you are a free agent, at perfect liberty to 
 work on the conditions offered, or, to refuse those conditions, 
 as you please;" but if the working man has not any other 
 property than his labour, and the capitalist offering these 
 conditions has means of support greater than the working 
 man, the choice open to the latter, no matter of what age, 
 in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred is between submission 
 and starvation. Shakespeare most expressively puts into 
 the mouth of Shylock the words — 
 
 " You take my life 
 When you do take the means whereby I live."
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 75 
 
 The working man's " means " of living are the wages of 
 his labour ; the moment he ceases to labour his " means " are 
 at an end; a circumstance which to him makes almost con- 
 stant daily employment an indispensable condition of honest 
 and honourable existence. 
 
 These conditions being so with the adult factory operative, 
 he felt that all appeals made to him by the owners of fac- 
 tories against shortening the hours of the labour of his 
 children, when employed in factory labour, though conveyed 
 to him in honeyed words about "freedom and liberty," 
 were unfitted to his wants, and, with few exceptions, fell 
 barren to the ground. All that gold and energy could do 
 to enlist the working men of the factory districts on the side 
 of the opponents of regulation was done between the sitting 
 of the first Sir Robert Peel's committee, in 1816, and the 
 committee of the Lords, presided over by Lord Kenyon, in 
 1819. The agencies, however, which were comparatively 
 fruitless when applied to working men, were more successful 
 among a few whose opinions oscillated on the pendulum of 
 personal interest, and on others whose judgments were 
 fashioned by abstract theories of political economy, apart 
 from the consideration of the actual facts of life. 
 
 The Cotton Factories' Bill was formally introduced to the 
 House of Lords on May 7th, 1818, by Lord Kenyon, and 
 read a second time on the 8th. On the first and second 
 readings the Earl of Liverpool expressed strong and decided 
 opinions in favour of the bill, declaring that "it was part 
 of the common law of the land that children should not be 
 over-worked, and that if all the medical staff of Man- 
 chester were brought to the bar of the house to prove that 
 children worked more than fifteen hours a day without being 
 thereby injured, he would not believe them." Lord Kenyon 
 was equally decided. The Earl of Lauderdale and the Lord 
 Chancellor were strenuously opposed to the bill, complained 
 of the want of evidence, and condemned the evidence given
 
 76 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 before tlie committee of the House of Commons in 1816. 
 The debate on the second reading closed with an under- 
 standing that counsel and evidence should be heard against 
 the bill before a committee of the whole House. On May 
 the 19th the subject was again brought before the House 
 of Lords ; an animated debate followed, in which the Bishop 
 of Chester [George Henry Law, D.D.] declared that " par- 
 liament was the natural guardian of the unprotepted." He 
 "felt it due to the situation he held, to his acquaintance 
 with the situation of the children employed in factories 
 throughout his diocess, to state these sentiments to their 
 lordships, and to call upon them to assert the cause of 
 defenceless and suffering youth, more especially since, by 
 doing so, their lordships would support the interests of 
 society at large." In the committee Messrs Warren, Scarlett, 
 Harrison, and Evans were counsel for the petitioners against 
 the bill. It was at the close of the debate, which followed 
 on the speech of Mr Warren, agreed that counsel should 
 be further heard before a committee to-morrow. On the 
 5th of June it was, by the consent of the supporters and 
 opponents of the bill, agreed to postpone the flirther con- 
 sideration of the question for the session. Lord Kenyon 
 pledged himself to bring the subject before their lordships 
 on an early day of the ensuing session. The subject was 
 consequently brought under the consideration of the House 
 of Lords on February 4th and 8th, 1819. On February 25th 
 Lord Kenyon moved " That a committee be appointed to 
 inquire into the state and condition of the children employed 
 in cotton factories, and to report thereon to the House," 
 which motion was, after a debate, carried by a majority. 
 The Lord Chancellor (Lord Eldon), in the course of the 
 debate in the Lords, stated his opinion " that the offence 
 of over -working children was one indictable at common law." 
 He *' saw no reason why the master cotton-spinners, manu- 
 facturers, and master chimney-sweepers, should have dif-
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 77 
 
 ferent principles applied to them than were applied to other 
 trades." " A general law ought to be passed, if necessary, 
 for the regulation of manufacturers of all kinds ; but it might 
 happen that a particular law, applicable only to children in 
 one trade, might expose them to greater evils than those 
 from which it was intended to protect them." These obser- 
 vations prove that the Earl of Eldon was not opposed in 
 principle to regulation, but to its partial application. 
 
 All the leading features of the evidence given before 
 the committee of the Commons in 1816, were repeated before 
 the committee of the Lords in 1819 ; these, however, were 
 brought out in bolder relief, of which we will supply a 
 few examples, on the examination by counsel before the 
 Lords in 1818. Mr Thomas Wilson, a surgeon and apothe- 
 cary, of Bingley, in Yorkshire, on being asked the question, 
 " Is it not, in your judgment as a medical man, necessary 
 that young persons should have a little recreation or amuse- 
 ment during the day ? is it not contributory to their health ? " 
 answered, " I do not see it is necessary." The same 
 witness "was of opinion that the employment in cotton 
 factories was as healthful as employment in agriculture ; an 
 opinion fortified by twelve and a half years experience as 
 a surgeon and apothecary." 
 
 *' Mr Edward Holmes, M.D., of Manchester, had been in 
 practice in Manchester twenty -four years, and had during that 
 period been connected with the Manchester Infirmary, Dis- 
 pensary and Lunatic Asylum, and from 1796 with the 
 House of Recovery," was examined by the committee. — "As 
 you doubted," said the committee to Mr Holmes, " whether 
 a child could work for twenty-three hours without suffering, 
 would you extend your doubt to twenty-four hours ?" — 
 answered, "that was put as an extreme case, my answer 
 only went to this effect, that it was not in my power to 
 assign any limit." — " Not even twenty-four hours ? " — " I 
 should think that extremely improbable : I have no doubt
 
 78 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 at all. All I wislied to say was, I coiJd not, If your lord- 
 ships were to assign to me any portion below twenty-four, say 
 whether it was above or under the line, for so extraordinary 
 have the facts appeared that have come out on the investi- 
 gation of these factories, that I begin to doubt many of 
 the common-place opinions that have been entertained upon 
 that subject." 
 
 The reader may be astonished at such extraordinary 
 medical evidence ; it is, however, a specimen of a large 
 stock, and the only key we can supply to understanding 
 why some medical men discovered that '^ recreation " was not 
 necessary to the health of young persons, and their possible 
 abihty to work incessantly any number of hours below twenty- 
 four, even " twenty -three," without physical injury, is afforded 
 in the course of the evidence itself : — Mr Edward Carbutt 
 informed the committee of the Lords that " a committee of 
 Master Cotton-spinners in Manchester, opposed to factory 
 legislation, employed himself and other members of the medical 
 profession to examine the health of children employed in 
 factories." We adduce the facts as stated in evidence: — 
 The Committee: "You were applied to professionally?" Mr 
 Carbutt : " Yes, I was." Committee : " And paid professionally 
 as any other gentleman would be." 3Ir Carbutt : "At the 
 time I examined the Ancoats-twist mill, I had no expec- 
 tation of payment, I have not yet received any ; but it is 
 probable I shall, when examining the others ; / perceived 
 there was an intention of paying me professionally T 
 
 Before the committee of 1819, evidence of an entirely 
 opposite nature, and corroborative of the opinions of Ashley 
 Cooper, Esq., Sir Gilbert Blane, Christopher Pembercon, Esq., 
 and Sir George Leman Tuthill, was given by Mr William 
 Simmons, M.D., Mr Michael Ward, M.D., Mr Wistanely, 
 M.D., gentlemen whose experience in factory districts, and 
 high professional reputation gave their evidence increased 
 importance.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 79 
 
 " Mr George Paxton, a Manchester factory operative 
 employed In the Albion Mills, examined : — 
 
 " What are your hours of working ? — From six 
 to half-past nine in the evening, and half an hour for 
 dinner. 
 
 "Are all the hands allowed that half hour to quit 
 the milll — They cannot do their duty; they can scarcely 
 clean what they have to clean in the time, and oil it. 
 
 " How often are they kept to clean and oil? — Every 
 day. 
 
 "The children?— Yes. 
 
 ** Are their present hours of work longer than they 
 used to be? — Yes. 
 
 " Since when ? — Since this day fortnight: we had a 
 report that the Time Bill was thrown out of the House, 
 and on the Tuesday following the hours were lengthened 
 from six to half-past nine, and half an hour for dinner: 
 and before that it was from six to half-past seven, and 
 an hour for dinner. 
 
 " Do the work people complain of the hours being 
 lengthened? — Yes: we opposed it, and gave over that 
 evening: when the master came the next morning he 
 went to the manager, and I believe he swore, at least he 
 told me so, that those men who did not choose to work 
 the hours might go about their business. We told him 
 the children could not stand the hours. 
 
 " What is the name of the manager? — James Stanfield. 
 
 " Has he been long manager ? — Yes, ever since I have 
 been there. 
 
 " Were you afterwards required to work those lengthened 
 hours ? — Yes, and we have done it ever since. 
 
 " Is the meat liable to be covered with dust from 
 the cotton in the mill? — Yes, it cannot avoid it. 
 
 "Do children often leave their meat? — Often: my 
 children have left it : when they get home at night
 
 80 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 they cannot eat : I got a strap to awaken my own 
 cliildren, my feelings got the better of my passion, and 
 I did not beat them: and Avhat was the more impeaching 
 to my feelings was, they could not eat their supper when 
 they got home: I reflected upon it, and in vexation of 
 spirit I could not eat my own supper: we all went to 
 bed crying." 
 
 " Mr John Farebrother, thirty-one years of age, a work- 
 ing spinner from Bolton, in Lancashire, examined: 
 
 " Were the children as ill-used while you were over- 
 looker, as when you worked as a boy? — ^We were worse 
 used; the mill was worked by steam, and my master had 
 another to join him, and the hours were lengthened; they 
 were more ill-used than they were before. 
 
 '* Were they ill-used besides the number of hours being 
 lengthened? — They have been very much beaten for not 
 being there in time of a morning: they began at five o'clock. 
 
 " Who used to beat them ? — When I was an over- 
 looker I used to beat them myself, and sometimes the 
 master. 
 
 " Was it your duty to beat them, if you could not 
 get them to do their work? — Yes. 
 
 " Did your master tell you to do so ? — Yes, and he 
 used bad language to me for not doing it. 
 
 " Were you forced to see a certain quantity of work 
 produced? — Yes, I was. 
 
 *' Which master was this? — Mr Luke Taylor: I have 
 seen him, with a horsewhip under his coat, waiting at the 
 top of the place, and when the children have come up, he 
 has lashed them all the way into the mill if they were too 
 late; and the children had half a mile to come, and be at 
 the mill at five o'clock." 
 
 " Mr Jeremiah Turner, of Portwood, in Cheshire, stated 
 that " accidents of a serious and fatal nature were of 
 frequent occurrence."
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 81 
 
 James Wa tkins, E sq., a magistrate for the district of 
 Bolton-le-Moors, Lancaster, " had devoted much attention 
 to the condition of factories," and gave most important 
 evidence, a portion of which was as follows: — "It is an un- 
 questionable truth that children employed ^'^ _£!jJi toK Ja iCitfl rig ? 
 that have fallen under my observation are generally puny 
 and squahd, especially those wlio work at mills where steam- 
 engines are used: but in establishments where the machinery 
 is worked by water-wheels, the climate of the rooms is 
 more wholesome, and the appearance of the children better ; 
 still, a great inconvenience presents itself where power is 
 drawn from a source which occasionally fails. It happens 
 thati_in^iity,_ as well as in rainy seasons, the power is //' 
 suspended by a want, as by an excess, of rain; and to bring 
 up the time so lost, children are unmercifully kept at 
 their work sixteen hours in twenty-four. The pernicious 
 custom, too, which generally prevails, of these little workers 
 being constrained to eat their breakfasts in the mill, and 
 no relaxation out of it, except half an hour to three-quarters 
 of an hour (seldom longer) will truly account for the 
 pecidiar sickness which seems to fasten upon the whole 
 race. It was not known scarcely by any one proprietor 
 or occupier of factories, where apprentices are not employed, 
 that they were subject to any legislative restrictions, and 
 this explains why the Act of Parliament was not provided 
 in any one of them. In several instances it was found 
 very difficillt to arrive at genuine information as to the 
 general treatment of children, and the ordinary discipline 
 in mills; and it is to be regretted that deception in some 
 cases was practised by wealthy proprietors of large estab- 
 lishments. It might be deemed invidious to mention names. 
 Children working in woollen mills are universally healthier 
 and more robust, though those buildings are filthy; it is, 
 however, represented as an impossibility to keep them clean. 
 from the quantity of animal oil that escapes from the wool 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 THE HISTORY OP 
 
 in the various processes it undergoes. Hours of work are 
 shorter than in cotton factories, and the climate of these 
 mills is comparatively salubrious. The smaller cotton 
 establishments (and they are numerous) which do not 
 contain ' three or more apprentices, or twenty or more 
 other persons,' but which contain ' an average of fifteen 
 persons,' were also visited by me, and, admitting of no 
 exception, they were thought to be worst of all, in the 
 fullest meaning of the words; similar to these are some 
 large mills, whose respective stories are let off to different 
 occupiers; it is thence hoped that any future enactment 
 will extend to all factories whatever. An invincible 
 jealousy regarding the hours of work pervades the whole 
 race of cotton spinners (Messrs Calrow's and Messrs Grant's 
 are certainly exceptions), each competing with the other 
 as to the greatest quantity of yarn to be turned off, pending 
 the protracted hours of labour, and yet, collectively and 
 individually, a strong wish is expressed for such legislative 
 restrictions as will apportion the hours of confinement, labour, 
 and refreshment, to the age and strength of the juvenile 
 class of our fellow- creatures. Mistaken, too, on the score 
 of individual interest is this excessive confinement; because, 
 by correct calculations, it is ascertained, that where 
 establishments are conducted upon the humane principle 
 that they ought to be, that where the health and comfort 
 are primary duties, as much yam is spim, and better spun, 
 in twelve hours than in fifteen ; in the one instance human 
 life is happily prolonged ; in the other, misery, disease, and 
 sorrow are identified with a short existence." 
 
 A full review of the evidence, as given before the com- 
 mittee presided over by Lord Kenyon, and also the "out- 
 of-doors " proceedings of the opponents and supporters 
 of the bill, will show that the separate parties entertained 
 and advocated opinions decidedly opposed, each to the other. 
 The opponents of all factory legislation contended that
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. Sdi. 
 
 the necessity for regulation by law had not been made out ; 
 that the proposed factory bill struck at the very root of 
 family order by interfering with parental authority; that 
 it indirectly opposed the free labour of adults, and was 
 opposed to individual liberty; that the adoption of the bill 
 as law would ruin the manufactures to which its operation 
 was to be applied; that a restriction on the hours of 
 labour would, in effect, be equivalent to a bounty paid 
 to rival manufacturers on the continent; that if parhament 
 passed a bill to restrict the hours of labour in factories, 
 parliament could not refuse to pass bills to regulate the 
 hours of labour in all other trades ; that under the operation 
 of such a law the employment of children would decrease, 
 that adults would be preferred, that this result would be 
 injurious to the interests of all concerned; that the existing 
 system of labour promoted industry and good order among 
 the work-people, both children and adults; that, on the 
 other hand, shortening the hours of labour, as proposed in the 
 factory- workers' bill, would promote indolence and profligacy 
 in affording time to go to public-houses at night, and to be 
 otherwise disorderly; that very desirable and necessary im- 
 provement would result from the free action of the mill- 
 owners themselves; that they were the best judges of their 
 own interests, and that whatever was to them most 
 advantageous, must necessarily be most advantageous to all 
 employed by them; that all interference by government 
 with capitalists, in the use of their capital, was wrong in 
 principle, and must ever prove injurious in practice. 
 
 The supporters of factory legislation maintained that 
 the necessity for interference by law had been fully made 
 out; that one effect of the proposed bill would be to 
 strengthen family order ; that parents who sacrificed the 
 health of their offspring to their own sensuality were not 
 fit guardians of their own children ; that such cases of 
 parental cruelty were comparatively few; that the vast 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE niSTOET OF 
 
 majority of the parents of children employed in factories 
 desired a reduction of the hours of labour; in the absence 
 of the authority of law, parents were unable to enforce 
 their own desires; that a reduction of the hours of labour 
 in factories would contribute towards the improvement of 
 the health and morals of all persons employed in factory 
 labour; that the enactment of the proposed bill would 
 not prove ruinous, or even injurious, to the success of 
 British manufacture; that man, not money, was the primary 
 consideration; that the Hmit of interference by law with 
 labour and capital must at all times depend upon the ability 
 of men to control their own habits and desires ; that the 
 very existence of the evils complained of was evidence that 
 '* the factory system " did not contain within itself the 
 means of correcting those evils; that every seeming profit 
 to individuals or the nation was more than coimterbalanced 
 by its consequent loss ; that as the laws of England were 
 avowedly founded on the laws of nature and the laws of 
 God, not any practices should be allowed in the social 
 condition of England opposed to Christianity and the 
 Constitution ; that " the factory system," as then con- 
 ducted, with few exceptions, outraged nature and ^dolated 
 Christianity. 
 
 The parliamentary struggle was drawing to a close. It is 
 due to the contending parties to say, that each was energetic 
 in the advocacy of its own views, and that the subject caused 
 the livehest interest throughout the country. On June the 
 14th, 1819, Lord Kenyon introduced to the House of Lords 
 the bill, as it had been finally agreed to in the House of 
 Commons. He " rested his support of the bill upon the 
 facts proved in evidence, contended that this was not in 
 any manner a speculative question, but a question of practical 
 humanity, arising out of the actual sufferings of the chil- 
 dren employed in the cotton factories, for which no relief 
 was to be found in any of the provisions of the common
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 85 
 
 law, and therefore it became necessary to resort to a 
 special legislative measure." The opposition in the Lords, 
 though influential, was ineffective ; the bill passed through 
 the vaiious stages, and became law. This result was satis- 
 factory to the country, and was accepted throughout as 
 " a triumph of the Christian feeling of the Legislature over 
 the selfishness of a limited section of factory owners." The 
 substance of the Act was as follows: — A.D. 1819. 59 George 
 III: An Act to make further provisions for the regulation 
 of cotton mills and factories, and for the better preservation 
 of the health of young persons employed therein. It enacted 
 that, fi:om and after the first day of January 1820, no child 
 shall be employed in cotton-spinning under nine years of 
 age. No person under sixteen years of age to be employed 
 more than twelve hours per day. To every such person 
 in the course of the day not less than half an hour shall 
 be allowed to breakfast and not less than one full hour for 
 dinner ; such hour for dinner to be between the hours of 
 eleven o'clock in the forenoon and two o'clock in the after- 
 noon. Time lost by accidental intermission to be made up 
 after the rate of an additional hour per day. Ceilings and 
 interior walls to be washed with quicklime and water twice 
 a year. The Act, or a faithful abstract, to be hung up in a 
 conspicuous part of the factory. Penalties for violation of 
 the Act to be not less than 10/., nor more than 20/. for each 
 offence. " That this Act shall be deemed and taken to be 
 a public Act, and shall be judicially taken notice of as such 
 by all judges, justices, and others, without specially pleading 
 the same." 
 
 The Factories' Regulation Act, when obeyed, was most 
 salutary and beneficial, disproving in practice every argu- 
 ment which had been urged in opposition. The bill, as 
 originally introduced, was intended to be applied to all mills ; 
 the operation of the Act was limited to cotton manufactories, 
 a circumstance to be regretted; the result also of an inju-
 
 86 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 dicious concession to opponents. Though the Act was in 
 practice beneficial to the operatives engaged in factory- 
 labour, yet, the spirit and letter of the law were frequently 
 evaded. The law was by some influential owners of cotton 
 factories viewed as a standing grievance and "a stain on 
 their humanity." The weakness of such an objection is 
 self-evident. Laws are " the application of man's wisdom 
 to his wants," and have their origin not in his perfection, 
 but imperfection; obedience to a necessary law is the 
 primary requisite of good citizenship. " Knowing this, 
 that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for 
 the lawless and disobedient." Man's independent free will 
 is a very good topic for clap-trap declamation, but it is, 
 in society, practically impossible. The Factories' Regu- 
 lation Act, though in practice satisfactory, met with the 
 opposition and condemnation of that tribe of self-sufficient 
 theorists to whose abstract dogmas it was in principle 
 opposed. The opponents of factory legislation, whose 
 minds were wedded to a theory opposed to all interference 
 by law, continued their opposition unabated and uninfluenced 
 by experience, and pointed out the violations of the law 
 as proofs of its failure. The Factories' Regulation Act 
 remained on the statute-book in defiance of such opposition ; 
 although very inadequate to the accompHshment of all it 
 was designed to realise in practice, it was decidedly an 
 important step in what future years proved to be the right 
 direction. 
 
 The two fundamental propositions on which opposition 
 to parhamentary interference was based were the follow- 
 ing: — "Whatever is most profitable for the individual is 
 most profitable for all those with whom he is connected " — 
 a rule the universal application of which was manifestly 
 absurd. ''Whatever is advantageous to an individual in 
 practice, is advantageous to a nation considered as an indi- 
 vidual state in the society of nations." It appears never to
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 87 
 
 have occurred to the minds of modern writers on political 
 economy that the wealth of an individual and the wealth of a 
 nation are, in some important respects, different in their sources 
 and effects ; the wealth of a nation is intrinsic and internal, 
 that of an individual extrinsic and external ; the wealth of 
 an individual does not spring, alone, from vnthin himself, 
 it is purchased and owned as property existing apart from 
 himself, and may be wholly lost so as never to be recovered. 
 The wealth of a nation is not necessarily in all respects 
 of this character, it is not purchased by an operation of 
 exchanges, but, in its origin, flows from the earth 
 and the labour of the people ; it is perennial, and if 
 from any cause its operations are suspended, there is a fim- 
 damental law in nature which, unless the community itself 
 be destroyed, insures the renewal of those operations, and, as 
 an inevitable result, the return of national wealth. There is 
 no such law invariably applicable to individual wealth. As- 
 suredly the application of principles profitable for individuals 
 may be advantageously applied to nations, but not necsssarily 
 so; there cannot be proved to exist any invariable law of 
 this kind ; as Locke has very judiciously observed, "the 
 merchant may grow rich by that which makes the nation 
 poor," and on the contrary, a nation may be rich while its 
 merchants, individually considered, are not wealthy. The 
 doctrinaires of the modern schools of political economists 
 have been useful in directing the attention of mankind to a 
 more systematic study of the origin of national wealth than 
 was formerly practised, but they have been, like most 
 *' schools," too fond of generalities, and have overlooked 
 many important particulars necessary to be remembered by 
 statesmen, and the neglect of which has led to undesirable 
 results.
 
 88 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ANTI-SLAVEEY FEELING IN YORKSHIRE. — RICHARD OASTLES's PRIN- 
 CIPLES DEFINED — HIS LETTER ON " YORKSHIRE SLAVERY." — • 
 DISCUSSION IN THE PRESS. — MEETING OF BRADFORD MILLOWNERS, 
 FAVOURABLE TO FACTORY REGULATION. — OPPOSITION MEETING AT 
 HALIFAX. 
 
 It is a weakness of human nature, not admitting of a valid 
 defence, that at times the majority of men are prone to 
 forget their immediate social duties, those duties which 
 concern most closely their own neighbours, to content 
 themselves with a retrospective patriotism, related to past 
 ages, or a geographical humanity, remote in its main results 
 from their own interests, and not requiring any immediate 
 change in their own practices. This weakness is confined 
 to no age or country, its theory and practice correspond, 
 both are eminently latitudinarian. It is, therefore, not 
 remarkable, that in the years 1829 and 1830, this delusive 
 failing should have been prominently manifested in the 
 West Riding of the Coimty of York. When England was 
 moved, from centre to circumference, with appeals on 
 behalf of the liberation of West Indian slaves, when the 
 West Riding of the Covmty of York was aroused to action 
 by the eloquence of Henry Brougham, when, without 
 exception, in Yorkshire, church, chapel, and newspaper, were 
 organs of appeal for " liberty and right," when charity
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 89 
 
 childi'cn were singing in the streets the winning words of 
 the Christian poet, Cowper: — 
 
 " Still in thought as free as ever, 
 Where are Englaud's rights, I ask, 
 Me from my delight to sever, 
 Me to torture, me to task ? 
 Fleecy locks and black complexion, 
 Cannot forfeit nature's claim, 
 Skins may differ, but affection 
 Dwells in black and white the same. 
 * * * # 
 
 Slaves of gold, whose sordid feelings 
 Tarnish all your boasted powers. 
 Prove that you have human feelings, 
 Ere you proudly question ours !" 
 
 When sentiments akin to these words, strengthened by 
 the oft-repeated cry of " Britons never shall be slaves," 
 were ringing in the ears of every one, and the highly 
 nervous had their nightly sleep disturbed by hideous 
 visions of kidnapping, murder, the crack of the lash, the 
 clanking of chains, the writhings and groans of victims, — 
 some among the most prominent of these sympathizers were 
 rapidly growing rich on the profits of the labour of the 
 little children, worked excessive and unnatural hours in 
 the woollen and worsted factories of the West Riding, 
 that same West Riding, whose voice, like " the sound of 
 many waters," cried aloud ^^ Slaves, be free;" but in the 
 multitude of whose voices not one had been raised for 
 the helpless factory child, who was " tortured " and 
 " tasked " with impunity at the thresholds of the doors 
 of women and men, filled with what they themselves 
 declared to be " a sublime enthusiasm" for the wroiio-s 
 of injured negroes. Though this neglect of home duties, 
 and habit of building up a reputation, and satisfy in o- 
 conscience by a distant philanthropy, is common to a 
 proverb, there have been some notable and noble excep- 
 tions. Fortunately there have existed, in all ages, fearless
 
 90 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 and bold men, who have observed the evils of their ' own 
 times, who have dared to denounce wrong and error, to 
 bring the professions and practices of their own neighbours 
 into striking contrast ; these men have been the salt of the 
 earth, without whose savour the world would have become 
 a barren waste. The actions of such men are not the results 
 of convenience ; a faithful conscience is their constant 
 monitor, the impulse of their deeds has its origin in their 
 keen sense of duty, there is a wholeness and sim.plicity in 
 their moral nature, wliich impart to all their acts consistency 
 and force ; when checked by opposition, they rise with their 
 necessities, feel themselves strengthened by the conscious- 
 ness of their own rectitude; they, to a considerable extent, 
 direct and control circumstances, leave the print of their 
 footmarks on the habits of their fellow men, and, when 
 successful, register their existence in the laws of their 
 country. Among this class of the world's benefactors must 
 be ranked Richard Oastler. 
 
 The prominent part which Mr Oastler has taken in the 
 internal politics of this country, and more especially in 
 the factory question, renders it necessary, at this time, to state 
 the leading principles which moved and guided him in 
 action : — Tliis course will enable the reader to comprehend 
 his proceedings. The foundation of Mr Oastler's social 
 and political system is Christianity. He maintains that 
 as Christianity is the avowed theory of the British Con- 
 stitution, Christianity ought also to be the rule for the 
 practice of British society ; that the acts of avowedly 
 Christian men are to be measured by their professed duty 
 to and reverence for God, and their obligation to obey 
 his Laws : that professions and forms, unsupported by 
 corresponding acts, are evidences of hypocrisy deserving 
 direct condemnation; that the poor and the oppressed have 
 special claims on the consideration of Christian men and 
 Christian governments ; that cruelty, oppression, and tyranny.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 91 
 
 by whatever names veiled, are unchristian, and in an 
 avowedly Christian state, unconstitutional ; that reason and 
 all the fruits of genius should be subjected to the Laws 
 of God ; that the great error committed by modern British 
 statesmen has been their adoption of the theories of 
 men, in preference to the Christian groundwork of the 
 ancient common law of England ; that the important problem 
 for British statesmen to solve was. How to reconcile the 
 principles of the ancient constitution of the country to 
 the changed wants and phases of society; that as the 
 Christian faith is derived from the living God, and is 
 itself His own revelation, every doctrine issuing from this 
 source must in practice be for the positive advantage of 
 men, temporal as well as spiritual; that Christianity is the 
 only vital principle of all permanent good to men and 
 nations; that it is the incumbent duty of every sincere 
 Christian to sacrifice his own physical comfort, personal 
 riches, and if needful, his own existence, in the cause of 
 religious duty, social order, and justice. Mr Oastler, con- 
 sistently with these convictions, has taken for his motto — 
 "• The Altar, the Throne, and the Cottage," and through 
 good and evil report has maintained the reasonableness of, 
 and the advantages to be derived from, a social system, in 
 which the temporal and moral condition of society is made 
 subservient, so far as may be possible, to the Law of God. 
 These fundamental propositions were not preserved in the 
 mind of Mr Oastler, — for purposes of occasional show, — to 
 be paraded by way of holiday amusement ; in his under- 
 standing and practice they constituted the every-day rule 
 of practical utility; thus having taken his stand on the 
 Bible as the acknowledged standard of truth in the Church 
 and the State; to the people of England, he spoke in the 
 words of Holy Writ : — " If ye will fear the Lord, and 
 serve Him, and obey His voice, and not rebel against the 
 commandment of the Lord, then shall both ye, and also
 
 92 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the King that reign eth over yon, continue following the 
 Lord your God. But if ye will not obey the voice of the 
 Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, 
 then shall the hand of the Lord be against you, as it 
 was against yoixr fathers." " Counsel is Mine and sound 
 wisdom. I am understanding ; I have strength. By Me 
 kings reign, and princes decree justice. By Me princes 
 rule and nobles, even- all the judges of the earth." 
 
 Mr Oastler entertains peculiar views on the question of 
 machinery. He maintains " that the true friend of science 
 and of inventions is he — and he only — who would limit 
 their exercise to the improvement and benefit of the con- 
 dition of the thinking, consuming, sentient being, created in 
 the image of God — man. Hitherto we have been drunk 
 with the worship of our own inventions; we have laid our- 
 selves down and let them ride over us. It is high time that 
 we raised ourselves from the dust — turned ourselves round, 
 not in revenge, but in the thoughtfulness of manliood, re- 
 solved that henceforward the creatures of our own imagina- 
 tion should be regulated by the law of God ; that they 
 should ' work ill ' tO' no man, curbed by the law of the 
 land, rendering compensation for the labour withdrawn." 
 He maintains, that not any invention should be introduced 
 and applied, without a compensation having been awarded to 
 those workmen the value of whose labour would in conse- 
 quence be reduced ; and he asks, in one of his letters addressed 
 to the loorking men, from which the extracts quoted are taken, 
 " Ought any improvement to be adopted in a rational society 
 which cannot provide for the wants of those whose labour 
 it supersedes? Is it indeed a law of necessity that hundreds 
 of thousands of human beings should be subjected, year 
 after year, age after age, to penury and destitution, because 
 one of their fellow-men has been more cunning than them- 
 selves — that they, their wives, and their children, should 
 be robbed of every domestic and social comfort, and be
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 93 
 
 doomed by ' science,' from childhood to old age, to 
 agonise in ' hopeless competition ' against a power invented 
 by man and wielded by wealth." On the " evils " 
 which have followed from the unregulated introduction 
 and use of machinery he has often expressed decided 
 opinions. 
 
 Mr Oastler's political opponents have always admitted 
 him to be a man of eminent ability and undoubted bene- 
 volence. Among his personal friends and political opponents 
 was the late Mr Edward Baines, of Leeds. In 1831, at 
 a public meeting in Leeds, at a time when political con- 
 troversy was keen, and Mr Oastler and Mr Baines in oppo- 
 sition, each to the other, the latter frankly acknowledged 
 Mr Oastler's claims to attention. Mr Baines observed " that 
 whatever might have been said about Mr Oastler's brim- 
 stone speeches, he (Mr Baines) must say that there had been 
 no brimstone that night. A speech which was in its nature 
 so impressive, and uttered with such a seeming intention to 
 produce conviction, rather by the force of argument than 
 declamation, he thought he. had seldom heard; and he was glad 
 to be able to express to Mr Oastler his very warm satisfaction 
 at the tone and manner he had adopted. * * * ^x Oastler 
 had said, very truly, that they were old acquaintances; he 
 believed their acquaintance was of thirty years' standing, 
 and therefore they ought not to discuss any subject in bad 
 feeling. He (Mr Baines) had the honour of knowing Mr 
 Oastler's father ; a more benevolent and excellent man he 
 believed this country had not produced ; and if the great 
 pains taken by that deceased, and he might then say his 
 much lamented, friend to stem the horrors of war, and 
 prevent the shameful expenditure of public money, which 
 led to the imposition of the burden under which they now 
 laboured, had been successful, they might have obviated 
 the necessity for that discussion. He (Mr Baines) was an 
 humble instrument in the late Mr Oastler's hands on that
 
 94 THE HISTORY OP 
 
 occasion, but they were not supported as tliey ought to have 
 been by the manufacturers. If their efforts had been suc- 
 cessful, he believed that a great deal of the calamity and 
 distress under which the country was labouring, and the 
 wretchedly long hours would have been prevented. So that 
 Mr Oastler was a kind of hereditary supporter of benevo- 
 lence, because he inherited it from his father." Mr Oastler 
 thus had, from his father, a reputation for generous sym- 
 pathies and an active interest in public affairs. Mr Oastler 
 is well known as an apt, ready, and powerful political writer, 
 having in a remarkable degree the faculty of expressing 
 his opinions, with clearness and force, on any subject to 
 which he has directed his attention ; his experience of 
 English society has been varied and extensive ; his public 
 letters and essays are more remarkable for keen observation 
 and prescience of mind, than for book learning and scholarly 
 polish. He is a bold, correct, and eloquent speaker, and 
 was by the late Sir Francis Burdett justly designated " a 
 natural and gifted orator." His appearance is manly and 
 commanding, his voice powerful, his enunciation distinct, 
 his matter and manner English throughout. Mr Oastler's 
 success as an orator has not been effected by startling con- 
 trasts or exciting novelties ; it is his rule to speak right on 
 the things which his hearers themselves do know ; few have 
 equalled him in a statement of facts in plain words, appealing 
 directly to the understanding, or, in giving home thrusts by 
 the daring use of an opponent's admissions in argument. 
 Mr Oastler has oftentimes made thousands of men, women, 
 and children to glow, tremble, and weep, because of the 
 force of homely words, expressed with feeling and earnest- 
 ness. When assailed by formidable opposition, he rises to 
 the highest pitch of kindled energy, there is then in his 
 manner a " touch-me-not " air, which has often proved 
 appalling to men not deficient in moral courage. He 
 is a man of keen sensibilities, generous sympathies, strong
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 95 
 
 attachments, and untiring perseverance. When he entered 
 the field of religious, social, and political controversy, as 
 the advocate of the claims of the factory workers to legisla- 
 tive protection, he was in the prime of manhood, a respected, 
 honoured, and influential citizen of the West Riding of his 
 own native Yorkshire. He is remarkable for simple habits, 
 and his fondness of little children whose society he cultivates 
 and enjoys. His pleasures are those of the fireside and the 
 garden, and in the home-circle of every house he visits, his 
 name is a household word. 
 
 Though Mr Oastler had lived for many years in the 
 heart of the manufacturing district of Yorkshire, had often 
 visited the poor, had in their own cottages and in the Leeds 
 Infirmary seen many sickly factory children and factory 
 cripples, — the causes of their sickness, deformity, and lame- 
 ness were unknown to him. Mr Oastler had often expressed 
 his opinion that the working men of the manufacturing 
 districts suffered, physically, from various causes ; that it 
 would be consistent with the professions of those who advo^* 
 cated negro emancipation (with whom he in principle cordi- 
 ally agreed, and actively co-operated), to endeavour to discover 
 those causes, and to apply remedial measures; in his own 
 words — '* to apply their avowed principles to the wants 
 of their own neighbours." Of the actual facts of the 
 factories he was then ignorant. When he returned from 
 the various towns of the West Riding to his home, and saw 
 the factories lighted up at night, he accepted of "these 
 sights as signs of prosperity." 
 
 In 1830 Mr Oastler was on a visit to his friend, Mr John 
 Wood, of Horton Hall (now of Thedden Grange, Hamp- 
 shire), a very kind-hearted man, and, at the time referred 
 to, an extensive manufacturer in the town of Bradford, York- 
 shire. Mr Wood was wealthy and generous; moved by a 
 sense of duty, he had in vain endeavoured by his own 
 private influence to reform the factory system. Mr Wood 
 knew Mr Oastler well ; in the course of conversation one
 
 96 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 evening Mr Wood said: "Mr Oastler, I wonder you have 
 never turned your attention to the factory system." 
 "Why should I? I have nothing to do with factories," 
 was Mr Oastler's reply. "That may be," rejoined Mr 
 Wood, "you are, however, very enthusiastic against 
 slavery in the West Indies ; and, I assure you, there 
 are cruelties daily practised in our mills on little chil- 
 dren, which, if you knew, I am sure you would strive 
 to prevent." "Cruelties in mills?" exclaimed Mr Oastler, 
 "I do not understand you; tell me." Mr Wood then 
 informed Mr Oastler of much that Mr Wood knew ; 
 among other things, that in "his own mill, little children 
 were worked from six o'clock in the morning to seven 
 o'clock in the evening, and that the only break off they 
 had was forty minutes at noon ; which break was ten 
 minutes more than any other millowner allowed. While 
 in some mills in the neighbourhood the poor children 
 were worked all that time without one minute of rest." Mr 
 Oastler was astonished, and to his horror discovered "that 
 little children were worked 14, 15, 16, and even 18 hours a 
 day, in some mills, without a single minute having been 
 set apart for meals, and that implements of cruelty were 
 used to goad them on to this excessive labour. Besides all 
 this, in many mills they were cheated out of portions of 
 their scanty wages by fines and other means of fraud. 
 Worse still, they were often subjected to shocking inde- 
 cencies, and they were brought up in total ignorance of 
 their duties to God and to man." Mr Oastler was deeply 
 impressed with all he had heard. Mr Wood was fully sen- 
 sible of the horrors and vices of the factory system, and 
 solicited from Mr Oastler a pledge that he would use all 
 his influence in an endeavour to remove from the factory 
 system the cruelties which were regularly practised in 
 the mills. Mr Oastler has, in The Home (1851), a periodical 
 of which he was the editor, narrated a circumstance which 
 very clearly indicates the state of his own mind and that
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 97 
 
 of Mr Wood : — " You will, Edwin, remember," wrote Mr 
 Oastler, *' that I was on a visit at the house of a dear 
 friend, a milloAvner, and that he, to my great surprise, had 
 informed me that I lived not far from a town where human 
 beings— little children, boys and girls — were daily sacrificed 
 for gold. I told you how much I was horrified at his 
 recital. With feelings which I will not attempt to describe, 
 I went to bed. I had requested the servant to call me at 
 four in the morning, having occasion to ride some miles 
 to an early appointment. When my friend's valet aroused 
 me, he said, — ' My master wishes to see you. Sir, before 
 you leave ;' he afterwards showed me into his master's 
 bedroom. My friend was in bed, but he was not asleep; 
 he was leaning upon a table beside his bed. On that 
 table were placed two candles, between them was the 
 Holy "Bible. On my advancing towards the side of his 
 bed, he turned towards me, reached out his hand, and, in 
 the most impressive and affectionate manner, pressing my 
 hand in his. he said, * I have had no sleep to-night. I 
 have been reading this book, and in every page I have 
 read my own condemnation. I cannot allow you to 
 leave me without a pledge, that you will use all your 
 influence in endeavouring to remove, from our factory system, 
 the cruelties which are regularly practised in our mills. 
 
 I promised my friend that I would do what 
 
 I could. I felt, Edwin, that we were, each of us, in the 
 presence of the Highest. I knew that that vow was 
 recorded in Heaven. I have kept it, Edwin, the 
 grace of God having uphqlden me; I have been faitl^ful. 
 Trusting in the same power, old and feeble as I am, I 
 hope to be faithful even unto death.' " 
 
 In the morning of the next day after the conversation 
 with Mr Wood, Mr Oastler adopted the first step towards 
 the fulfilment of his promise; he wrote a letter narrating 
 the results of his experience at Bradford, and addressed 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the same to the Editors of the Leeds Mercury, then, as now, 
 one of the most influential journals in Yorkshire. This 
 letter was after publication subjected to severe and protracted 
 criticism. In a historical sense, this letter is valuable, 
 as being the foundation of what might not improperly be 
 called, " the active Ten Hours' Bill movement ;" the first 
 Sir Robert Peel, as has been shown, had, in the vain 
 hope of conciliating opposition, abandoned the Ten Hours' 
 limit as the rule for factory labour, no legal regulation was 
 then applicable to other than cotton factories. When Mr 
 Oastler addressed the Editors of the Leeds Mercury, on 
 the condition of children employed in woollen and 
 worsted factories, he was unacquainted with the labours 
 of Gould, Peel, and their coadjutors; he had resolved to 
 light a flame which should be seen throughout England, 
 and the burning of which was subsequently watched with 
 interest throughout Europe and the American Union. Mr 
 Oastler's first letter on the factory question deserves atten- 
 tion for the facts it contains, and the key which it afibrds to the 
 state of the mind of the writer, when he entered on what has 
 proved, to him and to his country, a momentous labour: — 
 "Yorkshire Slavery. 
 " To the Editors of the Leeds Mercury. 
 " ' It is the pride of Britain that a slave cannot exist on her 
 soil ; and if I read the genius of her constitution aright, 
 I find that slavery is most abhorrent to it — that the air 
 which Britons breathe is free — the ground on which 
 they tread is sacred to liberty.' — Rev. R. W. Hamiltorts 
 Speech at the Meeting held in the Cloth-hall Yard, Sept. 
 2^nd, 1830. 
 
 " Gentlemen, — No heart responded with truer accents 
 to the sounds of liberty Avhich were heard in the Leeds 
 Cloth-hall yard, on the 22nd instant, than did mine, and 
 from none could more sincere and earnest prayers arise 
 to the throne of Heaven, that liereafter slavery might
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 99 
 
 only be known to Britain in the pages of her history. 
 One shade alone obscured my pleasure, arising not from 
 any difference in principle, but from the want of appli- 
 cation of the general principle to the whole empire. The 
 pious and able champions of negro liberty and colonial 
 rights should, if I mistake not, have gone farther than 
 they did ; or perhaps, to speak more correctly, before 
 they had travelled so far as the West Indies, should, at 
 least for a few moments, have sojourned in our own im- 
 mediate neighbourhood, and have directed the attention 
 of the meeting to scenes of misery, acts of oppression, 
 and victims of slavery, even on the threshold of our 
 homes. 
 
 "Let truth speak out, appalling as the statement may 
 appear. The fact is true. Thousands of our fellow- 
 creatures and fellow-subjects, both male and female, the 
 miserable inhabitants of a Yorkshire town, (Yorkshire now 
 represented in parliament by the giant of anti-slavery 
 principles,) are this very moment existing in a state of 
 slavery, more horrid than are the victims of that hellish 
 system — * colonial slavery.^ These innocent creatures drawl 
 out, unpitied, their short but miserable existence, in a place 
 famed for its profession of religious zeal, whose inhabitants 
 are ever foremost in 'professing ' temperance ' and ' reforma- 
 tion,' and are striving to outrun their neighbours in mis- 
 sionary exertions, and would fain send the Bible to the 
 farthest corner of the globe — ay, in the very place where 
 the anti-slavery fever rages most furiously, her apparent 
 charity, is not more admired on earth, than her real cruelty 
 is abhorred in heaven. The very streets which receive the 
 droppings of an ' Anti-slavery Society ' are eyerj morning 
 wet by the tears of innocent victims at the accursed shrine 
 of avarice, who are compelled (not by the cart-whip of 
 the negro slave-driver) but by the dread of the equally- 
 appalling thong or strap of the overlooker, to hasten, half- 
 
 H 2
 
 100 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 dressed, hut not half-fed, to those magazines of Eritish 
 infantile slavery — the loorsted mills in the town and neighbour- 
 hood of Bradford ! ! ! 
 
 ''Would that I had Brougham's eloquence, that I might 
 rouse the hearts of the nation, and make every Briton swear, 
 ' These innocents shall be free ! ' 
 
 "Thousands of little children, both male and female, hut 
 principally female, from seven to fourteen years of age, 
 are daily compelled to labour from six o'clock in the morn- 
 ing to seven in the evening, with only — Britons, blush 
 while you read it! — with only thirty minutes allowed for 
 eating and recreation. Poor infants ! ye are indeed sacrificed 
 at the shrine of avarice, without even the solace of the negro 
 slave ; ye are no more than he is, free agents ; ye are 
 compelled to work as long as the necessity of your needy 
 parents may require, or the cold-blooded avarice of your 
 worse than barbarian masters may demand! Ye live in the 
 boasted land of freedom, and feel and mourn that ye are 
 slaves, and slaves without the only comfort which the negro 
 has. He knows it is his sordid, mercenary master's interest 
 that he should live, be strong and healthy. Not so ivith you. 
 Ye are doomed to labour from morning to night for one 
 who cares not how soon your weak and tender frames are 
 Stretched to breaking ! You are not mercifully valued at 
 so much per head ; this would assure you at least (even 
 with the worst and most cruel masters) of the mercy shown 
 to their own labouring beasts. No, no! your soft and deli- 
 cate limbs are tired and fagged, and jaded, at only so much 
 per week, and when your joints can act no longer, your 
 emaciated frames are cast aside) the boards on which you 
 lately toiled and wasted life away, are instantly supplied 
 with other victims, who in this boasted land of liberty are 
 HIRED — not sold — as slaves, and daily forced to hear that 
 they are free. Oh ! Duncombe ! Thou hatest slavery — I 
 know thou dost resolve that 'Yorkshire children shall no
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 101 
 
 more be slaves.' And Morpeth! who justly gloriest in the 
 Christian faith — Oh, Morpeth! listen to the cries and count 
 the tears of these poor babes, and let St Stephen's hear thee 
 swear ' they shall no longer groan in slavery ! ' And Bethell, 
 too! who swears eternal hatred to the name of slave, when- 
 e'er thy manly voice is heard in Britain's senate, assert the 
 rights and liberty of Yorkshire youths. And Brougham! 
 thou who art the chosen champion of liberty in every 
 clime ! oh bend thy giant's mind, and listen to the sorrow- 
 ing accents of these poor Yorkshire little ones, and note 
 their tears ; then let thy voice rehearse their woes, and 
 touch the chord thou only boldest — the chord that sounds 
 above the silvery notes in praise of heavenly liberty, and 
 down descending at thy will, groans in the horrid caverns 
 of the deep in muttering sounds of misery accursed to 
 hellish bondage ; and as thou sound'st these notes, let York- 
 shire hear thee swear, ' Her children shall be free 1 ' Yes, 
 all ye four protectors of our rights, chosen by freemen to 
 destroy oppression's rod, 
 
 ' Vow oue by one, vow altogether, tow 
 With heart and voice, eternal enmity 
 Against oppression by your brethren's hands ; 
 Till man nor woman under Britain's laws, 
 Nor son nor daughter born within her empire, 
 Shall buy, or sell, or hike, or be a slave ! ' 
 
 "The nation is now most resolutely determined that 
 negroes shall be free. Let them, however, not forget that 
 Britons have common rights with Afric's sons. 
 
 " The blacks may be fairly compared to beasts of burden 
 hept for their masters use; the whites, to those which others 
 keep and let for hire. If I have succeeded in calling the 
 attention of your readers to the horrid and abominable 
 system on which the worsted mills in and near Bradford 
 is conducted, I have done some good. Why should not 
 children working in them be protected by legislative enact-
 
 102 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 ments, as well as those who work in cotton mills? Chris- 
 tians should feel and act for those whom Christ so emi- 
 nently loved, and declared that * of such is the kingdom of 
 Heaven.' — I remain, yours, &c., 
 
 "RiCHAED OaSTLER. 
 "Pixby Hall, near Huddersfield, Sept. 29, 1830." 
 
 The reading of Mr Oastler's letter caused much excite- 
 ment. As originally written, it was signed " A Briton," Mr 
 Oastler was wishful not to be known as the author, but 
 the senior editor of the Mercury insisted on having a 
 real name attached, Mr Oastler consequently appended his 
 signature. Many there were filled with astonishment, 
 some denied the existence of the evils complained of, others 
 afl&rmed that if Mr Oastler's signature had not been 
 appended to the letter in the Leeds Mercury, they could 
 not have believed that such things were, the late Mr 
 Baines (senior editor of the Leeds Mercury^ admitted that 
 the evils stated therein, if true, constitvited a real grievance. 
 A keen controversy followed in the Leeds press, chiefly 
 in the columns of the Leeds Mercury and Leeds Intelli- 
 gencer. In this warfare, Mr Oastler was completely 
 triumphant ; like a strong and practised wrestler, he closed 
 upon his opponents, and cast them from his arms on the 
 ground. Every fact relating to the labour of children in 
 factories, stated in Mr Oastler's first letter, was proved to 
 be correct ; the complaints of his opponents were ultimately 
 confined to the tone and manner of the writer ; the 
 intense and protracted interest caused by the letter being 
 a very satisfactory reply to such objections. The cruelties 
 in the mills were proved not to be confined to Bradford, they 
 extended throughout the woollen, flax, and worsted districts. 
 A correspondent of the I^eeds Mercury, Mr R. Webster, 
 in a letter dated "Hahfax, 8th November, 1830," wrote: 
 "There is not a mill in the whole town of Halifax which
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 103 
 
 allows a single moment either for breakfast or tea, — and 
 the time for dinner is much the same as those in Bradford, 
 But I believe the hours of labour to be longer than those 
 at Bradford. None of the mills in this town stop sooner 
 than half-past seven, and some of them not before half- 
 past eight or nine o'clock, — and the attendance of the 
 
 children is required at six in the morning." " Let 
 
 any one walk through the mills at the time of breakfast, 
 and see the poor children eating their coarse fare, whilst 
 at the same time they must attend to the respective 
 machines at which they are employed — like beasts of 
 burden, they must eat and work, — and I am sure that an 
 individual, after seeing this, if he were a Christian — if he 
 were a man, he would blush to see the degradation to 
 which those children were brought by the avarice of their 
 employers. I do not, however, mean to charge this 
 epithet upon all the manufacturers of this town — quite 
 the reverse, I know there are honourable exceptions ; 
 but at the same time there are individuals who would 
 not care to exact labour from them both day and night, 
 consequently, those who are possessed of more humanity 
 are obliged, however reluctantly, to follow the same rule." 
 On November 11th, 1830, the editor of the Leeds Intelli- 
 gencer wrote : — " It is generally allowed that the princi- 
 ple of Mr Oastler's statement is right and commendable ; 
 but that he has somewhat sinned in his manner of laying 
 it down. If we may presume to offer advice, we would 
 recommend an immediate meeting of the Bradford spinners ; 
 let them begin by a proper understanding amongst each 
 other, and we are sure that they will end as they ought 
 to do — by a change of plan, by allowing proper hours 
 for refreshment and relaxation ; and certain we are that 
 they will not thereby lose in pocket, while they will 
 gain in character and inward satisfaction. If they neglect 
 to do something of this sort, the public will probably take
 
 104 TUE HISTORY OF 
 
 the matter up, and parliament may be called upon to 
 protect the children by a legislative enactment, similar 
 to that which applies to the cotton manufactories. But we 
 know the Bradford manufacturers too well to suppose that 
 an act of parliament is necessary to induce them to act 
 with common humanity." From the publication of Mr 
 Oastlcr's original letter, which, though dated September 
 29th, 1830, was not published in the Leeds Mercury until 
 October 16th of the same year, — from this date until 
 November 22nd, a keen newspaper controversy was waged 
 on the condition of children employed in factories, the 
 greatest interest prevailed, the working men were so 
 gratified with. Mr Oastler's exertions on their behalf, that 
 though, in most cases, radicals of the Cobbett and Hunt 
 schools, they openly expressed their approval of Mr Oastler's 
 proceedings, knowing him to be a " Church and King tory 
 of the old sort ;" at one of their Huddersfield public 
 meetings, t]:iey unanimously adopted the following resolu- 
 tion : " That the thanks of this meeting are eminently 
 due, and are hereby given, to Richard Oastler, Esq., for 
 his able and manly letters to expose the conduct of those 
 pretended philanthropists and canting hypocrites who travel 
 to the West Indies in search of slavery, forgetting that 
 there is a more abominable and degrading system of slavery at 
 home." It was evident that the discussion had reached a 
 point at which it could not rest, the public mind had been 
 thoroughly awakened, not a few of the millowners of the West 
 Riding of Yorkshire felt their humanity and consistency 
 at stake : to quote the words of one of themselves, " Mr 
 Oastlcr's facts were so strong and so often repeated that 
 I felt my honour impugned ; to move in the matter was 
 a necessity." 
 
 The author of this discussion stated his whole views on 
 the factory question, briefly, but strongly; those views were 
 in advance of the mind of the age. Wc repeat them in
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 105 
 
 his own words: — "The factory system, as at present con- 
 ducted, is, in every sense of the word, the worst that can 
 be; with proper arrangements it might be made the best. 
 The skill and ingenuity of man is now made to destroy 
 the happiness and comfort of many, merely for the gain of 
 a few ; it might be made instrumental to every man's in- 
 crease in comfort and happiness. The factory system is 
 necessary, but it is not necessarily an evil; it is conducive 
 to the misery of many — it might be made advantageous to 
 all. It is a system which drags in the train of the remorse- 
 less tyrant the man of benevolent mind ; it compels the 
 kind-hearted master either to relinquish business altogether, 
 or in some measure to copy the cruelty of the oppressor. 
 The system which impoverishes, enslaves, and brutalises the 
 labourer can never be advantageous to any country. The 
 nation's strength and stability is built, if built for perpe- 
 tuity, on the solid basis of a contented and happy popula- 
 lation. The constitution of this country and the present 
 [unregulated] factory system cannot long exist together; 
 their principles are as opposite as light and darkness." Those 
 who for thirty years have watched the social condition of 
 England will be enabled to weigh the justness of these 
 observations, pubHshed under the signature of Richard 
 Oastler in 1830. 
 
 On November the 22nd, in the words of the Leeds 
 Mercury, " A numerous and highly respectable meeting of 
 the worsted spinners of Bradford, and of the trade gene- 
 rally, convened by twenty-three of the principal firms in 
 that town, was held at the Talbot Inn, for the purpose of 
 promoting a legislative enactment to diminish and limit the 
 hours of labour in worsted mills, and to efiect other regu- 
 lations connected therewith." 
 
 The gentlemen who constituted this most influential 
 meeting were unanimous in their condemnation of long 
 hours in factories— all admitted the evils of the unregulated
 
 106 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 factory system; owned that the competition of rival manu- 
 facturers had been so great that in self-preservation they 
 were forced to follow the custom of the trade, in order 
 to be enabled to meet their competitors in the market; that 
 it was desirable that the system shoidd be changed ; that 
 children employed in factories should not be overworked; 
 that time shoidd be allowed for rest and recreation; that 
 those desirable results could only be secured by a legislative 
 enactment, binding on all. The services of Mr Oastler were 
 duly acknowledged. These proceedings were hailed with 
 satisfaction by the operatives, and approved by the press. 
 The spirit of the principal local journals may be inferred by 
 the perusal of the follo^\'ing paragraph, published in the 
 Leeds Mercury of November 27th, 1830: — 
 
 " We refer with great satisfaction to what may be called 
 the practical result of the discussions which have taken 
 place in this paper on the hours of labour for children in 
 the worsted manufactories. Without in any degree altering 
 the opinion we expressed at the time of Mr Oastler's first 
 letter, we feel that it is due to that gentleman to say that 
 the pubHc are indebted to him in a high degree for his 
 humane exertions in favour of those who, by reason of their 
 tender age and dependent situation, could not speak for 
 themselves. The most appropriate reward he can receive 
 will be that meed of gratitude to which he is entitled. The 
 manufacturers of Bradford are also doing themselves great 
 honour, and we trust that their laudable example will be 
 generally followed. It will be seen that the Bradford petition is 
 to be presented by Lord Morpeth [now the Earl of Carlisle], who 
 interested himself to complete the regulations in cotton mills, 
 moved by Mr Hobhouse in May 1829, and whose disposition 
 and information so well qualify him for the task." 
 
 The editor of the Leeds Litelligencer expressed his satis- 
 faction in terms not less distinct than those we have quoted 
 from the colmuns oi' the Leeds Mercury.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 107 
 
 Simultaneously with the Yorkshire movement for regu- 
 lating the hours of labour in factories, a movement for a 
 similar purpose was proceeding in Lancashire. The evasions 
 of the Act applicable to cotton factories, and the growing 
 evils of the factory system, had induced some Lancashire 
 millowners to consider the propriety of appealing to par- 
 liament for a more efficient measure of regulation than the 
 then existing law. These Lancashire millowners had in 
 their contemplated measure resolved to apply to parhament 
 for a general law applicable to cotton, worsted, linen, silk, 
 flax factories, &c. A correspondence between the Lanca- 
 shire and Yorkshire millowners, favourable to a restriction 
 of the hours of factory labour, followed, the result of which 
 was the introduction into parliament, by Sir John Hobhouse 
 (now Lord Broughton) and Lord Morpeth, of a biU, the 
 provisions of which, as originally introduced, applied to 
 cotton, woollen, worsted, linen, and silk factories. In it 
 was proposed the restriction of working hours to "not more 
 than eleven and a half on any one day, nor more than eight 
 and a half hours on a Saturday," with an allowance to each 
 person in the course of every day, of " not less than one 
 half hour to breakfast, and not less than one hour to din- 
 ner;" that no person under eighteen years of age shall be 
 allowed to work beyond those hours ; that no child shall be 
 employed in any description of factory labour under nine 
 years of age, — the provisions of the bill to be in. force on 
 and after the first day of August, 1831. Mr Hobhouse's 
 bill, as originally suggested, met with the entire approval 
 of the owners of factories in favour of regulation. The 
 operatives were unanimous and enthusiastic in its support; 
 they believed that their hour for deliverance from bondage 
 was at hand; they held many meetings, and forwarded to 
 parliament many petitions. 
 
 In order to convey a sense of the feehng which then
 
 108 THE niSTOKY OF 
 
 pervaded the minds of the operatives, we extract from the 
 reports of their meetings the following resolutions: — 
 
 * ' That the operatives, as individuals employed in the 
 woollen, flax, Hnen, worsted, cotton, and silk mills and 
 factories, have long entertained a deep conviction of the 
 necessity of a legislative enactment, to protect from the 
 baneful effects of the present long hours of working the 
 children engaged therein ; and have learnt with heartfelt 
 satisfaction of the introduction into the Commons' House 
 of Parliament of a hill for that purpose. 
 
 " That it is the opinion of this meeting, that such bill 
 will produce the beneficial results required, and likewise 
 tend to ameliorate the condition of the labouring classes 
 in general. 
 
 " That our best and warmest thanks are due to J. C. 
 Hobhouse, Esq., as the mover, and Lord Morpeth as the 
 seconder, of this bill, for the manly, independent, and 
 humane manner in which they have come forward to 
 propose so just, so humane a law." 
 
 A feeling for a public measure so unanimous and power- 
 ful bade fair for success; all who desired an improved 
 factory system were hopeful. A dark cloud was gathering, 
 unseen and unexpected. A body of influential mill- 
 owners, chiefly resident in the neighbourhood of Halifax, 
 had resolved to oppose the bill. The first alarming sign 
 of this formidable opposition appeared in the form of a 
 leader in the columns of the Leeds Mercury^ avowedly 
 the condensation of the opinions of " practical men " on the 
 question. A meeting of the millowners opposed to factory 
 legislation was subsequently held at Halifax, at which a series 
 of resolutions were passed, setting forth the views of those 
 present. These resolutions deserve especial attention, con- 
 taining, as they do, the opinions of their supporters on subjects 
 of social interest beyond the question of factory labour.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 109 
 
 They may safely be accepted as the political and economical 
 creed of the majority of the millowners opposed to factory 
 legislation, and as an epitome of their principles and desires. 
 The meeting was convened on the 5th of March, 1831. 
 Mr James Akroyd, of Halifax, in the chair, on which 
 occasion it was unanimously resolved: — 
 
 *' 1st. That this meeting views with alarm the measures pro- 
 posed in the House of Commons, to curtail the hours of labour 
 in mills and factories, and to limit the ages of children 
 employed in the same. 
 
