Factory Acts

Acts of Parliament designed to improve the working conditions of mainly women and children in factories, i.e., reducing the number of working hours and raising the minimum age.

Background

During the Industrial Revolution the prosperity of the English manufactures was based upon [children`s] helpless misery (Hammond qtd. in Nardinelli 740) as large numbers of children were employed and exploited under bad working conditions.

Beginnings

The so-called Peel`s Bill of 1819, named after Sir Robert Peel, or Cotton Mills Act is considered the starting point of factory legislation in England because it raised the question of state interference within the industry sector (Blaug 212, "Key dates"). It prohibited the employment of children under the age of nine but it only applied to the cotton factories and lacked proper and adequate supervision and was therefore regarded to be totally ineffective (Blaug 213, Marvel 381, Nardinelli 740).

The Factory Act of 1831

The battle for political reform and the existing political climate at the beginning of the 1830s which resulted in the First Reform Act (1832) led to an increasing awareness for the working conditions of the millworkers in general and of children in particular ("The 1833 Factory Act"). The Factory Act of 1831 reduced the maximum working hours for all workers under eighteen to twelve hours per day ("The 1833 Factory Act"). Yet again, it only applied to the cotton industry and its enforcement was not supervised (Blaug 212).

The Factory Act of 1833

The so-called Ten-Hour movement demanded legal restrictions on the working hours of every employee and not only on these of children, since the labour of the adults depended on and was coupled with children`s labour (Marvel 381). Michael Sadler, MP of Leeds, who was the spokesman for the Ten-Hour movement in Parliament and appointed chairman of a Select Committee regarding the Ten- Hour Bill which was put into motion by the leader of the movement Lord Ashley-Cooper, drafted a Committee report in 1833 which led to the Factory Act of 1833 (Blaug 213 f., Marvel 381 ff., Nardinelli 741, "The 1833 Factory Act"). This Factory Act, also known as the Althorp`s Act, named after Lord Althorp who eventually drafted a bill in accordance with the new Royal Commission`s recommendations, applied to all textile factories except silk ones (Blaug 213 f., Marvel 383, