Factory Acts
The Factory Acts were a series of acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom beginning in 1802 to regulate and improve the conditions of industrial employment.
The early acts concentrated on regulating the hours of work and moral welfare of young children employed in cotton mills but were effectively unenforced until the Labour of Children, etc., in Factories Act 1833 established a professional Factory Inspectorate. The regulation of working hours was then extended to women by an act of Parliament in 1844. The Factories Act 1847 , together with acts in 1850 and 1853 remedying defects in the 1847 act, met a long-standing demand by the millworkers for a ten-hour day. The Factory Acts also included regulations for ventilation, hygienic practices, and machinery guarding in an effort to improve the working circumstances for mill children.
Introduction of the ten-hour day proved to have none of the dire consequences predicted by its opponents, and its apparent success effectively ended theoretical objections to the principle of factory legislation; from the 1860s onwards more industries were brought within the Factory Acts.
Activists promoting the Factory Acts
The leading humanitarian reformers and MPs included Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. He led the "Ten-Hour Movement" and was a key parliamentary advocate for factory reform, especially for limiting child labour. He was a Tory MP until 1851 when he inherited the earldom and entered the House of Lords. He was a national leader of the evangelical wing of the Church of England. Michael Sadler was a prominent Tory MP whose Sadler report of 1832 championed factory legislation to protect children and improve working conditions. Richard Oastler, another Tory, was a passionate campaigner outside Parliament, known for his powerful rhetoric and advocacy for the ten-hour workday, which he presented with evangelical fervour derived from his Methodist background and his opposition to all forms of slavery.Many supporters like Shaftsbury Sadler and Oastler were motivated by Christian humanitarianism, especially evangelical Anglicans and Quakers. Their religious beliefs drove them to seek better treatment for factory workers, especially children. A minority of factory owners supported the acts, usually men with strong religious convictions such as John Fielden, a Methodist. Most of the opposition came from factory owners who also strongly opposed trade unions. They believed in laissez-faire economics, arguing that market forces should regulate labour conditions. They feared that shorter hours would reduce profits, lower productivity, and make them less competitive.
In 1830 Oastler published a dramatic open letter in the Leeds Mercury newspaper, exposing the terrible working conditions in Bradford factories. He escalated the rhetoric by saying the local child laborers were worse off than slaves on distant sugar plantations. Sadler’s Report of 1832 included explicit testimonies describing very bad conditions for women and children. The report shocked public opinion and calls were made to imprison, flog and pillory recalcitrant factory owners. One historian says the angry reformers were "moral rather than analytical, passionate rather than sober, abusive rather than conciliatory." Then Shaftesbury took over leadership of the momentum in favour of factory reform in Parliament. He organised campaigns that achieved new laws with inspectors to identify and force reforms in the long run.
Health and Morals of Apprentices Act 1802
The Health and Morals of Apprentices Act 1802 was introduced by Sir Robert Peel; it addressed concerns felt by the medical men of Manchester about the health and welfare of children employed in cotton mills, and first expressed by them in 1784 in a report on an outbreak of 'putrid fever' at a mill at Radcliffe owned by Peel. Although the act included some hygiene requirements for all textile mills, it was largely concerned with the employment of apprentices; it left the employment of 'free' children unregulated.It allowed local magistrates to enforce compliance with its requirements, and therefore went largely unenforced. As the first attempt to improve the lot of factory children, it is often seen as paving the way for future Factory Acts. At best, it only partially paved the way; its restriction to apprentices meant that it was left to later Factory Acts to establish the principle of intervention by Parliament on humanitarian grounds on worker welfare issues against the "laissez-faire" political and economic orthodoxy of the age which held that to be ill-advised.
Under the act, regulations and rules came into force on 2 December 1802 and applied to all textile mills and factories employing three or more apprentices or twenty employees. The buildings must have sufficient windows and openings for ventilation, and should be cleaned at least twice yearly with quicklime and water; this included ceilings and walls.