 ''2nd. That the condition of those employed in worsted mills 
 does not warrant the conclusion that the present usages of the 
 trade are injurious to the health and comforts of this class of 
 operatives ; and that the present term of labour (viz., twelve 
 hours per day) is not attended with any consequences injurious 
 to those employed, and is not more than adequate and neces- 
 sary to provide for their livelihood. 
 
 " 3rd. That an enactment which will abridge the hours of 
 labour, or limit the age of children employed in worsted mills, 
 will produce the following eifect : — 1st. It will cause a propor- 
 tionate reduction of the wages of this class. 2nd. It will 
 materially cripple the means of those who have large and 
 young families, who, in many instances, are the main support 
 of their parents. 3rd. It will raise the price of goods to the 
 consumers, which will affect the home trade considerably, and 
 will produce the most serious effects upon the prosperity of 
 this district, by tending to foster the manufactures of foreign 
 nations, our trade with whom depends upon the cheap and 
 advantageous terms on which we now supply them with 
 goods, and whose manufacturers would be enabled by an 
 advance of price successfully to compete with the British mer- 
 chant. 4th. It will throw out of employment and the means 
 of existence mxmbers of children now beneficially engaged in 
 worsted mills, and a corresponding proportion of wool-sorters, 
 combers, weavers, and all those other classes necessary to pro-
 
 110 THE HTSTORT OF 
 
 duce the present supply of goods. 5th. The agriculturists 
 will also feel the effects of the diminished consumption of wool 
 in no slight degree. 
 
 *' 4th. That the manufacture of worsted yam is a much 
 more healthy and wholesome employment than the preparing 
 and spinning of cotton or flax, both as regards the material 
 employed, and the temperature requisite for its advantageous 
 manufacture, and that experience proves that the health and 
 general comfort of the population employed in worsted mills 
 is equal, if not superior, to that of any other extensive class of 
 operatives. 
 
 " 5th. That the age to which it is proposed to limit 
 those employed in worsted mills will be inefficient in 
 securing the advantages which are desired, in as much 
 as the period between fourteen and twenty-one is the 
 most critical period in the life of those employed, and 
 that those of the ages between seven and fourteen are 
 more capable of undergoing long continued labour, than 
 those of the ages before named. For confirmation of this 
 opinion, we would appeal to all medical men of the 
 district. 
 
 " 6th. That the character of the generality of master 
 worsted spinners in respect to humanity, kindness, and 
 considerate attention to those in their employ is unimpeach- 
 able, but that though there may be exceptions to this general 
 and well-known fact, which this meeting is unacquainted with, 
 yet that no legislative enactment can effectually protect inno- 
 cence and poverty from the fraud and tyranny of the unprin- 
 cipled, and from those evils inseparably connected with, and 
 incidental to, all manufactures in the present state of society. 
 
 *' 7th. That this meeting is impressed with a sense of the 
 numerous hardships to which the labouring classes are subject, 
 and that it declares it to be the bounden duty of all intrusted 
 with the superintendence of mills and manufactories, to adopt 
 every means by which the health and comfort of these classes
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. Ill 
 
 may be best secured ; but that so far from being justly charge- 
 able with being the authors of the present protracted hours of 
 labour, this meeting cannot submit to the imputation of ava- 
 rice and injustice, and tyrannous conduct, whilst the fact is so 
 notorious that it is the actual necessity for voluntary and daily 
 labour, to which the operative classes are subjected by the 
 pohtical and domestic circumstances of this country, ivhich 
 alone call for and demand the present long hours of applica- 
 tion and labour. 
 
 " 8th. That until the burthens which now press upon the 
 labouring classes are removed, all measures which tend to 
 narrow the resources, obstruct or confine the industry, or 
 reduce the rate of wages of the labouring classes have a posi- 
 tively injurious character, and ought to be deprecated and 
 opposed by every humane and considerate individual. 
 
 " 9th. That when this meeting consider the present state and 
 future prospects of trade at home and abroad, when it con- 
 templates the rapid steps of foreign competitors in the various 
 markets of the world towards perfection in manufactures — 
 when it considers the condition of the people of this country, 
 whose means to purchase worsted fabrics are most seriously 
 diminished in consequence of the oppressive nature of taxes, 
 monopolies, and restraints upon capital and industry, it cannot 
 but feel convinced that every new impediment to the free 
 exercise of industry and labour will be an additional grievance 
 and hardship on their lot, and will be not less detrimental 
 to the comforts and interests of the poor than to the enter- 
 prise and energies of their employers. 
 
 " 10th. That the British manufacturer is subject to a tax 
 on corn, which operates as a heavy tax on labour, whilst 
 rival manufacturing nations are exempt from this impost on 
 trade ; and that in addition to direct taxes on oil and soap, 
 which are articles essential to the existence of the worsted ma- 
 nufacture, he is subject to the unjust influence of a monopoly, 
 which denies him free access to our possessions in India,
 
 112 THE niSTORT OF - 
 
 where there are millions of subjects who might rapidly become 
 consumers of worsted fabrics. 
 
 " 11th. That such being the difficulties with which the 
 manufacturer has to contend, it would be inflicting the 
 most injurious effects upon this branch of industry (effects 
 which are totally unwarrantable on the grounds of humanity 
 and kindness to the labouring classes), to curtail the hours 
 of labour, and limit the ages of children employed in worsted 
 mills, unless the legislature shall at the same time fix the 
 amount and rate of wages. That the impossibility of any 
 legislative enactment to regulate these details is obvious, 
 and that it cannot secure the labouring classes from the 
 inevitable reduction in wages, which will be the consequence 
 of shorter hours of labour, and of fluctuations of trade, 
 whilst it will fetter their hands in times of brisk demand. 
 
 " 12th. That there are many worsted spinners in this district, 
 whose manufactories are dependent upon a due, and not 
 excessive, supply of water, and that they have considerable 
 interruptions to their trade in seasons of flood and drought, 
 and that any restrictions upon the privilege hitherto enjoyed 
 of working such mills in the wet season of the year, certain 
 extra hours to compensate for the loss of time occasioned 
 by the above casualties, would materially depreciate the 
 value of such factories, and would be very injurious to the 
 working classes, inasmuch as the proprietors would be 
 unable to pay their operatives full wages, when the circum- 
 stances enumerated compel them to suspend their labour. 
 
 "13th. That this meeting is convinced of the pernicious 
 tendency and effects of all legislative enactmentSy whether 
 protective or restrictive, which propose to regulate the 
 details of trade and manufactures: — 1st. Because they can- 
 not equitably proportion the restrictions on industry to the 
 circumstances of every individual case to which they apply, 
 &c. 2nd. Because the consequences which they produce on 
 the general interests of the trades affected by them, are more
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 113 
 
 detrimental than the evils which they are intended to 
 remedy. 
 
 " 14th. That a petition to both Houses of Parliament be 
 drawn up, embodying those resolutions, and praying, that 
 if on the balance of evidence tendered before a committee of 
 the House of Commons, and on consideration of all the 
 effects such an enactment will produce, it shall seem necessary 
 to their honourable house to resort to interference with present 
 established custom and usage in the worsted trade, that their 
 honourable house would be pleased to adopt twelve hours 
 per day, or seventy-two hours per week, as most fit, and 
 least injurious term of labour, under present circumstances, to 
 those employed." 
 
 The publication of these resolutions caused, in the minds 
 of the operatives, very considerable alarm, but contributed to 
 increase, rather than to diminish, their exertions. Mr Oastler, 
 in a letter of remarkable energy and acuteness, examined 
 these resolutions in their order. As was customary, he made 
 good his positions on scriptural grounds, and after reviewing 
 the arguments of his opponents, much to their annoyance, 
 he presented to them, the following synopsis of their 
 principles: — 
 
 " 1st. God's laws must bend and break at the call of 
 avarice and self-interest! 
 
 " 2nd. Money is of more value than principle, morality, 
 and religion ! 
 
 " 3rd. Government is no longer of any use, because it is 
 unable to protect the innocent and weak against the rapacity 
 of the guilty and strong ! 
 
 " 4th. The state of the trade of this country is really such, 
 that its very existence depends upon excessive application 
 and overworking on the part of the operatives ! 
 
 " 5th. It is better that the labouring classes should live by 
 the excessive and overpowering toil of their infants, than 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 that the parents should labour for the support of their 
 offspring ! 
 
 " 6th. The exorbitant taxes which we are obliged to pay, 
 the loss we sustain by the East India monopoly, the corn laws, 
 and every other abuse, as a matter of clear right and justice, 
 must and ought to be paid and borne out of the blood, bones, 
 and sinews of our infantile population ! " 
 
 Mr Oastler's letter was read with avidity by all classes, its 
 arguments became in the hands of the operatives, weapons of 
 attack on, and defence against, the opposing millowners. The 
 question increased in interest in the mind of the public in the 
 manufacturing districts. Crowded meetings of operatives 
 were often held, speeches were made, petitions signed and 
 forwarded to parliament. Meantime the opposing millowners 
 were also active, their influence united with that of others, 
 principally Scotch millowners, was brought to bear on the 
 minds of the members of the House of Commons. Mr 
 Hobhouse's bill underwent many modifications; he finally 
 consented to a measure applicable to cotton mills only, render- 
 ing it unlawful to work any child in a cotton Factory, who 
 should be under eighteen years of age, more than sixty-nine 
 hours per week. 
 
 The disappointment and regret at the fate of Mr Hobhouse's 
 bill, throughout the manufacturing districts, particularly the 
 West Riding of Yorkshire, was great. The factory opera- 
 tives of the West Riding felt that their fondest hopes had 
 been blighted, that the rehef of their little ones from exces- 
 sive toil was still distant, they, however, did not yield to 
 despair, they turned their eyes by common consent to Fixby 
 Hall ; they were confident that they had in Mr Oastler a bold 
 and faithful friend. They trusted not in vain. 
 
 There was evidently awakened in the very heart of 
 England a home war against the unregulated factory system. 
 Its supporters, however, had increased in strength. It was
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 115 
 
 impossible to defend the cruelties of the Factory system, when 
 and where acknowledged, but the nature of the remedy was a 
 fertile source of discussion. There had arisen in this country 
 a school of political economists, who professedly pointed to 
 The Wealth of Nations as the text-book of their practical 
 philosophy, though they, as a rule, omitted to state that that 
 celebrated book contained contradictory doctrines ; they pre- 
 ferred popularizing the portions of Adam Smith's great work 
 which supported what they believed to be their own interests, 
 faiUng to take any notice of portions of the same book funda- 
 mentally opposed to their favourite dogmas. These political 
 economists were " on principle " opposed to all state interfer- 
 ence between labourers and capitalists; they assumed that they 
 were in possession of treasures of wisdom unknown to their 
 opponents, that the principles of the ancient policy of England 
 were erroneous, and in practice, ruinous to the interests of a 
 nation; they were powerfully represented in the press, and 
 exercised a very considerable share of influence through the 
 pulpit; they assumed to themselves the distinction of being in 
 favour of " the greatest happiness to the greatest number;" 
 they maintained that each man in all his actions pursued his 
 own pleasure, and that as a rule the happiness of the whole 
 community would be most surely promoted, by allowing each 
 individual member to work out his own ends in his own way, 
 without restraint or control. This body of poKtical econo- 
 mists possessed great talents and wealth, united with untiring 
 industry, and were very ably represented in the legislature by a 
 rising school of statesmen, of which Mr (now Lord) Brougham 
 was the active leader. Circumstances had very materially 
 changed since the first Sir Robert Peel had found it necessary, 
 in defence of the interests of the manufacturers, to check the 
 humanity of the House of Commons. We have noted the 
 discrepancy which existed between Adam Smith and his 
 influential disciples, the inconsistency belonged to the master, 
 
 I 2
 
 116 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the followers were consistent and faithful to that portion of his 
 doctrines which they had adopted, and therefore, unsparingly 
 condemned Poor Laws, Usury Laws, and Factory Laws as 
 evils not to be tolerated. The intellectual vigour and mental 
 resources of the political economists, backed by the wealth, 
 influence, and business talent of the millowners opposed to 
 regulation, increased the difficulties in the path of Factory 
 Legislation to an incalculable extent.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 117 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE PBINCIPLB OF FACTOET EEGtJLATION CONSONANT WITH THE SPIEIT 
 OF THE LAWS OF ENGLAND — MB OASTLER's APPEAL TO THE WOEK- 
 INO CLASSES — THE FIXBY COMPACT — CHOICE BY THE SUPPOETEB8 
 OF FACTOBY LEGISLATION OF MICHAEL THOMAS SADLEE, ESQ., M.P., 
 AS PAELIAMENTAEY LEADER— SUMMABY OF HIS PRINCIPLES. 
 
 Factory Regulation, considered apart from all extraneous 
 subjects, was simple and easy of comprehension — here was 
 excessive and unnatural labour, confessedly, existing in open 
 defiance of the laws of health; that it was desirable to check 
 such a practice, was a truth which not any reasonable man 
 could doubt. It was not unreasonable, that as the persuasion 
 and endeavours of the benevolent had failed to introduce the 
 required rules favourable to health, those anxious for their 
 establishment should ask for the force of Law. They had by 
 the highest authorities been taught, that all human laws must 
 concord in spirit with the law of nature, and the law of reve- 
 lation, they knew that it was a part of the common law of 
 England to protect the health of the nation, and if necessary, 
 that it was the duty of the legislature by statute law, to put 
 down all practices injurious to the health of the public. The 
 supporters of Factory regulation were conscious that the 
 unregulated Factory system was opposed to the laws of nature 
 and revelation, injurious to the public health and morals; they 
 were assured that it was the duty of all the individuals in a 
 state, to conform to the rules of propriety and good neigh-
 
 IXS THE HISTORY OF 
 
 bourhood ; that property itself was the creature of society, and 
 could only exist rightfully and permanently on conditions 
 consistent with the welfare of the whole community ; that the 
 very existence of society depended upon its right to restrain 
 by human laws, all the practices of individuals opposed to its 
 welfare. Knowing these things, and having had their atten- 
 tion directed to the enormous and growing evils of the un- 
 regulated Factory system, Mr Wood and his coadjutors at 
 Bradford were not disposed to sit quietly down under the 
 horrors of Yorkshire slavery, because Sir John Hobhouse had 
 failed to legislate for woollen, worsted, flax, and silk mills. 
 
 Mr Oastler's opinion on the course proper to be pursued 
 was soon made known. In the Leeds Intelligencer, of Oc- 
 tober 20th, 1831, he published the following letter ; it tells its 
 own tale, and deserves especial attention ; it is redolent with 
 facts from the factories, and indicates, on the part of the 
 writer, energy, decision, and foresight: 
 
 " Slavery in Yorkshire. 
 
 •' TO THE WOEKING CLASSES OF THE WEST EIDING 
 OF THE COUNTY OF YOKK. 
 
 " My Friends, — Sir J. C Hobhouse's bill for shortening the 
 hours of labour in all factories is lost ! Yes, the bill, on 
 which you had fixed your fondest hopes, is vanished I Aye, my 
 friends, that bill which had enlivened the hearts of your poor 
 Factory children, which had for once implanted the gleam of 
 hope in their hearts, and taught them to chaunt in songs of 
 praise the name of Hobhouse — is abandoned by its author ! 
 Your hopes— your infants' hopes, are suddenly blighted ! Your 
 fond anticipations of your children's happiness and liberty are 
 for a season blasted. The harps which your little ones had 
 prepared to attune in grateful strains to the songs of liberty, 
 must now be hung upon the willows- — for how can they sing 
 the song of freedom in the land of tyranny? Bend not, 
 hoxyever, to dispair — but trust in God, and in yourselves-^
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 119 
 
 the God of justice, of mercy, and of truth, still reigns — and 
 he will plead your cause, and make the unfeeling Iron-hearted 
 masters, erewhile, relent; but if they still resist, and steel 
 themselves against his laws, in anger he will speak, and make 
 
 the oppressors quake. 
 
 # * » * * 
 
 *' After all, we are told that we live in the land of 
 liberty; and if we attempt to rescue British infants from 
 slavery, we are, forsooth, the friends of the slave trade, and 
 are only raising the hue and cry to turn the attention of the 
 nation from West Indian slavery. Yes, my fellow-country- 
 men, this has been said a thousand times since the factory- 
 system was exposed. The real friends of tyranny have put 
 on the mask of philanthropy, and, with the cry of ' no 
 slavery,' would rivet the chains upon your children, all the 
 time persuading you they are the only ' Liberals ' of the 
 day. From such turn away ! And be ye assured that no 
 man, be his pretensions what they may, can really wish to 
 emancipate the poor black slave in the West Indies, who 
 refuses you his aid and assistance in emancipating your 
 children from a state of slavery more horrid than that by 
 which the infants of the slaves in the West Indies are cursed. 
 Be duped no longer! Willingly lend your assistance to 
 emancipate black slaves; but imperatively require from those 
 members of parliament, ministers of religion and its pro- 
 fessors, as well as the ''factory masters ' who solicit your aid 
 in favour of the blacks, that they shall prove their sincerity, 
 and that they really do hate slavery, by encouraging and 
 signing petitions in favour of ' ten hours a day ' as the limit 
 of your children's work. If they refuse this, you will need 
 no further proof that they are no real friends of liberty, 
 however ' liberal ' they may profess themselves to be, bring 
 them to this touchstone, and you will then either tear oil 
 their ' lioeral ' mask, or compel them to join you in emanci- 
 pating your little ones. It is your bounden duty, my
 
 120 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 countrymen, as it is your interest, no longer to be supine. 
 I do not say you have been deceived by any of those 
 persons who pledged themselves; but I do say you have a 
 right to know why the bill, after having passed in the com- 
 mittee, was altered when it came into the House. For the 
 future your path is plain. Let no promises of support from 
 any quarter sink you to inactivity. Consider that you must 
 manage this cause yourselves, nor think a single step is taken 
 so long as any constitutional effort is left untried. Establish, 
 instantly establish, committees in every manufacturing town 
 and village, to collect information and publish facts. The 
 pubhc, generally, do not know what it is ; then tell thera 
 how it has gone on destroying the health aiid morals of 
 the people ; how it operates in families by preventing the 
 growth of those parental and filial affections which nature 
 has implanted in every breast, but which this hateful system 
 habitually eradicates. Show also how the baneful effects of 
 the destruction of these feelings, afterwards, operate on 
 society! Tell, how the factory system beggars the indus- 
 trious domestic manufacturer ! Count, if you can, the hun- 
 dreds of respectable families who have been driven from com- 
 fort and independence by the all-powerful operation of this 
 monopolising system! Point to the poor rates, and show 
 how it has filled the ranks of the paupers ; and never forget 
 that these ' Hberal factory masters ' are not quite so ' liberal ' 
 as the tyrannical slaveholder ! The latter provides for his 
 slaves when they are weak, or maimed, or sick, or aged, 
 and when they can no longer work. But the former, with 
 a ' liberaHty ' unknown in the West Indies, after they have 
 maimed or weakened their work-people, or when they have 
 worked them till they can work no more, turn them out, 
 for you who can icork to support, thus swelling the poor 
 rates and lessening your earnings. Tell the shopkeeper, the 
 butcher, the farmer, and the artisan, how this destructive 
 system curtails the income of his customers, and incj'eases
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 121 
 
 the demand upon his funds. Yes, yes ! bring all these facts 
 before the public, and show the hideous monster in his 
 native glare. Then ask, shall he go on conquering and to 
 conquer, until the manufacture of the empire is concentrated 
 under one large roof and the world is supplied by one gigantic 
 Jinn ? Till human nature is almost physically and morally 
 destroyed, and all the inhabitants of this land shall be the 
 slaves of one great manufacting nabob. Let your committees 
 call on every Christian, and particularly on every Christian 
 minister, and respectively solicit their aid. Surely no 
 follower of Christ can withhold his assistance. In due time 
 call public , meetings, and there plead the cause of the poor 
 infant sufferers, and expose the horrors of the factory 
 system; then prepare petitions to parliament, praying it to 
 interfere in the sacred cause of suffering humanity; and, on 
 every election for members of parliament, use your influence 
 throughout the empire to prevent any man being returned 
 who will not distinctly and unequivocally pledge himself to 
 support a ' Ten Hours a day and a Time-booh BilV If you 
 will instantly begin to work on this plan, and steadily pursue 
 it, you are sure of success. It is impossible that a system 
 so cruel, so injurious, so unjust, so unchristian, can stand 
 in a Christian country when once the eyes of the public 
 are open to its horrors. Your present failure points the road 
 to your certain success ! Ye were lulled to drowsiness, and 
 rested in false security, because ye trusted in the nerve of 
 your friends and the goodness of your cause. But now 
 you have plainly proved that you must win the day your- 
 selves — that the little knot of cruel and oppressive spinners 
 has more powerful influence than has that host of kind and 
 tender-hearted masters who are your and your children's 
 friends. Can it be believed that in England, in the nine- 
 teenth century, in a ' reforming ' House of Commons, a bill 
 limiting the hours of labour for children of nine years of 
 age in ALL factories to twelve per day, should have been
 
 122 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 refused, because it was ' too liberal ! ' Kind Heaven ! and 
 do we live in a Christian country? And will not the 
 ministers of Jesus interfere'? Every man who really and 
 truly hates and abhors slavery must and will ' come over 
 and help us ' to destroy this horrid system of slavery in 
 Yorkshire. Oh ! be no longer led astray by any foolish 
 cry got up for political purposes, but resolve, until you gain 
 your prayer, your voice shall always be against the man 
 who would perpetuate the present ' factory system.' Let 
 your politics be ' TEN HOURS A DAY, and a time-book ; ' 
 and whoever offers himself as a candidate at any future 
 election, unless he will solemnly pledge himself to these two 
 points, REFUSE HIM YOUR SUPPORT I Don't be deceived: 
 you will hear the cries of — ' No slavery ' — ' Reform ' — 
 ' Liberal principles ' — ' No monopoly/ &c. But let your 
 cries be — ' No Yorkshire slavery ' — ' No slavery in any part 
 of the empire ' — ' No factory mongers ' — ' No factory mono- 
 polists.' If you are determined, rest assured you will suc- 
 ceed. Your children will be liberated from a bondage greater 
 than they would have inherited had they been born of negro 
 slaves. Once more — be not led astray by the perpetual cry 
 of ' liberal principles.' Depend upon it, the man who will 
 refuse to ' liberate ' your children is neither ' liberal ' nor a 
 ' hater of slavery.' Now then, my friends, for ' a long pull, a 
 strong pull, and a pull altogether ! ' Victory is yours, if 
 you are true to yourselves ! Let the tyrants know that 
 you have sworn, ' OUR children shall be free ! ' — I 
 am, ray friends, a sincere enemy to slavery in every form, in 
 every part of the world, and your sincere well-wisher, 
 
 " Richard Oastler. 
 " Fixby Hal], near Huddersfield, Oct. 10th, 1831" 
 
 Not any great object requiring the sanction of the legisla- 
 ture, can be accomplished, except through the concentrated 
 force of public opinion ; the first requisite for success is to 
 acquire the confidence of the people. Mr Oastler's letter was
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 123 
 
 admirably adapted for that end ; it stimulated all the sympathies 
 of the human heart favourable to humanity; it aroused in the 
 mind of every Christian a sense of duty ; it was bold, and, 
 in politics, boldness is often a source of strength; it was 
 decided in tone, and left nothing to chance, but clearly 
 outlined a plan of operation. The w^eight of Mr Oastler's 
 letter was increased, because of a compact which had been 
 entered into between himself and the leaders of the working 
 men. A portion of the working men of Huddersfield, who 
 took an active public interest in the politics of their time, 
 appointed a deputation from their body to confer with Mr 
 Oastler on the factory question. Mr Oastler's account of 
 his interview with the working men, as published in the 
 columns of Tlie Home, is graphic and interesting. " One 
 Sunday morning," wrote Mr Oastler, "when we were all 
 preparing to go to church, about half-a-dozen working men, 
 from Huddersfield, called upon me. They had read my 
 letters in the newspapers about ' Yorkshire Slavery ; ' they 
 informed me that they wished to converse with me about 
 those letters of mine, and that they came on behalf of the 
 factory-workers of Huddersfield, to thank me for them, and 
 to ofier their best assistance to me. I told them that 'I 
 was going to church, that on any other day I should be glad 
 to see them.' They replied, ' Sunday, Sir, is the only day 
 on which we can come ; we are in the mills all the rest of 
 the week, firom early in the morning till late at night.' This 
 information brought home most forcibly to my mind, that 
 the factory system and the fourth commandment could not 
 work together. I thought the matter over, consulted with 
 Mrs Oastler, and, seeing that it was clearly a work of charity, 
 remained with them ; the rest of the family went to church. 
 Those men being factory-workers, gave me much useful 
 information, invited me to communicate freely with them, 
 and ofiered, cordially, to co-operate with me, in striving to
 
 124 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 obtain a change in the factory system. I heard all they had 
 to say with great interest. I was struck with their intel- 
 ligence and civility. I had seen much of the poor when 
 in sickness and distress, at their homes, in the workhouse, 
 and the infirmary; but, until that day, I had never entered 
 into communion with working men, on matters relating to 
 themselves as a class, connected with their employers. A 
 new field seemed to be opened unto me ; these working 
 men surprised me by the knowledge which they communicated, 
 and the sensible manner in which they conveyed that know- 
 ledge to me. Still I thought there were hindrances to our 
 working together, I being a tory and a churchman, they 
 radicals and dissenters; therefore, after thanking them, I said, 
 ' It will be better that we work separately, you taking your 
 course, I taking mine.' They thought differently. After a 
 good deal of conversation, we agreed to work together, with 
 the understanding, that parties in politics, and sects in religion, 
 should not be allowed to interfere between us. That agree- 
 ment has never been broken." 
 
 The compact entered into between the working men and 
 Mr Oastler had a very solid foundation, both were of opinion 
 that labour was property, and entitled to the protection of 
 the law. Every one acquainted with the late Mr Cobbett's 
 Legacy to Labourers, a most able production, and with the 
 opinions of the late Earl of Eldon on the Poor Laws, will 
 not have much difficulty in apprehending why radicals and 
 tones could unite on questions of industry. The Yorkshire 
 radicals, at the time referred to by Mr Oastler, were readers 
 of the works of Cobbett, and opposed to Brougham, on all 
 the principal questions connected with the social arrange- 
 ments of a state. Because of the organised correspondence 
 of the radical committees of Yorkshire, the Iluddersfield 
 and Fixby compact was to Mr Oastler a lever of power, 
 which to his honour he has never used for any other
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 125 
 
 purpose than that for which it was entered into, — "to lift 
 the oppressed out of the mire into which, by those who 
 preferred mammon to righteousness, they had been cast." 
 
 Mr Oastler's letter to the working men of the West 
 Riding was read, approved, and the advice therein con- 
 tained acted upon in a solid and efficient manner ; seed 
 was then sown, destined to bear important fruit, nor was 
 there wanting one able and willing to lead the question 
 in parliament. 
 
 In the year 1829, the late Michael Thomas Sadler, 
 published his celebrated work on Ireland; its evils, and 
 their remedies. Mr Sadler's book having contained the 
 synopsis of a reply to Malthus on Population, and having 
 been written with ability on a subject of pressing interest, 
 commanded considerable attention among those interested 
 in social and economical theories; it contained the fol- 
 lowing exposition of the author's views on the factory ques- 
 tion : — '* Most writers and travellers have hitherto held it 
 an unequivocal mark of barbarism, wherever the female sex 
 has been degraded into common drudges; this, however, our 
 present civilised system has long had the gallantry of 
 doing in England, the effects of which, in a moral point 
 of view, are too well-known to need pointing out or 
 proving ; and not only so, but even children are, by a 
 solecism of speech, now become workmen, our language 
 not having as yet accommodated us with an appropriate 
 word for the occasion. The morning of life, which God 
 and nature intended as a time of mirth and pleasure, is 
 made that of imprisoning, unhealthful, and demoralising 
 labour; and our political philanthropists wished to extend 
 this system, instead of encouraging cultivation, though, no 
 doubt, their feelings would be severely shocked at seeing such 
 treatment transferred to the brute creation ; as, for instance, 
 were the farmer providing himself with gearing and imple- 
 ments for the purpose daily to labour a yearling foal at the
 
 126 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 plough, aye, and nlgKtly, If it suited his interests. Cruelty 
 like this to animals would excite universal sympathy and 
 abhorrence, and probably travel the nation in ten thousand 
 paragraphs : it is thus our delicate susceptibilities find 
 vent ! It is rather a melancholy task to trace the progress 
 of the new system ; to anticipate the ultimate consequence, if 
 every other interest amongst us must give way to it, is 
 most appalling. In the times of ignorance, 'man went 
 forth to his work in the morning,' he was the labourer 
 of the family, and it sufficed ; but now his INFANT 
 CHILDREN are demanded to make up his necessary means 
 of subsistence, and too often become, not his assistants, 
 but his rivals in the market of labour, to use the phrase 
 of the times, so that himself is often now found there " all 
 the day idle, because no man hath hired him," when the 
 fashionable system of policy coolly recommends his deser- 
 tion. In good times as they are called, he sees his chil- 
 dren go forth to their work in the evening (to save the 
 capital of the machine owners) when the benevolent law 
 of nature universally obeyed throughout animated life, is 
 reversed as it regards those to whom it is the most essential. 
 To be sure, he has ever been informed, and assured that 
 these things were all for his advantage, especially when 
 he has thought otherwise, and been turbulently disposed ; 
 but he has been the truer prophet and political economist ; 
 his labour has become less and less valuable, till he is at 
 length pronoimced, on high authority, to be redundant ; 
 and measures are at this instant being projected to send 
 him out of his country. Inventions which retain the 
 pleasing appelation of 'machines for shortening human 
 labour,' are to all intents and purposes, become machines 
 for supplanting it as far as possible ; in one sense, indeed, 
 they are appropriately named, for they have the effect 
 of shortening life. Contrivances to dispense with this 
 labour almost altogether are hailed as public benefits and
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 127 
 
 eagerly adopted. On this subject I shall not further 
 express myself, but conclude with the language of an 
 able article on politically economy in the ' Edinburgh 
 Encyclopaedia:' — 'AH the workmen of England would be 
 turned into the street, if the manufacturers could employ 
 steam engines in their place at a saving of five per 
 cent.' " 
 
 Mr Sadler entered parliament, as representative of the 
 Borough of Newark in 1829, and had by word and vote 
 supported Mr Hobhouse in all his parliamentary efforts 
 in support of Factory Regulation. Mr Sadler had been 
 for many years, a resident in the two of Leeds, had taken 
 an active interest in the affairs of the Borough, and had 
 been treasurer of the Board of Management of the Poor, 
 he was practically familiar with the evils of unregulated 
 factory labour. Among Mr Sadler's early and most intimate 
 personal friends in Yorkshire was Mr Oastler, a close 
 correspondence was kept up between these gentlemen on 
 subjects of public interest, a glance at a portion of this 
 correspondence will manifest the interest Mr Sadler felt 
 on the factory question. The following are extracts from 
 the letters of Mr Sadler to Mr Oastler : — 
 
 " London, September 1st, 1831. 
 " I need not inform you, that I not only concur with 
 Mr Hobhouse's factory bill ; but, as I have expressed to 
 him over and over again, I go much beyond it. Had 
 he not taken it up this session, I should have done so, 
 as my views and feelings are very strong upon that sub- 
 ject, and I have made calculations and published them 
 in my book upon Ireland, showing the excessive mortality, 
 &o., that the infamous and unnatural factory system occa- 
 sions. 
 
 " I have been, within these few days past, urging a pro- 
 vision for the poor of Ireland, and was beaten by twelve 
 only — which, even the ministers themselves, acknowledge
 
 128 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 to be a defeat. I hope, and indeed feel sure, that you 
 will be with me upon this point. On this day fortnight, 
 I hope to lay before parliament, a long considered plan, 
 for the bettering the condition of the labouring poor of 
 this country : on which I think, also, we should agree. 
 My greatest loss is, that I have no energetic friend like 
 yourself, at my elbow, to prompt and encourage me in 
 these endeavours." 
 
 " London, September 20th, 1831. 
 
 " I cannot refrain from thanking you most deeply for 
 the kind interest you take in a subject just started in 
 Leeds, relating to so humble an individual as myself. [This 
 refers to Mr Oastler's suggestion, that arrangements should 
 be begun among the factory workmen to forward Mr 
 Sadler's election for Leeds.] 
 
 " No man living can be more" conscious, how humble are 
 his claims to any distinction of the nature contemplated ; 
 indeed, I am distressedly conscious of that fact, and am 
 only cheered by the thought, that my earnest wish is, to 
 better the condition of the oppressed and degraded part of 
 my fellow creatures, and especially those whose cause you 
 have so generously and painfully advocated." 
 
 "London, September 22nd, 1831. 
 "I am entirely with you on all the important topics 
 you mention — and they are the most important to the 
 country, of any that can be mooted ; and I take up not 
 one of them from personal considerations, — for the first 
 time, or for electioneering purposes, — a course which I am 
 sure you would despise me, if you thought me capable of 
 adopting. Being in some measure however ' embarked,' 
 I must go forwards; but I do so with the deep (I must 
 say distressing) conviction of my own weakness and un- 
 worthiness, which are not words of course with me, but 
 which I feel deeply, and yet know that I do not feel 
 enough.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 129 
 
 " Accept my best thanks for your kindness, and for that 
 energetic friendship which you, I know, are exercising in my 
 behalf. I have very few recommendations in my favour, and 
 those are simply, an earnest wish to better the condition of 
 the industrious classes (who, between ourselves, have been 
 shamefully neglected and in some cases cruelly depressed), 
 joined with a full determination to attempt the task. 
 
 " I thank you most deeply for your concluding advice — I 
 need it greatly. May my motives be kept single, and my 
 conduct upright and humble! Indeed, I have more tempta- 
 tions arising from despondency and want of confidence, at 
 this moment, than vanity or pride, which would ill become 
 me ; having no pretensions whatever to anything that could 
 make me proud. The happy medium, is, what religion 
 alone can give: I have of this, a little — may God increase it; 
 that is His gift, and the most precious one He bestows. 
 
 " The millowners, I am aware, are very powerful in Leeds. 
 I meditate nothing but what I think would be for their 
 interest, properly understood, if carried into full effect; 
 nothing that I would not gladly submit to, were I one of 
 them. Adieu. 
 
 " Our objects are the same, and I hope I shall live to 
 see some of them realized. In the meantime, allow me, in 
 great haste, to subscribe myself, my dear Sir, your affectionate 
 ftiend and fellow labourer, 
 
 "M. T. Sadler." 
 
 "Leeds, Nov. 2, 1831. 
 '* My dear Sir, — A succession of gentlemen have been with 
 me this day, leaving me, till this moment, no time whatever to 
 
 draw up the ; I regret this much, but not so deeply 
 
 as I should have done, had you not said you intended to be 
 here on Friday evening, when what I shall pen will be 
 submitted to your inspection, and so modified as to meet 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 your views, which, I am sure, are more enlarged than my 
 own on the point at issue ; as you are so well aware what 
 would least alarm the millowners. I have principally attended 
 to what it was right to propose in behalf of those employed : 
 you have attended to both considerations. 
 
 *'I shall, therefore, be entirely governed by you in this 
 important matter. In the course of conversation with 
 those who have been with me to-day, I find that the public 
 are ripe for our attempt in behalf of the poor friendless 
 factory victims. If it conduce to a satisfactory issue, the 
 chief merit is yours — for your zeal in their behalf has not 
 been a hatred of slavery in the abstract, but you have man- 
 fully come forward, and have unceasingly advocated the 
 cause of the most degraded and abused class of beings 
 
 existing." 
 
 " Leeds, Nov. 20th, 1831. 
 "My dear Friend, — The question of factory labour never 
 has been taken up with sufficient energy in parliament ; and 
 the law, as at present carried, is not only nothing, but actually 
 worse than nothing: I will mention why I think that the 
 twelve hours' labour, assigned to young children, under a 
 bill professedly passed for their protection, is worse than if no 
 bill had passed; as I find, that even in the flax mills here, 
 they NOW work Kttle more than that time, in several in- 
 stances not any more, not so much : still their health fails, 
 and all the pernicious consequences you so much deplore 
 ensue. 
 
 " Perhaps there may be many millowners (if left to them- 
 selves), who would NOT work so long as that; several have 
 not, even in more barbarous times, if possible, than these, 
 worked their children more than ten hours, — Dale OF 
 Lanark, for instance. But if parliament deliberately takes 
 the thing up, and settles twelve hours, or even eleven hoursp 
 per day, labour for children, the private individual responsi- 
 bility of the employers seems done away with in a great
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 131 
 
 measure: they will argue, and feel, and act under the 
 impression that, if those who seek only to serve the children 
 prescribe those hours, it would be worse than folly not to 
 abide by them; deliberately considered, as they must have 
 been. On the other hand, I am persuaded, and all I hear 
 and read confirms me in my conviction, that ten hours can 
 never be receded from by those who love children, or who 
 wish to obtain the approbation of Him who was indeed their 
 friend and lover. I am sorry, therefore, to see that Sir John 
 Hobhouse has not only conceded his bill, but his very views 
 and judgment to the poUtical economists, who in this, as in 
 many other things, are the pests of society and the persecutors 
 of the poor — unknowingly I hope — but whether they are 
 so ignorantly or wilfullv, makes no difierence as regards their 
 miserable victims. Their principles and schemes have led to 
 the degradation, misery, and destruction of the working 
 classes. 
 
 " / had rather have no hill-, than one that would legalize 
 and warrant their excessive labour." 
 
 Mr Sadler had, during the progress of Sir John Cam 
 Hobhouse's bill, been soHcited by the Short-time Committee 
 of Huddersfield to give to that bill his support. Mr Sadler 
 was very energetic, and in his correspondence with the 
 Huddersfield Short-time Committee he pointed out to them 
 the high position they had gained through Mr Oastler's 
 exertions, and strenuously urged them not to be contented 
 with any measure short of a ten hours' limitation, and very 
 freely expressed his dissatisfaction with the result of Sir 
 John Cam Hobhouse's parliamentary exertions on behalf of 
 the factory operatives. Sir John Cam Hobhouse considered 
 any effort for a Ten Hours' Bill in parliament Utopian. Mr 
 jadler ascertained from Sir John what his opinions were on 
 the subject, and it was mutually agreed that if Mr Sadler 
 desired further legislation, and to the extent indicated by the 
 
 k2
 
 132 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 Huddersfield Short -time Committee, then Mr Sadler must, 
 himself, lead the question in the House of Commons. 
 
 The working men, and those of their employers favourable 
 to factory regulation, by common consent selected Mr Sadler 
 as their future leader in parliament; they found in him an 
 able and faithful champion of their cause. He was one of 
 the few who preferred the path of difficulty to the easy 
 roadway of the merely partisan politician. Sadler did not 
 follow the crowd; he exercised his mental faculties on the 
 most abstruse and diflScult questions; he strove, by the soH- 
 tary force of his own intelligence, to illuminate the social 
 and political atmosphere of his age. His genius was lumi- 
 nous ; it penetrated the centre of the social system by the 
 fulness of its own light, and balanced the good against the 
 evil of every proposed or realized change. Sadler had a 
 great object in view — the upraising of the whole labouring 
 population ; his mind was sufficiently practical to formulate 
 measures, and possessed, in a rare degree, the faculties requisite 
 for the just apprehension of principles. Familiar, through 
 the aid of studious investigation, with the practical tenour 
 of the legislation of centuries — deeply versed in the writings 
 of the earHer English authors, from Alfred the Great to 
 Lord Chancellor Bacon, he approved their leading principles, 
 and was opposed to the monopoly of riches ; he desired the 
 distribution, rather than the heaping-up of the products of 
 labour and land, and devoted his energies to that end. 
 Sadler's soul, like that of his friend Oastler, was dead to 
 class or party interests, as understood by the leading political 
 writers and legislators of his time; his sympathies were on 
 the side of the injured and oppressed. He firmly believed 
 it to be an ordination of Providence, that the poor shall 
 never cease out of the laud; that religion, justice, and hu- 
 niauity concorded in enforcing the necessity and wisdom of 
 a permanent, legal, and ample provision for their wants. In 
 the estimation of Sadler, to labour was the law of life, and
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 133 
 
 the business of philosophers, mechanicians, and statesmen, was 
 to discover how life's burthens should be lightened, and its 
 enjoyments increased for all, in proportion as man's control 
 over the materials of the earth increased; that the nearest 
 approach to the Millennium was to be found in the elevation 
 of the labouring portions of the community. In him a love 
 of the truth was paramount to every other consideration — 
 he never feared to tread wherever his principles might direct. 
 Such a leader in parliament could not fail to give moral 
 weight and dignity to any cause with winch his heart was 
 identified. He might not, like Brougham, defy a senate 
 with a sneer ; nor, like O'Connell, frown with contempt on an 
 opposition ; nor, like Peel, win by strategy what could not 
 be gained by openness. Like many men of genius, Sadler 
 was sensitive to excess, his gentle nature but ill fitted him 
 to withstand the ridicule and bufibonery unhappily associated 
 with political strife (and with which he, more than any other 
 pubHc man, was assailed). He was too candid to be crafty; 
 more a student than a party politician ; though called a Tory, 
 he was, properly speaking, of no party — he was of the nation. 
 His courage was the result of a union of head and heart; 
 he was not led from without by the applause of multi- 
 tudes; was invariably anxious to be true to himself. At 
 all times controlled by conscience, whatever cause he es- 
 poused he persevered in to the end. His knowledge was 
 comprehensive, extending from ancient rule to modern ex- 
 perience; he enriched the principles he advocated with a 
 copious learning, hallowed by religious devotion, and 
 strengthened by an undeviating faith in the supreme wisdom 
 of God's laws, as known and practised under the Jewish theo- 
 cracy. The laws of the Hebrews, relating to the poor, were 
 the constant themes of Mr Sadler's admiration. Under the 
 Mosaic economy, to relieve the distressed, and aid the poor, 
 were acts of justice, not depending on the promptings of 
 humanity, but, as understood by Mr Sadler, these deeds were 
 
 ^^
 
 134 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 commanded by God, and were the indispensable conditions 
 on which property could be owned ; and that, in any state 
 of society, the abrogation of like practices could not fail 
 to produce the saddest possible results. The factory question 
 was only an important step in the ladder of Sadler's social 
 system ; his pleadings were as earnest for the downcast 
 agricultural labourer as for the depressed factory child ; a 
 circumstance which strengthened him at every step, for the 
 mind of Sadler concentrated diversities of knowledge, and 
 directed these to the speciality on which his intellectual 
 force was applied. The subserviency of the factory question 
 to Sadler's own views was a valid security for a faithful 
 protection of the interests confided to his care. In the hands 
 of Sadler, the cause of the factory operatives was not, as the 
 exigencies of party required, cast into the scale of time- 
 serving faction. Factory regulation was by him maintained 
 as a national necessity, and sealed with the maxim — " The 
 safety of the people is the highest law."
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 135 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MECHANICAL, SOCIAL, AND MOEAL PKOGEE8S. — LETTEE OF SIE JOHN 
 CAM HOBHOtrSE, BAET., M.P., ON THE DIFriCTTLTY OF FUETHEB 
 LEGISLATION. — ME OASTLEE'S EEPLY. — OPINIONS AND LETTEE OF 
 THE EIGHT HON. T. B. MACAULAY ON THE FACTOEY QUESTION. 
 — SPEECH OF ME SADLEE ON INTEODUCING THE TEN HOUKs' BILL 
 TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. — APPOINTMENT OF A PAELIAMENTAK Y 
 COMMITTEE. 
 
 There cannot be any doubt entertained of the increase of 
 scientific, chemical, and mechanical knowledge ; during the 
 three past ages man's control over inanimate matter has ra- 
 pidly increased ; mechanicians and engineers are capable of 
 producing in a few days, what, a century ago, would have 
 been the work of years. Scientific knowledge, and the divi- 
 sion of labour, have multiplied the powers of production with 
 a rapidity beyond the means of calculation. While this great 
 fact of material progress is prominent and undeniable, the 
 social and moral progress of the majority of English society is 
 not by any means an undisputed question. Some among the 
 most thoughtful of our time have doubted if all our scientific, 
 chemical, and mechanical skill, have lightened the day's toil of 
 any human being ; others have declared that at no period of 
 the nation's history has it been more difficult for a labouring 
 man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow than in these 
 latter days. It cannot be reasonably contended that the bitter 
 fruit of man's first disobedience, as represented in the newly- 
 born infant, weighs more heavily on the present than it did in 
 past generations. "• Original sin " is, in its own nature, un-
 
 136 THE HISTOKY OF 
 
 changed, yet crime increases with frightful celerity, and the 
 statute book is swelled to inordinate size with criminal laws, 
 some of these for crimes of the most odious kinds ; and the 
 question is still asked, with more and more urgency, from 
 bench and pulpit, " What can be done with our criminals ?" 
 The progress of industrial development has increased, manifold, 
 the means of supplying the wants of man ; universal equality 
 may be, only, the benevolent vision of Utopian dreamers ; the 
 distribution of the products of industry may be, for the wisest 
 of purposes, unequal ; it may be an eternal law that some 
 shall be rich and others poor. But that state of society has not 
 any just claim to wear the honourable distinction of civihza- 
 tion in name, under the rule of which, in fact, it is for the 
 comforts of the many not to increase in something like a due 
 proportion to the increase of man's control over the raw ma- 
 terial of the earth, and whose moral condition is either doubt- 
 ful or retrograding. There is no lack of men, and clever men 
 too, disposed at all times to eulogise modern industrialism. 
 There never was any want of men, in any age, to chime in 
 with the fashionable chorus of their own time. "When Moses 
 came down from the Mount, carrying in his hand the tables of 
 the testimony, the voices he heard w^ere not those who shouted 
 for mastery, or those Avho cried for being overcome ; tliey 
 were the voices of those who were making merry, singing and 
 dancing round the golden calf. So far as we apprehend the 
 superiority of the present over past ages, its existence is 
 acknowledged without reserve. To " take stock " of mate- 
 rial progress is very desirable ; it is a proper employment for 
 a nation proud of its business talent. The social and moral 
 economist must study social and moral progress ; he who 
 assumes to legislate, and fails to estimate these, is, at best, to 
 borrow a phrase from Adam Smith, " That insidious and 
 crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman." All political 
 economy that has not for its object, and fails in its practice, to 
 increase the command of the labourers over the necessaries,
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 137 
 
 conveniences, and comforts of life, is, for all the purposes ol 
 desirable civilization, a delusion. It would be difficult to con- 
 ceive a more dangerous heresy than that contained in the 
 maxim : — "A measure may be morally right and politically 
 wrong." Wliatever measure is morally right, will in practice 
 be found politically and socially right, so flir as the interests of 
 a nation are concerned ; as for the real or supposed interests 
 of party politicians, these are unworthy of a moment's consi- 
 deration, beyond the knots of crafty tricksters who are mean 
 enough to entertain them. 
 
 The principal exponent of the factory question, and the 
 parliamentary leader thereof, had observed, in their own time, 
 a considerable change for the worse in the condition of the 
 agricultural and manufacturing population. The enclosure of 
 commons, and their appropriation by a few landowners (with- 
 out regard to the immemorial rights and usages of the peasantry, 
 to whom, with very rare exceptions, not any " allotments" were 
 made) — the pulling down of cottages, which followed the cry of 
 " a redundant population," and other acts of social oppression, 
 had, to a great extent, injured the condition and prospects of 
 the agricultural labourers, and forced very many families from 
 their once comfortable rural homes (the homes of their fore- 
 fathers) Into the manufacturing districts The unregulated in- 
 ■ troduction and use of machiuery had operated Injuriously on 
 the value of the labour of 840,000 hand-loom w^eavers ; 
 small manufacturers had in most cases been reduced from 
 comfort to penury ; the horrors of the factory system had^ 
 pierced the souls of Oastler and Sadler, and made them ear- 
 nest, bold, and eloquent in its denunciation. The progress of 
 agitation In Yorkshire had been rapid and successful ; it had 
 crossed the borders of Yorkshire Into Lancashire and Cheshire. 
 Men so Impressed, and so hopeful, could not entertain doubts 
 as regarded success ; they had resolved to gain their avowed 
 object, and neither feared nor cared for obstacles. 
 
 In few assemblies has enthusiasm less influence than in the
 
 138 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 British House of Commons ; in its collective capacity it is 
 not disposed, readily, to concede any demand ; it prides itself 
 on a kind of stoical indifference to recently- organised move- 
 ments, and waits for " the pressure from without." A mani- 
 festation of this feeling the supporters of factory regulation 
 were destined to endure. Mr Oastler had opened a corre- 
 spondence with several members of both Houses of Parlia- 
 ment, necessarily, with various results, the general feeling of 
 the House of Commons was very candidly expressed by a not 
 unfriendly pen. In consequence of a statement made on the 
 authority of Sir John Cam Hobhouse, and published in the 
 Leeds Mercury, Mr Oastler wrote to him, and was answered 
 in the following letter ; it contained the convictions of the 
 honourable baronet, on the probable success of Mr Sadler's 
 contemplated bill in the House of Commons. It is the 
 judgment of a mind endowed with keen perceptions, by habit 
 and experience ; accustomed to estimate the legislative action 
 of the House of Commons ; undoubtedly, well versed in the 
 state of the factory question. 
 
 " Hastings. November 16, 1831. 
 
 " Sir, — I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, and 
 of the Leeds Intelligencer, of Thursday, Nov. 10. Of my 
 letter to Mr Baines I have no copy; otherwise I would, with 
 pleasure, send it to you — at the same time I think it right 
 to inform you, that if the extracts published in the 
 Mercury are not satisfactory, neither the whole letter, nor 
 anything I have it in my power to say, would be found 
 more acceptable. 
 
 " I regret very much to perceive that the discussion on 
 the factory system is mixed up with the party politics of 
 Yorkshire, and more especially of the town of Leeds — still 
 more do I regret that the good operatives should have been 
 so much deluded, either by very ignorant or designing men, 
 as to promise themselves the accomplishment of what can 
 never be realized. Those acquainted with the real state of
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEJIENT. 139 
 
 the question, so far as parliament is concerned, know very 
 well that nothing can be more idle than to talk of the possi- 
 bility of limiting the hours of daily labour to ten for five 
 days, and to eight on the Saturday — and I was, and am 
 surprised to find, by Mr Sadler's answer to the Huddersfield 
 deputies, that the worthy member for Aldborough should 
 appear to concur in views so extravagant, and which can 
 only end in disappointment. 
 
 " The deputies of the operatives who attended me during 
 the passing of the bill, and who, indeed, framed the Act, have 
 it in their power to lay before their constituents such informa- 
 tion as would at once convince them how groundless, and how 
 prejudicial to their own interests, are all such expectations; 
 and I can assure you. Sir, that the sooner the delusion is 
 dispelled, the more likely will the reasonable wishes of the 
 parties concerned be fulfilled. The censures which, it seems, 
 are passed upon those concerned in the recent Act, and more 
 especially on myself, can proceed only from those altogether 
 unacquainted with the circumstances of the case, and fi-om 
 those who know nothing of the difficulty of carrying a con- 
 troverted measure through parliament. It would doubtless 
 have been very easy to have prepared a plan which would 
 have pleased all the operatives for the moment, and have 
 gained much applause fi:om their inconsiderate fiiends, and 
 which would have been rejected at the very first mention of 
 the proposal in the House of Commons. But a man who has 
 higher objects than immediate praise, would have been highly 
 culpable in pursuing such a course, and sacrificing an attain- 
 able good for a fleeting popularity. Certainly the present Act 
 is far from being so extensive, either in its operation or in its 
 restrictions, as I could wish, but it was the opinion of the 
 deputies of the operatives, that it secured many advantages, 
 and was a decided improvement of the former legislation on 
 the subject. I had therefore no choice left to me, except of 
 two modes of procedure, namely, to attempt to pass my
 
 140 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 original bill in the face of all the opposition arrayed against 
 me, and at a time when even the very forms and delays of 
 parliament would have defeated me ; or to secure so much of 
 the Act as I could pass without opposition of any kind. I 
 did so by waiting day after day for a favourable moment, and 
 at last got through the stages of it at half-past three in the 
 morning ! ! I will leave you to judge what would have been 
 the result, if I had attempted to force any controverted clause 
 upon the House, any single antagonist would have objected to 
 the time of the discussion, and that obstacle alone would have 
 been quite sufficient to postpone the question from day to day, 
 until the end of the session. 
 
 " My principal opponents are the Scotch flax-factors, and 
 the West of England woollen-factors. The latter I think I 
 might have managed to conciliate. The former gave me no 
 hopes of a compromise, and they sent down so numerous and 
 influential a body of members to the House against me, that 
 resistance was hopeless; at least, as I before said, at that 
 period of the session, and in the then state of public business. 
 If I should be induced to make an attempt to bring back my 
 bill to its original shape, I shall have to encounter the same 
 difficulties, and without appointing a select committee to 
 examine evidence, 1 fear that even the very introduction of 
 the measure would be opposed with success. Should Mr 
 Sadler make the efibrt which he seems to contemplate, of 
 limiting the hours of labour to ten, you may depend upon it 
 he will not be allowed to proceed a single stage with any such 
 enactment, and, so far from producing any beneficial efiects, 
 he will only throw an air of ridicule and extravagance over 
 the whole of this kind of legislation. I trust that, on mature 
 reflection, that very respectable gentleman will adopt a more 
 useful coui'se of conduct, and in that case he may depend 
 upon my exertions, such as they are, to second and encourage 
 his honourable labour. You are welcome to give any pub- 
 licity which you may think desirable to this communication,
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 141 
 
 and I cannot conclude without hoping that what I have 
 thought right to impress upon your consideration may alter In 
 some degree the opinions you have hitherto entertained as to 
 the best mode of promoting the object which we have, I 
 believe, mutually at heart.— I have the honour to remain, Sir, 
 " Your very obedient and humble servant, 
 
 " John C. Hobhouse. 
 
 " Eicliard Oastler, Esq." 
 
 To this letter Mr Oastler replied as follows: — 
 
 ^' To Sir John Cam Hobhouse, Bart., M.P. 
 
 " Fixby Hall, near Huddersfield, Nov. 19th, 1831. 
 
 " Sir, — Accept my most respectful thanks for your letter 
 of the 16th Inst., and believe me when I assure you I feel 
 grateful to you for the exertions you have made in behalf of 
 poor innocent and defenceless factory children; but allow me 
 also to state, that I exceedingly regret you felt yourself ^ 
 obliged to yield the sacred cause of the poor to the " cold, - 
 calculating, but mistaken Scotch philosophers," who seem, very 
 unfortunately, to have an overwhelming influence over the 
 government of this country. Yes, Sir, although I cannot feel 
 otherwise than grateful to you for what you have done, I wish 
 you had manfully met those unfeeling misanthropes (whose 
 God is money, and whose policy is the ruin, degradation, and 
 banishment of the poor) by sound, philosophical and Christian 
 argument, on the arena of the House of Commons, rather 
 than have succumbed between the Committee and the House ; 
 then I am sure the laws of this country would never more 
 have been disgraced by a statute legalising the working of 
 poor little children nine years old, for twelve hours per day ! ,> 
 Say what we may, this Is disgusting tyranny, practised under 
 the name of freedom, on the weakest, most innocent, and 
 most abject slaves. In this part of the country very great 
 anxiety is felt on the subject, and the friends of the children 
 are exceedingly wishful to know who are their enemies. From 
 the general tenour of your letter to Mr Baines (so far as he
 
 142 THE HISTORY OP 
 
 thought proper to publish it,) we were led to believe the 
 * quarter ' to which you were ' obliged to listen,' must have 
 been the government ; and yet Mr Baines says, ' the govern- 
 ment are not to be charged with the defeat of the measure.' 
 Then again Mr Baines says, ' the Board of Trade was 
 inclined to support you until embarrassed by the members of 
 the north.' And you say they (t. e. the Scotch members) 
 ' were supported by the Board of Trade.' Mr Baines after- 
 wards adds, ' It is to the credit of Yorkshire, that none of 
 the opposition given to the bill proceeded from either of its 
 members or manufacturers.' Now if you did not inform him 
 that this was the fact, he ought not to have assumed it, and I 
 fancy you could not have told him so, because I happen to 
 know that petitions were sent against it by some of the 
 manufacturers of Huddersfield, Halifax, and Bradford ; and I 
 think Mr Baines will not dispute that these places are in 
 Yorkshire. Then, again, I was informed, by a most respect- 
 able and humane manufacturer, who supported the bill with 
 very great zeal and perseverance, and at considerable expense, 
 that Mr Marshall, of Leeds, opposed the bill. Now I fancy, 
 that Mr Baines himself will admit that Leeds is in Yorkshire, 
 and that Mr Marshall is a Yorkshire manufacturer. It was in 
 consequence of these positive contradictions in Mr Baines's 
 report, that I was induced to trouble you, finding that many 
 persons were puzzled, and did not know whether Mr Baines or 
 yourself might have made these irreconcilable statements, 
 which you must agree with me, no rational person could com- 
 prehend. I regret exceedingly you have no copy of the 
 letter, but I feel satisfied you could not have authorised Mr 
 Baines to print such nonsense. I have asked Mr Baines for 
 an explanation ; he has not favoured me with one. It appears 
 to the friends of the measure essentially necessary, that they 
 should actually know their opponents, otherwise they should 
 never know where to direct their energies. If these men did 
 oppose the operatives, they have a right to be informed of it ;
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. ,143 
 
 they would then be able to assist in sending up to parliament 
 interest and argument as strong as theirs. 
 
 *' That the Factories' Bill should now be made a political 
 electioneering question cannot be matter of surprise, and, I 
 think, is not one of regret. We have witnessed a friend of 
 emancipation (yourself) defeated by a certain kind of influ- 
 ence, exercised over the feelings and judgment of the repre- 
 sentatives of the people — ' the Scotch flax-spinners' for 
 instance, who ' sent down so numerous and influential a body 
 of members ' to the House against you. It is very plain that, 
 if the friends of the measure are not determined, when an 
 election takes place, to send up ' as numerous and influential a 
 body of members ' in favour of the measure, there can be no 
 hopes of any relief. I am not aware that the question is 
 intended to be mixed up with general politics, but merely so 
 far as to secure votes in its favour from the new members ; 
 and I sincerely hope that no members vrill be returned (where 
 the operatives have any influence, or where the hateful factory 
 system is known) but those who are known to be friendly to a 
 Ten Hours' Bill. I hope the workmen will have the wisdom 
 not to be gulled by the terms whig, tory, or radical, but be 
 determined to sujyport men who will sujyport this bill. I really 
 think the ' good operatives ' are quite as able to exercise a 
 correct judgment on this question as they are on the very 
 complicated one of ' parliamentary reform ;' and you know 
 the King himself and the government made that an ' elec- 
 tioneering question.'' We are exhorted, I see, by Mr Baines, 
 to 'petition parhament.' This may be very right when we 
 have secured good members ; but if we are to have our peti- 
 tions presented to a body of representatives, governed by 
 ' the cold, calculating, but mistaken Scotch philosophers,' 
 then I fancy we might as well save ourselves the trouble and 
 expense ; and I think it is very plain, from the concluding 
 part of your letter to Mr Baines (if he quotes correctly), that 
 we have no chance of 'conciliating' the Scotch members with-
 
 144 '^^^ niSTOKY OF 
 
 out a ' numerous and influential body of members,' wlio will 
 be resolved to do an act of justice to our cruelly insulted and 
 degraded infants. I hope also the landowner, the farmer, the 
 little millowner, the domestic manufacturer, the little trades- 
 man, the shopkeeper, the mechanic, and the artisan, will ALL 
 join us in this struggle against 'Scotch philosophy;' or they 
 may be assured, every one op them, that the system of 
 infantile slavery is a system of universal pauperism ; nay, 
 thousands of them have already proved this awful truth. 
 
 " I am truly sorry you despair of ever carrying a bill for 
 * ten hours for five days, and eight on the Saturday.' You 
 have certainly had much experience how the ' influence ' is 
 got up ' so far as parliament is concerned ;' but we know 
 that hitherto the operatives have neglected to use their influ- 
 ence, and ice think we are their friends when we advise them 
 to use it. The ' Scotch philosophers ' have hitherto had all 
 the influence, and the poor children have only had the sup- 
 port of disinterested philanthropists like yourself ; and besides, 
 we are told that, in a reformed parliament, the people will have 
 a more direct influence. I think, then, the friends of the 
 measure should rejoice that the people are determined to make 
 this a political (electioneering) question. 
 
 *' I hope the limits sought for by the operatives may in the 
 end be realised ; nay, in such a case I cannot doubt, till I am 
 informed upon what principle of religion, nature, law, or 
 policy, a child ought to be subject to two hours' longer work 
 per day than a full-grown man. When I am made wise on 
 this point, I may perhaps doubt. But all the ' Scotch phi- 
 losophy ' can never make me fear the success of this mea- 
 sure until that question be answered, and even when that 
 point is solved, two others will arise — viz., If it be beneficial ? 
 If it be magnanimous and worthy of the bravest nation in the 
 world ? 
 
 " I am not altogether ignorant of the kind of parliamentary 
 influence which makes you doubt the possibility of carrying
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 145 
 
 even your original measure ; and I know something of the 
 difficulties you have to encounter, yet, 1 have no doubt that a 
 much more extensive measure will be adopted before many 
 years are passed; and although, at present, the idea of work- 
 ing infants only ten hours a day may appear ignorant, 
 ridiculous, extravagant, idle, delusive, and impossible to the 
 legislators of this country, I cannot doubt that, in a very 
 short time, our legislators will hardly believe it was ever 
 possible for a Christian parKament to refuse such an act. I 
 anticipate with gladness the day when yourself, Mr Sadler, 
 and Mr Strickland (for he is noio, I am happy to say, 
 a TEN hours' man), will be exerting your mighty powers 
 of eloquence for the liberation of the most oppressed beings 
 under the sun. The alteration would at once prevent the 
 unnatural effect of increasing human labour with the increase 
 of machinery ; it is this circumstance, proceeding not from 
 the nature of machinery, but from the avarice of man, which 
 makes machinery often appear to be a curse. The natural 
 effect of machinery must be to lessen human labour ; the 
 actual effect, under the present system, is to increase it. 
 
 " I rejoice that Mr Sadler has declared himself a legis- 
 lator on this subject, in accordance with the principles of his 
 whole life ; the declaration is founded on justice, the prin- 
 ciples are those of truth, and must ultimately prevail. I am 
 at a loss to conceive how a Ten Hours' a Day Bill can be 
 ' prejudicial to the operatives,' or how such a desire can be 
 called ' extravagant and unreasonable.' If this measui'e is 
 ' rejected at the very mention of the proposition in the 
 House of Commons,' none will regret it more than myself; 
 but that unfortunate circumstance would not dishearten its 
 friends. It would only spur them on to greater exertions, 
 and would undoubtedly lead to certain success. ' Immediat'i 
 praise ' and ' fleeting popularity ' are, indeed, unworthy mo- 
 tives, and particularly in a legislator. So far as I have 
 experienced, they are the last things a man will be troubled 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 with, if he pursue a straightforward course, and act upon 
 principle. 
 
 " Your ' Cotton Act ' is, I believe, an improvement, and 
 I thank you for it; but I do wish you had debated the 
 question in the House. I think, with Mr Strickland, that 
 it would have been better 'that the abandonment of the bill 
 should have been caused by an open division.' 
 
 "I must apologise for the freedom and length of tliis 
 epistle, and cannot conclude without thanking you most 
 sincerely for your kind attention to my letter, and assuring 
 you that I feel unfeignedly grateful for the exertions you 
 have already made, and still hope that you will, on full 
 consideration, support the principle of limiting the labour 
 of your children to ten hours a day, that being as much as 
 they can or ought to endure. As you say that I may give 
 any publicity I may think advisable to your communication, 
 I shall give it, along with mine, to the editors of the news- 
 papers. I feel there ought to be no secrets on the subject. 
 " I have the honour to remain, Sir, 
 
 " Your most obedient, humble servant, 
 
 "Richard Oastler." 
 
 Mr Sadler, encouraged by the favourable and enthu- 
 siastic feeling in Yorkshire, and neighbouring counties of 
 Lancashire and Cheshire, introduced his projected Ten 
 Hours' Bill to the House of Commons early in 1831. He 
 was energetically supported by his friends not in parliament, 
 and strengthened by numerous petitions. Notwithstanding 
 the efforts of a very powerful opposition, the feeling in favour 
 of factory interference was decidedly on the increase. The 
 readers of Reviews Avill recal the ' ' Let all things alone " 
 doctrine which pervaded the essays in the Edinburgh, among 
 these the brilliant critical productions from the pen of Mr T. 
 B. Macaulay. By way of example, take Macaulay's review 
 of Southeys Colloquies on Society ; it contains the following
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 147 
 
 paragraph : — " As to the effect of the manufacturing system 
 on the bodily health, we must beg leave to estimate it by a 
 standard far too low and vulgar for a mind so imaginative as 
 that of Mr Southey, the proportion of births and deaths. 
 We know that, during the growth of this atrocious system, 
 this new misery, to use the phrases of Mr Southey, this 
 new enormity, this birth of a portentous age, this pest which 
 no man can approve whose heart is not seared or whose 
 understanding has not been darkened, there has been a great 
 diminution of mortality, and that this diminution has been 
 greater in the manufacturing towns than anywhere else. 
 The mortality still is, as it always was, greater in towns than 
 in the country. But the difference has diminished in an 
 extraordinary degree. There is the best reason to believe that 
 the annual mortality of Manchester, about the middle of the 
 last century, was one in twenty-eight. It is now reckoned 
 at one in forty-five. In Glasgow and Leeds, a similar im- 
 provement has taken place. Nay, the rate of mortality in 
 those three great capitals of the manufacturing districts, is 
 now considerably less than it was fifty years ago, over 
 England and Wales, taken together, open coimtry and all. 
 We might, with some plausibility, maintain that the people 
 live longer because they are better fed, better lodged, better 
 clothed, and better attended in sickness, and that these im- 
 provements are owing to that increase of national wealth 
 which the manufacturing system has produced." In the 
 same essay, Mr Macaulay condemned the " intermeddling " 
 of government, and expressed his opinions on the duties of 
 rulers in very decided words: — "It is not," wrote the 
 Edinburgh Reviewer^ in 1830, " by the intermeddling of Mr 
 Southey's idol, the omniscient and omnipotent state, but by 
 the prudence and energy of the people, that England has 
 hitherto been carried forward in civilization ; and it is to the 
 same prudence and the same energy that we now look with 
 comfort and good hope. Our rulers will best promote the 
 
 L 2
 
 148 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 improvement of the nation by strictly confining themselves to 
 their own legitimate duties, by leaving capital to find its most 
 kicrative course, commodities their fair price, industry and 
 intelligence their natural reward, idleness and folly their 
 natural punishment, by maintaining peace, by defending 
 property, by diminishing the price of law, and by observing 
 strict economy in every department of the state. Let the 
 government do this ; the people will assuredly do the rest." 
 It would be irrational to suppose that any man of Mr 
 Macaulay's standing, as a gentleman and an author, so 
 thoroughly convinced of the advantages associated with our 
 modern manufacturing system, so decided and emphatic 
 against "intermeddling," and so assured of the advantages 
 arising "by leaving capital to find its most lucrative course," 
 could have conceived the necessity for interference by law 
 in the regulation of factories. The proposition requires no 
 defence, for had Mr Macaulay been correct in his statements, 
 not any interference could have been advantageous. The 
 mind of Mr Macaulay had evidently undergone a considerable 
 change between the years 1830 and 1832, as the subjoined 
 letter, addressed to Mr Ralph Taylor, Secretary of the Leeds 
 Short-time Committee, will prove: — 
 
 " London, March 16tli, 1832. 
 " Sir, — I am decidedly favourable to the principle of Mr 
 Sadler's bill. That is to say, I think that the hours of labour 
 of children ought to be regulated. But I see, I confess, some 
 strong objections to the machineiy by which Mr Sadler pro- 
 poses to effect this object ; and I know that some of the most 
 zealous and intelligent friends of the working classes, both in 
 and out of parliament, agree with me in thinking, that if the 
 bill now before us should pass into a law without great modi- 
 fications, its efiect would be most seriously to injure the 
 labourers of our manufacturing districts. There is a strong 
 and general feehng in the House of Commons, that something 
 ought to be speedily done for the protection of the children.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 149 
 
 There is also, I think, a general feeling that the details of" Mr 
 Sadler's bill have not been well considered. The government 
 will, I believe, take the question up: and I hope and trust, 
 that before the end of this session, we shall have a law which 
 will accomplish your object in an unexceptionable manner. 
 Permit me to add one word on the subject of the Order in 
 Council, which has been sent to St Lucie. That Order, as you 
 justly say, has provided that a slave shall be forced to work 
 only nine hours a day, and only five days a week. But you 
 forget, I tliink, that the slave has to find his own subsistence 
 besides. The time which is secured to him is not holiday 
 time. He must cultivate his own provision-ground during 
 the hours when he is absent from his master's sugar planta- 
 tion. The labour of the slave which the Order in Council 
 limits, is a forced labour, and an unpaid labour. He may 
 work eighteen hours a day voluntarily, and for hire if he 
 pleases. The Order does not in the least restrict him from 
 performing any quantity of work which it may be his own 
 pleasure to perform. There is, therefore, not the slightest 
 analogy between the case of a freeman of mature years. The 
 law ought to limit the hours of forced labour of the slave: — 
 and why? Because he is a slave. Because he has no power 
 to help himself. But the freeman cannot be forced to work to 
 the ruin of his health. If he works over hours, it is because 
 it is his own choice to do so. The law ought not to protect 
 him; for he can protect himself. 
 
 " The case of a child bears a nearer analogy to the case of 
 a slave. The child may have cruel parents, or may be in the 
 power of those who are not his parents. It is therefore just 
 and reasonable, that the law should extend to the child a pro- 
 tection similar to that which it extends to the slave. But the 
 reason for this protection ceases as soon as the child becomes 
 his own master, and is capable of contracting on his own 
 behalf. The Order in Council to which you refer, limits the 
 hours during which free negroes arc to work. And in the
 
 150 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 same manner I would limit the hours of labour for a child of 
 thirteen or fourteen. But why the hours of labour of a youth 
 in his twentieth year should be limited, as proposed by Mr 
 Sadler's bill, I cannot understand. 
 
 " I earnestly hope that we may be able to come to a 
 speedy and satisfactory adjustment of this question. 
 " I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 
 " Your most obedient servant, 
 
 " T. B. Macaulay." 
 
 Mr Macaulay 's letter is evidence of a change in his mind; 
 though distinctions are carefully made between slaves and 
 freemen, adults and children; yet the question presses for an 
 answer, What was the physical and moral condition of those, 
 designated adult free men and women, resident in the factory 
 districts, who habitually allowed their children to work under 
 conditions which called for interference by the state? The 
 answer is necessarily the converse of Mr Macaulay 's eulogium of 
 the manufacturing system, as expressed in 1830. The judgment 
 of the statesman of 1832, was ripened by increased know- 
 ledge, beyond that of the Reviewer of 1830. While standing 
 fast by the rule of 1830, the force of evidence, and a 
 growing public opinion, had caused a recognition of an 
 opposing principle, as regarded children employed in 
 factory labour. 
 
 Mr Macaulay's letter of March, 1832, was, to the sup- 
 porters of factory legislation, more encouraging and hopeful 
 than the letter of Sir John Cam Hobhouse, to Mr Oastler, on 
 the same subject, in November, 1831. Mr Macaulay's 
 sources of information were excellent; the progress of the 
 question, among those in high quarters, in and out of office, 
 was owing to mcreased knowledge, and the untiring and 
 energetic labours of its supporters in the country, and in London. 
 
 On December the 15th, 1831, Mr Sadler obtained leave to 
 bring into parliament a bill " for regulating the labour of
 
 THE FACrOKY MOVEMENT. 151 
 
 children and young persons in the mills and factories of this 
 country." Mr Sadler consequently framed his bill, had it 
 printed and circulated among the members of the House of 
 Commons, and moved its second reading, on the 16th of 
 March, 1832. As a valuable contribution to the historical 
 and social literature of the country, Mr Sadler's speech on 
 that occasion deserves to take high rank; as an exposition of 
 the wrongs endured by the operatives engaged in factory 
 labour, and an answer to the opponents of his measure, it has 
 not been surpassed; its worth is permanent, its contents 
 eminently deserve the close study of those who feel an interest 
 in the improvement of the labouring portions of the com- 
 monwealth. Mr Sadler said: — 
 
 " Sir, — In rising to move the second reading of the bill, 
 wliich I have had the honour of introducing into parliament, 
 for regulating the labour of children and young persons, not 
 being free agents, employed in the mills and factories of the 
 country, of whatever description, I shall, as far as is consistent 
 with the high importance of the subject, and the great and 
 general interest which it has excited throughout the entire 
 community, compress the arguments and facts upon which I 
 found the necessity of this measure ; and I shall not misapply 
 many moments of the time which I must still occupy by 
 allusions personal to myself, however much I may have been 
 provoked to such a course. I will merely say, that in bringing 
 forward this measure, I make no pretensions to a degree of 
 humanity beyond that which I share Avith the people at large ; 
 still less am I influenced by any views adverse to tlie pros- 
 perity and extension of our manufactures and commerce: least 
 of all can I be governed by feelings otherwise than cordial to 
 those embarked in these great concerns. On the contrary, in 
 pursuing this course, I am acting under the impression, at 
 least, that the measure which I propose will advance the true 
 and permanent interests of the manufacturers, the cordial 
 encouragement and support of many of the most humane and
 
 152 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 best-informed of whom I regard as the strongest proof of the 
 necessity of the measure, and the surest presage of its success. 
 As to the imputation cast upon me by others of a different 
 description, who wish to defeat this attempt, as they have 
 hitherto done preceding ones of a Hke nature, not only 
 by thwarting the designs, but by maligning the motives, of 
 those who make them ; and who, therefore, accuse me of 
 being instigated by a mean desire of popularity, in now 
 undertaking a cause which, nevertheless, some of them know 
 well enough, I advocated as strongly long before I was in 
 parliament, as I can do on the present occasion : I say, as to 
 this imputation, I should have passed it over in silence, only 
 that it affords me an opportunity, which I will not neglect, 
 of proving, even from the mouths of its opponents, that the 
 measure is popular — popular in the fullest and best sense of 
 the term, — and the House, I think, has seen, from the 
 petitions which have already loaded its table, signed by 
 magistrates, clergy, and professional men, as well as by 
 immense numbers of the operative classes, that its popularity 
 is founded upon the principles, the intellect, and the feelings 
 of the British community, and that those who resist it must 
 reckon on contempt and indignation. 
 
 "The bill which I now implore the House to sanction 
 with its authority, has for its object the liberation of chil- 
 dren and other young persons employed in the mills and 
 factories of the United Kingdom, from that over-exertion and 
 long confinement, which common sense, as well as experience, 
 has shown to be utterly inconsistent with the improvement of | 
 their minds, the preservation of their morals, and the main- 
 tenance of their health ; — in a word, to rescue them from a 
 state of suffering and degradation, which it is conceived the 
 children of the industrious classes in hardly any other country 
 have ever endured. 
 
 " I am aware that some gentlemen profess, upon principle, 
 a great reluctance to legislate upon these matters, holding such
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 153 
 
 interference to be an evil. So, I reply, is all legislation, — 
 upon whatever subject, — and an evil only to be tolerated for 
 the purpose of preventing some greater one ; I shall there- 
 fore content myself with meeting this objection, common as 
 it is, by simply challenging those who urge it to show us a 
 case which has stronger claims for the interposition of the 
 law, whether we regard the nature of the evil to be abated, 
 as affecting the individuals, society at large, and posterity ; 
 or the utter helplessness of those on whose behalf we are 
 called on to interfere ; or, lastly, the fact — •which experience 
 has left no longer in doubt, that, if the law does not, there 
 is no other power that can or will adequately protect 
 them. 
 
 " But, I apprehend, the strongest objections that will be 
 offered on this occasion, will be grounded upon the pretence 
 that the very prmciple of the bill is an improper interference 
 between the employer and the employed, and an attempt to 
 regulate by law the market of labour. Were that market 
 supplied by free agents, properly so denominated, I should 
 fully participate in these objections. Theoretically, indeed, 
 such is the case, but practically I fear the fact is far otherwise, 
 even regarding those who are of mature age ; and the boasted 
 freedom of our labourers in many pursuits will, on a just view 
 of their condition, be found Kttle more than a name. Those 
 who argue the question upon mere abstract principles seem, in 
 my apprehension, too much to forget the condition of society : 
 the unequal division of property, or rather its total monopoly 
 by the few, leaving the many nothing but what they can 
 obtain by their daily labour ; which very labour cannot 
 become available for the purposes of daily subsistence, 
 without the consent of those who own the property of the 
 community, — all the materials, elements, call them what you 
 please, on which labour can be bestowed, being in their 
 possession. Hence it is clear that, excepting in a state of 
 things where the demand for labour fully equals the supply
 
 154 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 (which it would be absurdly false to say exists in this 
 country), the employer and the employed do not meet on 
 equal terms in the market of labour; on the contrary, the 
 latter, whatever be his age, and call him as free as you please, 
 is often almost entirely at the mercy of the former ;■ — ^he 
 would be wholly so were it not for the operation of the 
 poor-laws, which are a palpable interference with the market 
 of labour, and condemned as such by their opponents. 
 Hence is it that labour is so imperfectly distributed, and so 
 inadequately remunerated ; that one part of the population 
 is over-worked, while another is wholly without employment ; 
 evils which operate reciprocally upon each other, till a com- 
 munity which might afford a sufficiency of moderate employ" 
 ment for all, exliibits at one and the same time part of its 
 members reduced to the condition of slaves by over -exertion, 
 and another part to that of paupers by involuntary idleness. 
 In a word, wealth, still more than knowledge, is power ; and 
 power, hable to abuse wherever vested, is least of all free 
 from tyrannical exercise, when it owes its existence to a 
 sordid source. Hence have all laws, human or divine, 
 attempted to protect the labourer from the injustice and 
 cruelty which are too often practised upon him. Our statute- 
 book contains many proofs of this, and especially in its pro- 
 vision for the poor. The Anti-Truck Bill of last year is an 
 instance of this benevolent kind of interposition ; and that 
 sacred institution which has been adopted and legally enforced, 
 as far as the hmits of civilization extend, and which justifies 
 its claim to divine origin by its humanity and mercy — the 
 institution of the Sabbath — is a constantly-recurring example 
 of interference between the employer and the employed, 
 solely and avowedly in favour of the latter : and 1 cannot 
 help regretting, that almost every other red-letter day has 
 been long ago blotted out from the dark calendar of labouring 
 poverty, whose holidays are now too ' few and far between ' 
 to chcei^ the spirits or recruit the health of our industrious
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 155 
 
 population. It was promised, indeed, and might have been 
 expected, that the great inventions of recent times would 
 have restored a few of these ; — would have somewhat 
 abridged human labour in its duration, and abated its inten- 
 sity : and it is only by effecting this that machinery can 
 justify its very definition, as consisting of inventions to 
 shorten human labour. I look forward to the period when 
 machinery will fully vindicate its pretensions, and surpass, 
 in its beneficial effects, all that its most sansruine advocates 
 have anticipated : when those inventions, whether so com- 
 plicate and minute as almost to supplant the human hand, 
 or so stupendous as to tame the very elements, and yoke 
 them to the triumphal car of human industry, shall outstrip 
 our boldest expectations, not so much, indeed, by still further 
 augmenting the superfluities of the rich, as by increasing 
 the comforts and diminishing the labour of the poor ; thereby 
 restoring to the mass of our fellotv -beings those physical 
 enjoyments, that degree of leisure, those means of moral 
 and mental improvement, which alone can advance them to 
 that state of happiness and dignity to which, I trust, it is 
 their destiny to attain. Hitherto, however, I repeat, the 
 effect has been far different. The condition of the operative 
 manufacturers has been rendered more and more dependent 
 and precarious : their labour, when employed, is in many 
 cases so increased as to be utterly irreconcilable with the 
 preservation of health or even life ; infancy itself is forced 
 into the market of labour, where it becomes the unresisting 
 victim of cruelty and oppression ; while, as might be expected 
 from such an unnatural state of things, the remuneration for 
 this increasing and excessive toil is regularly diminishing, 
 till at length multitudes among us are reduced, in their phy- 
 sical condition at least, below the level of the slave or the 
 brute. In proof that this is no singular or overcharged 
 view of the present effect, or at all events of the ultimate 
 conscfjuences, of this dreadfiil system, I shall appeal to the
 
 156 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 language of a benevolent and enlightened individual, for- 
 merly a member of this House, and an ornament to it and 
 the country — I mean the late Sir Robert Peel. His deli- 
 berate judgment upon this important subject is thus recorded 
 in a document v?hich he delivered to the committee on the 
 bill he introduced in 1816 : — 
 
 " ' Such indiscriminate and unlimited employment of the 
 poor, consisting of a great proportion of the inhabitants of 
 the trading districts, will be attended with effects to the 
 rising generation so serious and alarming, that I cannot con- 
 template them without dismay ; and thus that great effort of 
 British ingenuity, whereby the machinery of our manufacturers 
 has been brought to such perfection, instead of being a 
 blessing, will be converted into its bitterest curse.' 
 
 " Neither in quoting this passage, nor in making the 
 observations which introduced it, would I be understood to 
 recommend any interference with the efforts of human 
 ingenuity, or with the market of labour, as supplied by free 
 agents. But in showing how far even adults are from being 
 free agents, in the proper meaning of the term, and, on the 
 contrary, how dependent for their employment, and conse- 
 quently their daily bread, upon the will of others, I have 
 prepared the way for the conclusion, that children, at aU 
 events, are not to be regarded as free labourers ; and that it 
 is the duty of this House to protect them from that system 
 of cruelty and oppression to which I shall presently advert. 
 The common-place objection,, that the parents are free agents, 
 and that the children therefore ought to be regarded as such, 
 I apprehend has but Httle force. It is, however, so often and 
 so confidently urged, that I shall be excused for giving it 
 some attention. 
 
 "The parents who surrender their children to this infantile 
 slavery may be separated into two classes. The first, and I 
 trust by far the most numerous one, consists of those who 
 are obliged, by extreme indigence, so to act, but who do it
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 157 
 
 with great reluctance and bitter regret; themselves perliaps 
 out of employment, or working at very low wages, and their 
 families in a state of great destitution. What can they do ? 
 The overseer, as is in evidence, refuses relief if they have 
 children capable of working in factories whom they object 
 to send thither. They choose, therefore, what they probably 
 deem the lesser evil, and reluctantly resign their offspring to 
 the captivity and pollution of the mill: they rouse them in 
 the winter morning, which, as a poor father says before the 
 Lords' Committee, they ' feel very sorry ' to do ; — they receive 
 them fatigued and exhausted, many a weary hour after the 
 day has closed; — they see them droop and sicken, and in 
 many cases become cripples and die, before they reach their 
 prime : and they do all this because they must otherwise 
 suffer unrelieved, and starve, like Ugolino, amidst their starv- 
 ing children. It is mockery to contend that these parents 
 have a choice ; that they can dictate to, or even parley with, 
 the employer as to the number of hours their child shall be 
 worked, or the treatment it shall be subject to in his mill ; 
 and it is an insult to the parental heart to say that they resign 
 it voluntary; — no, ' Their poverty, and not their will, consents.' 
 — Consents, indeed ! but often with tears, as Dr Ashton, 
 a physician famihar with the whole system, informed the 
 committee, a noble member of which, indeed, observed to 
 one of the poor parents then examined, who was speaking 
 of the successive fate of several of his children, whom he 
 had been obliged to send to the factory — ' You can hardly 
 speak of them without crying ? ' The answer was * No ! ' 
 and few, I should suppose, refrain from sympathising with 
 him, who heard his simple but melancholy story. Free 
 agents ! To suppose that parents are free agents while 
 dooming their own flesh and blood to this fate, is to believe 
 them monsters. 
 
 " But, Sir, there are such monsters : unknown indeed 
 in the brute creation, they belong to our own kind, and are
 
 158 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 found in our own country ; and they are generated by the 
 very system which I am attacking. They have been long 
 known, and often described, as constituting the remaining 
 class of parents to which I have adverted. Dead to the 
 instincts of nature, and reversing the order of society, instead 
 of providing for their offspring, they make their offspring 
 provide for them : not only for their necessities, but for their 
 intemperance and profligacy. They purchase idleness by the 
 sweat of their infants, the price of whose happiness, health, 
 aud existence, they spend in the haunts of dissipation and 
 vice. Thus, at the very same hour of night that the father 
 is at his guilty orgies, the child is panting at the factory. 
 Such wretches count upon their children as upon their cattle ; 
 — nay, to so disgusting a state of degradation does the system 
 lead, that they make the certainty of having offspring the 
 indispensable condition of marriage, that they may breed a 
 generation of slaves. These, then, are some of the free 
 agents, without the storgh of the beast, or the feelings of the 
 man, to whom the advocates of the present system assure 
 us we ouo;ht to entrust the labourinii; of little children. One 
 of these 'free agents,' a Avitness against Sir Robert Peel's 
 bill, confessed that he had pushed his own child down and 
 broken her arm, because she did not do as he thought 
 proper, while in the mill. The Lords' Committee refused 
 to hear him another word. And shall we listen to those 
 who urge us to commit little children to such guardianship ? 
 We have heard, in a late memorable case, a dictum, uncon- 
 tradicted I believe in any quarter, stating that, by the 
 constitution of England, the first law officer of the crown, 
 representing the sovereign, is the guardian of all children, of 
 whatever rank, improperly treated by their parents ; but 
 that that court is limited in its interference by the circum- 
 stance of there being property under its control. Will it be 
 contended, then, that in these extreme cases of cruelty and 
 oppression (for such I shall call them), where protection is
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 159 
 
 far more imperatively demanded, that poverty should be a 
 bar against the course of British justice ? If so, let us boast 
 no longer of the impartiality of our laws ! Why, if in a 
 solitary instance a parent were to confine his child, or a 
 master his apprentice, in a heated room, and knowingly 
 keep him at his labour more hours than nature could sustain, 
 and at length the victim were to die under the tyrannous 
 oppression, and a coroner's inquest were to return a true and 
 just verdict upon the occasion, what would be the result ? 
 
 And are the multiplication of such gradual 
 
 murders, and the effrontery with which they are perpetrated, 
 to become their expiation ? If not, it is high time that the 
 legislature should interfere and rescue from the conspiracy 
 of such fathers and such masters, instigated by kindred 
 feelings, these innocent victims of cruelty and oppression. 
 
 " There are other descriptions of children, also, whom I 
 should be glad to know how the objectors to whom I am 
 alluding, make out to be free agents. I mean, first, poor 
 orphan children — a class which the system is a very eflScient 
 instrument in multiplying : very few adult spinners, as it is 
 often alleged, and as I shall prove, surviving forty; in many 
 instances, therefore, leaving their children fatherless at a very 
 early period of fife : indeed, so numerous are these, that a 
 physician, examined on the occasion to which I have so often 
 alluded, was painfully struck with the proportion. Are these 
 orphans free agents ? — Again, there is in all manufacturing 
 towns, a great number of illegitimate claildren, and these also 
 are very much increased by the system in question. I am 
 aware that a celebrated authority has said, these are, ' com- 
 paratively speaking, of no value to society; — others would 
 supply their place,' — yet still I cannot but regard these as 
 objects of the deepest compassion. To this list of free agents 
 I might also add the little children who are still apprenticed 
 out in considerable numbers, often I fear by the too ready 
 sanction of the magistrates — whose hard, and sometimes fatal.
 
 160 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 treatment has been tlie subject of many recent communications 
 ■which I have received from individuals of the highest credit 
 and respectabihty. But, as the objectors to legislative pro- 
 tection for the factory children can make it out to be unne- 
 cessary, because their parents are ' free agents ' for them, 
 when they have any surviving, so also it is quite as clear, 
 probably, in their apprehension, that the parish officer is as 
 good a free agent for the poor orphan, the illegitimate, or the 
 friendless little apprentice, who may be under his special 
 protection. 
 
 " But I will proceed no further with these objections. 
 The idea of treating children, and especially the children 
 of the poor — and, above all, the children of the poor im- 
 prisoned in factories — as free agents, is too absurd to justify 
 the attention I have already paid to it. The protection of 
 poor children and young persons from those hardships and 
 cruelties to which their age and condition have always ren- 
 dered them peculiarly liable, has ever been held one of the 
 first and most important duties of every Christian legislature. 
 Our own has not been unmindftd in this respect ; and it is 
 mainly owing to the change of circumstances that many of 
 its humane provisions have been rendered inoperative, and 
 that the present measure has become the more necessary. I 
 had meant to take a short review of these various efforts 
 down to the time of the benevolent Hanway ; but, interesting 
 as the subject is, and appHcable to the present discussion, I 
 must forbear, in respect to the time it would occupy, to do so. 
 It was the introduction of Sir Richard Arkwright's invention 
 that revolutionised the entire system of our national industry. 
 Previously to that period, the incipient manufactui-es of the 
 country were carried on in the villages and around the 
 domestic hearth : that invention transferred them principally 
 to the great towns, and almost confined them to what are now 
 called factories. Thus, children became the principal opera- 
 tives; and they no longer performed their tasks, as before.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 161 
 
 under the parental eye, and had them affectionately and con- 
 siderately apportioned, according to their health and capaci- 
 ties, but one universal rule of labour was prescribed to all 
 ages, to botli sexes, and to every state and constitution. Such 
 a regulation, therefore, it might have been expected, would 
 have been adapted to the different degrees of physical 
 strength in the young, the delicate, and especially the female 
 sex. But no ! — T speak it with shame, with horror — it was 
 stretched, in many cases — I had almost said in nearly all — 
 beyond what the most athletic and robust of our own sex, in 
 the prime and vigour of life, can with impunity sustain; — to 
 the ultimate destruction, in a vast majority of instances, of the 
 health, the •happiness, and the very life, of the miserable 
 victims. Our ancestors could not have supposed it possible — 
 posterity will not believe it true — it Avill be placed among the 
 historic doubts of some future antiquary — that a generation of 
 Englishmen could exist, or had existed, that would labour 
 lisping infancy, of a few summers old, regardless alike of its 
 smiles or tears, and unmoved by its unresisting weakness, 
 eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, sixteen hours a day, and 
 through the weary night also, till, in the dewy morn of 
 existence, the bud of youth faded, and fell ere it was unfolded. 
 ' Oh, cursed lust of gold!' Oh, the guilt which England was 
 contracting in the kindling eye of Heaven, when nothing but 
 exultations were heard about the perfection of her machinery, 
 the march of her manufactures, and the rapid increase of her 
 wealth and prosperity ! 
 
 " Early, however, in this century, the late Sir Robert 
 Peel, knowing well the enormities of the factory system, and 
 finding, from his own experience, that nothing but a legisla- 
 tive enactment could remove them, obtained the first Act for 
 the protection of poor children employed in cotton factories. 
 About fifteen or sixteen years afterwards, he carried another 
 measure, of a similar, but more comprehensive nature. 
 Lastly, the right honourable member for Westminster obtained 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 THE HISTOEY OF 
 
 another Act, last session, having the same benevolent object in 
 view. But, on all these occasions, the attempt, by whom- 
 soever made, or whatever was its character, was met with the 
 same strenuous, or, as I might well call it, vehement opposi- 
 tion. Whether it was proposed to limit the labour of infants 
 and young persons, beside the time necessary for their meals 
 and refreshment, to ten, eleven, or even twelve hours a-day, it 
 was all one ; the proposal was scouted and resisted. The 
 motives and conduct of those engaged in attempting to obtain 
 this protection, were maligned. The universal humanity of 
 all those in every pursuit, whose power over these children 
 was unrestrained, was boldly asserted; the superior health, 
 happiness, and even longevity, of those employed were always 
 maintained. Whatever was the nature or duration of the 
 employment which these young persons, whether daily or 
 nightly, pursued, it was contended that no injury, but abun- 
 dance of good, was done to them. On every occasion this 
 opposition has virtually succeeded, so as to defeat the original 
 intentions of those who have successively proposed these 
 measures. It has succeeded in lengthening the term of infan- 
 tile labour, in limiting every act to one particular branch of 
 business, in introducing provisions which have rendered them 
 liable to constant evasions, and it is well known that the 
 whole of them are evaded, and rendered little better than a 
 dead letter. 
 
 " The very same opposition that has so long and so often 
 triumphed over justice and humanity, is again organizedj and 
 actively at work, and will proceed as before. Every branch 
 of manufacture proposed to be regulated claims in turn to be 
 excepted; a committee of inquiry is again demanded, and, I 
 fear, in order to postpone, if not finally to defeat, the present 
 measure. The nature of the evidence that will be brought 
 forward is perfectly familiar to those acquainted at all with 
 the subject. Certificates and declarations will be obtained in 
 abundance, from divines and doctors, as to the morality and
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 163 
 
 health which the present system promotes and secures. I 
 cannot refrain from giving a sample of what may he expected 
 in this Hne, and I think it will prepare us for, and arm us 
 against, whatever may be advanced in favour of so unnatural 
 and oppressive a system. I mean not to impeach the inten- 
 tional veracity or the learning of the witnesses who appeared 
 in its favour, and whose evidence cuts a very conspicuous 
 figure in these ponderous reports ; it furnishes, however, 
 another proof of the strange things that may be, perhaps 
 conscientiously believed and asserted when the mind or 
 conduct is under a particular bias. They have said that the 
 children who were worked without any regulation, and 
 consequently according to their employers' sole will and 
 pleasure, were not only eqvially, but more healthy, and better 
 instructed than those not so occupied ; that night-labour was 
 in no way prejudicial, but actually preferred ; that the 
 artificial heat of the rooms was really advantageous, and quite 
 pleasant; and that nothing could equal the reluctance of the 
 children to have it abated. That so far from being fatigued 
 with, for example, twelve hours' labour, the children per- 
 formed even the last hour's work with greater interest and 
 spirit than any of the rest. What a pity the term was not 
 lengthened ! in a few more hours they would have been 
 worked into a perfect ecstasy of delight. We had been 
 indeed informed that the women and children often cried 
 with fatigue, but their tears were doubtless tears of rapture. 
 A doctor is produced, who mil not pronounce, without 
 examination, to what extent this luxury of excessive labour 
 might be carried without being prejudicial. I must quote a 
 few of his answers to certain queries. ' Should you not 
 think (he is asked) that, generally speaking, a child eight 
 years old standing twelve hours in the day would be 
 injurious?' The doctor reverses, perhaps by mistake, the 
 figures, but his answer concludes, — ' I believe it is not.' 
 ' Supposing (it was again demanded) I were to ask you 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 whether you thought it injurious to a child to be kept 
 standing three- and-twenty hours out of the four-and-twenty, 
 should you not think it must be necessarily injurious to the 
 health ; without any fact to rest upon, as a simple proposition 
 put to a gentleman of the medical profession 1 ' ' Before I 
 answer that question,' the doctor replies, ' I should wish to 
 have an examination, to see how the case stood ; and if there 
 were such an extravagant thing to take place, and it should 
 appear that the person was not injured by having stood 
 three-and-twenty hours, I should then say it was not incon- 
 sistent with the health of the person so employed.' ' As 
 you doubted,' said a noble Lord, ' whether a child coidd work 
 for twenty-three hours, without suffering, would you extend 
 vour doubts to twenty- four hours?' — 'That was put to me 
 as an extreme case,' says the doctor : ' my answer only went 
 to this effect, that it was not in my power to assign any 
 limits.' This same authority will not take upon himself to 
 say whether it would be injurious to a child to be kept 
 working during the time it gets its meals. Another medical 
 gentleman is ' totally unable to give an answer ' whether 
 ' children from six to twelve years of age, being employed 
 from thirteen to fifteen hours in a cotton factory, in an erect 
 position, and in a temperature of about eighty degrees, 
 is consistent with safety to their constitution.' Another 
 boldly asserts that he does not see it necessary that young 
 persons should have any recreation or amusement ; nor that 
 the constant inspiration of particles of cotton is at all inju- 
 rious to the lungs. Reports of the state of particular mills 
 are also given on medical authority, but the reporters seem 
 to have totally forgotten that they had examined a body of 
 persons constantly recruited, from which the severely sick, 
 and those ' who had retired to die,' were necessarily absent; 
 and not to have suspected that many of these mills were also 
 previously and carefully prepared for such inspection. Still, 
 I observe, it is allowed that ' many of them (the children)
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 165 
 
 were pale, and apparently of a delicate complexion ;' but 
 ' without any decided symptoms of disease.' What did that 
 paleness and delicacy, in the rosy morning of life, indicate? 
 Why, that disease, though not decided as to its symptoms, 
 was fastening, with mortal grasp, upon its victims ; that 
 already early labour and confinement had, ' like a worm i'the 
 bud, fed on their damask cheek;' that the murderous system 
 was then about its secret, but certain and deadly, work. In 
 corroboration, however, of all that these learned persons have 
 advanced, and in full proof of the excellency of the entire 
 system, bills of mortality of certain places and works were 
 adduced, in some of which it was made to appear that, in 
 a mean number of 888 persons employed, the annual mortality 
 had, during eight years, averaged S^^-^^-q, or 1 in 229 only ! 
 This sort of evidence suggests many ludicrous ideas, which, 
 however, I shall suppress as unsuitable to the subject : it 
 will, doubtless, be again adduced in great abundance before 
 another select committee. Physicians, divines, and others, 
 will be still found to testify to the same effect. But I will 
 take the liberty of showing, before I sit down, the true value 
 of all such certificates. The Parliament, indeed, did not 
 much regard these champions of the factory-system on a 
 former occasion; and, after what I shall advance, I hope the 
 House will not trouble them again. 
 
 "I shall now proceed to show the necessity of a general 
 measure for regulating the labour of children and yonng 
 persons employed in mills and factories, of whatever descrip- 
 tion, the protective acts already obtained having been confined 
 in their operation to one branch of manufacture only, and in 
 that almost entirely defeated as to their original intention 
 and design. 
 
 " I need not inform the House that the great invention of 
 Sir Richard Arkwright, originally used for the spinning of 
 cotton, has at length been applied, with the necessary adap- 
 tations, to a similar process in almost all our manufactures.
 
 166 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 Now the fact that parliament has several times, notwith- 
 standing the severest opposition, seen it necessary to regulate 
 the labour of children in the former pursuit, proves the same 
 necessity to exist regarding those other factories, now so 
 numerous, which have been hitherto entirely exempted from 
 all such control. It would be the grossest injustice, as Vv^ell 
 as insult, to argue that those engaged in the cotton-trade 
 were one whit less humane and considerate, and consequently 
 required legislative interference one whit more, than those 
 engaged in spinning any other material; and if it be contended 
 that the labour of the latter is, in many cases, either less 
 unhealthy or less immoderate than that of the former, I meet 
 the assertion with a direct negative. Nor, in contending for 
 the necessity of this measure, do I implicate the conduct of 
 the millowners generally, many of whom, I am well con- 
 vinced, are among the most humane and considerate of 
 employers; on the contrary, the interests of these, as well 
 as the welfare of the children, equally demand legislative 
 protection. 
 
 "And, first, in reference to one description of spinners, 
 from some of whom I am now meeting with opposition of 
 every kind, — I mean the spinners of flax, — I would seriously 
 ask any gentleman, who has himself gone through a modern 
 flax-mill, whether he can entertain the slightest doubt that 
 the occupation, as now pursued, must, in too many cases, 
 be injurious to health and destructive of life. In many depart- 
 ments of these mills, the dust is great, and known to be highly 
 injurious. In those in which fine spinning has been introduced, 
 the air has to be heated, as in some of the cotton mills ; the flax 
 has also, in one of the processes, to be passed through water 
 heated to a high temperature, into which the children have 
 constantly to plunge their arms, while the steam and the spray 
 from the bobbins wet their clothes, especially about their 
 middle, till the water might be wrung from them, in which 
 condition they have during the winter months, to pass nightly
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 167 
 
 into the inclement air, and to shiver and freeze on their return 
 home. In the heckHng- rooms, in which children are now 
 principally employed, the dust is excessive. The rooms are 
 generally low, lighted by gas, and sometimes heated by steam ; 
 altogether exhibiting a state of human suffering, the effects 
 of which I will not trust myself to describe, but appeal to 
 higher authority. 
 
 " I hold in my hand a treatise by a medical gentleman of 
 great intelligence, Mr Thackrah, of Leeds, who, in his work, 
 ' On the Effects of Arts and Trades on Health and Longevity,' 
 thus speaks of this pursuit — ' A large proportion of men in 
 this department die young. We find, indeed, comparatively 
 speaking, few old persons in any of the departments of the 
 flax-mills.' — ' On inquiry at one of the largest establishments 
 in this neighbourhood, we found that of 1,079 persons em- 
 ployed, there are only nine who had attained the age of fifty; 
 and besides these, only twenty-two who have reached forty.' 
 
 "It may, perhaps, be here remarked, that this factory- 
 census does not indicate the rate of mortality, but merely 
 shows that few adults are required in these establishments. 
 If so, then another enormous abuse comes into view; namely, 
 that this unregulated system over-labours the child, and 
 deserts the adult ; thus reversing the natural period of toil, 
 and leaving numbers without employment, or the knowledge 
 how to pursue It, If they could obtain any, just at the period 
 when the active exertions of Hfe ought to commence. Why, 
 this Is to realize, in regard of these victims of premature 
 labour, the fate of the poor little chimney-sweeper, whose 
 lot, once commiserated so deeply, is now, I think, too much 
 forgotten, and whose principal hardship is not that he is of a 
 degraded class, but that when he has learnt his business, he 
 has outgrown it, and is turned upon society too late to learn 
 any other occupation, and has, therefore, to seek an employ- 
 ment for which he Is unqualified. So far, then, this unre-
 
 168 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 stricted factory system perpetrates the deepest injury, not 
 only upon individuals, but upon society at large. 
 
 " But to return to Mr Thackrah. He says, that ' a visitor 
 cannot remain many minutes in certain rooms without being 
 sensibly affected in his respiration.' Also, that ' a suffocating 
 sensation is often produced by the tubes which convey steam 
 for heating the rooms.' He examined, by the stethoscope, 
 several individuals so employed, and found, in all of them, 
 ' the lungs or air-tube considerably diseased.' He adds, that 
 ' the coughs of the persons waiting to be examined, were so 
 troublesome as continually to interrupt and confuse the explo- 
 ration by that instrument ' He says, ' that though the wages 
 for this labour are by no means great, still the time of labour 
 in the flax-mills is excessive. The people are now (November 
 1830) working from half-past six in the morning till eight at 
 night, and are allowed only an interval of forty minutes in all 
 that time. Thus human beings are kept in an atmosphere of 
 flax-dust nearly thirteen hours in the day, and this not one 
 but six days in the week.' ' No man of humanity,' he 
 observes, ' can reflect, without distress, on the state of thou- 
 sands of children, — roused from their beds at an early hour, 
 hurried to the mills, and kept there, witli an interval of only 
 forty minutes, till a late hour of night — kept, moreover, in an 
 atmosphere loaded with noxious dust. ' ' Health, ' he exclaims, 
 ' cleanliness, mental improvement — how are they regarded ? 
 Recreation is out of the question. There is scarcely time for 
 meals. The very period of sleep, so necessary to the young, 
 is too often abridged Nay, children are sometimes worked 
 even in the night ! Human beings thus decay before they 
 arrive at the term of inaturity.' He observes elsewhere, ' that 
 this system has grown up by a series of encroachments upon 
 the poor children ; that the benevolent masters are not able to 
 rectify these abuses. A legislative enactment is, alone, the 
 remedy for this as well as the other great opprobrium of our
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 169 
 
 manufactures — the improper employment of children.' Such 
 are the opinions of this medical gentleman upon this subject, 
 written long before the present bill was before the House ; 
 and foimded upon daily observation and experience. 
 
 '' I might add the opinion of another very excellent 
 practitioner of the same place, Mr Smith, respecting the 
 cruelty of the present system, and the misery and decrepitude 
 which it inflicts upon its victims; but his opinions, given 
 with great force and ability, have, I think, been already 
 widely disseminated by means of the press. The other 
 surgeons of the Leeds infirmary — all men of great pro- 
 fessional eminence — entertain, I believe, precisely similar 
 opinions. One of them, Mr Hey, a name that at once com- 
 mands the highest respect in every medical society of this 
 country, or indeed of Europe, presided, as mayor of Leeds, 
 at an immensely numerous meeting of the inhabitants of that 
 borough, when a petition from that place, in favour of the 
 bill, was unanimously agreed to ; and afterwards received 
 the signatures of between 18,000 and 20,000 persons. 
 
 "In silk and. worsted mills, and especially in the former, 
 the nature of the employment may be less prejudicial in 
 itself; but then its duration is often more protracted, and 
 it falls in a larger proportion upon females and young children. 
 In many spun-silk mills, in which a different operation from 
 that of silk-throwing — and one conducted upon Arkwright's 
 principle — is carried on, the practice of working children at 
 a very tender age, and often all night, prevails. In some of 
 these, I am informed, they commence at one o'clock on the 
 Monday morning, and leave off at eleven on Saturday night ; 
 thus delicately avoiding the Sabbath, indeed, but rendering 
 its profitable observance, either for Improvement, instruction, 
 or worship, an utter impossibility. 
 
 "In the worsted mills, the greatest irregularities, as to 
 the hours of working, have existed, and therefore, occasional 
 oppression in these departments has long prevailed. Let the
 
 170 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 following extract suffice, from a document drawn up by a 
 gentleman in this branch of business, Mr Wood, — to mention 
 whose name is to kindle at once the most enthusiastic feelings 
 in the bosoms of the honest operatives of the north, and to 
 whom is due the honour of originating and supporting this 
 attempt to regulate the labour of children ; and who, while 
 he has conducted his own manufacture with the greatest 
 humanity and kindness, has still earnestly sought to ameliorate 
 the general condition of the labouring poor. This gentleman 
 gives the ages of 475 persons, principally females, employed 
 at a worsted-mill, which, it appears, average about the age 
 of thirteen; and adds — 
 
 " ' Children of these years are obliged to be at the factories, 
 winter and summer, by six in the morning, and to remain 
 there till seven in the evening, with but one brief interval of 
 thirty minutes, every day except Saturday, ceasing work on 
 that day, in some factories, at half-past five, in others, at six 
 or seven p.m. Not unfrequently this labour is extended till 
 eight or nine at night — fifteen hours — having but the same 
 interval for meals, rest, or recreation : nay, such is the steady 
 growth of this over-working system, that children have been 
 confined in the factory from six in the morning tiU eight at 
 night — ^fourteen hours continuously, without any time being 
 allowed for meals, rest, or recreation; — the meals to be taken 
 while attending the machines ; and this the practice of years.' 
 
 " This picture, sufficiently appalling, has also to be darkened 
 by the addition of frequent night-labour. Such is the practice 
 at Bradford and the neighbourhood. But to show that the 
 evils are not confined to any particular neighbourhood, and 
 that they prevail wherever unprotected children are the prin- 
 cipal labourers of the community, I shall next advert to their 
 treatment in the flannel manufactories in the Principality of 
 Wales. I quote the following account which I have received 
 from the most respectable quarter : — 
 
 " ' With certain fluctuations in the degree of labour, re-
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 171 
 
 sultincf from the difference in the demand of manufactured 
 goods, the children here work twenty-four hours every other 
 day, out of which they are_ allowed three hours only for 
 meals, &c. When trade is particularly brisk, the elder 
 children work from six in the morning till seven in the 
 evening, two hours being allowed for meals, &c., and every 
 other night they work all night, which is a still more severe 
 case ; for this additional night labour they receive five-pence. 
 There is another lamentable circumstance attending the em- 
 ployment of these poor children, which is, that they are 
 left the whole of the night alone ; the sexes indiscriminately 
 mixed together ; consequently you may imagine that the 
 depravity of our work people is indeed very great. The 
 adults are employed in feeding the engines. Independent 
 of moral considerations, the accidents that occur to these 
 poor little creatures are really dreadful; the numbers of 
 persons to be seen with mutilated and amputated limbs are 
 quite distressing, and this will ever be the case till some 
 better regulation is carried into effect. There is not a single 
 place of charitable education for a population of about 8,000 
 souls beyond a Sunday-school.' 
 
 " As to woollen mills, they are not, generally speaking, 
 injurious to health, though such is the case in certain depart- 
 ments of them, especially since the introduction of the rota- 
 tory machines. Here I might argue that the lightness of the 
 labour, which is the reason usually urged against an inter- 
 ference with excessive hours, no longer applies, as in woollen 
 mills the labour is, in general, much more strenuous than 
 that in most of the before-mentioned factories. But I disdain 
 to avail myself of an argument, however plausible, which I 
 beheve to be fallacious, and I will here observe, once for 
 all, that it is not so much the degree of labour which is 
 injurious to these work-children (how revolting the com- 
 pound sounds! — it is not yet admitted, I think, into our 
 language ; I trust it will never be familiarised to our feelings);
 
 172 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 — I say, it is not so much the degree, as the duration of their 
 labour, that is so cruel and destructive to these poor work- 
 children. It is the wearisome uniformity of the employment, 
 — the constrained positions in which it is pursued — and, above 
 all, the constant and close confinement, which are more 
 fatiguing to the body as well as mind, than more varied and 
 voluntary, though far stronger, exertion. I dwell upon this 
 point, because it is the sole possible plea for the long and 
 imprisoning hours of the present laborious system : though 
 when properly considered, it is one of the most powerful 
 arguments against it. Light labour ! Is the labour of hold- 
 ing this pen and of writing with it strenuous? And yet, ask 
 a clerk in any of the public offices, or in any private counting- 
 house, when he has been at his employment some half dozen 
 hours in the day less than one of these children, whether he 
 does not think that he has had enough of this light labour — 
 to say nothing of the holidays, of which he has many, and 
 the child none. Ask the recruit recent from the plough, 
 whether an hour of liis light exertion is not more fatiguing 
 than any three he ever endured in the fields. Ask his ex- 
 perienced officer how long he can subject even the veteran 
 to this sort of slight but constrained exertion, though in the 
 open air, with impunity. I might appeal to the chair, whether 
 the lingering hours which have to be endured here, though 
 unaccompanied with any bodily exertion whatever, are not 
 ' weariness to the flesh.' But what would be the feelings of 
 the youngest and most active individual amongst us, ifj for 
 example, he were compelled to pace that table, engaged in 
 some constant and anxious employment, stunned with the 
 noise of revolving wheels, suffocated with the heat and stench 
 of a low, crowded, and gas lighted apartment, bathed in sweat, 
 and stimulated by the scourge of an inexorable task-master ? 
 I say, what would be his ideas of the light labour of twelve 
 or fourteen hours in such a pursuit, and when, once or twice 
 in every week, the night also was added to such a day ? And
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 173 
 
 how would he feel, if long years of such light labour lay 
 before him ? If he be a parent, let him imagine the child 
 of his bosom in that situation, and then judge of the children 
 of thousands who are as dear to the Universal Parent as are 
 his own to him ! Let him think of his own childhood, and 
 he will then remember that this light labour is the fatiy;ue of 
 youth, and that strenuous exertion, when the buoyant spirit 
 exercises the entire frame, is its sport. I might qixote autho- 
 rities on this subject ; but it is unnecessary. Common sense 
 and common feeling at once decide the point, and confute 
 this disgusting plea of tyranny for the captivity of youth. 
 Hence the late Sir Robert Peel, in bringing forward his last 
 measure, emphatically observed, that ' it was not so much the 
 hardship as the duration of labour, which had caused the 
 mischievous effects on the rising generation.' But if, after 
 all, honourable members choose to argue the question on 
 different grounds, and wish to establish a variation in the 
 duration of the labour of children in mills and factories, in 
 reference to the nature of the employment, — be it so. Con- 
 fident in my own mind that the bill proposes the utmost limit 
 which the youthful constitution can safely bear, in any pursuit, 
 or under any circumstances, I can have no objection to that 
 period being abridged in the more pernicious and strenuous 
 employments of the country. 
 
 "I shall not attempt at present to give any precise account 
 of the length of labour generally borne in different mills and 
 factories; it varies according to the humanity of the employer, 
 and the demand for his goods at particular seasons. But let 
 me here remark, that these variations constitute one of the 
 main reasons for a legislative protection ; otherwise the humane 
 masters will be driven out of the trade : for these, it is quite 
 clear, cannot control others less feelingly disposed. They are, 
 indeed, in the present state of things, as little free agents as 
 the children whom they employ ; and, moreover, the want of 
 a due regulation throws the effects of those fluctuations to
 
 174 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 which trade and manufactures are subject, in an undue and 
 distressing degree upon those who are the least able to sustain 
 their effects. Thus, if the demand and profit of the employer 
 increase, the labour of the operatives, most of whom are 
 children, augments, till many of them are literally worked to 
 death ; if that demand diminish, the children are thrown 
 partially or wholly out of work, and left to beggary and the 
 parish. So that their labour, averaged throughout the year, 
 as some millowners I perceive have calculated its duration, 
 does not appear so excessive. For, at the very moment that 
 a strenuous opposition is being made against the curtailment 
 of infantile labour, the masters themselves, in certain flax- 
 mills in the North, have curtailed it to some purpose — having, 
 if I am not misinformed, diminished the employment in some 
 mills, and shut up others entirely. And I have no doubt but 
 that, at this particular moment, abundance of evidence might 
 be adduced before a select committee to show that the hours 
 mentioned in the bill are observed, and indeed a much stricter 
 limitation enforced. But then, if it be right that the owners 
 should be allowed to throw out of employment all these 
 children at a few days' notice, is it proper that they should 
 be permitted to work them for an unlimited number of hours, 
 the moment it suits their purpose ? If the effect of this bill 
 were, in some measure to equalize the labour of these poor 
 children, and thereby prevent those fluctuations which are so 
 distressing to them in both its extremes, it would so far 
 accomplish a most beneficent object. It might, I think, 
 transfer a little of the fluctuation from the factory to the 
 stock-room, with great advantage to the operatives, and, con- 
 sequently, to the public at large. 
 
 " It is impossible to furnish any uniform account of the 
 hours of labour endured by children in these factories, and I 
 am unwilling to represent extreme cases as general ones, 
 although it is the bounden duty of Parliament to provide 
 against such, as it does, for example, with respect to atrocious
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 175 
 
 crimes, which are extreme cases in civilized society. I shall 
 therefore only give one or two instances of the extent of 
 oppression to which the system is occasionally carried. The 
 following were the hours of labour imposed upon the children 
 employed in a factory at Leeds last summer : — On Monday 
 morning, work commenced at six o'clock ; at nine, half an 
 hour for breakfast ; from half-past nine till twelve, work. 
 Dinner, one hour ; from one till half-past four, work. After- 
 noon meal, half an hour ; from five till eight, work : rest for 
 half an hour. From half-past eight till twelve (midnight), 
 work : an hour's rest. From one in the morning till five, 
 work : half an hour's rest. From half-past five till nine, 
 work : breakfast. From half-past nine till twelve, work; 
 dinner; from one till half-past four, work. Rest half an hour; 
 and work again from five till nine o'clock on Tuesday evening, 
 when the labour terminated, and the gang of adult and infant 
 slaves was dismissed for the night, after having toiled thirty- 
 nine hours, with brief intervals (amounting to only six hours 
 in the whole) for refreshment, but none for sleep. On Wed- 
 nesday and Thursday, day work only. From Friday morning 
 till Saturday night, the same prolonged labour repeated, with 
 intermissions as on Monday, Monday night, and Tuesday ; 
 except that the labour of the last day closed at five. — The 
 ensuing day, Sunday, must, under such circumstances, be a 
 day of stupor ; to rouse the children from which would only 
 be to continue their physical sufferings, without the possibility 
 of compensating them with any moral good. Clergymen, 
 Sunday school-masters, and other benevolent persons, are 
 beginning to feel this to be the case; physicians, 1 find, have 
 long observed it; and parents, wishful as they are that their 
 ofispring should have some little instruction, are yet more 
 anxious that they should have rest. Sunday schools have 
 long been rendered appendages to the manufacturing system, 
 which has necessarily emptied the day schools of the poor 
 wherever that system prevails : not content with monopolizing
 
 176 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the wliole Aveek with protracted labour, the Sabbath itself is 
 thus rendered a day of languor and exhaustion, in which it 
 is impossible that due instruction can be received, or the 
 solemn duties which religion enjoins duly performed ; in fact, 
 it is a mere fallow for the worn-out frame,, in order that it 
 may be able to produce another series of exhausting crops of 
 human labour. If some limits, tlierefore, are not prescribed 
 to these constant and cruel encroachments, our labouring 
 population will become, ere longj imbnited with ignorance, as 
 well as enslaved by excessive toil. 
 
 " I now proceed to show the physical and moral con- 
 sequences of this dreadful system ; and on this important part 
 of the subject, as I am aware that I shall be at issue with its 
 supporters and apologists, I shall appeal to authorities which 
 none will be disposed lightly to dispute ; and to facts — decisive, 
 as I think, of the whole question — facts which I challenge 
 them to controvert or evade. The authorities to which I 
 allude, are such as the late Dr Baillie, Sir Astley Cooper, 
 Sir Gilbert Blaine, Doctor Pemberton, Sir Anthony Carlisle, 
 Sir George Tuthill, and many other physicians and surgeons 
 of the highest eminence and celebrity throughout the pro- 
 fession, especially for their physiological science. The delibe- 
 rate opinions of these distinguished persons on the subject 
 under our consideration are contained in these volumes 
 (minutes of evidence before former parliamentary commit- 
 tees). Time would fail were I now to read them, or even 
 to make selections. They ought, however, to have been 
 carefully consulted by certain hon. members before they had 
 cried out for another select committee ; ignorant I would 
 fain hope, of the affecting evidence published by preceding 
 ones. Let it suffice that these high authorities are strong 
 and xmanimous against the system of earlj and protracted 
 labour for children and young persons. I appeal to the 
 whole of them in favour of this bill, or rather, indeed, of 
 far more binding limitations than it proposes ; for when I
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 177 
 
 advert to their deliberate declarations, I feel a growing dis- 
 satisfaction at its provisions. Other medical authorities of 
 great eminence have since then appeared, whose views, I 
 know, in many instances, to be, if possible, still more marked 
 and decided upon this important point ; and can it, I would 
 ask the House, be a question whether we should tolerate a 
 degree of infantile labour, which our highest medical autho- 
 rities assure us the human frame is utterly incapable of 
 sustaining with impunity ? 
 
 " If it be objected that these individuals, however great 
 and distinguished, had no practical knowledge of the factory 
 system and its effects, I will turn to another description of 
 evidence — namely, to that of professional gentlemen practically 
 acquainted with it, and long residing in its very seat and 
 centre — Manchester. The first is a name equally dear to 
 philosophy and philanthropy, — long at the head of the pro- 
 fession in that part of the empire — Dr Perceval. He saw 
 the rise, progress, and effects of the system, and closely 
 connected as he was with many who were making rapid 
 fortunes by it, still he expressed himself upon the subject, as 
 a professional man and a patriot, in terms of the strongest 
 indignation. He says, even of the large factories, which 
 some suppose need little regulation, that they ' are generally 
 injurious to the constitution of those employed in them, even 
 when no particular diseases prevail, from the close confinement 
 which is enjoined, from the debilitating effects of hot or 
 impure air, and from the want of the active exercises which 
 nature points out as essential to childhood and youth, to 
 invigorate the system, and to fit our species for the employ- 
 ment and the duties of manhood. The untimely labour of 
 the night, and the protracted labour of the day, with respect 
 to children, not only tend to diminish future expectation as 
 to the general sum of life and industry, by impairing the 
 strength and destroying the vital stamina of the rising gene- 
 ration, but it too often gives encouragement to idleness, 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 extravagance, and profligacy, in the parents, who, contrary 
 to the order of nature, subsist by the oppression of their 
 offspring.' He goes on to deplore the impediments which 
 the system throws in the way of education, and asserts the 
 necessity of estabhshing ' a general system of laios for the wise, 
 humane, and equal government of all such ivorks.^ I regret 
 that time will not permit me to quote him more at large; but 
 who that is acquainted with general Hterature or philosophy, 
 can be ignorant of the writings of Perceval of Manchester ? 
 