Each apprentice was to be given two sets of clothing, suitable linen, stockings, hats, and shoes, and a new set each year thereafter. Apprentices could not work during the night, and their working hours could not exceed 12 hours a day, excluding the time taken for breaks. A grace period was provided to allow factories time to adjust, but all night-time working by apprentices was to be discontinued by June 1804.
All apprentices were to be educated in reading, writing and arithmetic for the first four years of their apprenticeship. The act specified that this should be done every working day within usual working hours but did not state how much time should be set aside for it. Educational classes should be held in a part of the mill or factory designed for the purpose. Every Sunday, for one hour, apprentices were to be taught the Christian religion; every other Sunday, divine service should be held in the factory, and every month the apprentices should visit a church. They should be prepared for confirmation in the Church of England between the ages of 14 and 18 and must be examined by a clergyman at least once a year. Male and female apprentices were to sleep separately and not more than two per bed.
Local magistrates had to appoint two inspectors known as 'visitors' to ensure that factories and mills were complying with the act; one was to be a clergyman and the other a justice of the peace, neither to have any connection with the mill or factory. The visitors had the power to impose fines for non-compliance and the authority to visit at any time of the day to inspect the premises.
The act was to be displayed in two places in the factory. Owners who refused to comply with any part of the act could be fined between £2 and £5.
Cotton Mills and Factories Act 1819
The Cotton Mills and Factories Act 1819 stated that no children under 9 were to be employed and that children aged 9–16 years were limited to 12 hours' work per day. It applied to the cotton industry only, but covered all children, whether apprentices or not. It was seen through Parliament by Sir Robert Peel; it had its origins in a draft prepared by Robert Owen in 1815 but the act that emerged in 1819 was much watered-down from Owen's draft. It was also effectively unenforceable; enforcement was left to local magistrates, but they could only inspect a mill if two witnesses had given sworn statements that the mill was breaking the act.An amending act, the Labour in Cotton Mills, etc. Act 1819 was passed in December 1819. When any accident disabled a factory, night working in the rest of the works by those who had previously worked in the affected factory was permitted until the accident was made good.
Cotton Mills, etc. Act 1825
In 1825 John Cam Hobhouse introduced a bill to allow magistrates to act on their own initiative, and to compel witnesses to attend hearings; noting that so far there had been only two prosecutions under the Cotton Mills and Factories Act 1819. Opposing the bill, a millowner MP agreed that the 1819 bill was widely evaded, but went on to remark that this put millowners at the mercy of millhands "The provisions of Sir Robert Peel's act had been evaded in many respects: and it was now in the power of the workmen to ruin many individuals, by enforcing the penalties for children working beyond the hours limited by that act" and that this showed to him that the best course of action was to repeal the 1819 act. On the other hand, another millowner MP supported Hobhouse's bill saying that heagreed that, the bill was loudly called for, and, as the proprietor of a large manufactory, admitted that there was much that required remedy. He doubted whether shortening the hours of work would be injurious even to the interests of the manufacturers; as the children would be able, while they were employed, to pursue their occupation with greater vigour and activity. At the same time, there was nothing to warrant a comparison with the condition of the negroes in the West Indies.
The Cotton Mills and Factories Act 1819 act had specified that a meal break of an hour should be taken between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. A subsequent act, the Labour in Cotton Mills, etc. Act 1819, allowing water-powered mills to exceed the specified hours in order to make up for lost time, widened the limits to 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Hobhouse's bill also sought to limit hours worked to eleven a day; the act as passed, the , improved the arrangements for enforcement, but kept a twelve-hour day Monday-Friday with a shorter day of nine hours on Saturday.
Hobhouse's act set the limits to 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. A parent's assertion of a child's age was sufficient, and relieved employers of any liability should the child in fact be younger. JPs who were millowners or the fathers or sons of millowners could not hear complaints under the act.