 " I will refer the House to another authority, belonging to 
 a different branch of the same profession, and scarcely a less 
 celebrated one, — I mean the late Mr Simmons. After nearly 
 thirty years' experience in the General Infirmary of Man- 
 chester, and beinof also at the head of other charitable 
 institutions in that town connected with his profession, few 
 men, I should conceive, were more competent to speak as 
 to the effects produced by the factory system than himself. 
 I must again deeply regret that I cannot quote his opinions 
 at length. His description of the consequences of this species 
 of over-exertion is most appalling ; and he adds these emphatic 
 words: — 'I am convinced that the hours of employment are 
 too long to endure at a7ii/ age.' Speaking of the evils of the 
 system, he says, ' I shudder at contemplating them ! ' 
 
 " I might multiply these authentic and affecting testimonies 
 to almost any extent. I will, however, present, in as few 
 words as possible, the effects, as described by medical men, of 
 these long hours of confinement, without sufficient intervals 
 for meals, recreation, and rest, and continued often through 
 the night, in rooms artificially heated, and Ht by gas ; the 
 atmosphere being otherwise so polluted and offensive as to 
 render respiration painful, even for a few minutes. They 
 describe the consequences to be in many cases, languor and 
 debility, sickness, loss of appetite, pulmonary complaints, 
 such as difficulty of breathing, coughs, asthmas, and con- 
 sumptions ; struma, the endemia of the factory, and other
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 179 
 
 chronic diseases; — while, if these more distressing effects are 
 not produced, the muscular power is enfeebled, the growth 
 impeded, and life greatly abridged. Deformity is also a 
 common and distressingf result of this over-strained and too 
 early labour. The bones, in which the animal, in contra- 
 distinction to the earthy, matter is known to prevail in early 
 life, are then pliable, and often cannot sustain the super- 
 incumbent weight of the body for so many hours without 
 injury. Hence, those of the leg become bent ; the arch 
 of the foot, which is composed of several bones of a wedge- 
 like form, is pressed down and its elasticity destroyed, from 
 which arises that disease in the foot only lately described, 
 but common in factory districts. The spine is often greatly 
 affected, and its processes irregularly protruded, by which 
 great deformity is occasioned. The ligaments also fail by 
 over-pressure and tension. Hence the hinge joints, of which 
 they are the main support, such as those of the knee and the 
 ancle, are over-strained, producing the deformity called knock- 
 knees and lame ancles, so exceedingly common in mills. Thus 
 are numbers of children distorted and crippled in early life, 
 and frequently rendered incapable of any active exertion 
 during the rest of their days. To this catalogue of sufferings 
 must be added, mutilation of limbs or loss of life, by frequent 
 accidents. The overworking of these children occasions a 
 weariness and lethargy which it is impossible always to resist: 
 hence, drowsy and exhausted, the poor creatures fall too often 
 among the machinery, which is not in many instances 
 sufficiently sheathed, when their muscles are lacerated, their 
 bones broken, or their limbs torn off, in which cases they are 
 constantly sent to the infirmaries to be cured, and if crippled 
 for life, they are turned out and maintained at the public cost ; 
 or they are sometimes killed upon the spot, I have myself 
 known, in more instances than one, the arm torn off, — in 
 one horrible case, both; and a poor girl now exists upon a 
 charitable subscription who met with that dreadful accident 
 
 N 2
 
 180 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 at one of the flax mills in my neighbourhood. In another 
 factory, and that recently, the mangled limbs of a boy were 
 sent home to his mother, unprepared for the appalling 
 spectacle : I will not describe the result. It is true that a 
 great majority of these accidents are of a less serious nature, 
 but the admission-books of the infirmaries in any manufac- 
 turing district will show the number ; and their accounts of the 
 expense of buying irons to support the bending legs of the 
 young children who become crippled by long standing in the 
 mills, will also prove the tendency of over-confinement and 
 early labour to produce deformity. Dr Ashton and Surgeon 
 Graham, who examined six mills in Stockport, in which 824 
 persons were employed, principally children, have reported 
 the result individually, and the list seems rather that of an 
 hospital than a workshop. The particulars are deeply affecting, 
 but I must only give the totals. Of 824 persons, 183 only 
 were pronounced healthy ; 240 were stated to be delicate ; 
 258 unhealthy ; 43 very much stunted ; 100 with enlarged 
 ancles and knees ; and among the whole there were 37 cases 
 of distortion. The accidents by machinery are not, I think, 
 noticed; but I find that Dr Winstanley, one of the physicians 
 of the Manchester Infirmary, on examining 106 children in a 
 Sunday school, discovered that no less than 47 of them had 
 suflered accidents from this one cause. I have this morning 
 received, from one of the most eminent surgeons of this 
 metropolis, a letter, in which he informs me, that on making 
 a tour through the manufacturing districts some years ago, he 
 was painfully struck with the numerous cases of mutilation 
 which he observed, and which he attributed to this long and 
 wearying system of labour in mills and factories. Of the 
 mortality which this system occasions, I shall speak hereafter. 
 
 "Can anything, then, darken the picture which I have 
 hastily drawn, or, rather, which others, infinitely more com- 
 petent to the task, have strikingly portrayed ? Yes, Sir, 
 and that remains to be added which renders it the most
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 181 
 
 disgusting as well as distressing system which ever put human 
 feelings to the utmost test of endurance. It has the universally- 
 recognised brand and test of barbarism as well as cruelty upon 
 it. It is the feebler sex principally on which this enormous 
 wrong is perpetrated. Female children must be laboured to 
 the utmost extent of their physical powers, and, indeed, 
 frequently far beyond them. Need I state the pecuHar hard- 
 ships, the disgusting cruelty which this involves? I speak 
 not, poor things, of the loss of their beauty, — of the greater 
 physical sufferings to which their sex exposes them. But, 
 again taking with me the highest medical authorities, I refer 
 to the consequences of early and immoderate labour ; especially 
 at the period when the system rapidly attains its full develop- 
 ment, and is peculiarly susceptible of permanent injury. Still 
 more are the effects felt when they become mothers, for which, 
 I fear, their previous pursuits have little qualified them. It 
 is in evidence, that long standing has a known tendency — 
 how shall I express it? — contrahere et minuere pelvem, — 
 and thereby to increase greatly the danger and difficulty of 
 parturition, rendering embryotomy- — one of the most distressing 
 operations wliich a surgeon ever has to perform — occasionally 
 necessary. I have communications upon this subject from 
 persons of great professional experience ; but still I prefer to 
 appeal to evidence before the public ; and one reference shall 
 suffice. Dr Jones, who had practised in the neighbourhood 
 of certain mills, in favour of which much evidence was 
 adduced, which indeed it is rarely difficult to procure, states, 
 that in the ' eight or ten years during which he was an 
 accoucheur, he met with more cases requiring the aid of 
 instruments (that circumstance showing them to be bad ones) 
 than a gentleman of great practice in Birmingham, to whom 
 he was previously a pupil, had met with in tlie whole course 
 of his life.' Abundance of evidence to the same effect is 
 before me. But I forbear. I confess, therefore, that I feel 
 my indignation roused when I see papers- put forth in which
 
 182 THE HISTOEY OF 
 
 it is stated, as a recommendation forsooth of the present 
 system, and as a reason why it should by no means be regu- 
 lated, that in certain mills girls are principally employed. 
 This a matter of exultation ! I would ask those who so 
 regard it, in the language of the poet, ' Art thou of woman 
 born, and feel'st no shame ? ' 
 
 " Nor are the mental, any more than the physical, suf- 
 ferings of these poor young creatures to be overlooked. In 
 the A^ery morning of life, when their little hearts yearn 
 within them for some relaxation and amusement, to be thus 
 taken captive, and debarred the sports of youth, is almost 
 as great, nay, a greater cruelty than to inflict upon them 
 thus early the toil of an advanced life. Their fate, alas! 
 reverses the patriarch's pathetic exclamation, and their infant 
 days are labour and sorrow. I perceive that I excite the 
 lisibility of an honourable gentleman opposite. What there 
 is to smile at in these just representations of infantile suffer- 
 ings, I am really at a loss to imagine. I will venture, how- 
 ever, to give him and the House a few more of these 
 amusing facts before I have done with the subject. 
 
 " It may be thought almost impossible that children 
 should be assembled so early, and dismissed so late, and still 
 kept through the whole period in a state of active exertion. 
 I will attempt to explaia this. First, then, their early and 
 punctual attendance is enforced by fines, as are many other 
 regulations of a very severe character; so that a child may 
 lose a considerable part of its wages by being a few minutes 
 too late in the morning. That they should not leave too 
 soon is very sufficiently provided against. Now, this ex- 
 treme punctuality is no slight aggravation of the sufferings 
 of the child. It is not in one case out of ten, perhaps, 
 that the parent has a clock; and, as nature is not very 
 wakeful in a short night's rest after a long day's labour, 
 the child, to ensure punctuality, must be often roused much 
 too early. Whoever has lived in a manufacturing town
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 183 
 
 must have heard, if he happened to be awake many hours 
 before light on a winter's morning, the patter of little pattens 
 on the pavement, continued, perhaps, for half an hour to- 
 gether, though the time appointed for assembling was the 
 same. Even then the child is not always safe, however 
 punctual, for in some mills two descriptions of clocks are 
 kept, and it is easy to guess how they are occasionally 
 managed. So much for the system of fines, by which, I 
 am told, some millowners have boasted that they have 
 made large sums annually. 
 
 "Then, in order to keep the children awake, and to 
 stimulate their exertions, means are made use of, to wdiich 
 I shall now advert, as a last instance of the degradation to 
 which this system has redviced the manufacturing opera- 
 tives of this country. Sir, children are beaten with thongs, 
 prepared for the purpose. Yes, the females of this country, 
 no matter whether children or grown up — I hardly know 
 which is the more disgusting outrage — are beaten upon 
 the face, arms, and bosom — beaten in your free market 
 of labour, as you term it, like slaves. These are the 
 instruments. \_Here the honourable member exhibited some 
 black, heavy, leathern thongs, one of them fixed in a sort 
 of handle, the smack of which, lohen struck upon the table, 
 resounded through the House. \ They are quite equal to 
 breaking an arm, but that the bones of the young are, as 
 I have before said, pliant. The marks, however, of the 
 thong are long visible, and the poor wretch is flogged before 
 its companions — flogged, I say, like a dog, by the tyrant 
 overlooker. We speak with execration of the cart-whip 
 of the West Indies, but let us see this night an equal 
 feeling rise against the factory-thong of England. Is it 
 necessary that we should inquire, by means of a select com- 
 mittee, whether this practice is to be put down, and whether 
 females in England shall be still flogged to their labour? 
 Sir, I should wish to propose an additional clause to this
 
 184 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 bill, enacting that the overseer who dares to lay the lash 
 on the almost naked body of the child shall be sentenced 
 to the tread-wheel for a month, and it would be but right if 
 the master who knowingly tolerates the infliction of this 
 cruelty on abused infancy, this insult upon parental feeling, 
 this disgrace upon the national character, should bear him com- 
 pany, though he roll to the house of correction in his chariot. 
 
 " But the entire system, as now conducted, has not 
 merely its defenders, but its eulogists. Hence, in a cele- 
 brated Revieiv, in which its rise and progress are discussed, 
 we find this opinion delivered with the utmost confidence: — 
 ' We scruple not to say that the health, morals, and intelli- 
 gence of the population have all gained by the estabhsh- 
 ment of the present system ' That this improvement ought 
 to have been the result, I have already said: that it will be 
 so, I confidently hope; but it can only be the case by adopt- 
 ing regulations of the nature now proposed. Health, morals, 
 and mental improvement can never consist with constant 
 confinement and excessive labour imposed upon any class 
 of the community, especially upon its youth. That the 
 general intelligence, however, has increased, I fully believe; 
 so it would have done under any system — so it has in almost 
 every country, whether manuflicturing or otherwise : and 
 I claim this increasing intellioence in favour of the regu- 
 lation which I propose, for it has declared in behalf of this 
 measure with a force and unanimity rarely known on any 
 other subject. But as to public morals, alas ! what has been 
 gained by this excessive slavery of the juvenile part of the 
 manuflxcturing population? It is during the present century, 
 as the article in question shows, that the system has so 
 greatly increased. The number of criminal committals has 
 been furnished since the year 1805; let us, then, advert to 
 those important returns for proof upon this subject. In 
 the metropolitan county, including London, in which, if 
 anywhere, the number is likely to be excessive, and the
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 185 
 
 increase great, the average of the first three years was 1,192, 
 that of the three last, 3,491, nearly three-fold! But in 
 Lancashire (including Its rural hundreds) the average of 
 the same period had increased from 369 to 2,088, nearly 
 six-fold! The mean proportion of the committals of Eng- 
 land, exclusive of these two counties, being now about 1 in 
 1,255 — that of Lancashire as 1 in about 550 annually. 
 Where is this to end? 
 
 " As to that species of immorality not cognizable by law, 
 there are no means of obtaining equally precise information, 
 otherwise I fear there would be foiind in this respect as little 
 ground for exultation. Not to mention minor offences, the 
 practice of tippling and drunkenness has astonishingly 
 increased, and has been accompanied by a revolting indecency 
 not formerly known among us: women and children now 
 publicly indulging in this vice; such are the degrading effects 
 of this system. The great increase of debauchery of another 
 kind, it would be absurd to deny; I never did hear it denied, 
 that many of the mills, at least those in which night-working 
 is pursued, are, in this respect, little better than brothels. 
 The science of human physiology has been, I may say, dis- 
 gustingly advanced, having been able to demonstrate how ex- 
 tremely near the confines of actual childhood the human female 
 may become an unhappy mother, from the disgraceful scenes 
 which have occurred in some of these mills and factories. 
 Indeed, it is in evidence, on the authority of medical men 
 conversant with that state of society, that the period of 
 puberty is unnatiirally anticipated. But not to dwell upon 
 the effects of this precocity, I will proceed to consider the 
 alleged improvement in health. I shall determine this im- 
 portant point, by referring to the place selected by the 
 strenuous advocates of the system, and its principal seat, 
 Manchester: the surprising longevity of that town having 
 been over and over again asserted in proof of the incalculable 
 advantages of the factory-system, as now conducted.
 
 186 THE HISTORY OB' 
 
 " Speaking of the general health of that town, I of course 
 refer to that of the operatives, and not to that of the higher 
 and more opulent ranks: and, in determining this, I shall 
 still refer to medical authority and statistical facts, and not to 
 loose and unfounded opinions, by which the public has been 
 too long imposed upon and misled. I take, then, a tract 
 just published, entitled ' Remarks on the Health of English 
 Manufacturers, and on the Need which Exists for Establishing 
 for them Convalescent Retreats.' It is written by Mr 
 Roberton, a gentleman well known in the medical world, and 
 author of previous works of deserved celebrity. He rebuts 
 Mr Senior's assumption, founded on a series of gross mistakes, 
 as to the great improvement which has taken place in our 
 manufacturing population, and says of these so-much-improved 
 operatives, that ' the nature of their present employment 
 renders existence itself in thousands of instances, in every 
 great town, one long disease.' He states, regarding Man- 
 chester, that ' during the last year, 1830, the patients 
 admitted at the four great dispensaries amounted to 22,626/ 
 independently of those assisted by other charitable institutions, 
 such as the infirmary, &c., amounting in ail to at least 10,000 
 more. To this he adds other calculations, which brings him 
 to the conclusion that ' not fewer, perhaps, than three-fourths 
 of the inhabitants of Manchester annually are, or fancy they 
 are, under the necessity of submitting to medical treatment.' 
 He describes at some length, and with great force and feeling, 
 the evils of the factory system, and attributes to it, to use 
 his own words, ' the astounding inebriety ' of the population, 
 many of whom have recourse, after long and exhausting toil, 
 to that means of kindling a temporary sense of vigour and 
 comfort. He states the lamentable effects, in other points of 
 view, which are thus produced, and the want of moral and 
 mental improvement with which they are necessarily accom- 
 panied. He says, that the present manufacturing system 
 ' has not produced a healthy population, — neither one well-
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 187 
 
 instructed and provident, but one, on the contrary, where 
 there exists always considerable, and sometimes general 
 poverty, and an extraordinary amount of petty crime, — that, 
 in several respects, they are in a less healthy and a worse 
 condition than at any period within the last two centuries.' 
 
 " 1 will give an appalling proof of this general misery and 
 degradation. It appears, that during the last year, there were 
 delivered by the lying-in charity of Manchester, no less than 
 4,562 poor married women; far more than half, therefore, of 
 the mothers of Manchester are assisted by public charity, — 
 in a word, nearly three-fifths of the children of that town are 
 branded with the stigma of pauperism at their very birth. 
 
 " If it be argued that this institution is too indiscriminate 
 in its charity, and consequently that its operations afibrd no 
 just indication of the extent of the distress actually endured, 
 I will again quote, in reply, the authority of Mr Roberton: — 
 ' An overwhelming majority of the persons so relieved, are 
 in a state of incredible destitution!' I proceed to prove his 
 assertions by still stronger facts. 
 
 " The main, and, as it has been hitherto held, triumphant 
 defence of the present system of excessive infantile labour, 
 has been placed upon the assumed longevity of Manchester: 
 and had what has been asserted in this respect been true, 
 or at all approaching to the truth, the argument would have 
 been doubtless settled in its favour. Thus we find it stated, 
 over and over again, that the mortality which had kept 
 diminishing for half a century, had, in 1811, fallen as low as 
 one in seventy -four ; and that the proportion in 1821 was still 
 smaller. It is asserted, I see, in a petition from the mill- 
 owners of Keighley against this bill, that this proportion is 
 one in fifty-eight, while that of Middlesex is one in twenty-six. 
 I am glad the opponents of the bill have given this sample of 
 their intelligence. But to return. It has been long remarked 
 by statistical writers, that every community to which large 
 numbers of immigrants, principally in the active period of
 
 188 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 life, are constantly added, will exhibit a corresponding 
 diminution in the proportion of deaths, without that circum- 
 stance at all proving any real increase in the general health 
 and longevity of the place. But the above proportions were, 
 nevertheless, so extravagant, and the argument founded upon 
 them so important, that I determined to give the subject the 
 most careful and impartial examination. I have done so; 
 and these are the results. Taking the whole parish of Man- 
 chester, — and so far, therefore, doing great injustice to my 
 argument, as that parish contains I think nearly thirty town- 
 ships and chapelries, some of which are principally agricultural, 
 . — but. taking the whole parish, I find that, in the collegiate 
 church there, and in six other churches, — in the two churches 
 of Salford, in those of Charlton-row, now part of the town, 
 and in the eleven chapelries, including the Roman Catholic 
 and other dissenting burial-grounds, there were interred 
 between the years 1821 and 1830 inclusive, 59,377 indi- 
 viduals. The mean population of the whole parish (i. e. the 
 geometric mean, in order to be as exact as possible) was, 
 during the same period, 228,951. Now, the number of 
 burials is defective, one church (that of Peters') being 
 omitted, and I think other burial-grounds also ; but does the 
 number actually returned give a proportion of 1 in 74 ? or 
 even as the Keighley petitioners reckon, 1 in 58 ? No, Sir, 
 it gives a proportion of 1 in 37Y%ths, as the annual mortality 
 of the extended district included in the entire parish of 
 Manchester ! In Salford the number of deaths during the 
 same term was 996, the mean population having been 32,421, 
 or 1 death in every 32i ; and this in a population, let me 
 airain repeat, increasing immensely by immigration. 
 
 " But a further calculation has to be made before the 
 subject under consideration can be properly understood. A 
 vast excess of this mortality, we may be assured, rests upon 
 the poor ; for nobody disputes that the longevity of the 
 wealthier classes has, in the meantime, greatly improved.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 189 
 
 Thus, in Paris, a large and unhealthy city, where the 
 mortality, however, is, I think, less than 1 in 42, Dr Yillerme 
 found, that in the first arrondissement, where the wealthier 
 inhabitants principally reside, only 1 in 50 died annually ; 
 while, in the twelfth, principally inhabited by the poor, the 
 proportion was as great as 1 in 24. Apply this to the 
 mortality of Manchester, and then let us hear what can be 
 said respecting the longevity of the poor manufacturers of 
 that place. It proves all that has been advanced concerning 
 the eflects of infantile and long -protracted labour, which not 
 only enfeebles, but sweeps to their untimely fate, so vast a 
 proportion of the population. 
 
 '' But on a point of such paramount importance, and so 
 entirely decisive of the argument, no species of evidence 
 ought to be wanting. I have, therefore, examined the last 
 census of Manchester with great care, — I mean that part of 
 it in which the registered burials are given, together with the 
 ages of the interred ; and I have compared the proportion of 
 those buried under the age of forty, and those buried above 
 that age, with the corresponding interments of the immensely 
 larger cities of London and Paris, taking the last ten years in 
 the former instance, and one intermediate year in the two 
 latter, without any selection whatsoever: these are the results: 
 — to every 100,000 interments in each of these places under 
 forty, there would be above that age, in London, 63,666; in 
 Paris, 65,109; in Manchester, 47,291 only; in other words, 
 16,375 fewer would have survived that period in Manchester 
 than in London, and 17,818 fewer than in Paris. Can any- 
 thing, then, be more true than the complaint of the operative 
 spinners, that few of them survive forty ; and where is the 
 man that dares to oppose the effectual regulation of so 
 murderous a system ? 
 
 "In the census of 1821, the population of England was 
 generally given according to the different ages of the people. 
 Manchester, however, furnished no such information ; other-
 
 190 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 wise, I am persuaded another argument might have been 
 adduced demonstrative of the same melancholy fact. But I 
 have examined the census of the hundred of Salford and of 
 Macclesfield, which includes the towns of Macclesfield and 
 Stockport, containing a great number of mills, and I have 
 compared them with other places ; and taking the number of 
 children under five, and the numbers which arrived at the 
 different divisions, and especially at the more advanced 
 periods of life, I find that wherever the present system 
 prevails, the most melancholy waste of human existence is 
 clearly demonstrable. I may also observe, that calculating 
 the mean duration of life from mortuary registers, it is, in the 
 metropolis of England, about 32 years ; in Paris, 31 ; 
 in Manchester, 24-j'-o years only ! In other towns, where the 
 same system prevails, it is still less: thus, in Stockport it is 
 22 years only, that town not having increased by immigration 
 quite so rapidly as Manchester, A comparison with Liverpool 
 in this respect would be manifestly inconclusive, so large a 
 number of the adult inhabitants of that great sea-port being 
 constantly absent on maritime pursuits. 
 
 " Other calculations I hold in my hand, but I will not 
 weary the House with giving them in detail. I cannot, 
 however, refrain from presenting the results of one of them, 
 as it disposes of the confident assertion of the improvement 
 of the manufacturing community. In 1780, the celebrated 
 Dr Heysham enumerated the population of Carlisle with great 
 care, and separated the individuals into classes according to 
 their ages. In 1821, a similar enumeration took place. In 
 the meantime, the great discovery of vaccination had been 
 made, — of such immense importance in these calculations : 
 but it will be seen that even that, and all the acknowledged 
 improvements in medical science, fail to compensate, in the 
 amount of human fives, for the baneflil effects of our manu- 
 facturing system as at present pursued. Calculating on the 
 first division of the population, namely, the children under
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 191 
 
 five years of age, and assuming them to be 1,000, there were, 
 in 1780, from five years old to twenty, 2,229; in 1821, 2,107; 
 between twenty and forty, in the former period, 2,143; in the 
 latter, 1,904; above forty, in 1780, 2,084; but, in 1821, 
 ] ,455 only ! 
 
 "Again, between the years 1779 and 1787 inclusive, Dr 
 Heysham gives the number of interments in Carlisle ; they 
 amounted to 1,840, of which 1,164 were of persons under 
 forty years of age, and the remaining 676 above that period 
 of life. On examining the census, I find that between the 
 years 1821 and 1830 inclusive, there have been buried in the 
 same place 3,025 under forty, and 1,273 above that age. 
 In the former period, therefore, there would be to every 
 10,000 deaths under the age of forty, 5,808 above that age ; 
 whereas, in the latter the proportion has been 4,208 only ; 
 showing how much smaller a number survives that age than 
 formerly. The only way to evade this conclusion, is to 
 suppose that the population has advanced with far greater 
 rapidity since the former period ; but this supposition would 
 imply gross ignorance of the facts. The population of Car- 
 lisle was enumerated in 1764, and it is clear that it had 
 been increasing even more rapidly before 1780 than it has 
 done since. But in Carlisle, as everywhere else, the greatest 
 proportion of mortality falls upon the poor; the expectation 
 of life, as far as regards the upper classes of society, having 
 evidently increased. What then becomes of the statements 
 of the great improvement among our manufacturing poor, 
 with facts like these before our eyes ? 
 
 " I could multiply these proofs of the effects of the sys- 
 tem to a great extent ; but time will not permit, nor can it 
 be necessary. I have taken up the challenge regarding the 
 efiects of the system as now pursued, given by its eulogists, 
 and have contested the cause of humanity — as I trust I may 
 call it — in the very arena, and with the weapons which 
 themselves have chosen, — the prosperity, health, and longevity
 
 192 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 of the operatives of Manchester. I have shown that the same 
 results accompany the same system, wherever pursued, 
 namely, — slavery, profligacy, crime, disease, and death. 
 Transfer the system to the whole country, and then contem- 
 plate its effects ; those effects are seen rapidly developing 
 themselves as it advances. Infantile labour leads to prema- 
 ture marriage, which crowds the generations upon each other, 
 and this circumstance, together with the great discoveries in 
 medicine, may have increased the numbers of the people ; 
 but, as far as the system has prevailed, it has diminished the 
 relative number of the athletic and active, and given us in 
 their stead a weak, stunted, and degenerate race ; and thus 
 lessened the proportion of those who have to bear the burdens 
 and fight the battles of the country. On this latter point I 
 am furnished with some striking facts, and among the rest, 
 the comparative difficulty of passing recruits wherever this 
 system prevails, but such evidence is unnecessary ; I would 
 rather point to its more obvious and general effects. Look, 
 then, I say, at the miserable condition of the feeble beings 
 which are at once its instruments and its victims. Supposing 
 that it has augmented our numbers, ' It has,' in the emphatic 
 language of the Sacred Volume, ' multiplied the people, and 
 not increased the joy.' I invoke, therefore, the justice, the 
 humanity, and the patriotism, of this House : the feelings of 
 the country are already roused. I call upon parliament to 
 assist, by this measure, to lighten the load of an oppressed 
 people, which bows them and their very children to the 
 dust ; — I call upon it to snatch the scourge from the task- 
 masters of the country, and to break the bonds of infant 
 slavery. 
 
 "The principal features of this bill for regulating the 
 labour of children and other young persons in mills and 
 factories, are these : — First, to proliibit the labour of infants 
 thereui under the age of nine years ; to limit the actual work, 
 from nine to eighteen years of age, to ten hours daily, exclu-
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 193 
 
 sive of the time allowed for meals and refreshment, with an 
 abatement of two hours on the Saturday, as a necessary pre- 
 paration for the Sabbath ; and to forbid all night-work under 
 the age of twenty-one. 
 
 '• In this bill I have omitted many important provisions 
 which I had intended to insert, in order to obviate, if possible, 
 multiplied objections, and to secure the attainment of its main 
 object. Thus, I had drawn up a clause subjecting the mill- 
 owner or occupier to a heavy fine when any serious accident 
 occurred, in consequence of any negligence in not properly 
 sheathing or defending the machinery. I had intended to 
 propose a remission of an hour from each day's labour for 
 children under fourteen, or otherwise of six hours on one day 
 in every week, for the purpose of affording those who are 
 thus early and unnaturally forced into the market of labour, 
 some opportunity of receiving the rudiments of instruction 
 and education, the expense of which, upon the modern system, 
 would have been comparatively notliing, especially if shared 
 between the millowner and the public. Above all, I had 
 contemplated a clause putting down night labour altogether. 
 None of these propositions, I think, are half so extravagant, 
 if duly considered, as the demands now made upon infantile 
 labour, involving, as they too often do, the sacrifice of hap- 
 piness, health, improvement — nay, life itself. But not to 
 endanger the principal object which I have in view, and 
 regarding the present attempt as the commencement only of 
 a series of measures in behalf of the industrious classes, all I 
 propose to the House on the present occasion is, the remission 
 of labour to the extent already explained. 
 
 " And, first, as to the period of life at which this bill 
 permits children to be worked in factories — namely, nine years 
 old. I will only observe that our ancient statutes — not 
 always peculiarly favouring the condition of poverty — have 
 not been neglectful of this matter. The 23rd of Edward III, 
 if I mistake not, assumes that a male child under fourteen is 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 non potens in corpore ; and the same of a female child under 
 twelve. In the 5th of Elizabeth, however, I think that period 
 was fixed at twelve years for both sexes ; previously to which 
 they were deemed non potentes in corpore : and I may fur- 
 ther observe, that another humane provision of certain of 
 these statutes, was the hiring of these young persons by the 
 year, so that they might not be turned adrift on every fluc- 
 tuation in the demand for their labour, nor even discharged 
 in sickness, at the pleasure or convenience of their employers. 
 The late Sir Robert Peel's bill originally fixed upon the age 
 of ten, which was ultimately reduced to that of nine, Avhere 
 the present measure leaves it. Where is the individual, if 
 disinterested and humane, that will contend that this is not 
 early enough for these poor creatures to commence their 
 career of labour and sorrow? Then, as to the daily duration 
 of their labour before they arrive at years of discretion — 
 namely, these ten long hours, which, with the necessary 
 intervals, stretch the term to at least twelve ; is not this 
 sufficiently severe? And at a period when the professions 
 of humanity are so much louder than formerly — when the 
 penal code of crime has been revised so much, and mitigated 
 so often — that there should be no amelioration proposed in 
 the penal code (for such I am sure I may term it) of infantile 
 labour, seems indeed strange. The term proposed is that 
 fixed upon by that truly benevolent and enlightened indi- 
 vidual just alluded to. His opinion on introducing his last 
 measure in 1815 I quote from the Parliainentary Register 
 of that period: — 
 
 '' 'What he (Sir Robert Peel) was disposed to recommend 
 was, that no child should be so employed imder the age of ten 
 years, and the duration of their labovir to be limited to twelve 
 hours and a half per diem, including the time for recreation 
 and meals, which would leave ten hours for laborious 
 employment.' 
 
 " I think it would be almost an insult to the House to
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 195 
 
 appeal to authorities in proof that this is labour enough for 
 anj age to endure; abundantly sufficient for infancy and 
 youth. A few medical authorities, however, I Avill quote, 
 who delivered their opinions before Sir Robert Peel's com- 
 mittee. Dr Jones, a physician of much experience, asserts 
 that ' eight or nine hours are the longest period which he could 
 sanction.' Dr Winstanley, physician of the JNianchester Infir- 
 mary, affirms that ' eleven hours could not he endured without 
 injury.'' Mr Boutflower, an eminent surgeon of the same 
 place, says that ' ten hours are amply sufficient.' Mr Ogle, 
 another experienced individual of the same profession, says 
 ihdii '■ ehjht or 7ime hours are sufficient.' ]Mr Simmons, the 
 senior surgeon of the Manchester Infirmary, declares that the 
 hours of working of a person under sixteen, exclusive of the 
 time allowed for meals, ought not to exceed ' nine hours in 
 winter, and ten in summer ;' and he adds that to which I par- 
 ticularly call the attention of the House: ' It may become a 
 question,' says this eminent and experienced person, ' whether 
 with impunity the strength of adults is capable of much longer 
 exertion than this.' Sir Gilbert Blaine says, that under ten, he 
 * should have no objection to sanction five or six hours, and at 
 a more mature age ten hours, if not sedentary.' I might 
 multiply these authorities at pleasure, but I will close them 
 with the opinion of a physician, after whom I conceive few 
 could be quoted with ad\'antage — I mean the late Dr Baillic. 
 He says, beyond ten hours a day there ought to be no increase 
 of labour. ' I think,' says he, ' ten hours of confinement to 
 labour, as far as I can judge, is as much as is compatible with 
 the perfect well-being of any constitution.^ 
 
 " These appeals are to me most affecting. Is there not. 
 Sir, something inexpressibly cruel, — most disgustingly selfish, 
 in thus attempting to ascertain the utmost limits to which 
 infant labour and fatigue may be carried, without their cer- 
 tainly occasioning misery and destruction; — the full extent of 
 profitable torture that may be safely inflicted, and in appealing 
 
 o2
 
 196 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 to learned and experienced doctors to fix the precise point 
 beyond which it would be murder to proceed ? Are we to 
 treat innocent infants, then, like the criminal soldier, who 
 receives his punishment under the eye of the regimental 
 surgeon, lest he should expire beneath the lash ? But, 
 horrible to relate, these eminent men have stood over faintinsr 
 infancy, and long since have forbade the infliction ; yet it has 
 been continued till thousands have expired under it. They 
 discharged their duty ; they said ten hours were fully suffi- 
 cient. That term has been exceeded ; and 1 have shown the 
 fatal consequences. 
 
 " But if it be still necessary to sanction the term of labour 
 they have fixed, I will appeal to general experience, which, 
 after all, is, on a point like this, better than all authority. In 
 every other description of labour, twelve hours a day, deduct- 
 ing at least the intervals which this bill also prescribes, is the 
 utmost duration of labour that the master thinks of demand- 
 ing, or the workmen of enduring. Such is the case in agri- 
 culture. Look at the county reports, and you will find that 
 these are the utmost limits in summer, except during a few 
 weeks in harvest, and that they are diminished in winter, so as 
 to correspond with the days as they become shorter ; 
 averaging, perhaps, throughout the year, not more than eight 
 or nine hours of actual work. The same rule obtains amongf 
 all those workmen and artisans whose pursuits are most 
 essential to human existence, such as masons, bricklayers, car- 
 penters, and others. Nor is it either humane or patriotic, as 
 an eminent medical writer has remarked, to tempt them to 
 those protracted exertions, which are often endured at the 
 expense of health, and bring on premature decay. 
 
 " This natural regulation prevails everywhere, and has 
 been observed in all ages. Thus, if we open the most ancient 
 of volumes, Ave shall find that twelve hours, including the 
 necessary intervals, constitute the longest day of human 
 labour, which is still curtailed as the natural day shortens.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 197 
 
 And as this limitation is dictated by the law of nature, so also 
 is it affirmed by the law of God. Hear, then, the divine 
 institution in this matter; — ' Thou shalt not oppress an hired 
 servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren 
 or of the stranger that is in thy land within thy gates. At 
 his day thou shalt give him his hire; neither shall the sun go 
 down upon it ; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it ; 
 lest he cry against thee to the Lord, and it be sin unto thee.' 
 * Are there not twelve hours in the day ?' is reiterated by still 
 higher authority. ' The night cometh when no man can 
 work.' Yet, though man cannot — will not; — yet, says this 
 system, children shall. I ask, whether it be right to work 
 weak and helpless children in England, longer than adult 
 labourers and artizans in the prime of their days have con- 
 sented to toil in any age or country. 
 
 " I make another appeal in behalf of these children. I 
 appeal to the utmost labour imposed upon criminals and felons, 
 sentenced to expiate their offences, often of an atrocious 
 character, and almost always perpetrated by the daring and 
 powerful, in the vigour of life, — in the jails, houses of cor- 
 rection, bridewells, or other places of confinement and 
 punishment in this kingdom. The law, even regarding these, 
 ' in wrath remembereth mercy,' and after the fullest investiga- 
 tion, doubtless lest justice should degenerate into cruelty, 
 limits the powers of its own ministers, thus : — ' Every prisoner 
 sentenced to hard labour, shall, unless prevented by sickness, 
 be employed so many hours a- day, not exceeding ten, 
 exclusive of the time allowed for meals, as shall be directed 
 by the rules and regulations to be made under this Act, 
 excepting on Sundays and other holidays.' I have examined 
 the whole of these regulations, as established in every prison 
 in England, and I find that the average labour imposed falls 
 far short of the limits prescribed by this bill. Even the 
 convicts at the hulks, I am informed, are only worked in 
 winter from eight o'clock in the morning as long as daylight 
 lasts ; and in summer, from seven in the morning till six in 
 
 N
 
 198 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the evening, from which time is deducted, in both seasons, 
 about one hour and a-half for meals ; making, therefore, the 
 duration of their actual labour, in summer, nine hours and 
 a-half, and in winter, perhaps, about two hours less. I ask, 
 then, whether it is right, or even politic, thus to give a 
 premium to crime, — to protect guilt and persecute inno- 
 cence : to work unoffending children longer than the law 
 permits in the case of adult criminals and felons, whose labour 
 constitutes their punishment ? 
 
 " Lastly, I appeal, in behalf of these children, to the 
 protection afforded to the slaves of our West Indian colonies. 
 By the Orders in Council, bearing date the 2nd of November 
 last, the labour of the slaves, in all the crown colonies of 
 England, is regulated as follows: — By section 90 of those 
 'Orders, no slave, of whatever age, is to be worked in any 
 agricultural or manufacturing labour in the night, but only 
 between six o'clock in the morning and six o'clock in the 
 evening. By section 91, all such slaves are ' entitled to an 
 entire intermission and cessation of every description of work 
 and labour from the hour of eight till the hour of nine in the 
 morning, and from the hour of twelve till the hour of two in 
 the afternoon, of each and every day throughout the year.' 
 Hence no slave can be worked ?nore than nine hours in 
 any one day. So much for the adult slaves. But by the 
 succeeding section (92) it is ordered that ' no slave under 
 the age of fourteen, or above the age of sixty, shall be 
 compelled or required to engage in, or perform, any agricul- 
 tural work or labour, in any of the said colonies, during more 
 ^than six hours in the whole, in any one day.' Passing over 
 many other beneficent reguk.tions, such as allowing forty 
 holidays anni;ally, exclusive of Sundays, and the prohibition 
 of the labouring of pregnant females, although I see witnesses 
 for the factory system assert, that to work white females up 
 to the period of their confinement is not at all improper or 
 injurious. — I say, passing over every minor consideration, I 
 can hardly restrain my indignation within due bounds, while
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 199 
 
 I appeal to the regulations regarding these slaves, and see 
 that those proposed in favour of British children are so 
 vehemently opposed. I compare not the English child with 
 the African child ; but I ask this House, and his Majesty's 
 Government, whether it would not be riglit and becoming to 
 consider the English child as favourably as the African adult? 
 You have limited the labour of the robust negro to nine hours ; 
 but when I propose that the labour of the young white slaves- 
 shall not exceed ten, the proposition is deemed extravagant. "I 
 might further appeal to our treatment of the brute creation. 
 Acts of Parliament have protected these from cruelty infinitely 
 less than that which this system tolerates. And yet the selfish- 
 ness of man acts as the guardian of his cattle, and renders such 
 laws almost unnecessary. The gentleman will not ride his 
 hunter before he is full grown, nor does the farmer yoke his 
 yearling foal to the plough, and scourge it forward as many 
 hours, and even more, than the full-grown colt could bear. 
 No 1 it is the factory child alone that is thus treated. By 
 what term shall we designate that state of the law which 
 permits the labour of the helpless infmt, hours after it would 
 have interposed in behalf of the panting brute, — hours after 
 the driver has released his youthful slave ? 
 
 " But I contend that, even as regards the poor factory 
 child, a being esteemed so utterly wortliless, it is detrimental 
 to the mere interests of the employer to pursue so cruel a 
 course. Beyond certain limits, human industry and attention 
 cannot be profitably stimulated. When those limits are 
 passed, what remains but that imperfect service, equally 
 distressing to the employed and unprofitable to the employer; 
 and the oppressor may be well addressed in the words of 
 the poet, — 
 
 ' Thou canst not take what nature will not yield, 
 Nor reap the harvest the' thou spoil the field.' 
 
 " This fact is already in evidence, in the sober language of prose : 
 manufacturers have confessed, that this excessive labour has
 
 200 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 been rarely profitable, though they have been urged to such 
 a course by the rivalry and competition Avhich the system both 
 creates and continues. But were it ever so profitable, no 
 gains, however ample, no prosperity, however permanent, 
 could justify a practice so cruel and destructive. 
 
 ''' 1 have not time to enter upon the arguments which the 
 advocates of the present system advance in its favour, nor to 
 refute the objections which they perpetually urge against its 
 proper regulation. They are precisely the same as those 
 put forth by the planters in the crown colonies, against the 
 amelioration, to which I have already referred, of the condition 
 of the blacks and their children. The capital engaged, — the 
 competition to be feared, — the irritation which will be pro- 
 duced, — the superior condition of those to be protected, are 
 in both cases strenuously urged. The capability of children 
 above a certain age to endure Ions labour, as well as adults, 
 is equally asserted ; and, above all, the coincidence of the 
 request from both quarters, for a select committee, is also 
 remarkable. But how different have Government met this 
 proposition in each case ? As regards the slave, they have 
 declared that inquiries have been pursued long enough, and 
 that they need no further information to enable them to 
 legislate on ' the eternal obligation which religion founds 
 upon the law of God.' Such are the words of the noble 
 Secretary for the Colonies. Would that this reasoning and 
 this feeling were transferred to these poor, oppressed children, 
 slaves in all but name, who now demand our protection ! I 
 conceive that then ' the eternal obligation which religion founds 
 upon the law of God,' would suffice to teach us our duty, 
 without confiding our consciences to the keeping of a select 
 committee. We can hardly be sincere in making this solemn 
 appeal, if after having determined that six hours' labour are 
 enough for a negro child, we doubt whether ten are fully 
 sufficient for a British one. 
 
 " Another objection of some of the opposing millowners
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 201 
 
 I will briefly notice. They cannot consent, forsooth, to an 
 abrid<2:ment of the lonoj and slavish hours of infant labour 
 
 O CD 
 
 because of the corn- laws. Why, these individuals — some of 
 them not originally, perhaps, of the most opulent class of the 
 community — have, during the operation of these laws, rapidly 
 amassed enormous fortunes ; yet, during the whole period, 
 they could seldom afford either to increase the wages or 
 diminish the toil of these little labourers, to whom, however 
 forgetful they may be of the fact, many of them owe every 
 farthing they possess: they have generally done the reverse. 
 And they talk of corn-laws as their apology! 'This is too 
 bad.' Can any man be fool enough to suppose that, were the 
 corn-laws abolished to-morrow, and every grain we consume 
 grown and ground in foreign parts, such individuals would 
 cease to 'grind the faces of the poor?' 
 
 " But their opposition to this measure, it seems, is grounded 
 on philanthropic considerations alone. The loss, say they, 
 would fall upon the pooi", whose wages would be diminished 
 just in proportion as their extravagant labour was moderated. 
 I rather doubt this conclusion ; indeed I think we are 
 warranted, not only by the dictates of common sense, but also 
 by the principles of political economy, in denying it altogether. 
 Nothing can be clearer, as a general axiom, than that the 
 wages of labour are necessarily affected by the quantity of 
 its products in the market. Thus a great authority in that 
 science says, ' When the demand is given, prices and values,' 
 consequently wages, ' vary inversely as the supply.' In full 
 conformity witli this doctrine, we have constantly heard the 
 great and frequently-recurring distresses of the operatives, in 
 certain branches of our manufactures, attributed to over- 
 production. This was asserted, again and again, by the late 
 Mr Huskisson, and repeated, I think, on a very recent occasion 
 by the present Vice President of the Board of Trade. How then 
 can it be, that if over-production has the effect of lowering wages, 
 the moderating of this over-production could have any other 
 effect tban that of raising wages ; and if so, how, I would ask,
 
 202 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 can that over-production be so well moderated as by regulating 
 the excessive labour of inflmt hands ? If it be said in reply, 
 that the employment of many of our mills and factories 
 depends on a demand that is governed by foreign competition, 
 I fearlessly reply that this :s not the fact. First, as to every 
 free market in the world, I maintain that the most formidable 
 competition is not that between British and foreign spinners, 
 but between rival British ones only, which, when traced to its 
 ultimate consequences, will be too often found a competition 
 in cruelty and oppression, of which these innocent little 
 labourers are the victims. Then, as to other and restricted 
 markets, and particularly those for our cotton-yarns, the 
 competition is not, as is too often stated, between British 
 labour and foreign labour, but between British labour and 
 foreign imposts ; which, as our goods have progressively 
 cheapened, have, upon the protective principle, been pro- 
 portionally advanced, and would be still further raised were 
 we, under the sanction of the learned doubts already quoted, 
 to work our unprotected children for three-and-twenty hours 
 out of the four and-twenty. Thus our cotton-twist is subjected 
 to enormous duties in Russia, Austria, the United States, and 
 elsewhere ; while in France and Spain it is prohibited 
 altogether. Now I would seriously ask those who raise this 
 outcry regarding foreign competition, whether these heavy 
 duties and prohibitions are not of themselves a sufficient 
 answer to their entire argument. As to the idea of regulating 
 the labour of our infants and children according to the 
 fluctuations of foreign tariffs, which we may rest assured will 
 be still fixed on the protective principle, it is as ridiculously 
 absurd as it is infamously cruel. A very little attention, 
 however, to this part of the argument of our opponents will 
 show its utter fallacy. The cry concerning competition was 
 as loudly raised against the bill of the late Sir Robert Peel as 
 it can be against the present measure; and the ruin of the 
 sjiinning trade was as confidently pronounced if it were 
 carried. It passed, and Avhat has been the result ? Why,
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 208 
 
 the export of our yarns lias nearly quintupled since he 
 brought in that bill, while the trade of our then greatest 
 competitors in that branch of manufacture, the French, has 
 hardly kept pace even with the slow increase of their popu- 
 lation. But the idea of French competition in cotton- 
 spinning is a farce; their machinery, exceedingly inferior 
 to ours, is also dearer to at least an equal degree; which 
 circumstances, with many other obvious disadvantages, far more 
 than counterbalance their supposed advantages in some other 
 respects. Still more ludicrous is the novel assumption as to 
 the rivalry of tlie United States in this respect. The country 
 beyond all others where labour is dear and land is cheap, and 
 where the mass of the population is so thinly scattered, turning 
 cotton- spinner to any extent is too absurd for a moment's 
 consideration. Let our import duty on the raw material, 
 and theirs on the spun yarn, amounting together to pei'haps 
 40 per cent., dispose at once of this plea of tyranny and 
 oppression. 
 
 " But the whole argument, or rather objection, as applied 
 to many other branches of spinning, equally fails. The ex- 
 port of worsted yarns, for instance, is small. In silk spinning 
 (not meaning by that term silk throwing) I believe the 
 competition with foreigners is not felt ; and yet, in many 
 of the mills of this description, the shameful practice of 
 working young and helpless children by night, and within 
 an hour of the Sabbath morning, is unblushingly pursued. 
 But I shall discuss the point no further. The same argument, 
 I have already said, was urged against Sir Robert Peel's 
 bill, to which he replied, that ' no foreigners were then 
 known to work the same number of hours ' even as he pro- 
 posed. Nor do I believe that they then consented, if they 
 do now, to labour their children in the heated atmosphere 
 in which so many of ours sicken and perish. If they have 
 commenced the practice of long hours and excessive labour, 
 it is our competition, and not theirs, that stands chargeable
 
 204 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 with these evils ; nor will 1 be too confident that our cruelty 
 has not been contagious. Let us, then, enter into another 
 competition with them — a competition of humanity and 
 justice, and I firmly believe that they will still be our rivals. 
 At all events, let us, as was strongly urged at the introduction 
 of the free-trade system so called, set them the example. 
 
 " In corroboration of the views I have taken, that exces- 
 sive labour has a tendency the reverse of increasing its 
 remuneration, I might appeal to the great and constant 
 declension in the declared or real, as compared with the official 
 or assumed and stationary value, of our exported goods, of 
 almost every description; especially of those more particularly 
 alluded to. Thus, since the peace (1815), though our exports 
 of cotton yarns have increased in quantity nearly five-fold, 
 their real value has advanced little more than one-third ; a fact 
 which, together with many others of a similar nature, indi- 
 cates but too clearly the increasing labour and diminishing 
 remuneration of our industrious and over-laboured population. 
 But this subject would carry me into too wide a field ; and 
 one, moreover, on which it is unnecessary for me, on this 
 occasion, to expatiate. There are few operatives of this 
 country, I fear, who are not made aware of this fact by the 
 most infallible of all teachers — bitter experience. Those who 
 contend that the amount of wages follows the degree of 
 labour, however great or protracted, seem, in my apprehen- 
 sion, totally to lose sight of one of the most simple and 
 beautiful provisions in the economy of nature — that whereby 
 human wants and necessities are nicely and beneficently 
 balanced by the means of supplying them: but in this 
 striking adjustment neither infant nor excessive labour is con- 
 templated, and where it is called forth, it will sooner or later 
 derange the whole frame of society. Finally, I would ask 
 those who are still disposed to hold a contrary notion, and 
 who therefore calculate with such arithmetical precision the 
 exact loss that the operatives will sustain if their labour or
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 205 
 
 that of their children were to be properly regulated, whether, 
 upon their principles, the Sabbath is not a public nuisance and 
 private injury, especially to the labouring poor. According 
 to their views it must certainly have the direct effect of 
 diminishing the wages of the industrious classes just one- 
 sixth, and of reducing their comforts therefore in the same 
 proportion. Dr Paley has argued to the contrary, and shown, 
 that in the present state of society the labourers of the com- 
 munity receive as much for their six days' toil as they would 
 for the seven. I think he might have said more, for reasons 
 obvious enough, but upon which I shall not now enter. He 
 has thus demonstrated that sacred institution to be one in all 
 respects favourable to humanity. The entire question is, I 
 think, too plain to require this attempt at elucidation, and its 
 final solution appears to be this : — that degree of labour will 
 be ultimately most profitable to mankind which is dictated by 
 their necessities, proportioned to their strength, and consistent 
 with their welfare and happiness. In concluding these 
 remarks, I cannot refrain from observing how uncandidly the 
 very same set of reasoners deal on these occasions with the 
 labouring poor. Over- production is to account for their low 
 wages and consequent distress ; diminished production, on the 
 other hand, is to produce the very same effect, and still further 
 lessen their means of subsistence. These arguments, or rather 
 excuses, remind one of the poor lamb in the ancient fable, 
 which found it impossible to satisfy the wolf, whether it drank 
 above or below at the same stream: it was equally in fault, 
 and suffered accordingly, 
 
 " I might here notice that an entire series of advantages 
 which would incidentally result from this measure for shorten- 
 ing undue labour, is overlooked by its opponents ; for 
 instance, the giving of employment to idle hands, and the 
 affording of additional activity to many industrious pursuits; 
 but I shall pass these entirely by ; nor shall I even insist upon 
 the validity of the argument I have been j ust urging ; on the
 
 206 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 contrary, admitting all that has been said as to the fall in the 
 wages of these children and young persons, and assuming the 
 accuracy of the computations so confidently put forth on the 
 subject, still, I say, the question stands upon other and more 
 sacred grounds. It is one which the public will no longer 
 permit the interested parties to decide by mere pecuniary 
 calculations. And were the work-people threatened (as 
 indeed they now are) that their wages would be diminished, 
 and their means of subsistence still more abridged ; — that 
 severe as are their present distresses, the furnace of their 
 affliction would be ' heated one seven times more than it is 
 wont to be heated,' — they have taken their firm resolve: they 
 will not bow down to the golden image, — they will not sacri- 
 fice their children to Moloch ; — and where is the father, the 
 patriot, the Christian, that does not glory in that resolve ? 
 
 *' I must now apologise to this House for having so long 
 occupied its time and attention. I owe, however, a deeper 
 apology to those whose cause I have attempted to advocate, 
 for having, after all, left untouched many important claims 
 which they have earnestly pressed iipon my notice. But if 
 honourable members will consult their own bosoms, they will 
 find them there. We are about to deal with the strongest 
 instinct and the holiest feelings of the human heart. The 
 happiness and tranquillity of the present generation, and the 
 hopes of futurity, depend, in no slight degree, on our resolves. 
 The industrious classes are looking with intense interest to 
 the proceedings of this night, and are demanding protection 
 for themselves and their children. Thousands of maternal 
 bosoms are beating with the deepest anxiety for the future 
 fate of their long-oppressed and degraded offspring. Nay, 
 the children themselves are made aware of the importance 
 of your present decision, and look towards this House for 
 succour. I wish I could bring a group of these little ones 
 to that bar, — I am sure their silent appearance would plead 
 more forcibly in their behalf than the loudest eloquence. I
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 207 
 
 shall not soon forget their afiecting presence on a recent 
 occasion, when many thousands of the people of the north 
 were assembled in their cause, — when in the intervals of those 
 loud and general acclamations which rent the air, while their 
 great and unrivalled champion, Richard Oastler (whose name 
 is now lisped by thousands of these infants, and will be trans- 
 mitted to posterity with undiminished gratitude and affec- 
 tion); — when this friend of the factory children was pleading 
 their cause as he alone can plead it, the repeated cheers of a 
 number of shrill voices were heard, which sounded like echoes 
 to our own ; and on looking around, we saw several groups of 
 little children, amidst the crowd, who raised their voices in 
 the fervour of hope and exultation, while they heard their 
 sufferings commiserated, and, as they believed, about to be 
 redressed. Sir, I still hope, as I did then, that their righteous 
 cause will prevail. But I have seen enough to mingle appre- 
 hension with my hopes. I perceive the rich and the powerful 
 once more leaguing against them, and wielding that wealth 
 which these children, or such as they, have created, against 
 their cause. I have long seen the mighty efforts that are 
 made to keep them in bondage, and have been deeply affected 
 at their continued success ; so that I can hardly refrain from 
 exclaiming with one of old, ' I returned, and considered all 
 the oppressions that are done under the sun, and beheld the 
 tears of such as were oppressed, and on the side of the 
 oppressors there was power, but they had no comforter !' 
 
 "I trust, however, that this House, whose peculiar duty 
 it is to defend the weak and redress the injured, will inter- 
 pose and extend that protection to these defenceless childen, 
 which is equally demanded by the principles of justice, 
 mercy, and policy. Many have been the struggles made 
 in their behulf, but hitherto they have been defeated ; the 
 laws passed for their protection have been avowedly and 
 shamefully evaded, and have therefore had little practical 
 effect but to legalize crueltv and suffering. Hence at this
 
 208 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 late hour, while I am thus feebly, but earnestly, pleading 
 the cause of these oppressed children, what numbers of them 
 are still tethered to their toil, confined in heated rooms, bathed 
 in perspiration, stunned with the roar of revolving wheels, 
 poisoned with the noxious effiuvia of grease and gas, till, at 
 last, weary and exhausted, they turn out, almost naked, into 
 the inclement air, and creep, shivering, to beds, from which a 
 relay of their young work -fellows have just risen. Such, at 
 the best, is the fate of many of them, while, in numerous 
 instances, they are diseased, stunted, crippled, depraved, and 
 destroyed. Sir, let that pestilence, which no longer walketh 
 in darkness among us, but destroyeth at noon-day, once seize 
 upon our manufacturing population, and dreadful will be the 
 consequences. A national fast has been appointed on this 
 solemn occasion ; and it is well : — let it be one which the Deity 
 himself has chosen, — let us undo the heavy burdens, and let 
 the oppressed go free. 
 
 " Sir, I have shown the suffering, — the crime, — the mor- 
 tality, attendant upon this system ; — consequences which, I 
 trust, parliament will at length arrest. Earnestly do I wish 
 that I could have prevailed upon this House and his Majesty's 
 government to adopt the proposed measure, without the delay 
 which will attend a further and, as I shall ever maintain, an 
 unnecessary inquiry. Would that we might have come to a 
 resolution as to the hours that innocent and helpless children 
 are henceforth to be worked in these pursuits, so as to render 
 the preservation of their health and life probable, and the due 
 improvement of their minds and morals possible ! Would 
 that we had at once decided, as we could wish others to 
 decide regarding our own children, under like circumstances, or 
 as we shall wish that we had done, when the Universal Parent 
 shall call us to a strict account for our conduct to one of the 
 least of these little ones ! As the case, however, is other- 
 wise, — as we are, it seems, still to inquire and delay, I will 
 now move the second reading of the bill ; and afterwards
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 209 
 
 propose such a committee as, I hope, will assist in carrying 
 into efi'ect the principle of a measure so important to the 
 prosperity, character, and happiness of the British people." 
 
 The opposition to Mr Sadler's measure was such as 
 to force him, though with great unwillingness, to agree to 
 the appointment of a parliamentary committee, a source of 
 great but, under the circumstances, unavoidable delay. This 
 inquiry caused Mr Sadler great anxiety and labour. It 
 was urged in reply, that Mr Sadler's statements were 
 exaggerated, that the health and morals of young persons, 
 and others engaged in factory labour, were satisfactory, that 
 the manufacturers would, before a committee, entirely rebut 
 the facts stated in Mr Sadler's speech, that legislation would 
 prove injurious to the interests of the children, that the 
 honourable member was a mistaken, though well-intentioned 
 friend of the working classes. The general feehng of the 
 House of Commons was favourable to inquiry, but opposed to 
 immediate legislation. The Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 (Lord Althorp), on behalf of the ministry, charged Mr 
 Sadler with having stated only one side of the question, con- 
 demned the measure as hasty and ill-advised, admitted that 
 some regulation was required to prevent cases of extreme 
 hardship and oppression, and recommended " that the House 
 should proceed in this matter with the utmost caution." The 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer concluded his speech in the 
 following words, which convey a sense of the position of the 
 question, and the feeling of the majority of the House of Com- 
 mons thereon : " I am not prepared to pledge myself in any way 
 with respect to the measure. Even if the committee should 
 report favourably of the bill, I will not pledge myself before the 
 report be made to support a measure of such vast importance. 
 I do not feel justified in saying, that whatever the opinion of 
 the committee may be, I will abide by their decision. The 
 honourable gentleman (Mr Sadler) has, I think, done per- 
 fectly right in referring this measure to a select committee. 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 Altliough he seems to think that a more public investigation 
 would be desirable, I am inclined to believe that the examina- 
 tion of a select committee is more likely to elicit the truth 
 than an examination at the bar of this House. I hope that, 
 by the exertions of the committee, the whole question will 
 be fairly brought under the consideration of the House." 
 
 The bill was read a second time, and, on the motion of 
 Mr Sadler, was ordered to be committed to the following 
 members: — Mr Sadler, Lord Viscount Morpeth, Mr Strick- 
 land, Mr Heywood, Mr Wilbraham, Mr George Vernon, Mr 
 Benett, Sir Henry Bunbury, Mr Poulet Thomson, Mr Dixon, 
 Sir John Cam Hobhouse, Mr Horatio Ross, Mr Robinson, 
 Mr Meynell, Mr Percival, Mr Boldero, Lord Nugent, Mr 
 Shiel, Sir George Rose, Mr Attwood, Mr Ridley Colborne, 
 Mr Kenyon, Mr Fowell Buxton, Mr Estcourt (Oxford), Mr 
 John Smith, Mr John Weyland, Lord Viscount Lowther, Mr 
 Hope, Mr Moreton, Mr Lennard. To which were afterwards 
 added the names of Mr Bainbridge, Sir Robert Peel, Bart., 
 Mr Gisborne, Lord Viscount Sandon, Sir Robert Harry 
 Inglis, Bart., Sir Henry Willoughby, Bart., and Mr 
 Mackinnon.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 211 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MEECT A LEADING ^EATUKE IN FACTORY AGITATION — PUBLIC MEETINGS 
 IN TOEKSHIBE — COUNTY MEETING AT YORK — PEOCESSION AND 
 PUBLIC ENTEY OF ME SADLEE AND ME OASTLEE INTO MANCHESTER. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the denunciations which have been 
 uttered against unjust gains, they have found many admirers ; 
 but few have stopped to inquire the cost — to sum up how 
 many have been made wretched that one may live in a large 
 mansion and fare sumptuously every day. The sympathy of 
 the multitude with an emperor on a barren rock, is creditable 
 to them: it speaks of their perception of the vicissitudes of 
 life ; misfortune has won upon their natures, and they would 
 compassionately relieve the oppressed; they would forgive his 
 crimes, because of pity for his fate. Who would dare to 
 blame them ; who to regret the exercise of their mercy ? 
 Better that they should be moved to tears for one, than that 
 their souls should become parched, and their hearts never 
 know the sense of sympathy. " The quality of mercy is 
 not strained ; it droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven 
 upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed : it blesseth him 
 that gives, and him that takes." Mercy is in its quality the 
 same to the ore as to the many; to fallen greatness as to 
 subdued lowliness ; but, like " the gentle rain from Heaven," 
 its usefulness must be measured by the extent of ground on 
 which it drops, and its blessings by the wants of the earth. 
 It is a feature of modern civilization that it begets within 
 
 p 2
 
 212 THE HISTORY OV 
 
 its heart a numerous body of human beings, endowed with 
 every natural capacity for mental and physical enjoyments, 
 but who have throiighout life no mental enjoyments, and 
 whose animal existence is a daily returning round of physical 
 suffering, and for whom society has no sympathy. The life of 
 such has only a relief in sleep, and a glimmering hope in death. 
 These unfortunate human beings are not reached by any 
 of the pompous philanthropies, which manifest their existence 
 in outward and visible signs, having engraven on their fronts 
 names and dates, which, on behalf of the donors, sometimes 
 seem to say, "" pause, stranger, pause — admire ray generous 
 goodness ; see what a pattern I am of what you should be." 
 These observations may be, to men of natiirally weak morality, 
 unpleasant — -men too who pride themselves upon the exact- 
 ness of their views, and measure their "donations'' by the 
 figures in the subscription list of their rivals in the social 
 scale; as the phrase has it, ** respectable men," who look for a 
 defence of all the suffering of the unfortunate in denunciations 
 of their improvidence, and justify these by a list of the 
 liberal institutions to which those self-satisfied eulogists have 
 subscribed, without their having asked themselves whether 
 the means to enjoy these institutions are within the reach 
 of the majority of those for whom they are avowedly 
 intended, or asked " What is the balance between my own 
 efforts to relieve the wretched and the results of the practices 
 which sustain me, in causing poverty, suffering, and crime? " 
 Such home questionings might disturb the serenity of some 
 who move through their duties with a mechanical regularity, 
 enhvened with occasional manifestations of zeal for what 
 they modestly designate " enlightened views and a liberal 
 policy," sometimes, nay frequently, ending in social darkness 
 and positive punishment to the majority of those whose 
 misfortunes deserve relief, and their failings pity. It is within 
 the moral ability of but few men to feel for misery — they have 
 not themselves suffered — and extend mercy to those whose
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 213 
 
 misfortunes have been uniform and constant, and who conse- 
 quently have not experienced the momentous changes which 
 startle the beholder, and force the most careless to gaze on the 
 illustrious victims of misfortune in wonder mellowed with pity. 
 Mercy for the lowly is the spring rain of Heaven ; the agita- 
 tion of the elements is sometimes necessary to prepare for its 
 reception, to render its droppings fertilizing and the earth fruitful. 
 There are but few who dare to refuse a nominal acknow- 
 ledgment of the blessings of mercy, or of advantages arising 
 from the practice of moral virtues, but there is unfortunately 
 a kind of implied contract among men, that they shall not be 
 called upon to perform moral duties when the exercise of these 
 would interfere with the acquisition of riches. There is conse- 
 quently practised a general toleration of positive evil, under 
 the pretext of what is designated " aknowledge of the world : " 
 it is sceptical of the sincerity of every act which is not a 
 source of personal gain ; it considers the expression of gen- 
 erous sentiment as at best " an amiable weakness;" it sneers at 
 enthusiasm for good, and esteems self-sacrifice as akin to 
 madness ; all its maxims and its practices are opposed to the 
 extircise of virtue for its own sake; all unite to harden the 
 heart and cause the understanding to prefer property to truth, 
 profit to justice, and selfishness to charity. So systematic is 
 this conventional hypocrisy, that weak men, of even good 
 intentions, are afraid to condemn it in tones louder than a 
 confidential whisper: it is only the few whose keen sensibilities 
 have been too strong to be subdued by the force of example ; 
 these draw their conclusions fi'om their own experience, 
 become laden with a sense of the duties due from themselves 
 to others; they yield to the irresistible impulses of their 
 sensitive natures, and, at all risks, break through the trammels 
 of social usages, and boldly proclaim to the world the faith 
 that is within them. It is to the courage and indomitable 
 spirit of a few such men that England is indebted for the 
 Ten Hours' Bill movement of 1831 and 1832, — a movement
 
 214 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 in its origin and objects allied to mercy and consistent with 
 justice. 
 
 The agitation for shortening the hours of labour in fac- 
 tories was renewed in the West Riding of the county of 
 York in a period of extraordinary political excitement. 
 The mind of the country was then firmly resolved to ob- 
 tain a reform in parliament; the House of Lords, with the 
 late Duke of Wellington at their head, seemed resolved to 
 oppose the Reform Bill. From London to the most re- 
 mote village of the three kingdoms there were political 
 clubs. Birmingham and Nottingham threatened; the press 
 teemed with inflammatory speeches, letters, and leaders. It 
 is a feature of every such crisis not only to absorb public 
 sympathy, but to put down all efforts intended to establish 
 other movements. Meetings for the Ten Hours' Bill were 
 held in rapid succession at Heckmondwike, Bradford, Hud- 
 dersfield, Dewsbury, Keighley, Halifax, Leeds, Holmfirth, 
 and many other places, and lastly at York. These meet- 
 ings were numerously attended, presided over by the 
 regularly-constituted authorities — the ir.ayor of Leeds, the 
 high sheriff of the county of York; in all cases by the 
 principal local authority. At these meetings, when the then 
 popular cry of "Reform" was raised, the response, spoken 
 in a manner not to be misunderstood, was : — " We are 
 here about this question of Ten Hours' labour, and will 
 not allow it to be mixed up with any other." The 
 opponents of factory regulation made many efforts to drown 
 the cry of " Ten Hours a day," with the popular shouts 
 of " Reform," " No Corn laws." These efforts signally 
 failed, a circumstance which proves how thoroughly the 
 desire for restricting the hours of factory labour had 
 seated itself in the minds of the operative classes, and 
 how resolutely resolved they were to succeed in accom- 
 plishing their object. As the movement continued, it 
 gradually acquired importance. At the Bradford meeting,
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 215 
 
 held on December 27th, 1831, the Rev. G. S. Bull, a 
 clergyman who to the Church of England has been a 
 support and an ornament, joined the Ten Hours' Bill 
 cause ; then followed, at the same meeting, the adhesion 
 of Mr Rand, an extensive millowner. 
 
 Within a brief period afterwards, the Ten Hours' Bill 
 movement ranked amongst its foremost supporters the names 
 of Oastler, Sadler, Col. Murgatroyd, Tempest, Wood, Bull, 
 Pollard, Ferrand, Fielden, Rand, Condy, Fletcher, Smith, 
 Thackerah, Hanson, Perring, Foster, Schofield, Capt. Wood, 
 Stocks, Halliley, Kay, Pitkethly, Leach, Hall, Osborne, 
 Cook, Tweedale, Richardson, Albutt, and many others. 
 These names represented much talent and experience. 
 Messrs Wood, Rand, and Fielden (head of the firm of 
 Fielden and Brothers), were influential and successful mUl- 
 owners ; Mr Condy, a literary barrister of high reputation ; 
 Mr Fletcher, an eminent surgeon in Bury, Lancashire ; 
 Mr C. Turner Thackerah, and Mr Samuel Smith, of 
 Leeds, medical men uniting in a high degree observation, 
 experience, and science ; Mr Bull, a popular and honoured 
 Church parson ; Messrs Perring and Foster, editors 
 of newspapers ; Mr John Hanson, one of the most 
 inteUigent and able working men of Huddersfield. These 
 ** leaders " were supported by committees, consisting 
 of the principal operatives of their districts ; they were 
 supported by the body of the beneficed clergy, by 
 ministers of various other religious denominations, most 
 of the respectable medical practitioners, and other in- 
 fluential gentlemen. All efforts at out-of-doors opposition 
 were fruitless. 
 
 It is interesting and instructive to observe how the evils 
 of the factory system had become apparent to the minds of the 
 thoughtful among the various classes. By way of example, at 
 the Leeds meeting, Mr John Marshall, jun., of the finn of
 
 216 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 Marshall and Co., argued against parliamentary interference 
 as a general principle, but considered that the legislature 
 ought to protect the health of children. Mr Marshall said : 
 
 " I must confess that I cannot admit that the children 
 in our manufactory are suffering materially in their health 
 from the hours which we work at present." Mr Samuel 
 Smith answered : " Gentlemen — ^As one of the surgeons 
 of the Infirmary of this town, I have had extensive oppor- 
 tunities of witnessing the baneful effects produced upon 
 the health and limbs of children by too long work, and 
 too short intervals for rest and relaxation. I have seen 
 limbs which have been beautifully formed, in a short time, 
 from the operation of these causes, reduced to the lowest 
 state of deformity; and individuals who, but for these 
 causes, would have been models of beauty and manhood, 
 doomed to remain through life deformed dwarfs. It is now 
 about twelve years since my attention was first directed 
 to this subject, in consequence of seeing an unusual nimaber 
 of cases of deformity of the lower extremities, sent (to 
 the Leeds Infirmary) from a neighbouring manufactviring 
 town (Bradford). The surprise, however, at this circum- 
 stance ceased, when it was ascertained that at that period 
 the children were worked much longer hours in the factories 
 of that town than in this. 
 
 " The supports for bent bones, from those causes, soon 
 after this period, became an item of such importance in the 
 yearly expenses of the institution, that the weekly board 
 very properly thought it their duty to pass a resolution, 
 taking from the surgeon the power of ordering machines 
 costing beyond a certain sum, without first obtaining the 
 consent of the board, and we have now frequently to com- 
 pound the matter, by getting the parish from which the 
 poor patient comes to pay one-half the expense and the 
 Infirmary the other. Mr Marshall has stated to you that
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 217 
 
 he is not aware the children in his factory suffer m their 
 health, in consequence of the length of time they worked. 
 I give Mr Marshall credit for being sincere in this expression. 
 I sincerely beHeve that he is not aware of it, but every 
 one to his own business — / am aware of it, and, accordingly, 
 I may state, that the very last case of the kind I have 
 alluded to which I have investigated was &om that gentle- 
 man's factory. It was only on Friday afternoon last that 
 a beautiful girl, of fifteen years of age, presented herself 
 at my table at the Infirmary, being my admission week; 
 she had a recommendation, signed * Marshall and Co.' Her 
 spine was bent into the form of the letter S. As I always 
 wish to investigate the causes of disease, in order that I 
 may be the better able to effect a cure, I ascertained that 
 she had been several years at Mr Marshall's factory, that 
 she had been worked fourteen hours a day, with what 
 intervals do you think for rest and refireshment ? — why, 
 ten minutes for drinking, fifteen minutes for breakfast, 
 and forty minutes for dinner. This poor girl, but for 
 these causes, would have been as handsome a woman as 
 there is in the town of Leeds ; she must, however, now 
 remain deformed for life. She may be seen by any one ; 
 and I hesitate not to say that it was by these causes that 
 the deformity was produced, and I beheve that the persons 
 imder whom she has worked are aware of it. I understand 
 she was a line-spreader ; I do not know the nature of 
 it — but I believe it is an occupation in which only one 
 hand is used. I find that a short time ago her occupation 
 was changed. 
 
 '* The number and the serious nature of the machinery 
 accidents admitted into the Infirmary is quite frightful to 
 contemplate. I feel confident the proportion of these accidents 
 will be materially diminished by the Ten Hours' Bill, not in 
 the proportion of the one, two, or three hours, which may
 
 218 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 be deducted from the hours of labour, but in a much larger 
 proportion ; for I have long entertained a suspicion that many 
 of these poor children get their fingers and hands involved 
 in the machinery while in that state of listlessness and apathy, 
 produced by fatigue. I have it in confession fi:om an over- 
 looker, that it is often necessary, towards the latter part of the 
 day, to shake poor factory-children by the shoulders to keep 
 them awake while standing at their work. Is it proper — is 
 it right, that poor children who, even when standing upon 
 their legs, cannot keep their eyes open, should be placed 
 almost in immediate contact with all kinds of dreadful 
 machinery, with cog wheels, and things which are emphatically 
 caUed * devils ! ' ? " 
 
 At the Bradford meeting (Dec. 27, 1831), the Rev. George 
 Stringer BuU stated briefly the circumstances which induced 
 him, in his capacity of a Christian clergyman, to take an inte- 
 rest in the factory question. Medical men, as represented by 
 Mr Smith, of Leeds, were influenced by their experience of 
 the eflects of the factory system on the body ; ministers of the 
 Gospel, as represented by the Rev. G. S. BuU, were influ- 
 enced by their sense of the effects of the factory system on 
 mind and morals. Mr Bull, addressing the Bradford meeting, 
 said : " As I entered this room I heard a person ask, ' What 
 have the parsons to do with it ? ' Mr Chairman, the parsons 
 have a great deal to do with it ; and I conceive that a most 
 fearful responsibility rests upon those ministers of the Gospel 
 who fail to oppose all the influence they possess against 
 anything which tends to prevent the moral improvement and 
 religious advancement of the people. I have not been invited 
 to take part in the proceedings of this day, but I did not need 
 any invitation. As an inhabitant of the neighbourhood, I 
 claim my right to deliver my sentiments upon this subject 
 Since I have dwelt in this part of the country, I have been 
 frequently struck with the evils of this system. I have
 
 THE FACTOKY MOVEMENT. 219 
 
 noticed the many obstacles in the way of the moral and 
 religious improvement of young persons, and the consequent 
 moral evil entailed upon them when they become parents and 
 heads of families, and their children after them, has caused 
 me to experience pain every day of my life. Now, sir, I 
 happen to be connected with about five hundred Sunday 
 scholars in our district, and I assure you I feel my very heart 
 smart within me when I am scolding these poor little children 
 for coming too late to school, and consider the amount of 
 labour exacted from them during the week. It is not at all 
 extraordinary that they should take an extra nap on Sunday 
 morning, when they have been compelled to get up at five 
 o'clock, and sometimes earlier, on the other days of the 
 week ; and though I have felt it a matter of duty to scold 
 them for coming late to school, I have thought within myself 
 that somebody else was to blame besides them. And if, after 
 they have been stoved up during the week, we stove them 
 up in the Sunday schools, where are they to get a breath of 
 fresh air, or anything that will administer to health ? They 
 cannot find it in the mills, nor when they have been to their 
 work in the morning; they cannot find it when returning 
 home at night, after a fatiguing day's labour, exposed to rain 
 and the inclemency of the weather. It is impossible they can 
 find it in the mills six days in the week, nor on the seventh 
 in our Sunday schools, for, you knoAV, our school-rooms are 
 crowded to excess. Then, where are they to get a single 
 draught of health, and where are they to obtain anything 
 like moral improvement ? It is said that some of the most 
 strenuous supporters of Sunday schools are to be found 
 amongst those who employ the children. I acknowledge that 
 it is so ; but I would ask those gentlemen, what can we do 
 for the instruction of these children on the Lord's day ? — 
 that is, perhaps, two or three hours, for by the time the names 
 are called over, the absentees inquired after, and the other 
 little matters arranged, pray what time is left to teach them
 
 220 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 ABC? Besides, what business have you to teach them 
 A B C on Sundays ? They ought to learn that on the week 
 days, and a great deal more besides, and be exercised in 
 purely religious instruction on Sundays. I consider it a sort 
 of desecration of the Lord's day ; and that it is not warranted 
 without the most rigorous necessity. I trust we shall give 
 impartial attention to the arguments which may be advanced 
 to-day, and not suffer our feelings to warp our judgment in 
 any part of this discussion. With regard to the gentlemen 
 who are exerting themselves in promoting the emancipation 
 of these poor children — of Mr Sadler 1 can say, and I am 
 most conscientiously speaking when I state that in all our 
 private communications this has been the subject, ever since 
 I knew him in 1823, that has laid nearest his heart. The 
 first time I ever saw him was in Hull : we happened to talk 
 upon Sunday schools, and he called my attention to the very 
 system we are now met to consider, and he denounced it 
 with all those feelings which a man of humanity and consi- 
 deration would do. I do declare, without any reference to 
 political partialities, but most conscientiously, and upon the 
 word of a Christian, that I believe the poor of this country 
 have not a more firm and unflinching friend than Michael 
 Thomas Sadler." The interest which working men felt in the 
 question, and the importance of the facts they stated, may be 
 jud'^ed by the following observations spoken at the Huddersfield 
 meeting (Dec. 26, 1831), Mr George Beaumont said: "Mr 
 Chairman, 1 should wish to make one or two observations. 1 
 went into a factory at seven years of age, and worked till I was 
 fourteen, and I worked from six in the morning till eight in 
 the evening, with only forty minutes' intermission. I had my 
 meals brought into the work-room, and after biting once I 
 followed my work at the machine, but before I could bite 
 again I had to pick the lint off. And what has been the 
 result ? Look at me now. {Mr Beaumont alluded to his 
 diminutive stature.) At that manufactory it was usual to
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 221 
 
 keep a tally in the rooms, so that if there were two ln;ndred 
 persons in one apartment, only one person was allowed to go 
 out at a time. But these are only part of the evils which 
 these little sufferers have to endure. Look at the time they 
 have to go to the mills, and the risks they have to brave. 1 
 have assisted in carrying a little sister, not six years old, to 
 the mill, at six o'clock in the morning, through frost and 
 snow ; and I have seen an instance of a boy, who had not 
 been a quarter of an hour in the mill, being caught by a 
 strap, dragged into the machinery, and his head severed from 
 his body. I say, further, that those who advocate the abo- 
 lition of colonial slavery ought not to be considered as sincere 
 unless they advocate the extinction of slavery in factories. 
 If ten hours a day be the utmost extent allowed by law for 
 culprits or transports to labour, should children be worked 
 fourteen or sixteen hours a day, merely because their parents 
 are poor ? A factory in this town, last week, worked from six 
 in the morning to nine at night, with only an hour for meals." 
 
 The Yorkshire meetings were addressed at great length by 
 Mr Oastler. At Huddersfield (Dec. 26, 1831), he spoke as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Gentlemen, you shall have no party politics from me, ' but 
 ten hours for five days and ei^ht for Saturdays.' I feel most 
 happy to meet you upon that question, and upon that question 
 I shall always be ready to join you with heart and hand. If 
 we differ about other things, let us take care that we do not 
 lose that point ; let it be our care to relieve our children from 
 the slavery under which they now labour, and can scarcely 
 be said to exist. Let no feelings of animosity, as politicians, 
 ever interfere in that question ; but let us be resolved, as 
 tories, as radicals, as whigs, to join hand and heart till British 
 infants are free. I beg leave to congratulate you, Mr Chair- 
 man, upon your having been the first proper officer of his 
 Majesty to constitute a regularly-organised meeting for con- 
 sidering the propriety of making infants free, and I feel happy
 
 222 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 that I have lived to take part in such a meeting as this, and 
 I rejoice exceedingly that the silvery notes of a Minister of 
 the Gospel have been heard amongst us ; having been born, 
 as my friend Mr Baines has told you, of a very benevolent 
 parent, and having been for many years in the habit of 
 attending and supporting benevolent institutions. I have 
 been an old soldier in the cause of negro emancipation, 
 although, since I began to vsrrite and talk against ' Yorkshire 
 Slavery,' my enemies, or rather the enemies of the children, 
 have had the audacity to say that I did it for the purpose of 
 withdrawing the attention of Englishmen from negro thraldom. 
 I will yield to no man in hatred of slavery. When I was a 
 youth, and when the name of Wilberforce was hissed at for 
 political purposes, though only in my teens, 1 undertook a 
 paper war for him, and fought as manfully against his oppo- 
 nents as I now fight against the opponents of the freedom of 
 infants. Some persons have said to me, ' What business is 
 it of yours ? What have you to do with factories ? Yovi 
 have got a good place up at Fixby, yonder ; you are right, 
 be thankful.' My answer was this, ' 1 am one of the human 
 race ; and I see these infants in misery, and so long as I live 
 will I exert my powers to relieve them from their bondage.' 
 Yes, yes, I know that the God who made me, never made a 
 human being to be miserable ; I know that it is the design of 
 the Divine Being that all the sons and daughters of Adam 
 should be happy. Do I then say that there should be no 
 grades in society ; that there are not to be servants and 
 masters ? No; but I do say that servitude and labour ought 
 not to be oppressive. I know from ray own experience, for I 
 am but a servant, that I have as much pleasure in serving my 
 master, as my master can have in receiving my services. No 
 master has a right to demand the services of any human being 
 unless the reward of those services will be a comfortable living, 
 and that is, I verily believe, all the working classes want. 
 But I have been charged with being an enemy to the
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 223 
 
 factory-masters. Those who have said so do not know 
 me ; nor do they know the factory-masters. Let me set 
 you right upon that point; I know more about it than 
 you do, but I will tell you nothing but truth. I hold 
 in my hand some letters from factory-masters, not many 
 miles distant from my own house, and I will read them 
 to you in order that I may set the question right be- 
 tween yourselves and your employers. That man, in 
 my opinion, does the poor most good who corrects them 
 if mistaken with regard to the character of those who em- 
 ploy them. Providence has placed me in a situation between 
 the infants and their masters, and that very position has 
 made me the medium of their information: I have in my 
 hand a letter from one of the principal miUowners in the 
 West Riding of the County of York, and he is a Radical. 
 He says, ' I admire, exceedingly, your labours to effect an 
 amelioration in the condition of children employed in fac- 
 tories ; you have my hearty good wishes for your success, 
 but you have a mass of stupidity to struggle with. I wish 
 the humanity of some of the friends of liberal measures 
 were not so diffusive, nor of so itinerant a character, 
 that it might become a little more localised, and that it 
 might be allowed to visit our own neighbourhood.' So 
 says the Radical. I will give you a short but compre- 
 hensive extract of a letter from another large factory- 
 holder, who is a Whig, for I have them from all sorts. 
 He says, * How can I assist you in the cause of the 
 factory children? You may command my best energies.' 
 Now, there's for you ! What could he say more ? Well 
 done Mr Whig millowner. I have not done yet, gen- 
 tlemen. I hold in my hand a communication from a 
 Tory millowner. He thus concludes his letter, in 
 which he has authorised me to give money to com- 
 mittees in case they cannot raise sufficient themselves. 
 I have not yet had occasion to give any ; though I lent 
 some the other day, but they would not keep it, because they
 
 224 THE HISTORY OP 
 
 said they could get enough in their own town, and would 
 repay me. But what says the Tory gentleman ? You shall 
 hear; ' Let us all pray, as with one mind, to God, that he 
 may be pleased to bless us by allowing us to have the 
 wish of our hearts gratified.' This is in one letter, and he 
 concludes another in a somewhat similar manner — ' And 
 with my sincere prayer that we may be the honoured 
 instruments in the hands of God to diminish this worst of 
 all slavery, I am, &c.' Now these are letters I have 
 received from three of the most respectable and three of the 
 largest millowners in the West Riding of Yorkshire, radical, 
 whig, and tory though they be. Believe it not, then, that 
 Richard Oastler is an enemy to the factory-masters, for the}'' 
 it is that are enabling him to stand against all the rebuffs and 
 abuse of his opponents. And I will tell you more — I was 
 supported by these three men before I knew that a single 
 operative had taken the field. Let it then be understood 
 that the cause stands better than it did. They are not all 
 against you. I said at Leeds, and I believed it, and I 
 believe it now, that three-fourths of the manufacturers of 
 the West Riding of the County of York are with me upon 
 this question. But it is stated in a Saturday paper that that 
 is not credited. Be it so. What will it prove ? That ' the 
 greatest enemy the factory-masters are said to have ' has too 
 good an opinion of them. I firmly believe I am correct, 
 though I know that in certain quarters great efforts are 
 making to destroy the effect. I should now like to talk to 
 you a little about the factory system; I have said enough 
 about myself. It was a factory-master that first called my 
 attention to it. I had often heard of the evils in factories, 
 but I take shame to myself that I did not examine into 
 them sooner; it was a factory-master who asked me to come 
 forward because I had a bold heart and feared nobody. I 
 gave him my word that I would not rest till I had conquered, 
 or sunk into my grave; and I never will. Gentlemen, I 
 am old enough to remember that there were thousands of
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 225 
 
 respectable domestic manufacturers worth their 50/., or 100/., 
 or 200/., who were able to make their cloth at home and go 
 to sell it in the market; but they are now reduced almost to 
 pauperism, or to the class of common labourers. They wei e 
 the best masters the workmen ever had — these were the 
 strongest bulwarks of the state — but they are now mixed 
 amongst the paupers and labourers in one common mass. I 
 remember the time when there were happy companies upon 
 the village green, as blithesome and as gay as lambs, and I 
 have gambolled with them — but they are now all gone and 
 disappeared ; we see nothing of the sort now ! We scarcely 
 see the complexion of a boy or girl in a country place, but 
 they are black, blue, or brown. I remember the time when 
 it was not so, but now they are locked up the live-long day 
 in a loathsome factory; and when I know that the Almighty 
 Creator of the Universe never intended them to be sent there, 
 I feel that I am doing the work of God when I require the 
 doors to be opened, and that these little ones should once 
 more see the rising and setting of the sun. It is, in my 
 opinion, the factory system which has caused a great deal of 
 the distress at the present time — a great deal of the immorality 
 at the present time — a great deal of the weakness of men's 
 constitutions at the present time. It is, then, against that 
 baneful system I have lifted up my arm, and I ask you, not 
 to help me to pull it down, but to correct its errors, and to 
 keep it from falling. When I contemplate the life of a 
 factory-child, my heart is filled with horror to think that 
 human nature is so corrupt that any individual, calling 
 himself a man, would live a day under that load of guilt 
 which he ought to feel as a man who is causlnc; such 
 dreadful misery. Take a little child, for it is in units we 
 must deal ; the whole mass of factory woes would cloud your 
 understandings and make you like myself, as I have by 
 my opponents been described — 'mad.' Take, then, a little 
 captive, and I will not picture ' fiction ' to you, but T will 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 tell you what I have seen. TaKe a little female captive, 
 six or seven years old; she shall rise from her bed at four 
 in the morning of a cold winter's day; but before she rises 
 she wakes perhaps half-a dozen times, and says, ' Father is 
 it time? Father is it time?' And at last when she gets 
 up she feels about in the dark for her clothes, and puts her 
 little bits of rags upon her weary limbs — weary with the 
 last day's work ; she leaves her parents in their bed, their 
 labour (if they have any) is not required so early ; she 
 trudges onward all alone through rain and snow, and mire 
 and darkness, to the mill, perhaps two miles, or at least one 
 mile; and there for thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, 
 seventeen, or even eighteen hours is she obliged to work, 
 with only thirty minutes interval for meals and play ! ! 
 Homewards again at night she would go, all in the dark 
 and wet, when she was able, but many a time she hid 
 herself in the wool in the mill, as she had not strength 
 to go. The girl I am speaking of died; but she dragged 
 on that dreadful existence for several years. But this is 
 not an isolated case. I wish it were. I could not bring 
 you hvmdreds of such cases exactly, because I have mentioned 
 eighteen hours, but if I had said sixteen hours, I could have 
 brought hundreds. And if the little dear were one moment 
 behind the appointed time ; if ' the Bell ' had ceased to ring 
 when she arrived, with trembling, shivering, weary limbs, at 
 the factory door, there stood a monster in human form before 
 her, and as she passed he lashed her ! ! {Here Mr Oastler 
 struck the front of the platform with a long heavy strap.) This 
 (holding up the ' strap ') is no '■fiction.'' It was hard at work 
 in this town last week, and I have seen the effects of such 
 instruments in black marks fi:om the neck to the seat of 
 children. This system ought to be exposed, to be corrected. 
 What I am going to tell you is a fact, and it was committed 
 in Christendom. A little boy ran away, for about three- 
 quarters of an hour, out of a factory, and when he returned
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 227 
 
 he was taken into a room by the overlooker, a quantity of tow 
 was tied over his mouth, and he was stripped and flogged with 
 a hazel stick till every bit of the skin was flayed ofl" from the 
 back of his head to the bottom of his back, and so tight had 
 the tow been tied round his head, the black marks occasioned 
 thereby remained many days. For weeks the poor suficrer was 
 unable to go to his work. Had he been my child he should 
 have gone to his grave rather than to such a place of torture. 
 This was not done in the West Indies, neither was it done in 
 this immediate neighbovirhood ; this horrifying case of cruelty 
 occurred, however, not very many miles from this place. And 
 should I be called ' mad ' because I endeavoured to expose this 
 system ? I think there are many men more mad than I am 
 who have not joined hand and heart in the cause years and 
 years ago. I am glad, however, that we have got a public 
 meeting on the subject ; I am glad we have got friend Booth 
 (the chairman) to lead the van. I trust we shall crush the 
 anti-christian, anti-social system, and that children will be 
 allowed to leave their work when they have been employed 
 ten hours. It was my intention to have adverted to the 
 general effects of this system, but that has been done already. 
 Allow me, however, to occupy your time a few moments while 
 I take notice of the remarks in last Saturday's paper respect- 
 ing the working of children eleven hours a day. The question 
 now occupies a very different position from what it did when 
 Sir John Hobhouse's bill was introduced. Tlien the workmen 
 asked for a limitation to twelve hours a day, and a great many 
 persons opposed it, and now you have found many of them 
 are opposed to a ten hours' bill. And how ? By proposing 
 one for eleven hours ! I want you to be careful on this point, 
 for I am positively sure that an eleven hours' bill means no 
 bill at all. They tell you that if you get a ten hours' bill you 
 will petition for it to be done away with next year. They say 
 also that you will have lower wages. I do not think they 
 know what you will have ; it is speculation ; but I will tell you 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 I think you will have better wages, and I think the manu- 
 facturers will have better profits, and the shopkeepers better 
 customers, and all will go on well. The reason why I think 
 you will have better wages is, the market of labour will be 
 more circumscribed, and therefore you will have it more within 
 your own power. Now, the labour of children is co-extensive 
 with your own, it may be demanded for the whole twenty-four 
 hours ; but if it were less, you would both get better wages ; 
 and a manufacturer told me, for I have it all from them, that 
 they will get a better profit out of your better wages, and 
 when you get more money, you will be better customers to 
 the shopkeeper. I am absolutely shocked that Christians who 
 are very anxious to do away with slavery in the West Indies 
 can endeavour to bribe the worst feelings in parents to sell the 
 labour of children for a shilling a week extra, and to lend 
 their support to an eleven hours' bill. What is the most 
 debasing principle of human nature, nurtured by 'African 
 Slavery ? ' That a parent is so dreadfully demoralized as to 
 sell his child for gold ! ! Yes, this is the most hateful part of 
 that most hateful system ! And I remember to have seen 
 those very persons hold up to execration an African father or 
 mother, because they would sell their child, who are now 
 asking you to do what is the very same in principle, namely, 
 to consign your child to excessive labour, under the idea of 
 receiving more money for the same. It is the system of 
 slavery in factories which destroys all parental feeling, and 
 they think that it has gone on so far that you are now so 
 unfeeling as to support the cruel oppression of your children 
 from the hope of receiving more wages ; but I hope that you 
 will tell them, if your children do run the risk of getting less 
 wages, they shall not any longer be slaves. It now becomes 
 my duty to beg for these poor slaves. You know these things 
 can't be done without money. I have spent a little ; but we 
 think the people of Huddersfield would hke to put their mites 
 into this Gospel Treasury of our Lord. It is the intention of
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 229 
 
 the Committee to so round from house to house, to collect 
 subscriptions to support a delegate to London, in order that 
 the poor children may not be trampled on by forty delegates 
 from other places. Let me remind every person who may be 
 afraid that other institutions wiU suffer from this, that the 
 tree of benevolence has taken deep root and is widely 
 spreading ; water it well then at the roots, and it will 
 still spread more luxuriantly, until it cover the whole earth. 
 If the factory system were corrected and its mischiefs 
 curtailed, I beheve that England would outstrip all her 
 former doings, and become the guardian angel of the world — 
 which, that she may be, is my most earnest wish and desire." 
 
 Mr Oastler's speech at Huddersfield possesses a historical 
 and social interest ; he described what he himself had seen of 
 the social condition of the manufacturing population of York- 
 shire before the introduction of the centralised, unregulated 
 factory system. The annexed extract will, however, better 
 enable the reader to judge of the force of the words which, 
 when spoken in the ears of Englishmen, aroused them to a 
 sense of their wrongs and duties : — 
 
 Mr Oastler, while addressing a crowded meeting at Keigh- 
 ley (Jan. 30th, 1832), said : 
 
 " What ! shall that being which nature in its infancy has 
 made perfectly helpless, with all its sinews and fibres as weak 
 as possible, shall that being be compelled by the hand of 
 avarice, and the hand of tyranny, to be worked to death before 
 it arrives at maturity, although we farmers, for our own sakes, 
 take care of our horses when young in order that we may work 
 them to our profit when they are old ? What ! shall those 
 individuals who entertain the horrid Malthusian doctrine, and 
 suppose that the Creator sends beings into the world without 
 being able to provide food for them, shall they lay their savage 
 paws upon them and work them to death, calling them 
 redundant and superfluous ? In the name of Christianity, in 
 the name of Britain, I say ' No,'' and I hope that very shortly
 
 230 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 we shall hear the same negative responded from St Stephen's. 
 Yes, I have no doubt when our legislators are informed of the 
 actual evils which exist, when they perceive how the factory 
 system demoralises and debases society, notwithstanding that 
 an interested faction may go up to London to oppose us, our 
 legislators will assert that it ought no longer to be tolerated, 
 and declare that the children shall hereafter be protected by 
 the law of the land, and that they shall be sealed from slavery 
 by the seal of the King of England. But supposing, gentle- 
 men, that their health were not injured, are they brutes ? No, 
 no. If they had been whelped by the lioness, no man dare 
 have seized them to oppress them. She would have risen in 
 all her mighty power and bade defiance to the oppressor of 
 her young. And think you not that English Christian mothers 
 feel as fondly for their young as the lioness ? Ah, yes, they 
 do, yet they have not the power of the lioness, but in solitude 
 and confinement are condemned to mourn over the helpless 
 fate of their oflPspring, and it is on that account they now take 
 a part in our meeting, while w^e are attempting that which the 
 order of society prevents them from doing — publicly pleading 
 the cause of their infant children. But, as I said, if they were 
 brutes the tyrant dare not seize them. They are not brutes. 
 The whole of these little ones which it pleases Almighty God 
 of his infinite mercy to commit to your care, fathers and 
 mothers, have to perform their duties in this w^orld as mem- 
 bers of society, and members of social government. Yes, they 
 have to be taught that they themselves must learn to be 
 good ; and how can they learn the principles of morality, 
 when, from the dawning of the morning almost to the mid- 
 night hour, they are shut up in the fumes of a factory, engaged 
 in twisting, and twining, and joining together threads, as 
 thoiigh that were the only duty for which they were created 
 into the world ? I say this, that we ought to assert that it is 
 improper that a child in its youth should work longer than 
 ten hours a day, if it is exjiected that that child shall be
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 231 
 
 a good subject under the Government. The law of the land 
 expects us all, even the factory children, to understand our 
 duty as good subjects when we arrive at full age; but how in 
 the name of common sense can a young factory child, that 
 is torn from its bed in a morning, and goes home to bed with 
 aching legs at night, and too often cannot reach it, but 
 slumbers on its way, how is it possible such a child can know 
 the law which is made for its own government ? It is 
 absolutely impossible. But, gentlemen, these little children 
 are not brutes ; they have not only to learn their duty to 
 man, they have not only to live upon the earth a few years, 
 but there is a wide extending eternity opening before them, 
 and Ave know, as Christians, that in that eternity they must 
 occupy either a place of misery or a place of happiness. 
 They have to learn their duty to God ; and if it be im- 
 possible that they should be able to learn their duty to 
 man, it is absolutely impossible that they should learn 
 their duty to God. Then, woe be to that man, wherever he is 
 and whoever he is, who, in the search of gain, prevents those 
 employed under him from having the opportunity of pre- 
 paring to meet their God. Woe be to him, whether he be 
 rich or whether he be poor. There is a dread responsibility 
 attaches to every human being who employs little children 
 under such circumstances, for which he will have to account 
 at the day of judgment ; and although some of their employers 
 may laugh at us for saying so now, the day will come when 
 they will tremble. Yes, my friends, these little children 
 are brought into the world thus to perform their duty ; but 
 how does this horrid system prevent them ? The moment a 
 child is able to creep from its mother's lap, almost — for I have 
 known them taken at six years old — and from morning till 
 night, from week to week, and from year to year, if their 
 health permit, are they compelled to labour and toil. And is 
 this a state of things that can be approved of by any person 
 calling himself a Briton or a Christian ? Is this really what
 
 232 THE HISTORY OP 
 
 was intended for an immortal soul that is put into the casket 
 of a beautiful child ? Is it thus that children should be led to 
 Jesus, who said ' Suffer little children to come unto me, and 
 forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven V Oh, 
 no, benevolence has endeavoured, but in vain, to make up for 
 the evils that the factory system has brought upon our 
 juvenile population. Benevolent individuals, who have seen 
 how morally impossible it is for children under the factory 
 system, as it is now and has been for some time practised, to 
 be educated properly, have designed, superintended, and pro- 
 moted Sunday schools. Benevolence has waited upon the 
 children, and has been compelled against its better feeling to 
 make that day which every Christian acknowledges to be a 
 sabbath and day of rest, into another day of labour for the 
 children, and of labour for the teachers. Think not that I 
 am speaking against Sunday schools. No ; I am endeavouring 
 to uphold the individuals who have promoted them, and who 
 have spent their days in endeavouring to teach children that 
 which in my conscience I believe they have a right to be 
 taught on the week day. Yes, yes, benevolence has 
 endeavoured, but as I before said has endeavoured in vain, to 
 make up for the dreadful evils which this horrid system pro- 
 duces. You see your infirmaries erected by kind and bene- 
 volent individuals, and in those places where factories 
 predominate you will find them occupied, in a majority of 
 cases, by persons who have received their diseases from the 
 factory system. Within a very few years, benevolence, 
 finding that still the avaricious and haughty tyrant seized its 
 prey, and rendered it incapable of receiving instructions on the 
 sibbath — for I know many that are prevented, being com- 
 pelled by the fatigue of the week's labour to spend their 
 Sundays in bed — benevolence has designed another plan ; 
 infant schools liave been established, in order that they may 
 receive some little instruction before they are consigned to the 
 demon of the factory system ; and so avaricious, so malignant,
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 233 
 
 80 blood-thirsty — I mean of the blood of their souls — have 
 some factory- masters become, that they have given this as a 
 reason in a petition to the House of Commons why children 
 eight years old ought not to be protected. Seeing, then, that 
 benevolence, with its outstretched arm, has been overmatched, 
 and that the abettors of the factory system have determined to 
 make it only subservient to their own interests, is it not higli 
 time that Britons should speak out, and that at all events 
 those who are not blinded by this accursed system should 
 raise their voices and petition loudly, and frequently, and 
 continually, that British children may be free. I say it is 
 high time." 
 
 These speeches were spoken in the presence of those who 
 •were capable of judging of the truth of every fact stated ; in 
 this consisted their principal value, for the factory system, as 
 then existing, was attacked in the stronghold of its supporters. 
 
 The exuberant fulness of Mr Oastler's sympathies, his 
 disregard for personal consequences, and liis strong hatred of 
 oppression, have sometimes caused him in public controversy 
 to use expressions which, to others less moved and more under 
 the control of conventional propriety, have appeared extreme. 
 These expressions Mr Oastler's opponents have not failed to 
 make the most of ; in council no man is more culm and careful, 
 in action he is dauntless and brave. No words can equal his 
 own, published in 1850, as a description of his state of mind 
 in the early stages of the factory movement, as begun by 
 himself: — "Those who blame me," said Mr Oastler, "for 
 having been violent in this cause, should consider the deep, the 
 solemn, the overwhelming conviction, on my mind, of its vast 
 importance; they should never forget that there were external 
 circumstances surrounding me, calculated to awaken my sym- 
 pathies and to arouse my indignation. I saw my young and 
 helpless neighbours dying excruciatingly by inches under the 
 lash and toil of the factory monster ; I heard their groans, 
 I watched their tears ; I knew they had relied on me, they
 
 234 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 told me so. I was visited by their weeping mothers, who, 
 sorrowing, showed me their children's bleeding wounds, and in 
 accents which such mothers alone could speak, asked : ' Is this 
 fair, sir? Is it not enough that these poor things should be 
 killed by labour, while doomed to earn our bread ; and must 
 they also be kicked, and lashed, and struck in this fashion ? ' 
 Then, gazing in maddened anguish, and lifting their tearful 
 eyes to heaven, they have said : ' There is a God, and he will 
 recompense.' I saw full-grown athletic men, whose only labour 
 was to carry their little ones to the mill long before the sun 
 was risen, and bring them home at night long after he had set. 
 I heard the curses of these broken-hearted fathers ! They were 
 loud and deep, but registered — never to be forgotten. 
 
 " To have been cool, calm, and unmoved, when surrounded 
 by such circumstances, would have required a colder heart than 
 mine; to have expected me to address, in drawing-room lan- 
 guage, the oppressors of the helpless, men whose whole souls 
 were absorbed in the one thought of coining gold out of tears 
 and suffering, would have been to have supposed me something 
 more, or something less, than a man." 
 
 There was between Mr Oastler and his hearers a bond of 
 sympathy ; he appealed to the love they bore their offspring, 
 to the sense of the degradation they endured ; he warmed 
 within them the consciousness of duty, the responsibility thereto 
 attached; he awakened their hope by pledging himself to 
 secure their release, or, perish in the attempt ; he strengthened 
 their patriotism by exiiorting them to care for their country as 
 became Englishmen; he entreated them, for mercy's sake, to 
 grant unto him their approval and support. Who could deny 
 the facts stated by Mr Smith, of Leeds, by the Eev. Mr Bull, 
 by the factory operatives, of what they themselves had endured? 
 Those who eagerly listened, carried with them to their own 
 homes the glad tidings that sincere and bold men were pledged 
 to secure the emancipation of little children from the slavery in 
 the mills. Yorkshire, through the force of such speeches as
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 235 
 
 have been quoted, and the aid of the printing press, was 
 excited through controversy ; and the operatives, being hope- 
 ful, were full of enthusiasm. The question was a home 
 one, felt and known by all who suffered; they, in the sim- 
 plicity of their hearts, had not their virtuous resolutions 
 deadened by the chill damp of economical theories. These 
 were the weapons of the opponents of factory legislation. 
 
 The Yorkshire meetings had features peculiarly their own. 
 The tears, the smiles, the songs, the vows of the women and 
 children, the sense of indio-nation which now and aoiain shot 
 from the eyes of all when the nobler feelings of their hearts 
 were appealed to, will, by those who witnessed those scenes, 
 never be forgotten. As the cruelties endured were named, 
 women, men, and children wept; as hope was appealed to, 
 they cheered ; the children and girls, in shrill notes, sang their 
 simple chaunt, — " We will have the Ten Hours' Bill, that we 
 will." Here and there, a mother clasping an infant to her 
 breast, kissing it, and exclaiming: " Factory slave thou shalt 
 never be," gave to the proceedings a dramatic interest, remark- 
 able, intense, and exciting. 
 
 There has not been held, in the whole course of English 
 agitations, a more remarkable gathering than that which met 
 in the Castle Yard of York, on April 24, 1832, to demonstrate 
 to Parliament that Yorkshire was in earnest for a Ten Hours' 
 Bill. The nearest factory town to York was Leeds, a distance 
 of twenty-four miles; many of the outlying districts were from 
 forty to fifty miles from the place of meeting. The air was 
 cold, the I'ain during the pi'evious night fell m torrents, the 
 weather was described in the Castle Yard to be " the most in- 
 clement within memory." Leeds, Bradford, Binglcy, Keighley, 
 Dewsbury, Heckraondwicke, Batley, Huddersfield, Honley 
 Holmfirth, Marsden, Meltham, Elland, Hebdenbridge, Pudsey, 
 Rawden, Otley, and other towns and villages were that day 
 represented in the Castle Yard. Thousands of men foot-sore, 
 but nut faint of heart, who had walked from twenty-four to
 
 236 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 fifty miles, blessed God when their eyes that morning saw 
 York Minster. Not only men, but factory boys and girls, 
 mothers with infants in their arms, fifty miles firom their own 
 homes, were there to hold up their hands to heaven as an 
 earnest of their desire to be freed from a worse than an 
 Egyptian bondage. It was a sight to have made a man love 
 his kind ; to have seen how the stronger helped the weaker 
 along the road to York, and from York home again ; to mark 
 them share each others' food, to behold the noble spirit of 
 self-sacrifice which made those in front wait for and often 
 return to help onward those in the rear. Oastler and Bull 
 were everywhere cheering and encouraging the straggling 
 bands. Fatigue, hunger, and thirst, were borne with courage 
 and self-denial ; property of all kinds was safe as if all had 
 been in their own parishes. The meeting was most numerously 
 attended, the Castle Yard, which was then of very large area, 
 having been three parts full. The estimated numbers varied, 
 all admitted there were many thousands. We are indebted to a 
 friend for a personal narrative of this most interesting assem- 
 blage ; his recital contains points of special interest, which could 
 not be ascertained from the usual sources of information. The 
 author of the narrative was a zealous supporter of the factory 
 movement, and wrote with all the warmth of an earnest man. 
 He published his description of the York meeting shortly 
 after its occurrence, and when the incidents were fresh in his 
 memory. He was assisted by facts communicated by several 
 friends, who described what they saw. The whole comes there- 
 fore stamped with authority, and we shall quote freely from 
 the account so rendered. 
 
 " A numerously signed Requisition had been accepted by 
 the High Sheriff of Yorkshire for a County Meeting on the 
 Factory Bill. 
 
 " The largest and most populous county in England was, 
 by the far-famed Reform Bill, partitioned into North, East, 
 and West Divisions. In its undivided state it was a little
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 237 
 
 kingdom of itself, and its public gatherings were often noble 
 exhibitions of old English feeling. 
 
 " We were starting for York. The West Riding was up 
 for one grand effort in favour of the White Slave's emanci- 
 pation, and every village, town, and hamlet in the province, 
 at all contiguous to the manufacturing districts, was in a stir. 
 It was not the war-whoop of revenge that rent the air, but it 
 was the loud voice of parental sympathy, and of Christian 
 soHcitude for the lives, the morals, and the domestic as well 
 as religious and educational rights of the poor and honest 
 workers of Yorkshire. ' For God and our Children ' was the 
 motto on many a rude and homely banner, that was floating 
 out of the windows of the manufacturing towns and hamlets 
 of the crowded West — ' To York ! to York ! ' was the word ; 
 and the resistless ' King Richard ' Oastler had issued his 
 manifesto requiring all his subjects to attend. 
 
 " The preparations for this great gathering were on a 
 splendid scale It was a great undertaking to conduct so 
 many thousands to York. 
 
 " Let the people of the more favoured and quieter coun- 
 ties, where the tall murky chimney was never seen, and 
 the ' many-windowed pile,' so feelingly described by Words- 
 worth, rears not the roof beneath which infancy and childhood 
 have so long groaned under the direst slavery that ever 
 defiled the earth — let the quiet farmers and shopkeepers of the 
 non-manufacturing counties imagine a vast population, chiefly 
 lying at an average of thirty-five miles at least from the 
 county town, resolving upon a Pilgrimage of mercy to liberate 
 their own children from the thraldom they had long endured 
 impitied because unknown. 
 
 " The preparations for this meeting alarmed even Mammon 
 himself His votaries dreamed of, and cried ' Treasons, 
 stratagems, and spoils.' York would be sacked — the farmers 
 on their way would be plundered — their ricks fired — their
 
 238 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 flocks slaughtered, and then, what waste of time! — the factories 
 must be stopped, for even children and young persons resolved 
 to go — women were determined to be at the place of concourse 
 — and such was the stir among the ' monied interest ' that a 
 great talk was heard of an application to the Executive to 
 forbid the meeting. But the High Sheriff's precept was now 
 out — he had accepted as security the word of ' King Richard ' 
 that the King's peace should not be broken ; and a powerful 
 impetus had been given to the Christian and humane feeling 
 of the county. 
 
 " In some villages and scattered patches of houses, 
 contributions of bread and other provisions were amply 
 raised by the poor for the pilgrims — but the great want of 
 all was, shoes. These were lent; and whilst some had 
 the ill-fitting and grotesque coats of their neighbours, others 
 were content with a portion of a well-greased wool sheet: 
 and at the appointed hour, which varied as the distance 
 might be, the confluent streams of animated beings began 
 to move. 
 
 " Leeds was the first halt. On the evening before the meet- 
 ing, Leeds was crowded with the people (young and old) of 
 Dewsbury, Bradford, Halifax, Birstal, and Huddersfield, and 
 far beyond these and their numerous surrounding townships — 
 of Keighley and Sutton — of Holmfirth, and even Chapel 
 le Firth on the bare moors — in fact from that range of hills 
 rising in Derbyshire, and running down into Scotland's 
 border, called ' the back bone of England,' to the centre of 
 the city of the North, the swarming thousands poured down 
 on that occasion. Their progress was peaceable, and in 
 every way orderly. 
 
 ^' Large masses went on in rustic order, singing Jehovah's 
 praises, and imploring, in verse perhaps rudely composed for 
 the occasion. His never- failing compassion for themselves and 
 their little ones.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 239 
 
 " As a sample of these productions of the poetic rangers 
 of our Northern moors and hills, the following (from the 
 pen of a hand-loom weaver) may be given, which was 
 composed on that occasion. 
 
 " 'How wretched is tliy fate — to be 
 
 Sliut up in early years, 
 From light, and life, and liberty, 
 
 And all that life endears. 
 No moral lesson taught to learn, 
 
 Thy manners all defiled. 
 Thou still must pass unheeded on. 
 
 Poor little Factory Child. 
 
 " ' No pure domestic bliss is thine, 
 
 Which others seem to share ; 
 'Tis thine to labour — or to pine 
 
 'Mid want, distress, and care : 
 Thou'st no protection from the great — 
 
 Thou must be reconcil'd 
 To pass thy days unheeded on, 
 
 Poor little Factory Child. 
 
 " ' No youthful pastimes are thy lot, 
 
 Which youthful minds require ; 
 Thou liv'st and linger'st on the spot, 
 
 Which quenches all thy fire : 
 Thy bosom never felt the sweets 
 
 Of treatment kind and mild ; 
 But hard fatigue and harsh commands. 
 
 Poor little Factory Child. 
 
 " ' Thy future years will bear the gloom , 
 
 Thy tender age has known ; 
 Eestriction wears the mental bloom — 
 
 Confinement keeps it down. 
 Thy body, too, alike must feel 
 
 The ills upon it piled — 
 Thou still must pass unheeded on, 
 
 Poor little Factory Child.' 
 
 " The banners were in many cases very strikingly expres- 
 sive. Most of them had a Scriptural phrase or allusion. 
 Some were painted by the rude artist to represent the
 
 240 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 * horrors' of the mill system — such as a father carrying his 
 little girl through a pelting storm of sleet and snow to a noted 
 flax mill near Leeds, at five in the morning, himself in tatters, 
 and having taken off his own remnant of what was once a 
 coat, to cover his hapless babe, who was doomed to earn its 
 parent's Kving, as well as its own, at the certain destruction of 
 its own health and morals, and probably its very life — doomed 
 to lie in a premature grave. 
 
 " Others had inscribed ' Father, is it time ?' a cry which is 
 often heard the night through in the crowded and wretched 
 dormitory of the factory working-people, and which little 
 children, more asleep than awake (dreading the consequences 
 of being late), were often heard to utter. 
 
 " In reference to this, one incident in particular had about 
 then become generally known, which made this motto on the 
 banners of the York pilgrims very heart-stirring. A little 
 white slave, whose weary labours were kindly consummated 
 by the friendly hand of death — who had been used to work 
 incredibly long hours, and was now stretched upon the bed 
 from whence she rose no more — in the last struggle of nature 
 waking from one of those interrupted slumbers that often 
 precede the last pang of death, as her fond parents stood 
 "watching with many tears the exit of the worn-out infant 
 slave to her long home, she (so true yet so outraged was 
 nature) suddenly started from this closing sleep, and exclaim- 
 ing ' Father, is it time ?' sunk back into that father's arms, 
 and escaped to where tyranny could not reach her. 
 
 " We have stated, that these advocates of their own cause 
 and their children's first rested at Leeds. 
 
 " Warehouses were there provided for each party that came 
 in, and a good litter of straw ' long feathers ' was spread for 
 them to lie upon, until, after a few hours' rest, they should 
 resume their work. For such as had need, some bread was 
 provided, at these stations, and a limited quantity of beer. 
 The masses moved out of Leeds all that tempestuous night.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 241 
 
 Many could not proceed in consequence of the weather, 
 thousands proceeded, mostly on foot, but some in carts and 
 waggons, wliich they provided for themselves. The next 
 station of the Pilgrims was Cross Roads, on a Heath, half 
 way between Leeds and York. 
 
 " Here a little refreshment awaited them, and then 
 ' Onward ' was the cry. But a darker night never shrouded 
 the sky. 
 
 " The appearance of the road was novel and impressive; 
 it resounded with cheers, which were uttered by the Pilgrims 
 at those who passed them in carriages of various sorts. In 
 some groups there were torclies, composed of old ropes, and 
 the undulations of the road afforded many views of illuminated 
 groups, successively rising over the hills and disappearing the 
 next instant, leaving a loud, long cheer behind, as they sank 
 out of view. It was indeed a moving scene. 
 
 " With the early dawn, the Race-course at York began to 
 teem with multitudes. The Grand Stand was the rendezvous. 
 There, the poor fellows were promised a little cheer, (who had 
 need and were unprovided), of the plainest sort — bread, cheese, 
 and small beer. And here the hand of Providence is to be 
 admired! By some accident the bread had been mis-sent to 
 another place — It was by many believed to have been a foul 
 plot to cause disaster — the beer was there without the bread, 
 and the hungry and the drenched to the skin were therev 
 disappointment and anger were there ; but for a good Pro 
 vidence and the magnanimity of ' King Richard,' theri 
 might have been havoc that day- 
 
 " Oastler soon heard of the sad dilemma, and no soonei 
 heard, than, with quick and steady step, he was met by one 
 of his warmest friends, then just arrived, pacing toward the 
 Grand Stand. Arriving there, he was greeted with ' a three 
 times three ' that rent the air. His own account, (in a letter 
 to a friend), of that critical moment is this: 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 " ' Wlien I left the George Inn, to meet the hungry and 
 exasperated people, I saw John Wood, (a principal mill- owner 
 at that time, and a liberal friend of the factory bill), who 
 asked me, " Well, how are you getting on? " I knew that his 
 nerves would not bear the shock, so I said, " Oh, cleverly ; 
 I am going to Knavesmire to lead the people to the meeting." 
 Near Micklegate Bar, I met my own parson — parson Bull. 
 I told him all about it, " that I expected the people would be 
 so enraged that they would murder me ; but my duty called 
 me, and, at all hazards, I must do my best to quiet them." 
 He, like a brave fellow as he is — (he is both good and brave) 
 — pressed me " to allow him to accompany me and share my 
 fate." "No," said I, "my friend, when they have killed me, 
 they will rush to the city for bread and revenge, and you 
 must remain here, meet them at the Bar, and try to appease 
 them. May-be, they will kill you also, but we must do our 
 duty, and leave the event with God." " I will obey your 
 orders," cried Bull, " and the Lord be with you." 
 
 " ' In a short time I was in sight of the crowd, on Knaves- 
 mire. I commended myself to God — and advanced. Judge 
 of my surprise when I saw them, they did not rush on me in 
 anger as I expected — my faithful friend, Pitkethly, was 
 striving to appease them — he soon saw me, and shouting, 
 " the King, the King! "he cleared a passage for me to the 
 centre of the assembled multitude. I mounted a table, and, 
 as soon as I spoke, they cheered most lustily. I said a few 
 words to console and animate them, and then marched off to 
 the Castle Yard — thanking God, who had thus preserved my 
 life, and given me the hearts of " my people." Poor lads I 
 they were hungry, but how patient. ' 
 
 " Arrived in the Castle Yard, and orderly aiTanged, to the 
 number of many thousands, around the hustings, the business 
 proceeded. They had walked throvigh a tempest many weary 
 miles — they were generally drenched to the skin, they had now
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 243 
 
 to stand about five hours, whilst the various speakers stated to 
 the undivided county of York, duly convened and assembled, 
 the object of the meeting, and the merits of the case to be 
 discussed. 
 
 " The writer of this imperfect sketch saw numbers, whose 
 footsteps were traced in their own blood into the Castle Yard, 
 and out of it homewards, occasioned by the length and wetness 
 of the journey, and the badness of their shoes and clogs, in 
 which many had walked from thirty to forty, and some 
 fifty miles. 
 
 " That meeting was an impressive one, and was so felt. 
 Many good English yeomen were there. Though the meeting 
 was principally composed of the ' mill-hands,' they were not 
 without much sympathy from the honest farmers and rural 
 gentry of the county. 
 
 " The clergy too felt their case ; they were headed by the 
 benevolent John Graham, Rector of St Saviour's, Y^ork. 
 Some other clergymen of York were there — several clergymen 
 from the West Riding were present, and forcibly advocated 
 the cause of their suffering flocks. The Rev. J. C. Boddington, 
 of Horton, near Bradford, made a most forcible appeal, and 
 gave plain facts and arguments in favour of a Ten Hours' 
 Bill. The Rev. George S. Bull was at his post, and in short, 
 but expressive terms, recorded his claims, as pastor of his 
 flock, for legislative protection. Captain Wood, of Sandal, 
 was urgent for the bill, and the Honourable William Duncombe, 
 who had been a successful candidate in that yard for the 
 suffrage of the county, now did his duty nobly, and spoke 
 out in honest Christian eloquence, for the children of the 
 oppressed, from whose cause he never flinched. 
 
 " And ' King Richard ' was there, moving his audience into 
 tears, into ecstasy, and into the firmness of immovable deter- 
 mination by his eloquence. And there was Sadler, beyond 
 all the rest — he on whose most worthy shoulders the burden 
 and heat of the work had so lately fallen. 
 
 B 2
 
 244 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 " Much enfeebled and exhausted in body, his spirit bounded 
 over all the snares and stumbling-blocks of the enemies of 
 humanity, his close and fervent arguments put all their 
 sophistry to the blush; and he that day, and many days 
 before and after it, proved that he was a special instrument in 
 God's hand to break the hateful yoke from the necks of 
 British childhood and youth, and to set the innocent captives 
 free. 
 
 " There stood his friend and supporter with heart and purse, 
 John Wood, of Bradford, than whom no one did more for 
 this cause; and he did more, perhaps, by his frequent public 
 declarations of his own past error as a supporter of the white 
 slavery system in factories, than by the thousands of pounds 
 which he freely disbursed in promoting this cause." 
 
 The proceedings of this county meeting lasted five 
 hours: there stood (after their exhausting march) that dense 
 mass of human beings, as if rooted to the earth. The meet- 
 ing was addressed by clergymen, physicians, and influential 
 county gentlemen. Mr Smith, of Leeds, made a clear and 
 simple statement of the evils of the factory system, which 
 admitted of no contradiction ; Michael Thomas Sadler, Esq., 
 M.P., renewed his pledges to mercy against Mammon ; (leorge 
 Strickland, Esq., M.P., (now Sir George), assured his con- 
 stituents, and others, of his determination to be faithful to 
 the cause of the factory children. A Yorkshire nobleman, 
 the Honourable William Duncombe, now Lord Feversham, 
 cheered the hearts of all by assuring his hearers that he 
 considered the factory question as of the highest importance, 
 and judiciously observed: — "After all, highly important, and 
 deeply interesting as this question is, I consider it but a 
 branch of a question, which will ere long force itself upon 
 the attention of parliament and the executive government — 
 I mean the whole condition and circumstances of the indus- 
 trious and labouring classes. Not that I contemplate the 
 possibility of being enabled, by any human law or enactment,
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 24^0 
 
 to secure to all the various classes and interests of this empire 
 an uninterrupted quantum of happiness; I believe it has been 
 decreed otherwise ; that as it has been ordained by the 
 Almighty Creator of the Universe, that the rays of the sun 
 shall not always shine upon us, but that night shall follow 
 day, and winter succeed the summer, so has it been decreed 
 in His inscrutable wisdom that we should experience a season 
 of adversity as well as prosperity, that we may learn how to 
 enjoy the one, and learn, also, how to appreciate the other. 
 But I nevertheless hold it to be the bounden and indis- 
 pensable duty of every man Avho has the safety, honour, and 
 welfare of the country at heart, to direct his most anxious 
 attention to the state and circumstances of the industrious 
 and working classes, with the view, and in the hope of 
 being enabled to ameliorate their condition, to alleviate their 
 burthens, and to mitigate their distress. This is no new 
 doctrine of mine; this is no opinion taken up yesterday, or 
 to-day, for the purpose of obtaining any momentary applause, 
 or any ephemeral popularity — it is one which I have long 
 entertained, and which, when the opportunity presented 
 itself, I have endeavoured to enforce. But not to trespass 
 farther upon your indulgence on the present occasion, I 
 will only repeat my most cordial assent and unequivocal 
 approbation of the object for which you are assembled here 
 to-day, and should there be any individuals who are still 
 doubting, and wavering in doubt as to the course they 
 should pursue, or who are determined, if they interfere at 
 all, to oppose the bill, from anything like party feeling 
 and political bias, I would entreat them to dismiss all such 
 considerstions from their minds ; I would implore them to 
 weigh the matter with that impartiality and that earnestness 
 which its importance demands ; I would ask them to recollect 
 that this is not the cause of party, that it is the cause of 
 justice — that it is the cause of real humanity, of Christian 
 benevolence — that it is the cause of those who, from their 
 earliest youth and their tenderest years, contribute by their
 
 246 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 labour and tlieir industry to form the source of our country's 
 wealth and our country's greatness, the remedy for whose 
 grievances is not in their own hands — that it is the cause 
 of the oppressed and the industrious poor: — 
 
 ' Let not ambition mock tlieir useful toil, 
 Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; 
 Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, 
 The short and simple annals of the poor.' " 
 
 These generous and manly words, from the lips of the 
 heir of a noble house, and the representative of the 
 county of York, had great weight with all classes, they 
 strengthened in the breasts of the operatives their che- 
 rished hopes of final release, they felt in their oppression that 
 their woes had reached the ears of some among the great 
 and honoured of the land^ that the wrongs of the cottage had 
 been met by sympathy in the mansion. 
 
 Joseph Yorke, Esq., the High Sheriff, when he closed the 
 business of the meeting, said : — " Gentlemen, I cannot let 
 this opportunity pass without remarking upon the good con- 
 duct you have observed during the course of this day; a 
 conduct which reflects credit upon yourselves, which should 
 be held up as an example for the imitation of others, and 
 which is worthy of the great county to which you belong. 
 The business of the day is concluded." 
 
 The friend whose communication we have already quoted 
 continues his graphic description of what he and others saw, 
 as follows : 
 
 " ' Three cheers for the High Sheriff' made the welkin ring; 
 and a clergyman on the platform, whose heart was in the 
 right place, demanded one cheer more ' for the Factory 
 Children and their Mothers,' and this was louder still — this 
 struck another chord in the brave hearts of the now receding 
 multitude, who thought next of *home,' and, though dreary, 
 yet dear. With the ' King ' at their head they quietly and 
 orderly departed, and ' To Tadcaster,' was the cry in that 
 heart-moving host.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 247 
 
 " Such a one never visited York before — no such purpose 
 had ever brought so many thousands of poor men to that city, 
 at their own charge, unpaid and poorly provided for — not to 
 shout fur blue, yellow, or pink ; not to cram public houses, 
 and fill the streets with victims of inebriety ; but a host upon 
 whose faces were imprinted the deep lines of care, and yet the 
 sure marks of tender affection for their hapless babes, their 
 heart-sick wives, their degraded sisters and relations, on whose 
 behalf they had come ; and having recorded their protest 
 against the tyranny that crushed and cankered all the ' sweets ' 
 of 'home,' and demanded in firm but respectful terms the 
 justice of their country, they now peacefully retired, foot-sore 
 and weary, and many of them very hungry, yet they shouted, 
 ' Oastler and our Children,' and set their faces homeward 
 once more. 
 
 " ' Do you think,' said a Dignitary on that day, to a 
 country clergyman from the west, whom he met at the Castle 
 Yard gates, ' Do you think that these men are to be trusted — 
 would it be well to have the military ready ? ' * What makes 
 you fear ? ' said the other. ' Why, really, they look a stern, 
 determined set of men — there is something very alarming in 
 their appearance. Do you suppose they will stop in York 
 to-night ? ' ' Not a dozen of them,' was the reply. ' And as 
 to your fears, give them to the winds : these are not the men 
 to sack York or do mischief They have come at the bidding 
 of their wives and children to ask for justice, not mercy.' 
 The West Riding clergyman proceeded to explain to the 
 Prebendary the state of the case, and he declared that the 
 visit and the visitors were both unparalleled in the annals, not 
 of York only, but of the civilised world ; and parted, much 
 afi'ected with the subject. 
 
 " The weather continued boisterous and wet — torrents 
 poured down — bread was scarce — and where to rest that night 
 many knew not. Stables, barns, school rooms, and out-houses 
 had been engaged at Tadcaster, and well strewn with ' long
 
 248 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 feathers ; ' but there were many ^Yho could not reach so far — 
 it was nine long miles, and their feet were bare — blistered — 
 bleeding, some profusely, and far short of Tadcaster, some 
 hundreds implored a resting-place at inns of various grades, 
 or wherever they could get a roof to cover them. The 
 inhabitants were truly kind, and the poor befriended the 
 poor. 
 
 "The principal leaders of this affecting group had 
 occasion, for the sake of business as well as refreshment, to 
 wait a few hours at York. Sadler was nearly exhausted. 
 His friend John Wood, with his accustomed benignity, 
 provided at his hotel every refreshment, restorative, and 
 comfort, that York afforded, for the benevolent Parliamentary 
 Champion and his attendant friends ; but the comforts of a 
 fireside and ' good beds ' at York Avere no entertainment to 
 those who had followed in spirit, and some in person, on their 
 weary way, the Pilgrims who were pacing the road home- 
 wards amid storms of rain. 
 
 " The thought that some might perish from destitution or 
 exhaustion, was no sooner suggested by the Rev. G. S. Bull 
 to the party at the George, in Coney street, than the cry went 
 round, ' What can be done ? ' Mr Bull then proposed that 
 the most ample covered waggons that York could aftbrd, with 
 a store of bread and restoratives, should at once start and 
 bring up the rear ; he offered to take the command of the 
 hospital train ; but he was not allowed to perform this 
 work of mercy alone. Messrs Robert Hall and William 
 Osborn, jun., (to whose able and indefatigable, and 
 peculiarly disinterested labours, the Factory workers owed 
 then, and must continue to owe, a lasting and yet unpaid debt 
 of gratitude), at a moment's notice of the plan proposed, 
 insisted upon being upon the staff, alleging that they had 
 been comfortably bedded the night before, while their 
 reverend coadjutor had been all the rainy night previous with 
 the Pilgrims upon the road.
 
 thp: factory movement. 249 
 
 " The \va<^gons were procured, ample means tor defraying 
 the expenses were instantly afforded by Mr Wood, and after 
 a search in the streets of York for stragglers, Avhich brought 
 only three persons to the waggons, the party started, provided 
 with lanterns to inspect the roadside, or the ditches if 
 requisite. At the first public house that came in view after 
 leaving the city, search was made for the disabled. The 
 landlord was sitting up at his fire — the kitchen floor was 
 strewed with those who were ' fair done,'' (to use their own 
 term) — the outbuildings and stables were equally well 
 furnished, and presented a singular spectacle. The reverend 
 ' King of the Cripples,' as the chief of this staff humorously 
 designated himself, went into these places to ask for bad cases, 
 of lame Pilgrims who would not be able to proceed, and some 
 bad ones soon presented themselves. 
 
 "The first that was awakened from his sound sleep, and 
 lifted his head from a blanket of straw, was an old Waterloo 
 veteran, whose medal gave him at once a noble distinction. 
 * What's your errand,' said he, ' is there ought amiss ? ' 
 ' Nothing, my lads, except, as I suspect, with your heels. 
 Have you any cripples here ? for I am come, by order of the 
 Committee, to seek them up, and have a comfortable covered 
 waggon to take them on in.' The soldier rubbed his eyes, to 
 take a full view of his unexpected visitor, and then shedding 
 some honest tears, he said, ' God bless you, friend — you are a 
 Christian ! And now,' says he, ' where's that lad that I 
 dragged in ? ' and he groped for him among the straw, and 
 soon produced a poor Factory Poy, long a victim of the 
 system — lean, withered, and wan — whose feet were literally 
 raw ; he had ^-rapped them in part of what had been a shirt, 
 and seemed unwilling to moA'e, overpowered as he was with 
 fatigue. His comrades and townsmen, of whom two or three 
 were in company, designated him by the curious and 
 abbreviated name of ' Pick Butt.' 
 
 " Several more, with their feet bleeding profusely, and in
 
 250 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 wretched plight, were also found, and removed to the hospital 
 waggons, where they were warmly covered and well disposed 
 of. The Waterloo veteran, though nearly as bad as the 
 rest, with the true magnanimity of his ' order,' refused to go, 
 and gave place in favour of those who should yet be found 
 on the road, as he said, ' quite mashed up.' The joy and 
 gratitude of many of these disabled Pilgrims — several of 
 them twenty, and some forty miles from home, when thus 
 overtaken and aided, was admirable and very gratifying. 
 
 " At Tadcaster, a very full load was completed, and, 
 attended by their chaplain, the waggons went out of Tadcaster 
 at an early hoiu', with ' King Richard ' and his men, who had 
 halted there for the night, and, after a very frugal breakfast, 
 at martial summons, prepared to renew their journey. The 
 care of the Committee in sending waggons for the disabled 
 seemed to inspirit the whole company ; and as a dense mass 
 emerged from that peaceful town on the Leeds road, the 
 company in the waggon unexpectedly struck up, as a morning 
 song, the venerated doxology of ' Praise God, from whom 
 all blessings flow ; ' the rear and van caught the strain, and a 
 more solemn and affecting anthem never echoed on the blue 
 vault of heaven ; many a silent tear commended it to the 
 Intercessor above. There were men on that road who had an 
 interest in Heaven, though their lot on earth was poor 
 indeed. 
 
 " The weather now cleared a little, the march was more 
 cheerful, and home began to draw nearer. The district and 
 the moor over which this multitude traversed, presented a sin- 
 gular, interesting, and animated appearance. Since the days 
 of Julius Cffisar such a company had not traversed those 
 hills. The receding and pursuing hosts in earlier days 
 shouted for the battle as they caught sight of each other. 
 Those fields and wilds had been dyed with the blood of 
 feudal chieftains and their trains, and the hardy sons of ' the 
 far North ' had bled there, too ; but now the earth was scalded
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 251 
 
 by the tears of British parents who were returning to com- 
 fortless homes, the scenes of wasting and excessive toil, in 
 which, too often, tJiey were to live, involuntarily idle, by tlie 
 deathly labours of their hapless babes. Yes, they wept as 
 they returned, and God has registered those tears. There 
 was hope, indeed, but it was faint ; and there was the 
 sympathy that they had witnessed at York which abated 
 the smart. 
 
 " The last battalion had passed the Cross Roads, and about 
 two miles from Leeds the ' King ' called for a halt, till the 
 rear should come up. 
 
 " Oastler had headed his ' subjects ' on foot through the 
 entire journey. He was importuned to ride, but would not; 
 he even refused the shelter of an umbrella, because others 
 were destitute of that cover. He refused refreshment because 
 there was too little for all. His hardy endurance of more 
 than his full share of fatigue was the means of inspiriting 
 the vast mass, who sacrij&ced and endured so much on this 
 occasion. 
 
 " One incident will not be forgotten. There was a place on 
 the road where a footpath, through the fields, shortened 
 the distance. Oastler, with a fQW friends, took that path, 
 upon which they had not proceeded far when a boy, of 
 about ten years, was discovered lying in a furrow, in the 
 last stage of exhaustion, benumbed with wet and cold, and 
 literally perishing. The poor child was carried to the turn- 
 pike road, and there mounted on horseback, before a kind 
 friend, who took the straggler on his lap. The boy was 
 thus brought under the special conduct of ' his Majesty ' to 
 the hospital van, when every attention was promptly given 
 to his case, and he soon revived. The hand of a kind 
 Providence was thus manifested, and was acknowledged witli 
 thanksgiving. Not a life was lost ! 
 
 " The ' Crusaders ' now poured into Leeds, and they were 
 greeted by thousands. Here and there a diabolical spirit of 
 disappointment was seen at the safe conclusion of this un-
 
 252 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 paralleled enterprise, and some even ventured to exult over 
 the sorry plight of that yet undaunted and cheerful body, who 
 had endured so much with such exemplary fortitude from the 
 adverse elements. Many had yet twenty or nearly thirty 
 miles to go, and after a short halt and refreshment, and a visit 
 in the White Cloth Hall Yard from Sadler, who came to cheer 
 and to be cheered, ' the King's own,' the Huddersfield division 
 started again, and arrived at home, amid the greetings, cheers, 
 and tears, of wives and children, who came out to welcome 
 them to the best they had left. 
 
 " It will seem incredible that, after all this fatigue, the 
 Huddersfield men that same evening held a public meeting, 
 and kept up their recital of the Pilgrimage to a vast auditory 
 until a late hour: finishing that day's work by a dance in 
 the market place ! That night, when Oastler undressed, the 
 skin of the soles of his feet peeled off with his stockings. The 
 remoter efiects of this mighty efi^brt are still in operation. The 
 journey, its objects, its circumstances, will never be forgotten ; 
 and generations yet unborn will learn with wonder, that, in a 
 professedly Christian land, such a cause should exist for 
 such a demonstration of patriotic sympathy and parental 
 affection. 
 
 " The happier firesides, it may be hoped, of our distant 
 successors on the theatre of life, will be entertained with the 
 legend of ' The Pilgrimage of Mercy,' and England's hearths 
 and Altars shall yet, we hope, record the downfal of infant 
 slavery in every part of our island, and the triumph of 
 Christian love." 
 
 In the factory agitation science was brought out of her 
 recesses, and exhibited to the popular gaze ; the science of the 
 physical organization of man and the science of life were 
 made plain to the common understanding; drawingo of factory 
 operatives, whose limbs had been distorted and sources of life 
 weakened by excessive labour, were unrolled and explained 
 before aggregated masses, in public meetings. The effect was 
 extraordinary. Men who had hitherto thought but little on
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 253 
 
 life, health, and disease, were astounded at what they beheld, 
 and ashamed that they had allowed the oppression, the hideous 
 results of which they for the first time contemplated. Mr 
 Smith, Infirmary Surgeon, of Leeds, lecturing in the Castle 
 Yard of York, on the beautiful arch of bone in the human 
 foot, formed so as to sustain the whole weight of the human 
 frame, uniting grace, strength, and elasticity, fitted for rest and 
 motion; and showing his auditors how young children, who 
 in factories were kept standing fourteen or sixteen hours of 
 the day. had the arch of bone pressed down, the bones 
 having fallen in, these children, so injured, being, in conse- 
 quence, deformed for life, was a novelty in agitation, the 
 necessity for which made good men blush. Such an exhibition 
 of science, side by side with the injuries of the helpless, did 
 much towards convincing the learned of the evils of the 
 factory system. The simple-minded see, hear, and believe. 
 The learned ask for analysis and proof, — they are " slow of 
 heart to believe." It was so of old, the unlettered fisherman 
 heard and had faith; a vision from heaven was required to 
 convince the learned tent-maker, but when convinced, who ever 
 preached as did Paul ? The journey of these drenched and 
 weary travellers to York appealed to the hearts of all; each 
 man, woman, and child, though silent, yet, in person, asked 
 for pity and redress. The inspiring eloquence of Oastler, 
 and the Christian tone of his supporters, filled the minds of 
 their hearers with the noblest of sentiments, and a strong sense 
 of duty, as standards by which they might judge their own 
 actions and those of others. These things were necessary 
 for acquiring the desired end; for opposition and interest were 
 powerful; custom had enslaved the moral sentiments in many, 
 and made others blind to their own guilt. Indolence, the 
 shield of error, had to be shaken off, and conscience, the 
 sentinel of truth, to be quickened into activity. A task, the 
 end of which was noble, but the path to which was strewn 
 with thistles and briers. Courage in a good cause is the right
 
 254 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 arm of strength, and elevation of soul, the living principle of a 
 nation's greatness. " Never," said Edmund Burke ; and none 
 knew better than he — "Never," said the political philosopher, 
 " was there a jar or discord between genuine sentiment and 
 sound policy. Never, no, never did nature say one thing and 
 wisdom say another. Nor are sentiments of elevation in 
 themselves turgid and unnatural. Nature is never more truly 
 herself than in her grandest forms." Few spectacles can, in 
 moral grandeur, excel the noble determination of a numerous 
 body of men, resolved that mercy shall temper a nation's rule, 
 and Mammon be muzzled by law. 
 
 The parliamentary exertions of Mr Sadler on behalf of the 
 industrious classes, and especially those engaged in factory 
 labour, were acknowledged by the almost simultaneous greet- 
 ing of tens of thousands of the workinsf classes. In the 
 avitumn of 1832, when on a visit to his friend Mr Oastler at 
 Fixby Hall, sixteen thousand persons, chiefly from Hudders- 
 field and district, assembled in Fixby Park to do him honour, 
 and thank him for his eiForts on behalf of the oppressed. At 
 Manchester, Mr Sadler and Mr Oastler were welcomed by a 
 public procession and dinner. The reporter for the Leeds 
 Intelligencer thus described the scene he witnessed: " Soon 
 after five (in the afternoon of Saturday the 23rd of August, 
 1832) Mr Sadler and Mr Oastler left the Shakespeare, and 
 entered an open carriage prepared for them by the Committee, 
 amidst the most enthusiastic cheering; the bands saluting and 
 the flags wa\ang. They were accompanied by Mr John 
 Wood of Bradford, the Rev. Mr Bull, and Mr Perring. 
 Amidst this almost hurricane of applause the word was given 
 to move forward for the place of meeting — Camp Field. 
 
 " The procession was headed by two men, bearing a flag 
 with the representation of a deformed man, inscribed — ' Am I 
 not a man and a brother?' underneath, 'No White Slavery.' 
 Then came a band of music ; then the Committee and their 
 friends ; then a long line of Factory children bearing a great
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEJIENT. 255 
 
 variety of banners, decorated mops, brushes, and other utensils 
 connected with their employment, hundreds of them singing, 
 * Sadler for ever, Oastler for ever ; six in the morning, six in 
 the evening.' 
 
 " One of the children carried a whip, and a strap made 
 into thongs, with the inscription, ' Behold and weep.' Next 
 to this immense multitude of ' little victims,' as they were 
 aptly designated, came the carriage with the visitors. A 
 countless number of men followed, five or six deep, all staunch 
 friends of the Ten Hours' Bill, having at short intervals bands of 
 music, banners, &c., with mottos expressive of some senti- 
 ment, opinion, or fact connected with the great cause. We 
 cannot pretend to give a tithe of these inscriptions. We 
 observed, ' Cursed are they that oppress the poor ;' ' Let us 
 unite and gain by strength our right ;' ' Sadler and Oastler 
 for ever;' ' Welcome to Sadler;' ' Oastler our Champion;' 
 ' Sadler our advocate;' ' Let us unite in laying the axe, to the 
 root of infant slavery ; ' ' No White Slavery ; ' ' Death to 
 infant oppression;' a figure of a deformed man exclaiming, 
 ' Excessive toil is the burden of my soul.' One person 
 carried a very neat model of a cotton- factory, inscribed, ' The 
 infant's Bastile.' On other banners we remarked, ' Revere 
 Oastler, the children's friend;' ' The Factory system is the 
 bane of health, the source of ignorance and vice;' ' The 
 enactment of a Ten Hours' Bill will be attended with benefi- 
 cent results to both master and man.' Many of these flags 
 and banners were of costly materials, and the devices skilfully 
 executed; some of them were of more homely materials, but 
 all were showy, and the eflect to the eye cannot be conveyed 
 in the most eloquent description. There were seventeen 
 bands of music, and several hundred flags. 
 
 " In this order did the procession move through the prin- 
 cipal streets of Manchester. The applause which greeted Mr 
 Sadler and Mr Oastler was both enthusiastic and continuous. 
 The men shouted; the women clapped their hands, or lield up
 
 250 THi: HISTORY OF 
 
 their infant children, and screamed ' God bless Mr Sadler, ' 
 ' God bless Mr Oastler;' and thousands, we repeat, thousands, 
 crowded round the carriage as it proceeded, and insisted upon 
 shaking their benefactors by the hands, and all cried ' Wel- 
 come to Manchester^ Nor were the sfreetinc]rs confined to the 
 crowds in the streets. The windows were filled with specta- 
 tors; even the house-tops in many instances were occupied. 
 As to Mr Sadler, his name was in every mouth. 
 
 ' He comes — Sinope's streets are filled with such 
 A glut of people, you would think some God 
 Had conquered in their cause, and them thus ranked, 
 That he might make his entrai.ce on their heads. 
 Mothers did rob the crying infants of the breast, 
 Pointing Ziphares out to make them smile ; 
 And climbing boys stood on their fathers' shoulders. 
 Answering their shouting sires with tender cries, 
 To make the concert up of general joy.' 
 
 '• This is poetry, but if applied to the scene in the streets of 
 Manchester on "Saturday evening, no fiction — it describes 
 only that which really took place. It is to the honour of the 
 females of the capital of Lancashire, that they seem most 
 anxious to give their offspring the benefit of a more humane 
 system, without reference to the question which avarice has 
 raised in Yorkshire as a decoy — an asserted diminution of 
 wages." 
 
 Another witness thus expressed his opinion. " The Man- 
 chester meeting has passed off in a most gratifying manner. 
 It is acknowledged on all hands, that such an assembly, 
 together, as to numbers, good feeling, and good order, never 
 yet took place at Manchester. The procession was headed by 
 thousands of poor factory children. It is calculated that at 
 least one hundred thousand persons were present in the streets 
 and Camp field. Mr Sadler and Mr Oastler were received 
 with the greatest enthusiasm, and the vast multitude separated 
 in the most perfect good order. Mr Sadler is on his way with
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 
 
 257 
 
 his true yoke-fellow, ' King Richard,' to Bradford, on Monday. 
 This meeting will surely have due weight in high places. Will 
 they say now, that the operatives do not care about the Ten 
 Hours' Bill." 
 
 The Bradford procession and meeting were imposing and 
 successful. It was apparent, beyond possible contradiction, 
 that the factory operatives and their leaders were thoroughly 
 in earnest, and that all efforts to neutralize their energy and 
 resolution had proved fruitless. 
 
 Important services were rendered in 1832, by the pub- 
 lication of a small weekly periodical. The British Labourers 
 Protector and Factor^/ Child's Friend. It was edited by the 
 Rev. G. S. Bull, and Mr Charles Walker, of Bradford, 
 Yorkshire. Its pages were devoted to an exposition of the 
 evils of the unregulated factory system. Its circulation 
 was very great, and the gratuitous services of the editors 
 and their correspondents, for the labour was one of love, 
 instructed the public mind to a very considerable extent. 
 
 Mr Oastler's exertions on behalf of the factory children 
 brought down on his head much abuse and vituperation. 
 In the manufacturing districts of the north, he is familiarly 
 spoken of as " the King," a name given to him in contempt, 
 but now considered a title of honour; how acquired, the follow- 
 ing extract from The Fleet Papers, for January, 1841, will 
 explain. In a letter addressed to Mr Thornhill, Mr Oastler 
 wrote: — "Why, sir, you know what little school-boys do 
 when the big ones have grieved them — they call names. It 
 was just so with my rich and powerful enemies — nickname 
 after nickname was given to me — and now I come to my title 
 of ' King.' As these opprobrious terms were attached to my 
 name by my antagonists, it was my habit to adopt them, and 
 thus deprive them of their sting. So, whatever epithet they 
 added to ' Oastler,' I claimed it as my own. If they said 
 * fool,' I rejoined ' so be it, but your tyranny shall cease.' 
 When they denounced me as ' a madman,' my answer was 
 
 VOL, I. S
 
 258 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 'be it so; but the monster shall fall.' Thus they attacked, 
 and thus I repelled their intended insults, through a long list 
 of terms of contempt and derision, which to recoimt would 
 only weary you. At length I was tired of change, when, in 
 an unlucky moment for themselves, in burlesque, they called 
 me ' King.' For why or for wherefore, is best known to them. 
 I at once adopted the nickname of ' King ' as I had done the 
 others; but I added, I will change no more. There was an 
 end of their insulting vocabulary — there was the beginning of 
 my style and title of ' King.' My efforts in the factory 
 question, as you know, obtained me some notoriety; and in 
 proportion to the hate of the tyrants, was the love of the 
 slaves. The people everywhere clung to the last nickname 
 given to me by my foes ; and when I appeared amongst them, 
 I was greeted by no other name. The habit of calling me 
 'King,' in a while grieved none but those who gave me 
 that title. I soon found that there was power even in the 
 name of ' King.' On some occasions, when I have had to 
 stem the angry torrent of revenge, the authority of that title 
 has had its use. My opponents would gladly have recalled 
 that nickname, but in a while they used it also, until the 
 habit became universal, and is so now in Yorkshire and in 
 Lancashire; when speaking to me, or speaking of me, both 
 friends and foes say ' King.' "
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 259 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE SOCIAL AND MOEAL CONDITION OF MANCHESTER AND DISTRICT 
 IN 1831 AND 1832, AS DESCRIBED BY MR WILLIAM RATHBONB 
 GREG, OF BURY, LANCASHIRE, AND DR KAY (NOW SIR JAMES 
 KAY SHUTTLEWORTH). 
 
 Not any subject of great public interest can fail in this 
 country of being thoroughly discussed. Sooner or later 
 writers having knowledge and superior talent will 
 take sides, and thus an important public question will be 
 sifted to the bottom; impartiality, indeed, is rarely to be 
 expected, but from the force of controversy the principal 
 facts will be cast on the surface. This is one of the 
 advantages which flow from free speaking and free printing, 
 the benefit of which it is the happiness of this country to 
 enjoy. It was earnestly maintained by the free-trade school 
 of political economists that Mr Sadler's bill did not strike at 
 the root of any of the social evils operating on the working 
 classes, that the true remedies were a repeal of the corn laws, 
 an extended electoral suffrage, an increase of education, a 
 thorough revision of the laws of trade, thereby enabling 
 the British manufacturer successfully to conduct his business 
 without the necessity of making demands on the labours of 
 the working classes inconsistent with their permanent well- 
 being. In the absence of these changes it was maintained 
 that shortening the hours of factory labour would be a 
 national calamity. Among the disciples of this school were 
 two classes : the ultra free-traders affirmed that these changes 
 
 82
 
 260 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 once accomplished, not any factory regulation would be 
 required ; others, more familiar with the state of the manu- 
 facturing districts, considered that those measures should 
 be preliminary to factory legislation. To the last-named 
 class belonged William Rathbone Greg, Esq., of Bury, Lan- 
 cashire, and James Phillips Kay, Esq., M.D., two gentlemen 
 whose pamphlets, the first published in 1831, the second 
 in 1832, both devoted to a consideration of the physical 
 and moral condition of those engaged in factory labour, 
 conveyed to the reading public a more detailed, graphic, 
 faithful, but deplorable account of the condition of the 
 population of Manchester and district, than was elsewhere to 
 be found. The publication of these pamphlets accelerated 
 the growth of public opinion in favour of factory legislation ; 
 it was the custom of Mr Oastler and others to read extracts 
 therefrom, corroborating the parliamentary evidence on the 
 question, and either leaving out or replying to the educational 
 and economical theories of the authors. This mode of 
 reasoning had weight on public opinion ; it proved the evils 
 complained of to be real, and prepared the way for the proposed 
 remedy. From these pamphlets we will select a few passages, — 
 they will enable the reader to judge of the past and to com- 
 pare it with the present of Manchester and neighbourhood. 
 
 Mr Greg, for confirmation of his " views on the present 
 (1831) unwholesomeness of large manufactories," appealed 
 *' to any one who has been long and intimately connected 
 with the interior of these establishments ; who has seen 
 children enter them at ten or twelve years of age, with the 
 beaming eye, and the rosy cheek, and the elastic step of 
 youth; and who has seen them gradually lose the gaiety 
 and light-heartedness of early existence, and the colour and 
 complexion of health, and the vivacity of intellect, and the 
 insensibility to care, which are the natural characteristics of 
 that tender age, under the withering influence of laborious 
 confinement, ill oxygenated air, and a meagre and un whole-
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 261 
 
 some diet." Mr Greg had "witnessed all this repeatedly, 
 and found it impossible to resist the obvious conclusion — a 
 conclusion which cannot be gainsaid by any man of 
 experience and observation." 
 
 Among the causes producing "this unhealthiness among 
 the people employed in large manufactories, and the 
 peculiar class of diseases which prevail among them, viz., 
 general lassitude and debiHty, dyspepsia, and gastralgia," 
 Mr Greg enumerated unwholesome and inadequate diet, 
 " potatoes, butter, sometimes pastry, sometimes bread, often 
 oatcake, and occasionally, though rarely, a small sprinkling 
 of bacon, or other meat, constitute their dinner six days 
 out of the seven. For breakfast and supper they take 
 sometimes fruit-pies, sometimes coffee (or what they call 
 such), but far more generally tea, diluted till it is little else 
 than warm water, and the materials of which never came 
 from China, but are the production of one of those in- 
 numerable frauds which are practised upon those of the poor 
 who are desirous to imitate the rich." " At first they make 
 use of tea as a stimulant, to relieve the internal languor and 
 depression which always accompanies an unhealthy and 
 ill-regulated digestion; it affords a temporary relief at the 
 expense of a subsequent reaction, which in its turn calls 
 for another and stronger stimulus; and it is generally the 
 case, that those "among the work-people, who have been lono- 
 habituated to the use of tea as a frequent meal, are at length 
 reduced to mix a large proportion of spirits in every cup 
 they take. This pernicious practice prevails to an incon • 
 ceivable extent among our manufacturing population, at every 
 age, and in both sexes. 
 
 " From the long hours of labour, and the warm and 
 often close atmosphere in which they are confined, a very 
 large proportion of our manufacturing labourers feel the 
 necessity of some artificial stimulus ; and we regret to say, 
 that many of them, especially those which receive the highest
 
 262 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 wages, are in the habit of spending a portion of their 
 leisure, after working hours, more particularly on a Saturday 
 evening, and during the Sunday, in besotting themselves 
 with ale and beer; and, still oftener, with the more efficient 
 stimulus of gin. It is customary for them in many of the 
 towns to stop at the gin-shops, and take a dram as they go 
 to their work in the morning, and another as they return at 
 night ; and where, as is frequently the case, the houses of 
 the work-people lie in a cluster round the factory, it is not 
 uncommon for a wholesale vendor of spirits to leave two 
 gallons (the smallest quantity which can be sold without 
 a licence) at one of the houses, which is distributed in 
 small quantities to the others, and payment is made to the 
 merchant through the original receiver. The quantity of 
 gin drunk in this way is enormous ; and it is painful to know, 
 that children, and even girls, are initiated into this fatal 
 
 practice at a very early age Ardent spirits 
 
 are not the only stimulus which this class of people indulge 
 in. Many of them take large quantities of opium in one 
 form or another; sometimes in pills, sometimes as laudanum, 
 sometimes in what they call an anodyne draft, which is a 
 narcotic of the same kind. They find that this is a cheaper 
 stimulus than gin, and many of them prefer it. It has 
 been in vogue among them for many years when wages 
 were low, and the use of it is now continued when there is 
 no longer this excuse." 
 
 '' The work of spinners and stretchers," Mr Greg con- 
 sidered to be " among the most laborious that exist, and is 
 exceeded, perhaps, by that of mowing alone ; and few 
 mowers think of continuing their labour for twelve hours 
 without intermission. Add to this that these men never 
 rest for an instant during the hours of working, except 
 while their mules are dojfing, in which process they also 
 assist; and it must be obvious to every one, that it is next 
 to impossible for any human being, however hardy or robust,
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 263 
 
 to sustain this exertion, for any length of time, without 
 permanently injuring his constitution. 
 
 " The air in almost all factories is more or leas unwhole- 
 some. Many of the rooms are obliged to be kept at a certain 
 temperature (say 65 degrees Fahrenheit) for the purpose of 
 manufacture, and from the speed of the machinery, the 
 general want of direct communication with the external 
 atmosphere, and from artificial heat, they often exceed this 
 temperature. This of itself is sufficient to enervate and 
 destroy all energy of frame. . . . The hands employed 
 in these large manufactories breathe foul air for twelve 
 hours out of the twenty-four ; and we know that few things 
 have so specific and injurious an action on the digestive 
 organs, as the inhalation of impure air. 
 
 '* Women are often employed in factories some years after 
 their marriage, and during their pregnancy, and up to the 
 very period of their confinement ; which, all who have 
 attended to the physiology of this subject know, must send 
 their ofispring into the world with a debilitated and unhealthy 
 frame, which the circumstances of their infancy are ill- 
 calculated to renovate ; and hence, when these children begin 
 to work themselves, they are prepared at once to succumb to 
 the evil influences by which they are surrounded. 
 
 " In consequence, also, of the mother's being employed 
 from home, their children are entrusted, in a vast majority of 
 cases, to the care of others, often of elderly females, who have 
 no infant family of their own, having in their youth had their 
 children nursed by others, have never formed those habits of 
 attachment, and of assiduous attention to their offspring, which 
 could alone afford a probability of a proper care of the 
 children committed to their charge. These women often 
 undertake the care of several infants at the same time ; their 
 habits are generally indolent and gossiping; the children are 
 restless and irritable, from being deprived of a supply of their 
 natural food; (as when the mothers suckle them, they can
 
 264 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 only perform that duty in the intervals of labour; and the 
 almost universal practice among them is to still the cries of 
 the infant by administering opiates, which are sold for this 
 purpose under several well-known forms. The quantity of 
 opium which, from habit, some children become capable of 
 taking, is almost incredible, and the effects are correspondingly 
 destructive. Even when the infants have a healthy appear- 
 ance at birth, they almost, uniformly, become, in a few 
 months, puny and sickly in their aspect, and a very large pro- 
 portion fall victims to bronchitis, hydrocephalus, and other 
 diseases produced by want of care, and the pernicious habits 
 detailed. Spirits, particularly gin, are frequently given when 
 the infants appear to suffer from pain in the bowels, which, 
 from injurious diet, is very common among them. * 
 
 " The licentiousness which prevails among the dense popu- 
 lation of manufacturing towns, is carried to a degree which it 
 is appalling to contemplate, which baffles all statistical inqui- 
 ries, and which can be learned only from the testimony of 
 personal observers. And, in addition to overt acts of vice, 
 there is a coarseness and grossness of feeling, and an habitual 
 indecency of conversation, which we would fain hope and 
 believe are not the prevailing characteristics of our country. 
 The effect of this upon the mind of the young will readily be 
 conceived ; and is it likely that any instruction, or education, 
 or Sunday schools, or sermons, can counteract the baleful 
 influence, the insinuating virus, the putrefaction, the contagion 
 of this moral depravity which reigns around them? 
 
 ' Nil clictu fcedum visuque hsec limiua tangat, 
 Intra quse puer est.' — Juvenal. 
 [Let nothing foul, either to the eye or the ear, be seen or heard 
 within those doors which enclose a boy. '. 
 
 " After all, what motive has either sex, in the class and 
 situation to which we allude, for being virtuous and chaste ? 
 Where they are unshackled by religious principle, as is too 
 generally the case, they have no delicate sentiments of morahty
 
 THK FACTORY MOVEMENT. 265 
 
 and taste to restrain them from gratifying every passion; 
 they have few or no pleasures beyond those vvrhich arise from 
 sensual indulgence, and they have no motive for refraining from 
 this indulgence ; it involves no loss of character, for their 
 companions are as reckless as themselves ; it brings no risk of 
 losing their employment, for their employers know that it 
 would be unsafe to inquire into those matters. It is often a 
 cause of no pecuniary loss, for in many cases the poor laws 
 provide against this; and, all these circumstances considered, 
 the licentiousness of the manufacturing population is a source 
 of bitter lamentation to us, but of no astonishment whatever." 
 
 This is indeed a dark picture — a state of existence more 
 degraded it is impossible to conceive: the miserable condition 
 of the operatives is hardly more to be lamented than the utter 
 disregard of their employers, for the fulfilment of moral duties 
 towards the employed. Such a state of society could not have 
 existed, had the owners of factories, as a rule, not been dead 
 to every interest but that of money-getting. 
 
 JDr Kay thus describes the condition of the operatives of 
 Manchester (1832) : — " Instructed in the fatal secret of sub- 
 sisting on what is barely necessary to life, the labouring classes 
 have ceased to entertain a laudable piide in furnishing their 
 houses, and in multiplying the decent comforts which minister 
 to happiness. . . . They are engaged in an employment which 
 absorbs their attention, and unremittingly employs their physical 
 energies. They are drudges who watch the movements and 
 assist the operations of a mighty material force, which toils with 
 an energy ever unconscious of fatigue. The persevering labour 
 of the operative must rival the mathematical precision, the 
 incessant motion, and the exhaustless power of the machine. 
 
 " Hence, besides the negative results, the total abstraction 
 of every moral and intellectual stimulus ; the absence of 
 variety, banishment from the grateful air, and the cheering 
 influences of light, the physical energies are exhausted by 
 incessant toil and imperfect nutrition. Having been subjected
 
 266 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 to the prolonged toil of an animal, his physical energy wasted — 
 his mind in supine inaction — the artizan has neither moral 
 dignity, nor intellectual nor organic strength to resist the 
 seductions of appetite. His wfe and children, too frequently 
 subjected to the same process, are unable to cheer his remaining 
 moments of leisure. Domestic economy is neglected, domestic 
 comforts are unknown ; a meal of the coarsest food is prepared 
 with heedless haste, and devoured with equal precipitation. 
 Home has no other relation to him than that of shelter — few 
 pleasures are there — it chiefly presents to him a scene of 
 physical exhaustion, from which he is glad to escape. Himself 
 impotent of all the distinguishing aims of his species, he sinks 
 into sensual sloth, or revels in more degrading licentiousness. 
 His house is ill-furnished, uncleanly, often ill- ventilated, 
 perhaps damp ; his food, from want of forethought and 
 domestic economy, is meagre and innutritious ; he is debilitated 
 and hypochondriacal, and falls the victim of dissipation. 
 
 " The average annual number of births (deduced from a 
 comparison of the last four years), attended by the officers of 
 the Lying-in Charity, is four thousand three hundred ; and the 
 number of births to the population may be assumed as one in 
 twenty-eight inhabitants. This annual average of births, 
 therefore, represents a population of 124,400, and assuming 
 that of Manchester and environs to be 230,000, more than 
 one-half of its inhabitants are therefore either so destitute or 
 so degraded, as to require the assistance of public charity, in 
 
 bringing their offspring into the world 
 
 Visiting Manchester, the metropolis of the commercial system, 
 a stranger regards with wonder the ingenuity and compre- 
 hensive capacity, which, in the short space of half-a-century, 
 have here established the staple manufacture of this kingdom. 
 He beholds with astonishment the establishments of its mer- 
 chants — monuments of fertile genius and successful design ; 
 the masses of capital which have been accumulated by those 
 who crowd upon its mart, and the restless but sagacious spirit
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 267 
 
 which has made every part of the known world the scene of 
 their enterprise. The sudden creation of the mighty system 
 of commercial organization, which covers this country, and 
 stretches its arms to the most distant seas, attests the power 
 and the dignity of man. Commerce, it appears to such a 
 spectator, here gathers in her storehouses the productions of 
 every clime, that she may minister to the happiness of a 
 favoured race. 
 
 " When he turns from the great capitalists, he contemplates 
 the fearful strength only of that multitude of the labouring 
 population, which lies like a slumbering giant at their feet. 
 He has heard of the turbulent riots of the people^ — of machine- 
 breaking — of the secret and sullen organization which has 
 suddenly lit the torch of incendiarism, or well nigh uplifted 
 the arm of rebellion in the land. He remembers that political 
 desperadoes have ever loved to tempt the population to the 
 hazards of the swindhng game of revolution, and have scarcely 
 failed. In the midst of so much opulence, however, he has 
 disbelieved the cry of need." 
 
 Dr Kay's acknowledgment of the deterioration in the 
 domestic circumstances of the working classes of Manchester 
 is striking and emphatic ; they had so far sunk beneath their 
 former state as to care little for the present and less for the 
 future, to again quote the Doctor's compendious description of 
 their moral and social state : — " The labouring classes had 
 ceased to entertain a laudable pride in furnishing their houses, 
 and in multiplying the decent comforts which minister to 
 happiness." These pitiable outcasts of modern civihzation 
 had fallen from comparative comfort into the lowest depths of 
 helpless and hopeless recklessness and misery. Who could 
 describe the suffering which must have been endured, as step 
 by step this melancholy descent had taken place ? The result 
 was known, but the agony of human feeling which was 
 suffered by tens of thousands of human beings in their down- 
 ward course, and formed its prelude, was hidden. It may be
 
 268 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 thought of, but cannot be named. A population who had 
 ceased to desire improvement when left to themselves, when 
 unaided and uninfluenced by external circumstances, had 
 become an ulcer in the heart of the state, the poisonous 
 humours of which, had they continued unchecked, would not 
 have failed to have vitiated the whole vital system. Delay in 
 such a case would have been madness, and that too of the 
 most dangerous kind. 
 
 The statements of Dr Kay, like those of Mr Greg, were 
 the results of close inquiry and minute investigation. The 
 opposition of both to a reduction of the hours of labour 
 unaccompanied by other measures was decided and per- 
 severing. " Those political specidators," said the Doctor, " who 
 propose a serious reduction of the hours of labour, un~ 
 preceded by the relief of commercial burdens, and unaccom- 
 panied by the introduction of a general system of education, 
 appear to us to be deluded by a theoretical chimera. The 
 time thus bestowed would be wasted or misused — would be 
 spent in sloth, in dissipation, or in listening with eager 
 wonder to the declamatory dogmatism of political dema- 
 gogues." These observations of Dr Kay are a striking 
 illustration of what Bacon has happily called, "Idols of the 
 tribe." Here is a man of a high order of intelligence 
 wedded to certain general principles ; he thinks it im- 
 possible that good can follow from the adoption of any 
 other measures than those approved by him. Rest of 
 body is the first requisite for one who is habitually over- 
 worked ; no evil can flow from this requirement being 
 reduced to practice, experience has proved that factory 
 regulation has been beneficial in body, mind, and morals 
 to those for whose good it was intended, its promoters have 
 not been deluded theorists, they have been practical 
 statesmen. It is deserving of attention that while Dr Kay 
 maintained that long hours of labour were required to 
 compensate the millowners for the payment of fiscal burden,
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 269 
 
 he was eloquent on the riches of the few and the misery of 
 the many, thus proving that the industry of the many had 
 aided in the production of wealth which the few enjoyed. 
 So true it is that " the mind," as Bacon has observed, ^' is not 
 like a plain mirror, which reflects the image of things exactly 
 as they are ; it is like a mirror of uneven surface, which com- 
 bines its own figure with the figures of the objects it repre- 
 sents." Dr Kay conceived that each part of the system was, 
 as it existed in 1832, " necessary to the preservation of the 
 whole." In the absence of other changes he inferred that : 
 " Whatever time was subtracted from the hours of labour 
 must be accompanied with an equivalent deduction from its 
 rewards." Mr Greg, who, as a cotton spinner, had practically 
 observed the efiects of long and short hours, was of a difierent 
 opinion ; he prognosticated that the reduction in the quantity 
 produced in ten hours would not be equal to the reduction of 
 from twelve to ten. Arithmetic was on the side of Dr Kay, 
 but human nature, which cannot always be calculated by the 
 rule of three, was on that of Mr Greg. Virtue and 
 intelligence are, or ought to be, the great aims of civilised 
 commmiities, these cannot be realised in the absence of 
 conditions indispensable to health of body and mind. The 
 evils and horrors of " the factory system " had grown up 
 observed by few; when examined in all its hideousness it 
 presented a picture which overwhelmed weak minds Avith 
 sorrow and shame; men of cultivated understanding and 
 resolute will were necessary for its amendment. Though Mr 
 Greg and Dr Kay would probably have felt shocked at being 
 associated with Mr Oastler and Mr Bull, yet the labours of 
 the former contributed practically toward the same end as 
 the latter — the physical, moral, and mental elevation of those 
 employed in factory labour. A population so sunk in the 
 slough of human, or rather inhuman, misery, could not be 
 easily or rapidly improved: their industry had enriched a few 
 millowners, but had lowered the standard of humanity.
 
 270 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 What would have been the fate of these unfortunate factory 
 operatives had the factery system never existed? They 
 would have slumbered on in ignorance and comparative 
 plenty, enjoying many natural comforts of which changed 
 circumstances had deprived them ; manufacture had indeed 
 produced a change, it had lowered its victims beneath the 
 level of brutes in their habits, and perverted the superior 
 reason of living women and men from an appreciation of the 
 homely virtues of domestic life to an admiration of that 
 which was sensual and vicious. These things it had done, 
 but it had failed to add one atom of moral good to society, or 
 to have made even those who pocketed its money-gains 
 wiser or happier. 
 
 Appropriately to Mr Greg's pamphlet, it is due to the 
 author to say that subsequent experience caused, avowedly, 
 a change in his opinions, the extent of which we cannot 
 define. In a tract published by Mr Robert Hyde Greg 
 (brother to Mr Wm. Rathbone Greg) on the factory ques- 
 tion, an apology for the pamphlet quoted, is set forth, 
 on the grounds of the author's youth and inexperience, 
 and that he had "imprudently adopted as facts, the 
 misrepresentations of a heated partisan of the Ten Hours' 
 Bill." Mr Fletcher, the eminent surgeon of Bury, in 
 Lancashire, is the individual referred to ; he, in a letter 
 published in the London Times, for June the 8th, 
 1837, animadverted on the apology of Mr R. H. Greg, 
 and challenged him to refute any fact or argument in 
 the obnoxious pamphlet, an important portion of the 
 materials of which had been supplied by Mr Fletcher, and 
 hitherto unacknowledged by Mr William Rathbone Greg. 
 The challenge was not accepted. Not any man was better 
 able to judge of the condition of the working classes of 
 Lancashire than was Mr Fletcher; we willingly give our 
 testimony to his virtues and services. 
 
 He was among the earliest supporters of a Ten Hours'
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 271 
 
 Bill; he has from the first been an able and persevering 
 advocate of the claims of factory children to the protection 
 of the law ; his experience of the effects of factory labour 
 on health and morals was, because of his extensive pro- 
 fessional practice as surgeon in a factory district, of necessity, 
 great ; his talent and moral courage marked him out as 
 an able auxiUary of any cause he might espouse. It was 
 Mr Fletcher's habit for years to lecture in the towns and 
 villages of his own neighbourhood on the factory system, and 
 its injurious effects on health. His benevolence won for him 
 the respect of the poor; his high professional knowledge, 
 while it failed to disarm the prejudice of opponents, forced 
 even from them an acknowledgment of his talent and sincerity. 
 Mr Fletcher has been throughout life an observer of facts ; 
 the fruits of his experience have been freely communicated 
 to others, who, in and out of parliament, have turned those 
 to good account, so far as Mr Fletcher's desires and the 
 interests of the factory operatives were concerned. Mr 
 Fletcher has been at all times an arduous, if not always 
 a conspicuous worker, for the elevation of the working 
 classes; so long as probity, superior talent, and energy 
 shall command respect, he will not fail to enjoy the good 
 opinion of his fellow-citizens; when the solid and super- 
 ficial have been separated, and each has received his due, 
 the name of Mr Fletcher will stand high among the moral 
 and social reformers of his generation.
 
 272 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 CHAPTER XTI. 
 
 EVIDENCE BEFOEE THE SADLER COMMITTEE. — ME SADLEb's EXTEA- 
 OEDINAET EXEETIONS. — PRECAEIOUS STATE OF HIS HEALTH. — 
 GEOWTH of PUBLIC OPINION. — PEESENTATION OF THE GEEAT 
 YOEKSHIEE PETITION. — " THE DUKE OF SUSSEX AND THE FACTOEY 
 BILL." — PEBSECUTION OF WOEKING-MEN WITNESSES BT THEIB 
 EMPLOYEES. 
 
 It is difficult to form just conceptions of the force of habit; 
 fully to apprehend its influence on the actions of men is 
 perhaps beyond the range of the human intellect. A 
 comparison between the duties and acts of men, as these 
 are understood in an avowedly Christian community, will 
 assist in the estimating of the direct result flowing from 
 the daily practices of life. "The law," says Dr Brown, 
 " on which right and wrong depend, did not begin to 
 be law when it was written; it is older than the 
 ages of nations and cities, and contemporary with the very 
 eternity of God. There is indeed, to borrow Cicero's 
 noble description, one true and original law, conformable to 
 reason and to nature ; difiused over all, invariable, eternal; 
 which calls to the fulfilment of duty and to abstinence 
 from injustice, and, which calls with irresistible voice, which 
 is felt in all its authority, wherever it is heard. This law 
 cannot be abolished or controlled, nor afiected in its sanctions 
 by any law of man. A whole senate, a whole people cannot 
 dispense from its paramount obligation. It requires no
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 273 
 
 commentator to render it distinctly intelligible ; nor is it 
 different at Rome, at Athens now, and in the ages before and 
 after ; but in all ages, and in all nations, it is, and has been, 
 and will be, one and everlasting ; one, as that God, its great 
 author and promulgator, who is the common Sovereign of all 
 mankind, is himself one. Man is truly man as he yields to 
 this divine influence. He cannot resist it, but by flying, as 
 it were, from his own bosom, and laying aside the feelings of 
 humanity, by wdiich very act he must already have inflicted 
 on himself the severest of punishments, even though he were 
 to avoid what is usually accounted punishment. We feel that 
 the laws of nature are laws which no lapse of ages can 
 render obsolete, because they are every moment operating on 
 every heart, and which, for the same reason, never can be 
 repealed till man shall have ceased to be man." This law, 
 inherent in the heart of man, pregnant with the feelings of 
 humanity, sanctioned by the command — " Do unto others 
 as you would they should do unto you," is constantly 
 violated. The world is saturated with crimes, because of 
 the violation of the laws of nature and the dictates of 
 conscience. We are unable to account for the systematic 
 violation of known and acknowledged duties, but by the 
 consciousness of natural depravity and a reference to the forc€ 
 of habit. The majority of the millowners and their servants 
 were professing Christians, members of some one or other 
 of the various religious denominations, agreeing in common 
 on the fulfilment of the duties of life, thus adding the obliga- 
 tion of revealed to natural law, and being, therefore, bound in 
 reverence and duty to do justly and love mercy. Yet many of 
 these millowners, and their principal servants, violated almost 
 unceasingly the promptings of humanity and the revealed 
 Law of God, as avowed by their own professions. Strange, 
 and, at first sight, apparently unaccountable inconsistency. 
 How to be accounted for, otherwise than by an acknowledge- 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 ment of natural depravity, and a consideration of the power 
 of habit over the deeds of men, we know not. These 
 violators of natural and revealed laws had allowed- their minds 
 to become impressed with the desirableness of one object, all 
 others were lost in its contemplation — that object was the 
 manufacture and sale of a commodity at such prices as to the 
 manufacturers should be profitable. The suiTerings endured 
 by those engaged in the process of manufacture, either 
 escaped observation, or were allowed, as necessary for the 
 reahzation of the desired end. The effects of habit were not 
 less strikingly illustrated, in the case of some statesmen. If 
 the actual suffering of those engaged in the working depart- 
 ments of cotton-mills, had been placed side by side with the 
 actual profits, and the only alternative have been the total 
 acceptance or rejection of both, few members of the legislature 
 would have hesitated. To reject both would have been the 
 rule, but legislators had, in their own minds, been accustomed 
 to associate factories with national wealth; national wealth, 
 they maintained, was a necessity, and they failed in most 
 instances to bestow more than a passing thought on the 
 national evils paid as the purchase-money of the wealth they 
 admired. They everywhere beheld the physical results of 
 mechanical and concentrated power applied to manufacture, 
 but seldom cast even a passing glance on the sources of 
 widely-spread wealth, dried up in consequence. Dazzled 
 by the prospect of present gain, they failed to have 
 regard to the inevitable penalty which nature invariably 
 levies upon all who fail to respect her laws. They 
 imagined that the sufferings to which we have alluded were 
 themselves alone to be weighed in the balance against the 
 profits of the system ; nature, however, cannot thus be 
 defrauded ; her laws are inexorable, and the price which she 
 demands for the infi:ingement thereof, she has the power to 
 enforce. In the train of those sufferings followed the
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 275 
 
 sustenance of that poverty, the punishment of those crimes, 
 which the factory system generated — the price in money of 
 that penalty in itself being incalculable. 
 
 It was reserved for the committee, presided over by Mr 
 Sadler, fully to establish the data from which the evils of the 
 factory system could be more completely than hitherto 
 estimated. It would be impossible to over-rate the practicui. 
 utility of the evidence given before Mr Sadler's committee. 
 Eighty-nine witnesses were examined, there were asked 
 eleven thousand, six hundred, and eighteen questions; not one 
 of these questions, or answers thereto, could be justly con- 
 sidered irrelevant, all bore directly on the main subject of 
 the enquiry, and opened out a more complete picture of the 
 social condition of those employed in the principal branches 
 of manufacture, than any other on record. We select from 
 this body of evidence, the principal facts elicited during the 
 examination of factory operatives; the evidence of these 
 witnesses, in all its main points, was corroborated by many 
 others, and it may be accepted as a fair specimen of the kind 
 of evidence given by that class of witnesses. 
 
 We, for brevity's sake, have condensed the facts stated 
 before the Sadler committee, by several important witnesses, 
 into narrative form, but have preserved, as far as convenient, 
 the words in the questions asked, and the answers given. 
 Abraham Whitehead : — 
 
 " I am a clothier, and reside at Scholes, near Holmfirth, 
 which is the centre of very considerable woollen mills for 
 three or four miles ; I live near the centre of thirty or forty of 
 them, and have had constant opportunity of observing the 
 manner in which these mills are regulated and conducted, and 
 I have observed them for at least the last twenty years. The 
 youngest age at which children are employed is never under 
 five, some are employed between five and six as pieceners. In 
 the summer time I have frequently seen these children going 
 to their work as early as five or six in the morning, and I 
 
 T 2
 
 276 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 know the general practice is for them to go as early to all the 
 mills, with one or two exceptions ; I have seen them at work 
 in the summer season between nine and ten in the evening; 
 they continue to work as long as they can see, and they can 
 see to work as long in these mills as you could see to read. 
 In winter there is a variation ; some of the mills begin to 
 work at six o'clock, and some only begin so soon as they can 
 see to work in the morning, but many of them begin by six, 
 or between five and six in winter time. I live near to 
 parents who have been sending their children to mills for a 
 great number of years, and I know positively that these 
 children are every morning in the winter season called 
 out of bed between five and six, and in some instances 
 between four and five. My business as a clothier has 
 frequently led me into these mills, to carry work to or from 
 them. I have for the last twenty years constantly made 
 observations on these mills, having seldom missed a week 
 going to some of them, and sometimes two or three times a 
 day. I cannot say that I ever saw these mills actually at 
 work later than ten ; I do not say they have not been at 
 work later ; I have seen them as late as ten in the winter 
 season — children of tender years were employed. I have 
 been in mills at all hours, and I never in my life saw the 
 machinery stopped at breakfast time at any of the mills. 
 The children get their breakfast as they can ; they eat and 
 work ; there is generally a pot of water-porridge, with a 
 little treacle in it, placed at the end of the machine, and 
 when they have exerted themselves to get a little forward 
 with their work, they take a few spoonfuls for a minute 
 or two, and then to work again, and continue to do so until 
 they have finished their breakfast. This is the general 
 practice not only of the children, but of the men, in the 
 woollen mills in the district. There is not any allowance 
 for the afternoon refreshment, called ' drinking,' more than 
 for breakfast. In summer, some of the mills allow an hour
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 277 
 
 for dinner, and others, forty minutes. There Is no time 
 allowed In winter, only just sufficient to eat their dinner; 
 perhaps ten minutes or a quarter of an hour; and in some 
 cases, they manage the same at noon as they do at breakfast 
 and drinking. The children are employed as pleceners ; they, 
 when at work, are always on their feet — they cannot sit and 
 piece. The only interval the children have for rest, is the 
 very short time allowed for dinner, except it may sometimes 
 happen that they may be out of what we call 'jummed 
 wool,' and then the children have a short opportunity to 
 rest themselves, and even then they are frequently employed 
 in cleaning the cording machine. 
 
 "I have seen children during the last winter (1832) 
 coming from work on cold dark nights between ten and 
 eleven o'clock, although trade has been so bad with some 
 of the mills that they have had nothing to do ; others 
 have been working seventeen or seventeen and a-half hours 
 per day. This requires that the children should be awakened 
 very early in the morning. I can tell you what a neighbour 
 told me six weeks ago — she is the wife of Jonas Barrowcliffe, 
 near Scholes ; her child works at a mill nearly two miles 
 from home, and I have seen that child coming from its 
 work this winter between ten and eleven in the evening ; 
 and the mother told me, that one morning this winter, the 
 child had been up by two o'clock in the morning, when it 
 had only arrived from work at eleven ; it then had to go 
 nearly two miles to the mill, where It had to stay at the 
 door till the overlooker came to open it. This family had 
 no clock ; and the mother believed, from what she afterwards 
 learnt from the neighbours, that it was only two o'clock 
 when the child was called up and went to work ; but this 
 has only generally happened when it has been moonlight, 
 thinking the morning was approaching. It is the general 
 practice in the neighbourhood — and any fact that I state
 
 278 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 here can be borne out by particular evidence that, if required, 
 I can point out. 
 
 " The children are generally cruelly treated ; so cruelly 
 treated, that they dare not hardly for their lives be too 
 late at their vv^ork in a morning. When I have been 
 at the mills in the winter season, when the children are at 
 work in the evening, the very first thing they inquire is, ' what 
 o'clock is it? ' if I should answer ' seven,' they say, ' Only 
 seven ? it is a great while to ten, but we must not give 
 up to ten o'clock or past ! ' They look so anxious to know 
 what o'clock it is, that I am convinced the children are 
 fatigued, and think even at seven that they have worked 
 too long. My heart has been ready to bleed for them 
 when I have seen them so fatigued, for they appear in such 
 a state of apathy and insensibility, as really not to know 
 whether they are doing their work or not : they usually 
 throw a bunch of ten or twelve cordings across the hand, 
 and take one off at a time ; but I have seen the bunch 
 entirely finished, and they have attempted to take off 
 another when they have not had a cording at all; they 
 have been so fatigued as not to know whether they were 
 at work or not. The errors which they make when thus 
 fatigued are, that instead of placing the cordings in this 
 way [describing it], they are apt to place them obliquely, 
 and that causes a flying, which makes bad yarn ; and when 
 the billy-spinner sees that, he takes his strap or the billy- 
 roller, and says, ' D n thee, close it — little devil, close 
 
 it,' and he smites the child with the strap or the billy- 
 roller. It is a very difficult thing to go into a mill in the 
 latter part of the day, particularly in winter, and not to 
 hear some of the children crying for being beaten for this very 
 fault. How they are beaten depends upon the humanity 
 of the hubber or billy-spinner ; some have been beaten so 
 violently that they have lost their lives in consequence ;
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 279 
 
 and even a young woman had the end of a billj-roller 
 jammed through her cheek. The billy-roller is a heavy 
 rod of from two to three yards long, and of two inches 
 in diameter, and with an iron pivot at each end ; it runs 
 on the tops of the cordings over the feeding cloth. I 
 have seen the billy -spinner take the billy- roller and rap 
 children on the head, making their heads crack, so that 
 you might have heard the blow at the distance of from six 
 to eight yards, in spite of the din and rolling of the 
 machinery; many have been knocked down by the instru- 
 ment. I knew a boy very well, of the name of Senior, with 
 whom I went to school ; he was struck with a billy-roller 
 on the elbow, it occasioned a swelling, he was not 
 able to work more than three or four weeks after the blow, 
 and he died in consequence. There was a woman in 
 Holmfirth who was beaten very much with a billy-roller. 
 This which is produced {showing one) is not the largest 
 size, there are some a foot longer than that ; it is the most 
 common instrument with which these poor little pieceners 
 are beaten — more commonly than with either a stick or 
 a strap. It is detached from the machinery in the following 
 manner : — Supposing this to be the billy-frame (describing it), 
 at each end there is a socket open, the cording runs under- 
 neath here, just in this way, and when the billy-spinner is 
 angry, and sees the little piecener has done wrong, he takes 
 
 off this and says *• D n thee, close it.' I have seen them 
 
 frequently struck with the billy-roller ; I never saw one 
 so struck as to occasion its death, but I once saw a piecener 
 struck on the face by a billy-spinner with his hand, until 
 its nose bled very much ; and when I said ' Oh, dear, I < 
 would not suffer a child of mine to be treated thus,' the 
 man has said, ' How the devil do you know but what he 
 deserved it.' 
 
 " With regard to the morals of the children who work 
 in mills, we cannot expect that they can be so strict as
 
 280 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 children who are generally under the care of their parents. 
 I have seen a little boy, only this winter, who works at 
 a mill, and who hves within two hundred or three hundred 
 yards of my door ; he is not six years old, and I have seen 
 him, when he had a few coppers in his pocket, go to a beer 
 shop, call for a glass of ale, and drink as boldly as any 
 full-grown man, cursing and swearing, and saying he should 
 be a man as soon as some of them. I do not know that 
 there are many such boys, but the expressions of children 
 in mills very much accord. You cannot go into a mill where 
 even the most wealthy master clothier is called Sir or 
 Master ; they call them all ' Old Tom,' or ' Young Tom,' &c. 
 They call their employers so. 
 
 " There is not any possibility of children employed in 
 this way obtaining any instruction from day-schools ; but 
 since this factory bill was agitated, when I have been at 
 mills, the children have gathered round me for a minute 
 or two as I passed along, and have said, ' When shall we 
 have to work ten hours a day? Will you get the Ten 
 Hours' Bill ? We shall have a rare time then ; surely some- 
 body will set up a neet (night) school ; I will learn to write, 
 that I will.' The opinion of the inhabitants of my neighbour- 
 hood is, that if a Ten Hours' Bill be passed, it will be the 
 greatest advantage that they could possibly enjoy. They 
 are of opinion that the more hours they work, the less they 
 receive for it. They say that the markets are overstocked 
 by overworking, and the men are overworked. When a 
 master gets an order for a certain quantity of goods, he 
 sets all his men to work night and day until it is completed. 
 It is the general opinion that if a stop is not put to this 
 excessive and mcreasing labour, there will never be an end 
 to the reduction of wages ; but whether the wages will be 
 reduced or not, they are convinced it will be a benefit ; 
 and they are anxious that the bill should be passed into 
 a law. I live six or seven miles from Huddersfield — there
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 281 
 
 is a mill at Smithy Place, three miles and a-half from- 
 Huddevsfield ; and that mill worked so long about two years 
 ago, that a boy at that mill actually hanged himself, because 
 he said he would sooner do it than work so many hours 
 a day as he had done. I had a brother-in-law working 
 at the mill at the time, and sufficient evidence can be 
 produced before this Committee, to prove that the boy 
 destroyed himself rather than be so overworked. From 
 what I have observed, I do not believe that so beneficial 
 an alteration in the hours of labour as would follow the 
 enactment of the Ten Hours' Bill, could be brought about 
 except by a legislative enactment ; for the parents who send 
 their children to the mills are generally those who could 
 not provide for them by any other means, and they have 
 no alternative but to send them. But the masters as well 
 as the men generally in the neighbourhood of Holmfirth, 
 are disgusted with the overworking of children, and they 
 say that it ought to be remedied. But it cannot be remedied 
 unless every one is compelled to do as others do. We 
 understand by the Ten Hours' Bill, a bill that will not allow 
 children of a certain age to be actively employed more than 
 ten hours per day, which will be twelve, leaving two hours 
 for rest and refreshment. I have never seen the harsh 
 treatment I have described, exercised upon persons of fifteen 
 or sixteen years of age ; persons of these ages are generally 
 employed in some other business than piecening. It appears 
 to me that parliamentary interference is necessary to protect 
 the parents as well as the children. The children have 
 excited commiseration by being overworked. It is also 
 injurious to the parents, because the masters or millowners 
 who have no conscience or feeling, do not care what length 
 of time they run their mills. When one takes the lead, 
 another must follow, and then all continue to work long 
 hours : although the first might feel some advantage, yet 
 when all come to that point, the advantage is lost, and
 
 282 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 they must strain another point or there is no advantage in 
 it ; by doing so, they lower the wages more and more — and 
 the more they work, the less wages are obtained. If pro- 
 tection were afforded by law to children up to the age of 
 fifteen, those above that age would then suffer ; and why 
 should they continue to work seventeen or eighteen hours 
 per day ? It seems to me that youths ought to have some 
 opportunity of learning to read and write, and other domestic 
 duties. For instance, when females who were brought up 
 in mills get married, they know not how to conduct a family, 
 how to purchase household things, or how to manage their 
 children ; it is even a proverb in the neighbourhood of 
 Holmfirth, that the man who would have a good wife must 
 ta,ke care not to marry ' a factory doll,' as she will not know 
 how to manage a family. I think all ought to be protected 
 
 by law until they be twenty-one years of age 
 
 I know, from my own knowledge, that children of the age 
 of from six to twelve have really been working from sixteen 
 and seventeen hours per day — I know it by seeing them 
 going to their work and coming from their work, the same 
 children." 
 
 James Paterson: — 
 
 " I reside at Dundee, am twenty-eight years of age, and 
 by business a mill-overseer. I have been acquainted with the 
 mill system in Dundee and neighbourhood for a long time. 
 At ten years of age I entered a mill ; it was Mr Proctor's, of 
 Glammis. I worked in the carding-room, which was very 
 dusty. There were fourteen hours' actual work, and fifteen 
 hours a-day confinement, including meals. I suffered from 
 shortness and stoppage at the breast, and was forced to leave 
 in consequence. I was nearly three years at Mr Proctor's. 
 Other children were similarly affected ; I had a brother who 
 was at that work too, and he was compelled to leave for 
 bad health, and was laid up and died of consumption. The
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 283 
 
 doctor said it was occasioned by being confined at that work. 
 My brother died at eighteen years of age ; he had originally 
 
 a good constitution. 
 
 ******* 
 
 " I worked at Mr Braid's mill, of Duntruin ; there we 
 worked as long as we could see in summer time, and I could 
 not say at what hour it was we stopped. There was nobody 
 but the master, and the master's son, had a watch, and we 
 did not know the time. The operatives were not permitted 
 to have a watch. There was one man that had a watch, I 
 believe it was a friend who gave it him ; it was taken from 
 him and given into the master's custody, because he had 
 told the men the time of the day. There was no clock 
 at that mill. There were a great many children in pro- 
 portion to the number of adults, most of them were orphans. 
 There was a part of them that came from Edinburgh, and 
 a part of them from Perth. There were some of the orphan 
 children from Edinburgh who had been in the mill, I believe, 
 from four to five years. The children were incapable of 
 performing their day's labour well towards the termination of 
 the day ; their fate was to be awoke by being beaten, and to 
 be kept awake by the same method. They were under 
 that mode of treatment, kept on the premises by being locked 
 up, while at work ; they were guarded up to their bothies to 
 take their meals, they were locked up in the bothies at night, 
 and the master took the key away with him to his own bed- 
 room ; they were guarded to their work, and they were guarded 
 back again, and they were guarded while they were taking 
 their meat, and then they were locked up for rest. The 
 windows of the bothies where they slept had all iron 
 stanchions on the outside, so that they could not escape. 
 They were not allowed to go to a place of worship on the 
 Sunday ; they were guarded on the premises by the master 
 or his son. There were twenty -five or twenty-six of us 
 together. There was one bothy for the boys, but that did
 
 284 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 not hold them all, and there were some of them put into 
 the other bothy along with the girls. The ages of the boys 
 that were put into the girls' bothy might be, I should 
 suppose, from ten to fourteen, the ages of the girls, perhaps, 
 from twelve to eighteen. 
 
 " The children and young persons were sometimes suc- 
 cessful in their attempts to escape from labour and confine- 
 ment. I have gone after them on horseback and brought 
 them back myself. Those brought back were taken into the 
 mill, and got a severe beating with a strap ; sometimes the 
 master kicked them on the floor, and struck them with both 
 his hands and his feet. Those who had made engagements 
 for any length of time, when they ran away, the master, if 
 he could not find them before they got home to their relations, 
 if they had any, he sent after them and put them in gaol. 
 1 knew a woman put in gaol, and brought back after a 
 twelvemonth, and worked for her meat ; and she had to 
 pay the expenses that were incurred. There were some 
 engaged for two years, and some as far on as three years, 
 and some of those girls sent from Edinburgh, I heard them 
 say, were engaged for five years. That girl that was sent 
 to prison worked two years for nothing, to indemnify her 
 master for the loss of her time while she was in the course 
 of punishment, but there was a sister who came to work nine 
 months or so to help her to perform the two years. 
 
 "When the hands worked those long hours, the master 
 came himself and roused them in the morning, and those that 
 would not rise, I have seen him take a pail of water and 
 throw it upon them, to make them rise. One of the means 
 taken to secure those children and young persons from 
 running away was that their clothes, if they had any not 
 in use, were kept locked up, so that if they ran away they 
 could only run away with what was on their backs. Those 
 children were at times beaten very violently."
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 285 
 
 Joseph Habergam: — 
 
 "■ I reside at North gate, Huddersfield, in Yorkshire — I was 
 seventeen years of age on the 21st of April. I have been 
 without a father six years on the 8th of August — my mother 
 survives. I was seven years of age when I began to work at 
 George Addison's, Bradley Mill, near Huddersfield; the 
 employment was worsted spinning ; the hours of labour at 
 that mill were from five in the morning till eight at night, 
 with an interval for rest and refreshment of thirty minutes, 
 at noon ; there was no time for rest or refreshment in the 
 afternoon; we had to eat our meals as we could, standing or 
 otherwise. I had fourteen-and-a-half hours' actual labour 
 when seven years of age, the wages I then received was 
 two shillings and sixpence per week. I attended to what are 
 called the throstle machines ; this I did for two years and a 
 half, and then I went to the steam looms for half-a-year. In 
 that mill there were about fifty children, of about the same 
 age that I was. These children were often sick and poorly ; 
 there were always, perhaps, half-a-dozen regularly that were 
 ill because of excessive labour. The work was not very 
 hard, but having to work so very many hours made it worse ; 
 it was rather hard of itself, but it would have been better 
 if we had not had so long to stand. We began to grow 
 drowsy and sleepy about three o'clock, and grew worse and 
 worse, and it came to be very bad towards six or seven, I 
 had still to labour on. There were three overlookers ; there 
 was a head overlooker, and then there was one man kept to 
 grease the machines, and then there was one kept on purpose 
 to strap. Strapping was the means by which the children 
 were kept at work. It was the main business of one of the 
 overlookers to strap the children up to this excessive labour, — 
 the same as strapping an old restiff horse, that has fallen 
 down and will not get up. This was the practice day by day. 
 The overlooker is continually walking up and down with the 
 strap in his hand, and his office is to strap the children on
 
 286 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 to their labour. The children could not be kept so long 
 to their labour, if they were not so treated. It was reckoned 
 by the children to be very bad usage ; towards the end of 
 the day the flies of the machines would burst their knuckles. 
 Accidents were frequent. The children were not capable 
 of performing the amount of labour that was exacted from 
 them, without perpetual cruelty. I had at that time simi- 
 larly occupied a brother and a sister, his name was John, 
 and her name was Charlotte. I cannot say how old my sister 
 was, when she began to work in the mill, but my brother 
 John was seven. They were often sick; my brother John 
 died three years ago — he was then sixteen years and eight 
 months old. My mother and the medical attendants were of 
 opinion that my brother died from working such long hours, 
 and that it had been brought about by the factory. They 
 have to stop the flies with their knees, because they go so 
 swift they cannot stop them with their hands ; he got a bruise 
 on the shin by a spindle-board, and it went on to that degree 
 that it burst ; the surgeon cured that, then my brother was 
 better. He went to work again, but when he had worked 
 about two months more his spine became afiected, and he 
 died. His medical attendants state that that spinal affection 
 was owing to his having been so over-laboured at the mill ; 
 and that he died in consequence. 
 
 " Mill labour has had a great deal of effect on my own 
 health, I have had to drop it several times in the year. When 
 I had worked about half a year, a weakness fell into my 
 knees and ankles ; it continued, and it has got worse and 
 worse. It was attended with very great pain, and the sense 
 of extreme fatigue. Under these circumstances I had to 
 work as often as I could, otherwise not any allowance woiJd 
 have been made to me by the occupier of the mill. I live a 
 good mile from the mill ; it was very painful for me to move ; 
 in the morning I cf)uld not walk, and my brother and sister 
 used out of kindness to take me under each arm, and run
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 287 
 
 with me to the mill, and my legs dragged on the ground 
 in consequence of the pain ; I could not walk, and if we 
 were five minutes too late, the overlooker would take a strap, 
 and beat us till we were black and blue. The overlooker 
 knew the occasion of our being a little too late ; we have 
 stated to him the reason, but he never minded that, he 
 used to watch us out of the windows. The pain ^and 
 weakness in my legs increased. 
 
 [The witness, by request, stood up and showed the com- 
 mittee his limbs.] 
 
 " I was as straight and healthful as any one when I was 
 seven years old. There were other children at the mill who 
 became deformed in like manner. There were some very 
 often sick, and some were deformed; but the parents who 
 were able to support their children took them away ; in 
 consequence of seeing that they would be deformed if they 
 did not take them away. My mother being a widow, and 
 having but little, could not afford to take me away. The 
 parish would not have relieved me if my mother had taken 
 me away. She has frequently been to the parish authorities, 
 but she was no better for it. I have seen my mother weep 
 oftentimes, and I have asked her why she was weeping, but 
 she would not tell me then, but she has told me since- She 
 was so affected by seeing my limbs give way by working 
 
 such long hours. 
 
 * « * * « 
 
 "The overlookers, under whom I have hitherto worked, 
 have been in the habit of strapping and cruelly beating the 
 children for very little faults ; for being late in the morning, 
 and for letting the ends run down. One part of the disci- 
 pline of those mills is profound silence ; they will not allow 
 the children to speak : if two are seen speaking, they are 
 beaten with the strap. The masters encourage the overlooker 
 to treat the children in that manner. I have seen them when 
 the master has been standing at one end of the room, and two
 
 288 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 of the overlookers speaking to liim, and if he has chanced to 
 see two girls speaking to each other, he has said, ' Look 
 yonder at those two girls talking,' and lie has run and beat 
 them the same as they beat soldiers in the barrack-yard for 
 deserting. The strapping was principally going on in the 
 morning, from half past five to six ; for if there were twenty 
 that were too late, they would all be beaten. There was 
 strapping in the after part of the day also ; it began about 
 three o'clock, and continued then till the time that they 
 dropped their work — very cruel strapping. If they had not 
 strapped the children they would have fallen asleep. 
 
 "Out of the thirty minutes allowed for dinner, five minutes 
 and sometimes ten were occupied in cleaning the spindles. 
 On Saturday night we gave over at six o'clock, after which 
 time we used to be made to fettle the machines, which took an 
 hour and a-half. Sometimes, during the time I worked 
 at Bradley mill, the clock was a quarter of an hour too soon 
 in the meal-time; we had just done fettling, and we had 
 but half got our dinners, and the overlooker put the clock 
 forward to one, and he rang the bell, and we were obliged 
 to run back to our work. This was not an uncommon practice. 
 During the two years and a-half I was at that mill, there 
 were about a dozen of the children who died. The owner 
 of the mill did not send after these children to inquire after 
 them, or to relieve them when they were disabled by their 
 long-continued labour — they lived sometimes for two or three 
 months after they left. If any one had taken an account of 
 the deaths at the mill, the deaths of those children would 
 not have been included in that statement. They did not 
 die in the mill; but I knew one boy who died when he had 
 been out of the mill only two days ; he was stuffed up by 
 the dust. There is considerable dust in that employment; 
 you cannot take the food out of your basket or handkerchief 
 but what it is covered with dust directly. This circumstance 
 renders the more necessary that we, the children, should have
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 289 
 
 time to eat our breakfast and ' drinking,' which are brought 
 to us, but they will allow us no time, and we have to bite 
 our food as we can ; it is laid up on the board — sometimes 
 the ' flue ' gets into it, so that we cannot eat it. The children 
 are frequently sick because of the dust and dirt they eat 
 with their meat. If they were allowed a little time to get 
 their breakfast and ' drinking ' in, they could then go out of 
 doors and get the meat clean and comfortable, and the dust 
 would not get into it. The children ate their dinner on the 
 boiler-house thatch or anywhere, as they could not go home. 
 I lived a good mile off. In winter we, the children, ate 
 our dinner sometimes out of doors, and sometimes in the 
 mill. 
 
 " When I gave over attending the ' throstles,' I worked 
 at ' bobbin winding ' at the steam looms. The labour was 
 continued the same length of time, from five in the morning 
 to eight at night. When trade was brisk, I have worked 
 from five in the morning to nine at night. For this additional 
 hour's labour each working day I received, for the whole 
 six months, tenpence halfpenny. This was the sum received 
 by each, big and little, for the whole time. This was when 
 I worked at the throstles. I was forced to work the additional 
 hovir. When we, the children, worked at the ' bobbin work,' 
 we were not used so cruelly: there was no strap, only the 
 overlooker was a very savage man, and he used to strike 
 the children under the ribs, till it took their wind away, 
 and they fell on the floor, and perhaps lay there for two 
 minutes. All the overlookers are in the habit of treating 
 the children with severity ; the masters put them up to 
 it, because they could not get the quantity of work done 
 they wanted, unless they were to beat them. 
 
 " When I left t/Lv Addison's, Bradley mill, I went to 
 
 Mr Brooks's upper mill, Huddersfield. At Mr Brooks's the 
 
 usual time of labour for the children was twelve hours per 
 
 day. We worked from six in the morning till eight at 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 night ; we had half an hour to breakfast, an hour at 
 noon, and half an hour at drinking time, making altogether 
 twelve hours of actual labour. The hours were too long, 
 we could not stand them. I was ten years of age when 
 I went there first ; I remained nearly four years; I 
 worked at Lewis's machine in the dressing department. 
 I have stated the regular hours of working; when trade 
 was particularly brisk I was obliged to work from 
 five in the morning till half-past tfen, sometimes till 
 eleven, for four months together, and once all night. My 
 regular wages was five shillings a week, and they gave a 
 shilling extra for over-hours. I must either have worked 
 those over-hours or left my place. It was the same in other 
 places when trade was good. It is not easy to get a place, 
 because there are so many boys ; there is always somebody 
 out of work. I found that labour to be very distressing 
 to me, and it increased the pain in my limbs. It also 
 increased the deformity which came upon me, and I have 
 had to drop it several times for a fortnight together. They 
 did not use the strap there, they used to strike with the 
 fist and kick with the foot. During the time I worked 
 there, I wished many times they would have sent me for 
 a West India slave. I had heard the condition of the West, 
 India slaves described. I felt myself very much overworked, 
 with insufficient rest, and very much injured by that length 
 of labour. This rendered me very miserable in my mind, 
 and I thought there could be nothing worse, and that there 
 could not be worse slaves than those who worked in factories. 
 On one occasion, I worked all Friday, Friday night, and 
 Saturday. 
 
 " I left that situation. One morning I was between ten 
 minutes and a quarter of an hour too late; the overlooker 
 met me, he gave me a knock on the head against a step, 
 and caused a great lump to rise ; he said he would turn me 
 off — ' a young devil for being too late ;' he followed me up
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 29l 
 
 the steps, but he could not catch me ; I ran round the steps 
 to get away from him, and I left that place. I was then 
 fourteen years of age, I was beat and kicked in the way 
 I have described for having been too late. It is customary 
 in some places to abate the wages ; I do not think they 
 did so at Mr Brooks's. I left that mill, and I went to 
 Mr William Firth's, Greenhead, Huddersfleld, and they began 
 this rule. They bated the boys l|d. for six minutes, and 
 a man 3d. ; and when it got to sixteen minutes, they doubled 
 it — 6d. for a man and 3d. for a boy — and it was doubled 
 again when it got up to thirty-one minutes ; then the 
 forfeiture for a boy was 4-^d, — and a boy's daily wages 
 was lOd., Is., and so on. I do not know whether the 
 overlooker kept the fines or not ; he used to take them 
 when he paid the wages. I was beaten as well as fined 
 for being too late. It was the general system in that mill, 
 at times, to beat the children as well as stop their wages. 
 They did not beat them so cruelly — they did not beat 
 them with straps, but with their fists. The practice of 
 stopping wages for being too late does not do away with 
 beating, but they were beat most, where they did not 
 pay the fines. The longest hours I worked at Mr Firth's 
 were from five in the morning till nine at night. Two 
 hours were allowed for refreshment — there were fourteen 
 hours of actual labour. I left that employment, because 
 I could stand it no longer ; the weakness was so bad in 
 my knees and ankles. I was obliged totally to give up 
 work. I believe I should have died if I had not given up — 
 the doctors have nearly cured me. I was placed by my 
 mother under the medical treatment of Dr Walker, of the 
 Huddersfleld Infirmary. In that Infirmary they can only 
 take into the house twenty at once, because there are not 
 subscribers enough to enable them to take more, and there 
 are so many accidents that they are obliged to take in ; they 
 would have taken me in if they could ; they have twenty-two 
 
 u 2
 
 292 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 in sometimes, but twenty is the regular rule. It is a new 
 place. My mother got a recommendation from Mr Bradley 
 Clay. It is nearly eleven weeks since I dropped work. 
 Mr Oastler got me into the Leeds Infirmary as an in-patient, 
 under the care of Mr Hey. He examined me, and said 
 that my deformity was caused by the factory system. He 
 said he thought he could have done me good if he had 
 had me a few years ago ; there would have been means 
 of bringing me straight. He said it was all from the factory 
 system — working so long and standing so many hours. 
 Mr Hey said, there were but poor hopes of me. Dr Walker 
 says I never shall be right any more. The cause of my 
 illness has been going on all along, but I have got rather 
 worse since I was fourteen years of age. I cannot walk 
 above thirty yards before my legs begin aching very bad, 
 and then I cannot walk at all. 
 
 " When at the factory, I had not any opportunity of 
 learning to read and write — only a little, on the Sabbath- 
 day. I have tried to learn to write within these last ten 
 or eleven weeks. I do not think that there is above one in 
 a hundred in the factories that can write. 
 
 " I am now an in-patient in the Leeds Infirmary. There 
 are cases similar to mine. There is one boy ; he is weak 
 in the knees, the same as I am, but not quite so far gone ; he 
 is under Mr Smith, I think, a surgeon ; and there is another 
 boy in the same ward as I am, he was struck on the 
 hip, by a slubber, with a billy-roller. There is another boy 
 who was kicked by an overlooker with his foot, and his 
 body was the same as if it was taken off, and set on behind 
 him ; his body is twisted, and he goes upon crutches. I 
 have been in the Leeds Infirmary a week last Saturday night ; 
 if I had been this week at Leeds, I should have been a 
 fortnight next Saturday. Last Tuesday but one there was 
 a boy brought in about five or six o'clock in the evening 
 from a mill. He had been catched with the shaft, and he
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 293 
 
 had both his thighs broke, and from his knee to his hip the 
 flesh was ripped up the same as if it had been cut by a knife, 
 his head was bruised, his eyes were nearly torn out, and his 
 arms broken. His sister, Avho ran to pull him off, got both 
 her arms broke and her head bruised, and she is bruised all 
 over her body. The boy died last Thursday night but one, 
 about eight o'clock ; I do not know whether the girl is dead, 
 but she was not expected to live. That accident occurred 
 in consequence of the shaft not being sheathed. 
 
 W 1^ ^ flf ^ # 
 
 " Dr Walker ordered me to wear irons from the ankle 
 to the thigh; my mother Avas not able to get them, and he 
 said he would write a note, and she might go to some gentle- 
 men in the town and give them that note, and see if they 
 would not give her something towards them ; and so she did, 
 and I got the bare irons made, and I was coming into the 
 yard where I live, and there was a man who worked at the 
 same place that I did asked me to let him look at them ; I 
 told him I could not get money to line them with, and he 
 said, ' I will tell you where there is a gentleman who will give 
 you the money; ' he told me of Mr Oastler, and he said, ' I 
 will go and see if he is at home, that you may not lose your 
 trouble.' Mr Oastler was at home, and said I was to be 
 there at eight o'clock in the morning, because he wanted to 
 go off on a journey ; I got there about half-past eight. 
 Mr Wood of Bradford gave me a sovereign. Mr 
 Oastler asked me what ray lameness came on with, I 
 told him. and he happened to mention it at the 
 county meeting at York. My master saw it in the 
 newspaper, and he sent the foreman to our house where 
 I lived ; he had not patience to read it, and he said to 
 my mother, ' I suppose it is owing to our place that 
 your Joseph got the use of his limbs taken away,' and my 
 mother said he was informed wrong, that I had my lameness 
 before I went to that factory ; but he said, ' If Joseph has
 
 294 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 said anything about our factory we shall certainly turn him 
 
 off, and both his brothers.' I have two little brothers 
 
 working at the same place. He said he did not know 
 
 exactly how it was, but he would go back and see the paper 
 
 himself, and if he found out that I had said anything about 
 
 the factory system, we should be turned off. I have not been 
 
 turned off, but my master will not speak to me or look at me ; 
 
 I do not know whether he will let me start again or not. My 
 
 brothers have not been turned off. 
 
 ****** 
 
 " I had one of ray arms broke. I was working at what is 
 called a brushing-mill ; there is a pin they put into the roller 
 to make it run round, and the pin catch ed my sleeve, and 
 twisted my arm round and broke it, and another boy has 
 had his arm broken in the same way. At Mr Brooks's mill 
 they cannot break their arms by that part of the machine, 
 owing to a different arrangement. There was a boy who, to 
 'fettle' the machine, was kneeling down, and a strap catched 
 him about his ankles, and carried him round the wheel, and 
 dashed his brains out on the floor. These accidents usually 
 happen at the latter end of the day ; the children get tired — 
 that boy got killed at a quarter-past seven at night. I 
 have worked ten years in mills, and have in all cases been 
 required to labour longer than my strength could bear. I 
 have been rendered ill, deformed, and miserable by the factory 
 system, as at present pursued. Oh! if I had a thousand 
 pounds I would give them to have the use of my limbs 
 again." 
 
 Benjamin Gummersil; — 
 
 " I reside in Bowling Lane, Bradford, in Yorkshire, and 
 am now sixteen years of age. I have been employed in 
 piecening at a worsted mill. I have Avorked at Mr Cozen 's 
 mill ; the hours of labour were from six in the morning to 
 seven, and half-past seven and eight at night; half an hour 
 
 ■/.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 295 
 
 was allowed at noon for dinner — not any time was allowed 
 for breakfast or ' drinking.' As a child, I found the employ- 
 ment hard and laborious. I entered the mill at nine years 
 of age; my father was obliged to send me to the mill in 
 order to keep me. If we are higher than the frames, 
 we have to bend our bodies and our legs, so. [Here 
 the witness showed the position in which he worked.] 
 I was a healthy and strong boy before I went to 
 the mill. When eight years old, I could walk from 
 Leeds to Bradford without any pain or difficulty, and 
 did not in consequence feel much fatigue. I had worked 
 about a year at Mr Cozen's mill for those long hours, before 
 I found my limbs begin to fail. The failing came on with 
 great pain in my legs and knees; I felt very much fatigued 
 towards the end of those days — then the overlooker bea^ 
 me up to my work. I have been beaten till I was black 
 and blue in my face, and have had my ears torn. I have 
 been cruelly chastised — once I was very ill with it. I was 
 beaten because I had mixed a few empty bobbins, having 
 not any place to put them into separate. I was generally 
 beaten most at the end of the day, when I grew tired and 
 fatigued. In the morning I felt stiff, very stark indeed ; 
 I was beaten in the morning as well, but not so much as 
 towards the latter end of the day. I continued to attend 
 the mill after my limbs began to fail. After I became 
 deformed, I did not get on so well with my work as I 
 could before. I got less in height, I cannot exactly say 
 how tall I am now, I have fallen several inches in height. 
 I had to stand thirteen or fourteen hours a day frequently, 
 and was constantly engaged as I have described. [The 
 witness, at the request of the Committee, exliibited his 
 limbs, 'and they appeared to be exceedingly crooked.'] 
 I was perfectly straight before I entered upon this labour. 
 There were other boys deformed in the same way. There
 
 296 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 was another boy going In the same way that 1 am, and there 
 was another with one leg out and another in. A good 
 many other boys suffered in their health, in consequence 
 of the severity of their work. Other children have suffered, 
 though not to the great extent that I have done. I have 
 two brothers and two sisters who work in Mr Cozen's mill. 
 They have not suffered in the same way that I have done. 
 I have a brother that was working at a mill that was going 
 the same way, but he recovered after he left. I have not 
 any other brothers and sisters who are unhealthy — they are 
 all straight besides myself I cannot recollect my mother — 
 my father is not deformed. I cannot write, I have not had 
 any opportunity of learning. I can read some little, but 
 very poorly. I am now supported by helping my sister 
 to knit heels to weave with. I have sometimes pains in 
 my limbs now ; when I stand I have very much pain. I 
 was working long hours when this deformity came on : when 
 my legs got bad, I worked all the same hours, they were 
 not shortened ; sometimes I was bad and was forced to go 
 home. The master nor the overlooker never sent the doctor 
 to me, nor do they make me any allowance now. I went 
 once to the doctor, Mr Blakey, to see if he could do me 
 any good, or give me a recommendation to the Dispensary ; 
 and he said they had called a committee for a boy like 
 me before, but they could not do him any good. My father 
 sent me to the doctor — Mr Blakey is one of the doctors 
 of the Dispensary. I have been seen by Dr Beaumont, at 
 Bradford; he looked at me, he said that he could not do 
 me any good. I am quite sure that this pain in 
 my limbs and this grievous deformity have resulted 
 from long labour ; that is the opinion of my father 
 and all my friends, and of all the medical men that have 
 seen me. 
 
 "I have two sisters who worked the same hours at the
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 297 
 
 same mill, they have not suffered in their health. They 
 did not do the same kind of work ; the one was a warper 
 and the other a reeler. They had not to stoop so much 
 as I had. I was a strong boy when I went to Avork, and 
 I am sui'e ten hours a day labour was enough for me as 
 a strong boy. I had five shillings and sixpence a week 
 wages, and then I left and went again, and they gave me 
 four shillings and sixpence, because I had got worse in 
 my limbs. When I was nine years old, I first went into the 
 mill. I got two shillings the first week when I was learning, 
 and then I kept getting raised as I could work better. I 
 worked as long for my four and sixpence as I did for my 
 five and sixpence. When I began to be deformed and 
 crooked, they gave me a stool to sit on, to enable me 
 to reach my work. I could not work now while sitting. 
 When we bad all our ends up, there was a stool at top, 
 and I went to sit me down there .... I cannot now 
 stand without crutches or a stick, or something to lean 
 against. I cannot walk at all. I cannot get up stairs 
 except I creep up upon my hands and knees, or backwards 
 way, which I do every night." 
 
 Elizabeth Bentley : — 
 
 " I am twenty-three years of age, and live at Leeds. I began 
 to work at Mr Busk's flax mill when I was six years old. I 
 was then a little ' dofi'er.' In that mill we worked from five 
 in the morning till nine at night, when they were 'throng; ' 
 when they were not so ' throng,' the usual hours of labour 
 were from six in the morning till seven at night. The time 
 allowed for our meals was forty minutes at noon ; not any 
 time was allowed for breakfast or 'drinkino::' these we irot as 
 we could. When our Avork was bad, we had hardly any 
 time to eat them at all : we were obliged to leave them or 
 take them home. When we did not take our uneaten food 
 home, the overlooker took it and gave it to his pigs. I
 
 298 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 consider ' doffing ' to be a laborious employment. Wben the 
 frames are full, the ' doifers ' have to stop them, and take the 
 ' flyers ' off, and take the full bobbins off, and carry them to 
 the roller, and then put empty ones on, and set the frame 
 going again. I was kept constantly on my feet ; there were 
 so many frames, and they run so quick, the labour was 
 excessive, there was not time for anything. When the 
 ' doffers ' flagged a little, or were too late, they were strapped. 
 Those who were last in ' doffing ' were constantly strapped — 
 girls as well as boys. I have been strapped severely, and 
 have been hurt by the strap excessively. The overlooker I 
 was under was a very severe man. When I and others have 
 been fatigued and worn out, and had not baskets enough to put 
 the bobbins in, we used to put them in the window bottoms, 
 and that broke the panes sometimes ; and I broke one one time, 
 and the overlooker strapped me on the arm, and it rose a 
 blister, and I ran home to my mother. I worked at Mr 
 Busk's factory three or four years. 
 
 " When I left Mr Busk's, I then went to Benyon's factory; 
 I was about ten years of age, and was employed as a weigher 
 in the card-room. At Benyon's factory we worked from 
 half-past five till eight at night, when they were ' throng ' 
 until nine. The spinners at that mill were allowed forty 
 minutes at noon for meals ; no more time throughout the 
 day was allowed. Those employed in the card-rooms had, 
 in addition to the forty minutes at noon, a quarter of an 
 hour allowed for their breakfast, and a quarter of an hour for 
 their ' drinking.' The carding-room is more oppressive than 
 the spinning department : those at work cannot see each 
 other for dust. The ' cards ' get so soon filled up with waste 
 and dirt, they must be stopped or they would take fire : the 
 stoppages are as much for the benefit of the employer as for 
 the working people. The children at Benyon's factory were 
 beat up to their labour with a strap. I have seen the over- 
 looker go to the top end of the room, where the little girls
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 299 
 
 'hug ' the can to the ' backminsters ;' he has taken a strap, and 
 a whistle in his mouth, and sometimes he has got a chain 
 and chained them, and strapped them all down the room. 
 This was done to those children who were ' hugging ' the cans. 
 It was in the afternoon ; the children were excessively 
 fatigued : they were too slow, and the overlooker was angry 
 with them. The girls have many times had black marks 
 upon their skins. Had the parents complained of this exces- 
 sive ill-usage, the probable consequence would have been the 
 loss of the employment of the child. Of this result the 
 parents were afraid. 
 
 " I worked in the card-room ; it was so dusty that the dust 
 got upon my lungs, and the work was so hard. I was mid- 
 dling strong when I went there, but the work was so bad ; 
 I got so bad in health, that when I pulled the baskets down, 
 I pulled my bones out of their places. The basket I pulled 
 was a very large one ; that was full of weights, upheaped, 
 and pulling the basket, pulled my shoulder out of its place, 
 and my ribs have grown over it. That hard work is gene- 
 rally done by women : it is not fit for children. There was 
 no spinning for me, and I therefore did that work. They 
 gave me five shillings a week, the women had six shillings and 
 sixpence. As a spinner, I had got six shillings. The hands 
 were constantly leaving, because of the unhealthy nature 
 of their employment, and the excessive labour they had to 
 endure. The employment made us very thirsty : we drank 
 a deal of water in the room. It was not so very hot as in 
 the summer time. In the winter it was necessary to have the 
 windows open ; it made no matter what the weather was, and 
 sometimes we got very severe colds in frost and snow. We 
 were constantly exposed to colds, and were made ill by that 
 cause also. Then I had not much food to eat, and the little 
 I had I could not eat it, my appetite was so poor. My food 
 being covered with dust, it was no use to take it home. I 
 could not eat it, and the overlooker took it, and gave it to his
 
 300 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 pigs. I am speaking of the breakfast. I could not go home 
 to dinner. 
 
 " I lived two miles from the mill. We had no clock. 
 If I had been too late at the mill, I would have been ' quar- 
 tered.' I mean that if I had been a quarter of an hour too 
 late, a half an hour would have been taken off. I only got 
 a penny an hour, and they would have taken a halfpenny 
 more. I was never beaten myself I have seen the boys 
 beaten for being too late. I was generally at the factory in 
 time. My mother has been up at two o'clock and at four 
 o'clock in the morning. The colliers used to go to their work 
 about three or four o'clock, and when she heard them stirring, 
 she has got up out of her warm bed, and gone out and asked 
 them the time ; and I have sometimes been at Hunslet Car 
 at two o'clock in the morning, when it Avas streaming down 
 with rain, and we have had to stay till the mill was opened. 
 Had the hours of labour been moderate, I could have awoke 
 regularly. It was a matter of anxiety and difficulty for me 
 to arouse myself early enough for those hours of labour. 
 
 " I am considerably deformed in person in consequence 
 of this labour, I was about thirteen years old when my 
 deformity began to come on, and it has got worse since. It 
 is five years since ray mother died, and she was never able to 
 get me a pair of good stays to hold me up ; and when my 
 mother died I had to do for myself, and got me a pair. 
 Before I worked at a mill I was as straight a little girl as 
 ever went up and down town. I was straight until I was 
 thirteen. I have been attended by a medical gentleman, Mr 
 Hare. He said it was owing to hard labour, and working in 
 the factories. He told me so. I was coming from Leeds, and 
 he asked a good many qiiestions. He asked me if I had a 
 father and mother ? I said, no. He said if I had no objection 
 he would take me in hand. I said I was much obliged to 
 him. He told me to come to his house that night; and I 
 went to the mill, and told them I was going to stop away.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 301 
 
 I stopped at home ten weeks, and my cousins, that I was 
 living with, had to maintain me, and they told me tliey were 
 sure he would not do me any good, and they could not find 
 me with support ; and Mr Hare told me it would be a year 
 before I should be straight again. I was obliged to return to 
 my work. It was two years ago that Mr Hare saw me ; I 
 was then twenty -one. I cannot express the pain I had all the 
 time that the deformity was coming upon me. 
 
 "I next beo-an to work at Tatham and Walkers flax -mill. 
 I went into the spinning room. When they were busy, the 
 hours of labour there were from half-past five in the morning 
 to eight and half-past eight. I have seen the children strapped 
 in that mill, the 'dofFers ' as well as others The children could 
 not be kept up to their work unless they were beaten. The 
 period allotted for refreshment at that mill, and at the time to 
 which I allude, was forty minutes at noon in winter, and half 
 an hour in summer. Since the factory agitation began, time 
 has been allowed for breakfast and ' drinking.' When they 
 were much thronged in winter, the hours of work were from 
 six in the mornino; to seven or eight at night. The children 
 were occasionally brought in from their meals before the time 
 was up ; they were sometimes whipped in out of the mill yard ; 
 the overlooker has got a strap, and gone out and strapped them 
 in before their time, that they might come in and get on with 
 their work. 
 
 *' I have had the misfortune, from being a straight and 
 healthful girl, to become very much otherwise in person. I do 
 not know of any other girls that have become weak and de- 
 formed in like manner. I have known others who have been 
 similarly injured in health. I am deformed in the shoulders ; 
 it is very common indeed to have weak ankles and crooked 
 knees, that is brought on by stopping the spindle. 
 
 " I have had experience in wet spinning — it is very uncom- 
 fortable. I have stood before the frames till I have been wet 
 through to my skin ; and in winter-time, when myself and
 
 302 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 others have gone home, our clothes have been frozen, and we 
 have nearly caught our death from cold. We have stopped at 
 home one or two days, just as we were situated in our health; 
 had we stopped away any length of time we should have 
 found it difficult to keep our situations. 
 
 " I am now in the poor-house at Hunslet. Not any of my 
 former employers come to see me. When I was at home, Mr 
 Walker made me a present of Is. or 2s., but since I left my work 
 and have gone to the poor-house, no one has come nigh me. 
 I was very willing to have worked as long as I was able, and 
 to have supported my widowed mother. I am utterly incapa- 
 ble now of any exertion of that sort, and am supported by the 
 parish." 
 
 Mr Gillett Sharpe, Keighley, examined: — 
 
 The witness having detailed the results of excessive 
 labour on members of his own family, was asked : 
 
 " Have you reason to think that any of the children lose 
 their lives in consequence of this excessive degree of exertion? 
 — I have no doubt in my mind that such has been the case, 
 and I may mention one instance of the kind. Four or five 
 months back there was a girl of a poor man's that I was called 
 to visit ; it was poorly ; it had attended a mill, and 1 was 
 obliged to relieve the father in the course of my office (as- 
 sistant-overseer), in consequence of the bad health of the 
 child ; by-and-by it went back to its work again, and one day 
 he came to me with tears in his eyes : I said, ' What is the 
 matter, Thomas ? He said, * My little girl is dead.' I said, 
 * When did she die ?' He said, ' In the night; and what breaks 
 my heart is this, she went to the mill in the morning, she was 
 not able to do her work, and a little boy said he would assist 
 her if she would give him a halfpenny on Saturday ; I said I 
 would give hira a penny,' but at night when the child went 
 home, perhaps about a quarter of a mile, in going home she fell 
 down several times on the road through exhaustion, till at
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 303 
 
 length she reached her father's door with difficulty, and she 
 never spoke audibly afterwards ; she died in the night. 
 
 '' What was the illness of the child when you saw it at the 
 parent's house ? — It seemed to be exhaustion, general debility, 
 and weakness of body. 
 
 " Was there any medical person called in to visit her ? — 
 Yes ; he asked me to send a doctor to visit her, and give her 
 what he thought proper. 
 
 " What was the doctor's opinion ? — I do not know, I never 
 spoke to the doctor; he gave her something, and she got 
 better then. 
 
 "You cannot say what was the matter with her? — No, but 
 I could not help noticing, and it brought tears to my eyes, 
 though the child did not belong to me, to think that she should 
 have to work the last day of her life under such circumstances. 
 
 " Do you believe her indisposition was caused by working 
 in the factories? — If she had been at home, instead of being 
 confined in the factory, she would have been in a different 
 situation. 
 
 " How old was the little girl ? — I cannot speak exactly to 
 her age, I judged she might be ten years old. 
 
 " How long was this mill working in the day ? — I cannot 
 speak to that ; I have no doubt it worked from six to seven. 
 
 " Had the child any specific disease that you know of ? — 
 No, I do not know that she had." 
 
 Among the more systematic modes adopted to procure 
 the greatest quantity of labour from the exercise of the 
 faculties of little children, the following deserve special 
 attention. In their own horrible way, they have a claim 
 to be considered " improvements " upon the vulgar and 
 common practices of beatings with leather straps, blows 
 with billy-rollers, and like means of punishment. Mr James 
 Turner, from Manchester, in the course of his examination 
 by the Committee, stated that it was well known that other 
 means than beating were adopted " to get as much work
 
 804 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 out of tlie little infants as possible," a statement which gave 
 rise to the following questions and answers: — "What do 
 you mean by other means ? — Other means besides coercive 
 means. It is quite common in the mill, for instance, to 
 give prizes to those that can do the most work in a fortnight 
 or so. Last Saturday three weeks, two of these boys had 
 been striving, for three pounds of bacon and three score 
 of potatoes, which could do the most work for a fortnight ; 
 the prize was decided on that day, and the little boy that 
 had won it had often complained, when he got home, that 
 he could hardly get to bed. Then when the two boys 
 have done this quantity of work, the overlookers almost 
 insist that others should do the same. The girls they will 
 give dolls to : they get two dolls, a big one and a little 
 one, and hang them up on the frame, and those that do 
 the most work get one of these dolls. This boy that I 
 named, his name is Griffiths, that had won the bacon, 
 he also had won on a former occasion half a peck of meal 
 and some sugar. This is done to get as much work out 
 of the little children as ever they can, and then when part 
 have done it, they consider that all can do alike ; and they 
 almost insist on their doing so, and use them harshly if 
 they do not do so much work as those have done for 
 their prizes. 
 
 " So that the children are on the one hand coerced, and 
 on the other hand tempted, to perform more labour than 
 is consistent with their health ? — Most certainly they tempt 
 one, and then coerce the rest; this is a general practice 
 at Longworthy and Co.'s, a large silk mill that we have 
 in Mosley street. 
 
 " Is it so in the cotton mills ? — No, it is not; I never 
 knew it done in the cotton." 
 
 Jonathan Downe examined: — 
 
 "When you worked in mills, what methods were taken
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 305 
 
 to rouse the children from drowsiness ? — It is a very frequent 
 thing at Mr Marshall's, where the least children are employed 
 (for there were plenty working at six years of age). It has 
 been the regular practice of late years for Mr Horseman to 
 start the mill earlier in the morning than he formerly did ; 
 and provided a child should be drowsy, the overlooker walks 
 round the room with a stick in his hand, and he touches 
 that child on the shoulder, and says, ' Come here.' In the 
 corner of the room there is an iron cistern ; it is filled with 
 water, so that if any fire should occur in the room, they 
 could quench it with that water : he takes this boy, and 
 holding him up by the legs, dips him over head in the 
 cistern, and sends him to his work for the remainder of 
 the day; and that boy is to stand dripping as he is at 
 his work — he has no chance of drying himself. Such, at 
 least, was the case when I was there. 
 
 ''In addition to the beating, have you known any other 
 methods of punishment resorted to for presumed ofiences ? — 
 Yes, that first is for drowsiness, the second is for any other 
 oflfence that may occur in any other room in that mill ; I never 
 saw it in any other place ; it is just according to their crime, 
 great or small. There is a stool fixed up at one end of the room, 
 the boy who offends is put to stand on this stool, sometimes on 
 both legs, and sometimes on one of his legs, with the other up, 
 and he has a lever to bear in his arms, thus Qiere the witness 
 exhibited the position by elevating his arms above his head], 
 and there he is to stand for ten minutes, or a quarter of an 
 hour, or half an hour, just according as the overlooker 
 chooses ; and provided he should lower his arms, and it is a 
 great weight to bear for a quarter of an hour, I have seen the 
 overlooker come this way and say, ' Hold up,' and sometimes 
 the boy will strive to hold it up and not have strength to 
 raise it, and the overlooker has a stick or strap, and cuts 
 him till he does actually get it up, and the tears will run 
 down his face when he is there standing. I have seen it 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 there frequently, and it is the regular practice. — In what 
 mills have you seen it ? — At Mr Marshall's, of Shrewsbury ; 
 frequently in that mill." 
 
 Children so excessively worked were, in consequence, 
 subjected to increased risks from machinery. It was proved 
 in evidence that limbs would be sometimes caught by wheels 
 in motion; that these were frequently torn to pieces. William 
 Swithinbank, a cloth-dresser from Leeds, was asked, " Have 
 you had any children in your family that have met with 
 accidents at their work ? — Yes, I have one boy that met 
 with a very serious accident; it was at a machine called a 
 crab, that the stuff goods go through; it pulled him in and 
 caught his arm, and it tore it all to bits; it tore the veins 
 from the arteries, and tore the muscles from the arm out; 
 it was all torn Have any other accidents of that sort 
 happened there? — Yes; another boy, at the same crab, got 
 killed, and another got his arm torn off," 
 
 A question naturally suggests itself, • — Was the supply of 
 labour so much below the demand as to render this excessive 
 labour necessary for the purposes of manufacture and com- 
 merce ? The reverse was the fact ; the supply of labour was, 
 uiader the arrangements then common, greater than the 
 demand, a circumstance quite in keeping with the results. 
 Eleven hours was the usual day's work in the woollen factories 
 of Leeds; to this rule there were exceptions. It was the 
 custom, with few exceptions, in Bradford, to work on Good 
 Friday and on Christmas-day, a circumstance which, perhaps, 
 as much as any other, proves how thoroughly the whole of 
 life, in the case of the factory children, was devoted to 
 labour. 
 
 It was amply proved before the committee, that the treat- 
 ment of those engaged in factory labour was not improving. 
 William Kershaw, of Gomersal, whose experience ranged 
 over a period of half a century, Avas on this head very 
 decided ; the same witness declared that he was not " in any
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 307 
 
 point of view a fi-ee agent," that he had " no alternative hut 
 of submitting " to allow his children to work "long and per- 
 nicious hours of labour, or allowing them to starve for want 
 of necessary subsistence," — an affirmation strictly reasonable. 
 It is impossible to conceive a free agent, endowed with 
 moral sense, capable of allowing his offspring to be ruined 
 physically, morally, and mentally for any consideration. It 
 must have been with no ordinary feelings of anguish that 
 William Kershaw informed the committee that the " conduct 
 of his daughters was far from satisfactory; impudence and 
 immorality of every description appeared to be their growing 
 characteristics." Many witnesses gave painful testimony, the 
 result of personal observation, to the factory system being 
 a prolific and an increasing source of drunkenness, prostitution, 
 and indecency. These evils existed side by side with a rapid 
 increase of scientific, chemical, and mechanical knowledge 
 applied to the purposes of production. 
 
 The Rev. G. S. Bull and Mr Richard Oastler were 
 examined at great length; their evidence, as an exposition 
 of the evils of the factory system, was comprehensive and 
 complete. Before the Committee were presented a number 
 of documents from Scotland, signed by the resident ministers 
 of the gospel and the principal medical men of the districts 
 to which these documents referred. The Rev. A. L. Gordon, 
 of Aberdeen, had closely attended to the development of 
 the factory system in Aberdeen, and gave very decided evi- 
 dence on its injurious effects. As an example of the contents 
 of the documents bearing the signatures of clergymen in 
 Scotland, we select the following because of its brevity. 
 
 " Arbroath, 2nd May, 1832. The undersigned have no 
 hesitation in offering it as their decided opinion, that the 
 present extended hours of labour in the flax mills of this 
 place have a most pernicious effect, both in a physical and 
 moral point of view, upon the young persons employed 
 in them. They have uniformly observed, that such young 
 
 X 2
 
 308 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 persons want the healthful aspects of children not similarly 
 confined. In i-espect of education, they are far behind what 
 used to be the average advancement of the same class of 
 children in this part of the country, and that their moral 
 and religious condition is such as was to be expected in 
 the case of persons who are removed from school to the 
 unwholesome air and dangerous companionship of a manu- 
 factory, at the age which is most available for the formation 
 either of virtuous or vicious habits. Although the practice 
 of employing a great number of children in the mills is, 
 in this place, only of recent date, yet enough has already 
 appeared to prove that the tendency of such an unnatural 
 system is to effect a rapid and certain deterioration of the 
 race. And there is nothing of which the undersigned are 
 more firmly persuaded than this, that if something is not 
 speedily done to enable parents to resist the temptation or 
 dispense with the necessity of sending their children to 
 work in mills for a longer period than is consistent with 
 the preservation of their health and the improvement of 
 their minds. Parliament will have, at no distant day, to 
 legislate for a population tenfold more ignorant, improvident, 
 pauperized, and immoral than the present " 
 
 To this document was appended the names of the recog- 
 nized heads of the Christian cong-reffations of the town of 
 Arbroath, churchmen and dissenters. Every one acquainted 
 with Scotland will appreciate the worth of such evidence. 
 The intimate connexion existing between the ministers of 
 the gospel and the population of Scotland, enables the former 
 to judge correctly of the actual position of the latter. It 
 is well known that the question of education has, in Scotland, 
 for ages, been a subject of the closest scrutiny; and the 
 falling off in education, consequent on the increase of the 
 factory system, was a serious and an appalling fact which 
 christian ministers could not silently overlook. 
 
 The feeling of the operatives on the question may be
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 309 
 
 inferred from the statements of Mr James M'Nish, of Glasgow: 
 " Are the operatives of the city of Glasgow generally con- 
 sidered favourable to a regulation and limitation of the hours 
 of labour for children and young persons employed in the 
 mills and factories of the place? — Yes; and to do justice 
 to the cause, and to put on record what has actually taken 
 place, and what would hereafter take place, I will state 
 what would have occurred if Mr Sadler had not previously 
 adopted some means, and moved for this Bill in the House 
 of Commons. It was proposed by a great number of 
 individuals in the various manufacturing districts ; they had 
 even brought forward plans to form extensive combinations 
 to limit, on their own behalf, the labour to ten hours per 
 day. Circulars were printed, and about to be distributed j 
 but when it was seen that he had moved for such a measure 
 in the House of Commons, they considered that they had 
 better turn their attention to assist him in this measure, 
 than attempt to legislate for themselves. The principal 
 reasons that the agitators of the self-legislation had for 
 coming before their fellow- operatives were, as they stated, 
 that the slave population were legislated for and protected, 
 that they had not to work more than ten hours per day, 
 and that the children had not to work at all till they were 
 fourteen years of age, and then only six hours a day; and 
 they likewise showed their fellow-operatives the future state 
 into which their children were springing up, — that they were 
 left completely exposed ; that their labour, which forms their 
 principal property, was left completely open to be trampled 
 upon by every avaricious employer as he chose ; they were 
 therefore determined to form as extensive a combination 
 as they possibly could to reduce those hours of labour, for 
 the benefit of themselves and their children. The tendency 
 of those combinations I was opposed to as one of the 
 individuals of the association ; for I considered that the 
 result of those associations would be a great evil to the
 
 310 THE HISTORY OP 
 
 country. In the first place, they would cause considerable 
 irritation between the labourers and the employers, and 
 ultimately, I believe, lead to bloodshed ; and indeed those 
 combinations can never extend beyond the circle of the 
 large manufacturing towns ; they can never reach the master 
 in the country. I have no doubt that they would have 
 succeeded in reducing the hours of labour in towns, and 
 brought the town manufacturers to the brink of ruin, and 
 I believe it would have obliged the town manufacturers 
 to have petitioned for this legislative measure at some period 
 themselves, perhaps at no distant period after those town 
 manufacturers had starved a great number of their operatives ; 
 and, perhaps, in return for this starvation, got some of 
 themselves murdered for starving those men. For although 
 such acts are frequently thrown upon combinations, they 
 generally proceed from individual want ; for a man with 
 a starving family will stop, 1 believe, at nothing. We have 
 had instances of this; therefore I am of opinion, that if 
 this Bill does not pass, the town manufacturers will have 
 to petition for such a legislative measure ; but I believe 
 pride will not allow them to petition until they are brought 
 to the brink of ruin themselves, and the commerce of the 
 country is likewise endangered. I have also to state, that 
 it is my opinion that these combinations would be very 
 hurtful to the country: they might be a ready tool in the 
 hands of any demagogue for a political purpose, who had 
 a few hundred pounds to distribute amongst them, and 
 might endanger the government ; and, therefore, in my 
 humble opinion, it will be the interest of the government, 
 the employers, and the operatives, that this measure should 
 be carried into effect at as early a period as possible." 
 
 The question of the preservation of the health of the 
 manufacturing population was nect^ssarily a subject of the 
 highest importance. In a national as in an individual sense, 
 health of body ought to be a primary consideration. In
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 311 
 
 SO far as machinery and manufactories contributed to national 
 wealth, corresponding with the health and improved circum- 
 stances of those engaged in factory labour, machinery and 
 manufactories were blessings, but on no account could the 
 gain of riches to a few, be a compensation for the loss 
 of health to the many. In considering manufacturing or 
 any other kind of industry, the labourers employed should 
 not be considered only as a means to an end ; they are 
 human beings, endowed with faculties and feelings, and no 
 branch of national industry can be, in a nati<jnal sense, 
 advantageous which does not directly contribute to their 
 elevation. The upraising of the industrious ought to be the 
 end of industry ; and that system of national economy in 
 which riches are everything and man nothing, is, in its 
 foundations, the contradictory of civilization, and in practice 
 a violation of the doctrine that " Love worketh no ill," and 
 opposed in spirit and deed to the truly wise philosophy 
 expressed in the words, " But now are they many, yet but 
 one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have 
 no need of thee ; nor, again, the head to the feet, I have 
 no need of you." It is impossible to conceive a greater 
 national curse than a system of industry under whose 
 operation human beings are called into existence, reared 
 into premature puberty, worked excessive hours, in circum- 
 stances opposed to health of body and mind, and the whole 
 aim and end of their being tried by the one calculation 
 of upon how little can life and the motion of a pair of hands 
 be supported. The depression of living human beings to 
 the material level of the lowest kind of factory furniture, 
 is an act of the grossest blasphemy. It is the pride of 
 a few persons in the vain conceit of their own inflated 
 self-sufficiency, saying to many of their fellow-creatures, 
 " God made us a little lower than the angels, and so far 
 as we can, we will make you much lower than the beasts that 
 perish." Among the most desirable objects of civilization
 
 312 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 is the increase of the consciousness of the moral responsibility 
 of man, of his dignity as man, the enrichment of his birth- 
 right as a responsible, rational creature, born into the world 
 possessing properties capable of improvement. When these 
 results are not realized, to talk of civilization is an absurdity ; 
 under the unregulated factory system, men, women and 
 children were degraded to the level of means and things, the 
 personal chattels of a favoured few. 
 
 The evidence of the medical men examined before the 
 Sadler committee of 1832, constitutes a cyclopasdia of physio- 
 logical, social, and moral knowledge, by the most eminent 
 professional men of their age in the departments of anatomy 
 and medicine. All were unanimous in their condemnation 
 of the factory system — all agreed that factories were "nurseries 
 of feeble bodies and fretful minds." This invaluable evidence 
 does not allow of condensation, it is a monument of the 
 extraordinary knowledge and intelligence of the highest order 
 of scientific physiologists and anatomists, and we will not 
 venture to separate the stones of the structure. Mr Sadler has 
 often said, " To have succeeded in collecting that body of medi- 
 cal evidence is worth all my labour, anxiety, and sacrifice." 
 
 The following placard was widely circulated ; its con- 
 tents prove the conclusiveness of the highest medical opi- 
 nions on the subject of the hours of labour, and shows the 
 use made of the medical evidence by the supporters of 
 factory regulation: — 
 
 "Table of Medical Opinions and Testimony before 
 the Select Committee on the Ten Hours' Bill. 
 " Sir Anthony Carlile, F.R.S., principal Surgeon of 
 Westminster Hospital forty years : ' More than ten hours is 
 quite incompatible with health and moral propriety.' . . 
 ' Every succeeding generation will be progressively deterio- 
 rated if you do not stop these sins against nature and hu- 
 manity.'
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 313 
 
 '* Sir William Blizzard, F.R.S., Surgeon to the London 
 Hospital fifty years : Pronounces the present system of 
 thirteen or more liours (including meals) to be ' horrible.' 
 
 " Sir Charles Bell, K.G.H., F.R.S., Surgeon to Middle- 
 sex Hospital : ' More than ten hours is painful in idea.' 
 
 " Sir George L. Tuthill, F.R.S., Physician to Westminster 
 Hospital twenty years: Doubts very much whether ten hours 
 will not be injurious to children under twelve years. 
 
 "Joseph H. Green, Esq., Surgeon to St Thomas's Hos- 
 pital, Professor K.C. : ' I fear this country will have much 
 to answer for in permitting the growth of the system of 
 employing children in factories.' . . ' From nine years 
 to twelve not more than six hours should be allowed. 
 Twelve is the utmost adults should labour.' 
 
 " James Blundell, Esq., M.D., Physician ta Guy's 
 Hospital, Lecturer, &c. : ' I look upon factory towns as 
 nurseries for feeble bodies and fretful minds. Ten hours 
 are enough for human beings.' 
 
 "Thomas Hodgkin, Esq., M.D. (of the Society of Friends), 
 Physician to the London Dispensary : ' Ten hours appears 
 to be a proper time.' 
 
 "John Morgan, Esq., Surgeon to Guy's Hospital: 'Ten 
 hours are injurious to young children of nine years ' 
 
 "Benjamin Brodie, Esq., F.R.S. , Surgeon of St George's 
 Hospital : ' I think ten hours too much for children of ten 
 years of age, and twelve too much for all.' 
 
 "William Lutener, Esq., Surgeon: 'Will sanction eight 
 or nine hours.' 
 
 " Samuel Smith, Esq., Surgeon to the Infirmary, Leeds : 
 ' Ten hours are too long, many will suffer under it.' 
 
 " William Sharp, jun., Esq., Surgeon to the Dispensary, 
 Bradford : ' I think it (ten hours) as long and perhaps longer 
 than is consistent with their general health.' 
 
 " C Turner Thackrah, Esq., Surgeon to the Infirmary, 
 Leeds: ' I should be very ill content with an Eleven Hours'
 
 314 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 Bill. Children should not work at all — the least time 
 the best.' 
 
 "J. Malyn, Esq., Surgeon: * Ten hours enough for those 
 who are eighteen years old — too much for children of nine 
 years.' 
 
 " P. M. Roget, Esq., P.R.S., late a Physician of Man- 
 chester Infirmary : * I should think that a child under nine 
 years of age ought not to be subject to the labour of a 
 mill or factory. Ten hours sufficient for any age.' 
 
 "John Elliotson, Esq., F.R.S., Physician to St Thomas's 
 Hospital: 'Ten hours are as much as can be endured with 
 impunity.' 
 
 " C. A. Key, Esq., Surgeon of Guy's Hospital: ' I should 
 say ten hours is even more than they could sustain with 
 impunity.' 
 
 " G. J. Guthrie, Esq., F.R.S., Surgeon and Vice-President 
 of the Royal College: 'Ten hours far too much.' Testifies 
 that the factory children are worked on an average longer 
 than soldiers ! 
 
 "John R. Farre, Esq., M.D., a Physician of forty-two 
 years' standing : ' I think that to secure a vigorous man- 
 hood nine years of age is too early.' . . . 'In English 
 factories everything valuable in manhood is sacrificed to an 
 inferior advantage in childhood.' 
 
 "Thomas Young, Esq., M D., Physician: 'I think that 
 ten hours is the extreme limit that ought to be allowed; it 
 is quite enough for the healthy and robust, and too much 
 for the feeble and delicate.' 
 
 " Benjamin Travers, F.R.S., Senior Surgeon of St 
 Thomas's Hospital : ' I think it wonderful that ten hours 
 can be endured.' . . . ' The bill would be advantageous 
 to society at large.' " 
 
 The following address accompanied the placard: — 
 
 " Christians and Englishmen ! Read, and be convinced, 
 that a Ten Hours' Bill must pass. Remember, besides the
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 315 
 
 above testimony, admitting of ten hours as the smallest 
 limitation which can be sanctioned, there is the written 
 testimony of nineteen medical men in Scotland, of the highest 
 class, and of thirteen clergymen, besides that of many 
 physicians, surgeons, ministers of the gospel, and humane 
 factory masters, who have raised, their voices for the bill at 
 public meetings. There is also the evidence, given before 
 the committee, of two clergymen, two gentlemen, forty-one 
 Yorkshire operatives, seven from Lancashire, seven from 
 Scotland, and five others, including three females, in all 
 one hundred and seventeen witnesses, against the present 
 factory system. 
 
 " Men of Great Britain ! Here is the four-fold voice of 
 science, humanity, Cliristianity, and bitter experience, in 
 favour of a Ten Hours' Bill. Will you suffer it to be drowned 
 by the clamorous howl of avarice and selfishness? And will 
 you suffer those who wish to represent you in parliament, to 
 evade the question of a Ten Hours' Bill? First, ask them, 
 whether Christianity and humanity demand it ; and then 
 ask them, whether they will support it, or whether they 
 will allow the influence of wealth to triumph over the 
 highest sanctions which God or his creatures can give. After 
 such testimony as the above (not to mention that which 
 bears on the daily working of the system, — withovit pro- 
 ducing aggravated and extreme cases), surely henceforth 
 opposition must be utterly inexcusable. Christians', fathers! 
 mothers ! will you support the Ten Hours' Bill, or renounce 
 your religion and your names ? " 
 
 The labour of Mr Sadler during the conduct of this 
 enquiry was extraordinary; his days and nights were devoted, 
 with but few and irregular intermissions, to incessant mental 
 exertion. During the sittings of the committee, he was 
 engaged in the trying process of constant investigation ; when 
 not so engaged, he was answering letters, giving audiences to 
 deputations, often devoting whole nights to the correction of
 
 316 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the notes of the short-hand writers engaged in reporting 
 the evidence of witnesses. Physiologists have affirmed that 
 those engaged in willing labour, are strengthened by the 
 emission from the brain of increased muscular volition, and 
 are, in consequence, enabled to perform herculean tasks with 
 comparative impunity. These efforts, however, we are 
 assured, must be only occasional; they were in Mr Sadler's 
 case, at the time referred to, habitual ; his nervous system 
 suffered irreparable injury. Though conscious of the injuries 
 so sustained, often naming them in his correspondence with 
 confidential friends, occasionally forced to call in his physician, 
 at times so seriously indisposed as to alarm his medical 
 attendant, and necessitate consultation^ yet so intense was 
 the ardour of this truly good man, so resolute of purpose 
 was he, so alive to the importance of the work in which he 
 was engaged, that he persevered to the last, always affirming, 
 "This is God's work in which I am engaged, and therefore 
 it must be done." The work was done as no similar labour 
 before or since has been ; its author, unfortunately, because 
 of his zeal and perseverance in its execution, sapped the 
 foundations of his physical strength. The change in Mr 
 Sadler's appearance, consequent on the impaired state of his 
 health, was painfully evident to his most intimate friends ; of 
 him it may be justly said, that he shortened his own days to 
 leno-then those of others; that he worked excessive and un- 
 natural hours, that others should have their hours of labour 
 regulated to a reasonable limit. In this he may not have been 
 personally wise, but the course of action was noble and self- 
 sacrificing; nor was it labour in vain, for tried by the severest 
 canon of the utilitarians, with whom he was in perpetual 
 conflict, few men have, in their day and generation, been more 
 useful than Michael Thomas Sadler; — "though dead he 
 speaketh." Time has not blotted from the things that be, 
 the records of the revelations of the cruelties, crimes, and 
 horrors, which his patient industry brought to light, as
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 317 
 
 contained in the evidence taken before the committee on the 
 Factories' Bill, which he originated; cruelties, crimes, and 
 horrors, which his courage, talent, and determination, con- 
 tributed in a great degree, most happily, to banish from the 
 daily practice of some among the leading branches of 
 England's manufacturing industry. 
 
 The opponents of factory legislation had promised to 
 rebut Mr Sadler's statements, contained in his speech on 
 the second reading of the bill. They did not even attempt 
 to fulfil their pledge ; the weight of evidence was so great as 
 to paralyze opposition, by counter-evidence on the part of 
 those engaged in manufacture. The opponents of the measure 
 resorted to personal persecution of witnesses. The nature 
 of this persecution will be understood by the following 
 extracts from the reports of the proceedings in parliament. 
 On the 30th of July, 1832, Mr Sadler, addressing the 
 House of Commons, said : — 
 
 " I hold in my hands two petitions from individuals of 
 the humbler ranks of society. These petitioners complain 
 of dismissal from their employment, in consequence of having 
 been summoned to give evidence before the committee on 
 the bill for regulating the hours of labour of children 
 employed in factories, and pray for some compensation. I 
 want to know from honourable gentlemen, who may laugh, 
 what course these men are to take to obtain redress who are 
 summoned before parliament to declare the truth ? I ask 
 whether the summons is not imperative ? I ask whether 
 it is fitting that these individuals should be exposed to suffer- 
 ing and ruin without any indemnification being offered 
 them ? 
 
 " The first petition I shall present — and it is, perhaps, 
 the first only of a series on the same subject — is from a 
 person named Charles Stewart. It was suggested that this 
 person should give evidence before the committee. He was 
 a reluctant witness, but, nevertheless, conducted himself in
 
 318 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 a most becoming manner; and, though absent from his work 
 onlj so long as was required, found himself, on his return 
 home, supplanted in his situation. This has been the case, 
 too, with several others. This petitioner casts himself upon 
 the mercy of the house. He states that he was called before 
 the committee of this house, and upon the authority of the 
 house — a summons which he could not evade — but that, in 
 consequence of having given evidence conscientiously, he 
 is deprived of his bread, and therefore prays the house to 
 grant him some compensation. 
 
 " I hold in my hand a similar petition, of another indi- 
 vidual, named Alexander Deans. 1 beg to say that this 
 individual, without being a voluntary witness, was pointed 
 out to me as a person whose evidence was desirable ; and 
 his name having been transmitted to me, which was without 
 his knowledge, he was accordingly summoned. Having 
 given his evidence he returned home as expeditiously as he 
 possibly could, and now finds himself dismissed from his 
 employment. 
 
 " I have several similar representations to those made 
 in these petitions regarding other parties brought before the 
 committee on this subject ; and, so convinced am I of the 
 accuracy of the circumstances stated, that I have declined 
 bringing forward many important witnesses, under the appre- 
 hension of their being ruined for giving evidence before the 
 committee now sitting. 
 
 " I beg leave to say that nothing could be more respectful 
 than the manner in which the testimony of these witnesses 
 was given in regard to their employers ; and I may mention 
 one instance, in particular, in which the witness said, ' With 
 regard to my employer, he is one of the best and kindest 
 masters known in the business, and I hope that my testi- 
 mony will not influence his mind against me.' But it did 
 so influence his master's mind that he discharged him 
 from his employ!"
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 319 
 
 Because of the resolution of Mr Sadler not further 
 to expose the operatives to the risk of being deprived 
 of the means of earning their bread for telling the truth, 
 for that was the offence, the labours of the committee 
 closed with the medical evidence. This attempt on the 
 part of the master manufacturers opposed to factory 
 legislation to stifle the truth by the persecution of wit- 
 nesses, was to its authors disgraceful. Mr Sadler's case 
 was more than proved ; every statement made by him in 
 parliament, was more than borne out from the lips of living 
 witnesses. It is almost impossible to overrate the difficulty 
 or the importance of discovering the truth on all questions 
 in which the interests of the workinsf classes are concerned. 
 In the absence of trustworthy knowledge, remedial measures 
 must be necessarily imperfect, probably inoperative or even 
 mischievous. Citizens are apt to forget their duties to the 
 State, in the excess of the love they have for themselves. Had 
 the factory witnesses deceived the committee with glowing 
 panegyrics on the comfort and harmony of the factory system, 
 their own interest with their employers would not have been 
 injured — on the contrary, they would probably have been 
 improved. Of these persecuting factory owners it may be 
 truly said, " They loved darkness rather than light, because 
 their deeds were evil." That light which they feared and 
 hated was found, and though not so full a flame, as in the 
 absence of their coercive repression Avould have been kindled, 
 yet it was clear and full enough to let all England see 
 factory-made cripples, paupers, and criminals, and invigorating 
 enough to stimulate the sympathies of a large proportion 
 of the British public to energetic action, in support of a 
 wise humanity, and the lasting interests of a desirable 
 civilization. The Sadler Report is a becoming monument 
 to the memory of its author: the tact and knowledge mani- 
 fested by him in conducting the enquiry were very great, 
 and not any work known to us on the social condition of
 
 320 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 those engaged in factory labour, approaches to its value in 
 point of information. 
 
 During the progress of Mr Sadler's parliamentary enquiry, 
 the question was rapidly gaining ground out of doors. A 
 society was established in London for the purpose of aiding 
 the active friends of factory regulation, in the distribution 
 of tracts and the concentration of public opinion. " The 
 Metropolitan Society for the improvement of the condition 
 of Factory Children" was honoured with the Duke of Sussex 
 as patron, and William Allen, a distinguished member of 
 the Society of Friends, and a man justly remarkable for 
 his active benevolence, was president. On the 27th of June, 
 1832, Lord Morpeth presented a petition from the county 
 of York, in favour of the Factories' Regulation Bill. His 
 Lordship said, " This petition was of such an extent, and 
 signed by so many thousands, that he could not say, in the 
 ordinary language used in the presentation of petitions, that 
 he now had a petition in his hand to whicli he requested 
 the attention of the House. The petition was an immense 
 roll, and lay on the floor, the noble lord holding the top 
 of it only in his hand. The petition was signed by 138,652 
 names, and he knew by laborious experience that it measured 
 2,322 feet in length. The petitioners complained against 
 the system of over-working children, and prayed for 
 an immediate measure of relief He had been convinced, 
 from what had already occurred before the committee, that 
 humanity demanded a speedy corrective of the evils to which 
 the petition referred." 
 
 Mr George Strickland, M.P. for Yorkshire, declared 
 "that he felt it as a reproach to this county that 
 its children were not treated with kindness." A similar 
 petition was intended for presentation to the Lords, and 
 for that purpose was entrusted to his Royal Highness the 
 Duke of Sussex. The history of the Yorkshire petition 
 to the House of Lords is far from satisfactory. On the
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 321 
 
 6th of February, 1832, Mr Sadler had an interview with 
 his Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, on which occasion 
 he avowed his desire to serve the cause of the factory workers, 
 as advocated by Mr Sadler. His Royal Highness the Duke 
 expressed " the most lively interest in the cause, and the 
 strongest feeling of sympathy for the poor children," assuring 
 Mr Sadler " that he felt it a great honour to have such a 
 petition entrusted to him, and he should be proud to present 
 it to their lordships, and to give it all the support of his 
 influence." The operatives of the North appointed a depu- 
 tation to wait on his Royal Highness. Mr Sadler corresponded 
 with the Duke. It was finally arranged that the Duke should 
 receive the deputation on the 7th of July, 1832. The 
 following paragraphs, from the newspapers of that month, 
 refer to the interview of the deputation with the Duke : — 
 
 " The Duke of Sussex and the Factory Bill. — 
 
 On Saturday, the 7th instant, the undersigned members of 
 the Short Time Central Committee, of Leeds, waited upon 
 his Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, at Kensington 
 Palace, to request his Royal Highness to present the great 
 petition of the county of York, in favour of Mr Sadler's 
 Factories' Bill, and to entreat his Royal Highness to support 
 the prayer of the same in the House of Lords. 
 
 " Mr Oastler having stated to his Royal Highness the 
 object which the deputation had in view, his Royal Highness, 
 in a very complaisant and affectionate manner, replied as 
 follows: — ' I shall be exceedingly happy to support the prayer 
 of the petition — it is a measure which I have very much 
 at heart. I have several other petitions, which I delayed 
 to present, as I thought they might have interfered with 
 the Reform Bill; but as that is now settled, I shall take the 
 earliest opportunity of presenting them, when I shall give 
 the preference to the great petition from Yorkshire, and 
 support it in the best manner I am able.' 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 322 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 *' His Royal Highness then enquired ' into the state of 
 trade, and the condition of the working classes; ' to which 
 Mr Oastler replied, ' that trade was not much better, but 
 it was his (Mr Oastler's) opinion, that Mr Sadler's bill was 
 a measure calculated to lay a foundation for improvement.' 
 
 " His Royal Highness then kindly dismissed the depu- 
 tation, who were very much delighted to find that royalty 
 could feel for poverty. 
 
 *' Richard Oastler. 
 
 " William Osburn. 
 
 " Daniel Fraser. 
 
 " John Hanson." 
 
 The Yorkshire petition was not presented to the House 
 of Lords : " the reasons why " were not communicated. 
 The petition was deposited in the Robing Room of the House 
 of Lords, whither it had been conveyed by his Royal High- 
 ness's express orders. The consistent benevolence of the 
 late Duke of Sussex is beyond doubt ; his conduct in the 
 case referred to it is not in our power to account for.
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 323 
 
 CHAPTER Xni. 
 
 REJECTION OF ME SADLEE, BY LEEDS AND HtJDDEBSFIELD, tTNDEE 
 THE EEFOEM ACT. — THE LATE MR JOHN FIELDEN, M.P. FOE 
 OLDHAM, HIS PEINCIPLES AND CHAEACTER. — THE BEV. G. 8. 
 BULL, HIS PEEACHING AND PEACTICE. — LOED ASHLEY AS THK 
 PABLIAMENTAEY SUCCESSOR OF MR SADLEE, — RENEWAL OF THK 
 FACTORY QUESTION IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 The author of the Reform Bill aimed at the accomplishment 
 of an important organic change in the constitution of the 
 country. Party interests and party influences were busily at 
 work, and under the popular cry of '' The bill, the whole bill, 
 and nothing but the bill," was hidden the determination of the 
 principal Whig families to secure for themselves ascendancy in 
 the future government of England. It is natural for politicians 
 of the highest order to desire the opportunity of practically 
 applying their own cherished theories. The desire is honour- 
 able to those who entertain it ; politicians of the lowest order 
 (the species is very numerous, and confined to no class or 
 party) look for personal gain, no matter how acquired; they 
 are ready on the shortest notice to do the meanest work, for 
 what is mildly called " a consideration." The Reform Bill 
 received the royal assent on the 7th of June, 1832; in Decem- 
 ber, parliament was dissolved, and with the dissolution closed 
 the parliamentary career of Mr Sadler. In parHament, Mr 
 Sadler advocated a representation of industrial interests 
 through the medium of varied qualifications, in opposition to 
 
 y2
 
 324 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the ascendancy of any one class or rank of the people over the 
 others. He opposed the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, from a 
 belief that its operation would be dangerous to religious free- 
 dom ; he maintained that that bill was opposed to a protestant 
 constitution. In his speech on the condition of the agricul- 
 tural labourers he had boldly told the landowners of their 
 duties, and the failure of many in their fulfilment. His motion 
 for the establishment of a poor law in Ireland had brought 
 down on his head the ridicule of the self-styled *' practical 
 statesmen " of the time. The free-trading manufacturers of 
 England, with few exceptions, treated Mr Sadler, because of 
 his determination to bridle their ill-considered avarice by law, 
 as an open enemy. Mr Sadler's efforts to be returned to the 
 first reformed parliament, for Leeds and Huddersfield, were 
 unsuccessful; he was in these towns ably supported, but the 
 combined interests of the millowners opposed to factory regu- 
 lation, the Ultra-Dissenters, and Roman Catholics, were greater 
 than the support on the side of Mr Sadler. When in parlia- 
 ment he represented Newark, with the approval of the late 
 Duke of Newcastle. Mr Sadler had many friends, and had his 
 health been restored he would probably have resumed his par- 
 liamentary career at no very distant period; his absence from 
 parliament was a subject of deep and continuous regret, he 
 was the only able representative among known statesmen of a 
 class of industrial questions, the discussion of which, in the 
 House of Commons, was a public necessity. Not any more 
 striking proof of the public interest felt in Mr Sadler's position 
 as a " public man " could be named, than the fact, that a peti- 
 tion containing 40,000 signatures, addressed to the electors of 
 Leeds, was sent from Manchester to Leeds during the election 
 contest, praying for his return by that borough. The friends 
 of the Ten Hours' Bill felt Mr Sadler's rejection by Leeds 
 and Huddersfield to be a serious discouragement; they were, 
 howev^er, in some degree comforted by the return to the House 
 of Commons, by the newly-created boroughs of Salford,
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 325 
 
 Oldham, and Ashton, of four staunch supporters of their 
 cause: the late Mr William Cobbett, the late Mr John 
 Fielden, of Todmorden, Mr Joseph Brotherton, and Mr Charles 
 Hindley. The important services rendered by Mr Fielden to 
 the Ten Hours' Bill cause, in and out of the House of Commons, 
 demand a brief summary of his character and principles. The 
 late Mr John Fielden, was the third of five sons of Mr Joshua 
 Fielden, of Edge End, in the township of Todmorden and 
 Walsden. The father was a member of the Society of Friends 
 (of whom there were many in that part of the country), and 
 brought up his family in his own religious opinions. He was 
 himself what was called " a strong tory " in poUtics, but as 
 the sons grew up in the midst of the political turmoil caused 
 by the French Revolution of 1789, he found them one by one 
 showing symptoms of opinions contrary to his own ; and though 
 he adhered to his own principles, he is said to have acknow- 
 ledged towards the close of his life, " that his five sons, Samuel, 
 Joshua, John, James, and Thomas, were as arrant Jacobins as 
 any in the kingdom." About the year 1784, Mr Joshua Fielden 
 began the manufacture of cotton; and the commencement of 
 that vast pile of buildings, now known as Waterside, was three 
 cottages, in one of which the elder Fielden began the business 
 of cotton-spinning, which gradually increased to one of the 
 largest concerns in the operation of cotton -spinning and manu- 
 facturing in England. Mr Sadler was a churchman and a 
 tory, Mr Fielden was a dissenter and a radical. It was a 
 feature of the factory movement, that party politics were for- 
 gotten in the desire for the public weal : this was the primary 
 principle of "the Fixby compact," a principle at all times 
 recognised as sacred and inviolable. 
 
 The late Mr John Fielden combined and represented 
 in his own history two kinds of experience, he had worked 
 as a factory operative, in his father's mill, and, therefore, 
 in a limited degree, knew from personal trials, the sufferings 
 endured by others. Many years of successful energy had
 
 326 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 raised him to the highest position as a cotton manufacturer; 
 he was shrewd and far-sighted on the exchange, had a quick 
 and safe eye for business ; among manufacturers and mer- 
 chants, his words and deeds commanded attention and 
 respect ; among his own work-people at Todmorden, he 
 was sympathising, friendly, and easy of access to all who 
 had grievances or remonstrances to communicate ; he felt 
 that he was the trustee of the interests of those he employed, 
 and was unceasingly watchful for their welfare. This two- 
 fold knowledge of workman and manufacturer, enabled its 
 possessor to judge of the feelings of employers and employed. 
 Every important act in the life of the late Mr Fielden, was 
 settled in the region of the understanding; fancy and inclina- 
 tion were at all times under salutary control; his intellect was 
 cool, clear, and capable of great decision; his mind was stored 
 with facts, these he applied to special purposes by the force of 
 the will; few men had less of show, possessing so much of 
 substance, intellectual and worldly ; he united in a remarkable 
 degree caution and boldness, never allured into speculation in 
 the anxious hope of acquiring sudden riches ; he seldom missed 
 a favourable opportunity of profiting by the state of the 
 market ; he never desired to astonish, with boasting of the 
 extent of his commercial transactions, and was never anxious 
 to speak in tones of conciliation for the mere sake of pleasing 
 others. Has England ever asked herself how much she is 
 indebted to the class of men of whom the late Mr John 
 Fielden, of Todmorden, was a type? This man, with small 
 extrinsic aid, untiring energy, industrious habits, and sterling 
 integrity, raised himself from obscurity to eminence as a manu- 
 facturer and merchant. In every market of the world where cotton 
 or cotton fabrics were bought and sold, the name of Fielden was 
 known ; it was synonymous with probity and confidence, it was 
 England representing honest dealing and courageous enterprise. 
 Maybe, as the eye glances over the Gazette^ and conscience 
 feels ashamed at the frauds disclosed in the columns of the
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 327 
 
 daily press — not petty, vulgar thefts, but transactions by men 
 of education and rank, compromising the commercial cha- 
 racter of a nation, — perhaps the reader will pause to pay a 
 tribute of respect to the merchant princes of the present 
 generation, and to the memories of those in the past, who, like 
 the late Mr John Fielden, of Todmorden, never promised what 
 they failed to fulfil, who have distinguished between legitimate 
 trading and commercial gambling, and who have brought 
 into the marts of commerce the rectifying influences of 
 duty and honour. Mr Fielden's principles of economical 
 and commercial policy were the results of his own expe- 
 rience formulated into a system; that experience enabled 
 him to construct authentic tables of that branch of manu- 
 facture with which he was connected; from details he 
 ascended to principles, and was, in consequence of sin- 
 cere convictions, a strenuous advocate for shortening the 
 hours of labour in factories, a measure alike favourable, 
 in his judgment, to the interests of the employers and 
 the employed. Mr Fielden contended that a reduction of 
 the working hours in factories was an indispensable condition 
 of the future success of the cotton trade. In a letter, addressed 
 to Mr Fitton by Mr Fielden, his views are very distinctly 
 stated; to this letter we are indebted for the following 
 extracts: — " Whether we look to the products of manual 
 labour, as instanced in the case of the handloom weavers, or of 
 manual labour aided by the most improved machinery employed 
 in the cotton trade, we find that for a nearly three-fold quan- 
 tity produced in 1832, the manufacturers, and their work- 
 people, had a much less command over the first necessary of 
 life (wheat), than they had in 1815, for little more than one- 
 third of the quantity. Truly, it may be said, ' We labour for 
 that which is not bread, and spend our strength for nought ;' 
 while those who tax us, and those who live on fixed incomes, 
 get an additional increase of the fruits of our labours, more 
 than correspondent with the increase of our production, and 
 for which we receive no equivalent whatever. And can this
 
 328 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 course of proceeding continue ? No, it cannot. The manu- 
 facturers cannot go on in this course much further, however 
 disposed they might be to do so ; seventy parts out of one 
 hundred, constituting the whole for labour, expenses, and 
 profits, have departed between 1815 and 1832, both years 
 inclusive, and many parts more will be found to have fled in 
 1833. . . Providence designed that the gifts she has 
 bestowed on man for increasing his supply of the necessaries 
 and comforts of life (by the invention and aid of machinery, or 
 otherwise), should not be abused ; and so surely as we take 
 improperly from those who labour, and give it to those who do 
 not labour, so sure will a day of retribution and vengeance 
 overtake the oppressors." 
 
 Mr Fielden contended that an excess of production over 
 demand was the great cause of low prices, low profits, low 
 wages, that the home trade of the country was injured by 
 the inability of the operatives to consume a reasonable pro- 
 portion of the products of the industry of the working 
 population ; that no foreign trade was desirable beyond the 
 exchange of the surplus articles produced by Englishmen, 
 over and above the full supply of their own wants, for 
 those other useful articles, of which the foreigner had too 
 many ; that a foreign trade, the basis of which was unlimited 
 cheapness, could only be extended by an increase of the 
 sufferings of the working classes ; that " to place ourselves 
 in a state of dependence on foreigners for articles of the 
 first necessity, such as corn, to the injury of the home 
 grower, and without any permanent advantage to the manu- 
 facturer, who by such a course would only exchange his 
 home customer for a foreign customer ; and as the former 
 is more certain, and, in every sense, more to be relied on 
 than the latter, to distress those engaged in agriculture and 
 manufactures in this country, by an increase of such foreign 
 trade to accomplish such an object, is to be guilty of the 
 
 grossest folly imaginable What becomes of our 
 
 host of new acquisitions in mechanical skill, great improve-
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 329 
 
 ments in machinery, and unprecedented increase in production 
 — all excellent things when rightly directed, if the result 
 which has hitherto followed be to continue, namely, the 
 withdrawal of work altogether from some, and their degrada- 
 tion into paupers. The reduction of wages visited on those 
 who are left to compete with the improved mode of production, 
 consequent upon the adoption of the new machines, from 
 which, lessened wages, starvation, misery, and crime, ensue ; 
 and the increase of labour, without any increase of remune- 
 ration of those comparatively few in number who are fortunate 
 enough to get work on the new machines. If such conse- 
 quences cannot be avoided, then of one thing I am certain, 
 that all our boastful improvements in machinery are not 
 a blessing, but a curse to the productive classes, whose work 
 is being constantly increased in intensity, and deteriorated 
 in value, by the changes arising from these improvements. 
 But a right direction may and ought to be given tp those 
 invaluable improvements, and the masters and workmen, by 
 cultivating a good understanding with each other, and by 
 union of effort, ought to do it for themselves, without 
 seeking for legislative interference on the subject." It was 
 a maxim of Mr Fielden, " That what society ought to do 
 and failed in doing, it was the duty of government to realize 
 if possible by law." He did not allow his regard for voluntary 
 action to neutralize his legislative efforts. Mr Fielden 
 had consequently supported all the endeavours for the re- 
 striction of the hours of factory labour by law, from the 
 time of Nathaniel Gould. He was not a hasty convert 
 to any cause, but once resolved, his support was certain 
 and energetic. In 1836, writing of his earlier years, he 
 said, " As I have been personally engaged in the operations 
 connected with factory labour, that is to say, for about 
 forty years, a short account of my own experience may 
 not be useless in this place, as it is this experience which 
 teaches me to scoff at the representations of those who
 
 330 THE HISTORY OP 
 
 speak of the labour of factories as ' very light, and so easy 
 as to require no muscular exertion.' I well remember being 
 set to work in my father's mill when I was little more 
 than ten years old ; my associates, too, in labour and 
 in recreation, are fresh in my memory. Only a few of 
 them are now alive — some dying very young, others 
 living to become men and women ; but many have 
 died off before they had attained the age of fifty 
 years, having the appearance of being much older — a 
 premature appearance of age which I verily believe was 
 caused by the nature of the employment in which they 
 had been brought up. For several years after I had been 
 to work in the mill, the hours of labour at our works did 
 not exceed ten in the day, winter and summer, and even 
 with the labour of those hours, I shall never forget the 
 fatigue I often felt before the day ended, and the anxiety 
 of us all to be relieved from the unvarying and irksome 
 toil we had gone through before we could obtain rehef 
 by such play and amusement as we resorted to when liberated 
 from our work. I allude to this fact, because it is not 
 uncommon for persons to infer, that because the children 
 who work in factories are seen to play like other children 
 when they have time to do so, the labour is therefore light 
 and does not fatigue them. The reverse of this conclusion 
 I know to be the truth. I know the effects which ten 
 hours' labour had upon myself; I, who had the attention 
 of parents better able than those of my companions to 
 allow me extraordinary occasional indulgence. And he 
 knows very little of human nature who does not know, 
 that, to a child, diversion is so essential, that it will undergo 
 even exhaustion in its amusements. I protest, therefore, 
 against the reasoning that because a child is not brougjht 
 so low in spirit as to be incapable of enjoying the diversions 
 of a child, it is not worked to the utmost that its feeble 
 frame and constitution will bear." Mr Fielden could express
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 331 
 
 his views on public questions in writing with force, as 
 his published letters, and his work, entitled Tlie Curse of 
 the Factory System, testify. His common sense, a full share 
 of which is far from a common possession, enabled hun 
 to apprehend the merits of public measures with a safe 
 judgment. On the factory question his knowledge was 
 so great and his earnestness so intense, as to raise his intellect 
 to the level of genius. As a speaker, he was ignorant of 
 the arts of rhetoric, but he could make himself understood ; 
 was listened to with attention in the House of Commons ; 
 his speeches when reported read agreeably, and were replete 
 with facts, the weight of which was increased by his reputa- 
 tion for truthfulness and honesty of purpose. All parties 
 agreed in aptly designating him, " Honest John Fielden, 
 the radical member for Oldham." Mr Fielden's return to 
 parliament was, by the factory operatives of the North, 
 considered to be a most desirable result. In him they had 
 implicit confidence ; his name was in their homes a household 
 word, he was, from first to last, to them a judicious counsellor 
 and faithful friend. In his own family circle, it was Mr 
 Fielden's habit to cast aside the cares of the world, and 
 enter heartily into the conversation of the hour. He would 
 listen with delight to the prattle of his children — to amuse 
 and instruct them was his most cherished enjoyment. As 
 a husband, father, and friend, he was considerate, affectionate, 
 and kindly in a remarkable degree. 
 
 It was the current opinion among the factory operatives 
 of Yorkshire that the operation of the Reform Bill would 
 not be favourable to their objects. They said, — " Expe- 
 rience has taught us that manufacturing capitalists, with 
 some exceptions, are our opponents ; the Reform Bill will 
 increase the influence of that body as a power in the 
 state, and, therefore, prove injurious to our interests." 
 This opinion, however, did not produce lethargy : the 
 operatives availed themselves of every possible opportunity
 
 332 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 to question candidates on their intentions as regarded the 
 Ten Hours' Bill. At every hustings in the manufacturing 
 districts the Ten Hours' Bill was, by its supporters, made 
 a cardinal question. This course contributed much to popu- 
 larize the factory movement. It became apparent to every 
 observer that Oastler and Bull were men who would be 
 heard, and who when heard could make themselves under- 
 stood. At this time Mr Bull was exceedingly active, and 
 we feel bound to place on record our estimate of his cha- 
 racter, principles, and labours, in so far as these are con- 
 nected with the subject under consideration. The Rev. 
 George Stringer Bull has devoted a large proportion of 
 the active years of his manhood to the promotion of the 
 interests of the working classes : the advocacy of no man 
 could have been more disinterested than was the reverend 
 gentleman's support of the short-time question. In the pulpit, 
 in the press, or on the platform, few have, in the propagation 
 of their opinions, been more successful. The heart of Mr 
 Bull was in youth trained to feel for the poor, and his 
 hand to administer relief, in his native parish, and under 
 the paternal eye. When a boy he was a Sunday-school 
 teacher, and was a connecting link between the pastor and 
 the youth of the parish. When separated by the ocean from 
 his own home, it was the custom of his former pupils and 
 early friends, always to particularly desire his father to 
 remember them most kindly to " Mr George," a circum- 
 stance which proves how thoroughly he commanded the 
 affections of those with whom he was associated — a power, 
 in his case, for good, which years have strengthened. The 
 son of a rector in the Church of England, reared in an 
 agricultural parish, near Ipswich, Mr Bull was early in life 
 familiar with parochial duties. For several years the minister 
 of an agricultural parish, Hessle, near Hull, before he 
 removed to Hanging Heaton, near Dewsbury, and afterwards 
 to Bierly, near Bradford, in Yorkshire, Mr Bull began his
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 333 
 
 personal acquaintance of a manufacturing district with a 
 matured mind and the possession of a considerable experience 
 of agricultural districts in all that come within the sphere 
 of the duties of a Christian minister. This experience, 
 united to trained habits of discrimination, enabled Mr Bull, 
 from observation, to judge of the condition of the agri- 
 cultural and manufacturing districts. He believed it to be 
 the especial duty of a Christian minister to attend to the 
 interests of the labouring population and to care for the 
 poor. Mr Bull's openness of manner and strong sympathy 
 with suffering at once wins and retains the confidence of 
 working men. He possesses in a remarkable degree the 
 power of illustrating his meaning by a constant reference to 
 simple objects and the occurrences of e very-day life ; has 
 a rare gift of narrative ; his short tales are always interesting 
 and instructive ; few men can equal him in original anecdote, 
 or excel him in giving force to the strong points of his 
 stories, which appear endless, and are authenticated with 
 names, dates, and places, and bring forth the lights and 
 shades of character with a wonderful felicity. Mr Bull is 
 one of the most agreeable of companions, and when relating 
 an anecdote his countenance has a particularly pleasant 
 expression. He is a man of vigorous mind, united to physical 
 energy and power of personal endurance. In summer, when 
 pressed with work, he rises with the lark, and retires to rest 
 late at night ; in winter, he is frequently in his study by 
 four or five in the morning ; every hour of the day he is 
 engaged reading, writing, visiting, relieving, teaching, preach- 
 ing, or in the fulfilment of some other parochial duties. A 
 quarter of a century back no man in England worked harder 
 or more continuously than did " parson Bull, of Bierly." Few 
 ministers of the gospel, in any age, have proclaimed the 
 message of God to labouring men with more of earnestness 
 than has Mr Bull. He is a bold man, and condemns all 
 quacks, quackeries, and shams ; is prone, as he thinks it
 
 334 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 desirable, to tell the rich and poor, plainly and fully, of their 
 faults and shortcomings ; he hates compromises and concessions 
 in politics, pretext and hypocrisy in religion. He maintains 
 that it is the duty of good men to make all measures, which 
 in themselves are just and necessary, practical and effica- 
 cious ; that a sincere belief in the truth of the Christian 
 religion cannot fail to manifest itself in the performance of 
 good deeds. It is but of little avail that political or religious 
 opponents heap obloquy on the efforts of Mr Bull ; he 
 answers their attacks forthwith, and continues his course 
 with unabated zeal. Few clergymen have been more viru- 
 lently attacked than was Mr Bull during his residence in 
 Yorkshire ; no man ever suffered less in reputation from 
 the pens of hostile critics. Mr Bull's political and religious 
 opponents were the supporters of the unregulated factory 
 system, or political economists of the Malthusian school. 
 As to serve the cause of the factory children was, in 
 his judgment, to serve the cause of God, Mr Bull felt, in 
 conscience, bound to persevere; he was, consequently, an 
 invaluable associate of Oastler and Sadler in their struggle 
 for the relief of the factory operatives from oppressive 
 labour. 
 
 From 1830 to 1841, the principal coadjutor of Mr Bull 
 was Mr William Walker ; their joint efforts in the press, and 
 at public meetings, were of the highest value to the cause 
 they desired to serve; not any two men could possibly be 
 more distinct in mind' — this was a source of strength to both. 
 Mr Walker's methodical correctness, when united to Mr 
 Bull's forcible expositions of factory wrongs, produced the 
 most desirable results, namely, trustworthy statements sup- 
 ported with animation and power — necessary requisites to the 
 formation of an intelligent public opinion. 
 
 It cannot be out of place to notice briefly the leading 
 points of Mr Bull's observations on the condition of the 
 agricultural and manufacturing population. In his time, the
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 335 
 
 comforts of the agricultural labourers liad been lessened, the 
 decrease of wages had been greater in proportion than the 
 decrease in the price of the necessaries of life. The farm- 
 houses had been pulled down in many cases, or turned into 
 cottages, " in very many cases the cottages had been pulled 
 down." During seven years' experience in Bradford, York- 
 shire, comforts had decreased, indecency and profanity were 
 common. As regarded education, the comparison between 
 the agricultural and manufacturing population was "incom- 
 parably in favour of the agricultural." "' The circumstances 
 of the agriculturist were far more favourable, in all the 
 principal points of comparison, than those of the manufacturer ; 
 his rent was less, his expenses were less in respect to the 
 value of food generally, which was always greater in densely- 
 populated districts. With regard to milk, particularly in the 
 agricultural districts, a man might procure the same quantity 
 of milk, for the sustenance of his family, for one-half the 
 price at which it could be procured in the manufacturing 
 districts, and of much better quality ; and this is a very 
 great assistance to the family of the cottager. Then, again, 
 the hours of labour in the agricultural districts, both for the 
 adult labourer and for the juvenile labourer, were considerably 
 less, and the hours of leisure and refreshment greater. They 
 had, therefore, less to pay to a doctor, and they required 
 proportionately less clothes, and they were altogether far more 
 comfortable, even in the depressed state of agricultural wages, 
 than the labourers of the manufacturing districts." "The 
 residence of the agricultural labourer was, as a rule, incom- 
 parably more healthy and more comfortable than that of the 
 manufacturing labourer." 
 
 When under examination before the Sadler committee, Mr 
 Bull expressed his opinions on the factory system as follows: 
 " I think there is a great deal of miscalculation with regard 
 to the advantages of the manufacturing system to the poor, 
 as at present carried on. Persons are apt to form their
 
 336 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 estimate from the amount of wages received by the children 
 of a particular family ; and when I have been accustomed to 
 apply, as I sometimes do, and feel it my duty to do, to the 
 overseer of the poor, or to some influential inhabitant of any 
 parish, for relief or consideration towards any particular 
 family, 1 have found that even they were not aware of the 
 difference between an income derived from factory labour and 
 an income derived from many other sources of employment. 
 A factory child's income is subject to amazing diminution and 
 deduction. I am accustomed to observe these things ; 
 being frequently intrusted with the distribution of charitable 
 funds, my inquiries are necessarily very minute, and I have 
 found that the washing, the mending, the wear and tear, the 
 shoes, and the different articles of wearing-apparel, connected 
 with the employment of a factory child, form very heavy 
 items indeed ; I have frequently calculated them, and com- 
 pared ray estimate of the expense with the parents of the 
 children themselves ; and L believe that, taking the average 
 of twelve years of age, the extra expenses of a factory child, 
 beyond that of a child engaged in many other employments, 
 will be very nearly two shillings per head a week ; and if 
 the committee will permit me, as it is a matter of some 
 importance perhaps, at least I presume to think it so, I would 
 just say that with regard to these extra expenses, there is 
 one particular point which ought to be considered, and that is 
 the waste of the family meal ; in that it is not, in most cases, 
 an united but a divided meal. In some cases it may be 
 united ; where the children live very near the mill, they may 
 go home and take it with the rest of the family ; but in by 
 far the greater number of cases, the children take their meals 
 to the mill, their breakfasts, their dinner, and their drinking, 
 or else they are sent to them ; at all events the family meal 
 is divided ; and those who are accustomed to estimate pence 
 and half-pence in a meal, know very well that the division of 
 a family meal is an expensive system in a cottage. If the
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 337 
 
 children all sit round a table, one may be more hungry 
 than another ; one may be supplied out of the deficiency 
 of the appetite of another ; but when a separate portion 
 is sent to each child in a mill, it very frequently happens 
 that that portion is the best that can be obtained in the 
 cottage, and a great part of it after all is frequently wasted. 
 I have been informed of some places where the overlooker 
 keeps a tub for waste bread and victuals which the children 
 bring to the mill, and supplies one or two pigs with the 
 wasted meals. Now this, I presume, is all a dead loss to 
 the cottage ; and then another circumstance connected with 
 divided meals, and which is a great source of expense and 
 trouble, is the taking of those meals to the mill, the breakfast, 
 the dinner, and the drinking ; in fact almost every family 
 is obliged to keep a messenger, if I may so speak, for that 
 purpose ; at all events, whoever takes the meals, that person 
 is in so doing, a source of expense to the family ; and taking 
 all these circum.stances into consideration, the wear and tear 
 of clothes, the expense of divided meals, and the sending 
 them to the mills, I conceive that factory labour is far less 
 profitable to a family than any other labour ; but if a 
 remission of the hours of labour to ten hours a day can 
 be obtained, then in very many cases, and in most cases, 
 I believe, the children will be enabled to obtain their meals 
 at home ; many will be able to get their breakfast before 
 they go; and an hour being allowed for dinner, the greater 
 number will be inclined to go home to dinner, and will also 
 defer their afternoon meal till they get home, so, hereby, 
 there will be a considerable gain, or saving of expenditure, 
 which is the same thing in the family economy." 
 
 On the question being put by the Chairman of the 
 Committee to Mr Bull — " What effect do you think this 
 system has in forming that character so important in every 
 sphere of life, but to the poor man more especially essential, 
 either with a view to his own comforts, or to the proper 
 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 338 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 bringing up of a family in the humbler circumstances of 
 
 life — I mean that of the females who become wives at a 
 
 subsequent period ? " Mr Bull replied, " I understand that 
 
 I am asked what sort of a wife the factory child will make 
 
 in process of time; in answer to which I wish to say that 
 
 I should do injustice to many young persons who are brought 
 
 up in the factory system, if I did not say that their industry, 
 
 neatness, and disposition to improve themselves, are beyond 
 
 the power of my commendation. I know several such, I 
 
 have some such females employed for whom I do and ought 
 
 to entertain the gi'eatest respect ; but I would say that 
 
 these are exceptions to the generality of young persons 
 
 brought up in factories; I would say that the generality 
 
 of them are as unfit as they possibly can be to fill the 
 
 important station of a cottager's wife. How should they, 
 
 considering the length of labour to which they are now 
 
 subjected, from the youth up, until the time of their marriage, 
 
 be able to learn the duties of the cottage ? I am acquainted 
 
 with many that can scarcely mend a hole in their garments. 
 
 I have heard it from their mothers and their relations, that 
 
 they scarcely know how to darn a stocking ; and I beg to 
 
 state that I know a case in which the father of a child (to 
 
 illustrate the system) was so anxious that his little girl should 
 
 acquire the use of the needle, that during a considerable 
 
 period, when he was confined at home himself by a lameness, 
 
 he sat over her after her return from her work, with a 
 
 little rod in his hand, and insisted upon her mending her 
 
 stockings, although she was falling asleep continually, and 
 
 when she nodded over it, he gave her a very gentle tap 
 
 upon the head with the rod. Although this incident may 
 
 appear trifling to some, which, however, I trust it will not 
 
 to the committee, yet it is a just picture of the effects of 
 
 the system upon the domestic habits of the poor. I would 
 
 also state that it is an important fact, with which I am 
 
 well acquainted, that in many cases the young women
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 339 
 
 employed in factories do not make their own clothes at all ; 
 their working clothes they obtain at the slop shops which 
 abound in the manufacturing districts, where ready-made 
 clothes are to be had, and their Sunday dress is of course 
 of a very smart description wherever they can afford it, 
 and is manufactured by some notable milliner, who knows 
 how to set tliose matters off to the best advantage. Thus 
 they neither know how to make or mend a working dress, 
 or to supply the wants of a family when they become the 
 mothers of children." 
 
 Minuteness of detail is characteristic of Mr Bull, and 
 gave to his speeches, lectures, and letters, on the factory 
 question, real interest and value. By the opponents of 
 factory regulation he was feared and abused — by its support- 
 ers, respected and beloved. The factory operatives placed 
 implicit confidence in Mr Bull ; his services were called into 
 requisition on all important occasions. After parties had 
 been settled in the first reformed House of Commons, and 
 public business had resumed its usual course, it was felt to 
 be desirable to find a parliamentary leader of the factory 
 question in the Commons. The late Mr Fielden v/as new 
 to Parliament ; his known honesty and knowledge of the 
 question were strong recommendations ; he desired to support 
 rather than to lead, and was anxious that the subject should 
 be renewed under the most favourable circumstances that 
 were possible. To find a successor to Sadler was felt to 
 be a difficult task, yet the necessity of finding a parliamentary 
 leader was self-evident to all interested in the question. 
 
 The importance of the Factory question had gradually 
 increased its proportions ; among scientific physiologists and 
 statesmen in every civilized country, the subject received atten- 
 tion. Every country which had a national practice to palliate 
 when by an Englishman charged with the crime, retorted 
 by pointing to the English factory system. This kind of 
 defence was very weak and reprehensible, but it was to
 
 340 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 Eno-lislimen vexatious, and contributed to force the minds 
 of many to desire a change. National jealousies have caused 
 much bloodshed ; they have also done some good ; they 
 have sometimes obliged nations, for shame's sake, to amend 
 their morals. John Bull is prone to talk against slavery, 
 and in the reform times, was very full of patriotism, and, 
 like a person proud of his reputation, John felt that the 
 door must somehow or other be closed against reproach. 
 Statements of cruelties which from the lips of Mr Oastler 
 had been designated "visionary," had now been verified 
 by indisputable evidence, though it was customary by the 
 opponents of factory regulation, in the hope of destroying 
 Mr Oastler's usefulness to charge him with recklessness and 
 exaggeration. The fact was that not any man could have 
 been more careful in ascertaining the opinions of the highest 
 authorities on the subject which engaged his attention. Not 
 any fact he ever stated on the factory question has been 
 proved untrue. In the subjoined document, privately acquired 
 by Mr Oastler, the names were not signed, a circumstance 
 which alone proved how powerful opposition was in the 
 early part of the short-time movement in Yorkshire :— 
 
 " That we are the surgeons of the General Infirmary 
 at Leeds, an institution which annually admits about five 
 thousand patients. 
 
 " That although it is very certain scrofulous diseases 
 are greatly aggravated by overworking, and that the ten- 
 dency to scrofula itself may probably be produced by 
 it, yet we can speak with greater confidence respecting 
 its effects in producing distortion of the knees, ankles, and 
 feet, many of which cases have been brought to the Infirmary 
 in so aggravated a degree as to be incurable. 
 
 " That upon investigating these cases, we hav^e l)een led 
 to attribute them to the circumstance of the patients having 
 been kept too many hours in the day upon their legs, at 
 'a period of life when the bones and ligaments have not
 
 THE PACTORT MOVEMENT. 841 
 
 attained sufficient firmness to sustain tlie superincumbent 
 weight of the body for so long a time. 
 
 " We are decidedly of opinion, that working in the night 
 is more injurious to the health of children than working 
 by day; and, further, that the age of nine years is the 
 earliest period at which they ought to be put to work." 
 
 Signed by the three surgeons of the Leeds Infirmary, 
 March 22nd, 1831. 
 
 It was Mr Oastler's possession of such documents as 
 the above, and he had several, which constituted his warrant 
 for much of what he said, and enabled him ultimately to 
 triumph over opposition. 
 
 It is very creditable to Mr Oastler's character as a 
 public man, that statements originally denied when made by 
 him were verified by undeniable authority. We append an 
 example by way of illustration :- — 
 
 *' Mr John Baldwin, Halifax, thought there was great 
 credit due to Mr Oastler, for drawing the attention of the 
 public to the factory system. He at one time thought 
 Mr Oastler in error, but after hearing him at a public meeting 
 which was held in the Cloth Hall Yard, Halifax, where he 
 stated that the children had eaten their meals as they worked, 
 he thought Mr Oastler was telling falsehoods, and from such 
 observations was induced to go into his own factory next 
 morning at breakfast time, and then found what Mr Oastler 
 had said was perfectly correct. He then put it to his 
 conscience, and conscience told him that it was wrong. 
 He then stopped the engine at once, and gave them half 
 an hour to eat their breakfasts, and has done so ever since." 
 
 During the progress of the factory agitation the child 
 from the field and the factory had been measured and weighed 
 each against the other, and the last found wanting. The 
 homes of the factory children had been visited, and the 
 children watched as they, after a long day's work, sunk to 
 sleep, unable to masticate the food they had intended to eat,
 
 342 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 sleeping with the food in their mouths. The infirmaries 
 and streets told of cripples, the parish authorities of increased 
 poor rates. Machinery had rapidly increased, giving millions 
 of pounds sterling to a few persons, and in its unregulated 
 course causing misery and death to immense numbers of 
 human beings : the yielding up of the human frames of the 
 many, as a means of accumulating riches alone, had been 
 stigmatised as a national crime. Christianity, civilization, 
 and great riches, had been spoken of in the same breath 
 with the horrible facts of the factories, as narrated before 
 a committee of the House of Commons. The comparison, 
 thus instituted, carried in its wake a condemnation more 
 terrible than an avowedly Christian and civilized nation could 
 continue willingly to bear. The supporters of factory regu- 
 lation were told that the nation's greatness depended upon 
 the existing system of production. They denied the asser- 
 tion, and to their denial added, — " If a nation's greatness 
 required such cruelties, that greatness was an abomination, 
 and ought not to exist." They were assured that a reduction 
 of taxes and a repeal of the corn laws would remedy the 
 evils complained of : they answered these assurances by 
 pointing out that the system, the evils of which they com- 
 plained, had its origin and growth when taxation was com- 
 paratively limited, and the corn laws, as enacted in 1815, 
 unknown. The Sadler report placed in the hands of the 
 Short Time Committees of the United Kingdom weapons 
 which they, under the tutelage of Oastler, Sadler, Bull, 
 Fielden, and others, were soon well instructed how to wield. 
 A love of home was formerly among the working men of 
 this country a trait of national character ; under the rule 
 of the factory system this strong bond of order and happiness 
 had been loosened. The leaders of the factory agitation 
 appealed to the better sympathies of their countrymen to 
 use their influence to renew this bond : home w^as with 
 Oastler and Bull a theme of constant discourse, and their
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 343 
 
 example was followed by many others. The factory system, 
 as reflected in the Sadler report, was a fathomless source 
 of illustration on the evils arising from a neglect of home 
 duties. To restore the working man once more to his rightful 
 place as the head and provider for his own household was 
 a noble aspiration, and the unceasing desire of Mr Sadler : 
 all his efforts, in and out of parliament, were directed to 
 that end ; and when no longer enabled to serve the working 
 men in the House of Commons, he counselled them not 
 to delay their efforts to find another to represent in that 
 assembly their feelings, desires, and objects. 
 
 The avowedly philosophical politician has usually a strong 
 sense of contempt for enthusiasm, whether political, social, 
 or religious. In his mind enthusiasm is closely allied to 
 temporary insanity, and he hopes time will prove a remedy 
 for the original disease. There were not wantinjj stoical 
 philosophers of this order, who treated the strong desire 
 of the operative classes as an evanescent feeling, and con- 
 sidered Mr Sadler's exclusion from parliament as a favourable 
 circumstance, calculated to hasten the breaking up of the 
 factory movement. Enthusiasm in a goofli cause does not 
 readily die out among men seriously affected by real evils ; 
 regret for disappointment in such cases is apt to sober the 
 judgment, and in consequence to strengthen the resolve 
 for resolute action. The loss consequent on Mr Sadler's 
 rejection by Leeds and Huddersfield, as a candidate for a 
 seat in parliament, was deeply deplored, but the circumstance 
 did not unnerve either the factory operatives or their influ- 
 ential supporters. A meeting of delegates was held, to con- 
 sider what, under the circumstances, ought to be done ; and, 
 after long and anxious deliberation, it was resolved that 
 the Rev. G. S. Bull should forthwith proceed to London, 
 for the purpose of endeavouring to find an appropriate 
 parliamentary leader. The inission was most important : the
 
 344 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 selection of Mr Bull was a proof of the great confidence 
 reposed in him by the factory operatives and their friends — 
 a well-merited acknowledgment of his sincerity, discretion, 
 and judgment. The result of Mr Bull's mission was con- 
 veyed to the secretaries of the various short-time committees, 
 and to others therein interested, by a letter, of which the 
 following is a copy : — 
 
 " Dear Sir, — I have to inform you that, in furtherance 
 of the object of the delegates' meeting, 1 have succeeded, 
 under Mr Sadler's sanction, in prevailing upon Lord Ashley 
 to renew his (Mr Sadler's) bill. 
 
 " Lord Ashley gave notice yesterday afternoon, at half- 
 past two, of a motion on the 5th of March, for leave ' to 
 renew the bill, brought in by Mr Sadler last session, to regu- 
 late the labour of children in the mills and tactories of the 
 United Kingdom, with such amendments and additions as 
 appear necessary from the evidence given before the select 
 committee of this house.' 
 
 *' This notice, I am very happy to say (for I was present), 
 was received with hearty and unusual cheers from all parts 
 of a house of more than SOO. No other notice was so 
 cheered ; and mote than forty, some of them very popular, 
 were given at the same time. 
 
 " I am informed that Lord Ashley received many unex- 
 pected assurances of support immediately after his notice, 
 and has had more since. 
 
 " Pray call your committee together directly> and read 
 this to them. As to Lord Ashley, he is noble, benevolent, 
 and resolute in mind, as he is manly in person. I have 
 been favoured with several interviews, and all of the 
 most satisfactory kind. On one occasion his lordship 
 said, ' 1 have only zeal and good intentions to bring to this 
 work ; I can have no merit in it, that must all belong 
 to Mr Sadler. It seems no one else will undertake it, so 
 I will ; and, without cant or hypocrisy, which I hate, I
 
 THE FACTORY MOVEMENT. 345 
 
 assure you I dare not refuse the request you have so earnestly 
 pressed. I beHevc it is ray duty to God and to the poor, 
 and I trust He will support me. Talk of trouble! what 
 do we come to parliament for V 
 
 "In a letter he writes, ' To me it appeared an affair less 
 of policy than of religion, and I determined, therefore, at 
 all hazards to myself, to do what I could in furtherance 
 of the views of that virtuous and amiable man (meaning 
 Mr Sadler). 
 
 " I have just left his lordship, and find him more deter- 
 mined than ever. He says, it is your cause ; if you support 
 him he will never flinch. 
 
 " Yours, most faithfully, 
 
 " G. S. Bull. 
 "London, Feb. 6, 1833. 
 " To Mr , Secretary of the Short- time Committee, .'' 
 
 Lord Ashley's acceptance of leadership was known to 
 the country, through the medium of the daily press, as 
 the following extract from the Times of February the 7th, 
 1833, will prove. The remarks of the Times indicate the 
 great interest the question had excited; it had grown from 
 the obscurity of Fixby Hall and Huddersfield, Mr Oastler, 
 and a few operatives, to be considered a subject of high 
 national importance: — "The renewal of Mr Sadler's bene- 
 volent measure, the Ten Hours' Bill, was undertaken on 
 Tuesday evening by Lord Ashley, who feels a deep interest 
 in this afflicting subject. Lord Ashley gave notice, imme- 
 diately on the return of the Speaker from the Lords, and 
 that notice was received with unusual and very hearty 
 approbation from all parts of a house of upwards of 300 
 members. His lordship has been requested by the official 
 organ of the delegates' meeting, whose address was re- 
 cently agreed to, to undertake this charitable work. It 
 seems, however, that the millowners, unable to resist the 
 
 VOL. I. A A
 
 346 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 strong tide of public opinion which the force of the evi- 
 dence before the select committee, the result of Mr Sadler's 
 indefatigable labours, has set in motion, have resolved to 
 dole out some niggardly measure of relief to the poor 
 children by the hand of Lord Morpeth, one of the members 
 for the West Riding of Yorkshire. His lordship must have 
 been somewhat forgetful of parliamentary courtesy when, 
 after midnight on Tuesday, and when the house was all 
 bustle, he announced his intention to bring in his, or 
 rather the masters' bill, and, in so doing, dated his motion 
 for the 27th of February, although Lord Ashley's was pre- 
 viously given for the 5th of March." 
 
 These remarks from the pages of the Times reflect much 
 light on the position of the question at the time to which 
 they refer. The opponents of the measure, unable longer 
 to remain in successful opposition, hoped, by dividing the 
 supporters of the Ten Hours' bill, to pass a measure through 
 parliament, more satisfactory to themselves and yet sufHcient 
 to allay the public feeling which had been awakened, and 
 to neutralize all future efforts on the part of the operatives, 
 Mr Oastler and others. The opposition tactics were very 
 readily appreciated by the operatives of the North, who 
 resolved that in their cause the crafty maxim of " Divide 
 and conquer," should not be practicable, with their consent. 
 
 Lord Ashley's adoption of the factory question, on the 
 part of the operatives, was to them a source of congratulation 
 and hope — a rising and Christian nobleman and statesman, 
 who, avowedly, from a love of God, had resolved to serve 
 tlie interests of man, was esteemed as a pearl of great value. 
 His lordship's avowal that he had taken tip the factory question 
 as a duty he owed to " God and to the poor," and his 
 declaration that if by the factory operatives supported, he 
 would never flinch, were welcomed in tens of thousands of 
 cellars, garrets, and cottages in the manufacturing districts. 
 His lordship's letter, containing these words, having been
 
 THE TACTORY MOVEMENT. 347 
 
 read to the local committees, and by them published, its 
 contents were soon and widely known. The organization 
 of the factory movement was so complete, that intelligence 
 circulated with extraordinary rapidity. The main requisite 
 for success in a movement involving humanity as a primary 
 element, is an aknowledgment of the truth of a principle, 
 he who asserts a broad principle, adheres to it, acts up to it, 
 rests upon a rock which the waves of faction may beat against, 
 surround, or sweep over, but it remains firm, hard, impene- 
 trable, and is a safe and sure foundation on which to stand. 
 Of all pitiable and fruitless things in existence, a statesman 
 begging for his political bread from day to day, by the 
 aid of mere expedients, is the most lamentable, humiliating, 
 and wretched. He who faithfully believed he was bound 
 to serve " God and the poor," was far removed from the 
 mendicant politicians who lived upon the crumbs of accident, 
 doled out by the hand of a treacherous and momentary 
 popularity. At the request of Mr Bull, Mr Oastler addressed 
 to Lord Ashley a letter of encouragement. His lordship's 
 reply conveys very fully the state of mind of the writer 
 as expressed by himself His lordship's letter is as follows : — 
 "London, February 16th, 1833. I am much obliged to 
 you for your kind and energetic letter ; much, very much, 
 is owing to your humanity and zeal, and though I cannot 
 reckon deeply on the gratitude of multitudes, yet I will 
 hope that your name will for years to come, be blessed by 
 those children who have suffered, or would have suffered 
 the tortures of a factory. It is very cruel upon Mr Sadler 
 that he is debarred from the joy of putting the crown upon 
 his beloved measure ; however, his must be the honour, 
 though another may complete it ; and for my part, I feel 
 that if I were to believe that my exertions ought to detract 
 the millionth part from his merits, I should be one of the 
 most unprincipled and contemptible of mankind. Ask the 
 question, simply, — Who has borne the real toil, who has
 
 ^> 
 
 348 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 encountered the real opposition, who roused the sluggish 
 pubHc to sentiments of honour and pity ? Why, Mr Sadler, 
 and I come in (supposmg I succeed) to terminate in the 
 twelfth hour his labour of the eleven." The appreciation 
 of the labour of Sadler was just — time proved that the 
 end to be obtained was more difficult than his lordship, 
 when entering on his labours, anticipated ; he had, however, 
 resolved on the work to be done. In the same letter he 
 continued : "I greatly fear my ability to carry on this 
 measure. I wish, most ardently I wish, that some other 
 had been found to undertake the cause ; nothing but the 
 apprehension of its being lost, induced me to acquiesce 
 in Mr Bull's request. I entertain such strong opinions on 
 the matter, that I did not dare, as a Christian, to let my 
 diffidence, or love of ease, prevail over the demands of 
 morality and rehgion." Under any possible circumstances, 
 there could not have been a more lasting basis for permanent 
 action than "morality and religion." 
 
 "^ END OF VOL. I. 
 
 Printect bj- Retnell and Weight, I'J Little PuUer.ey strwt, Hrtym.irkot.
 
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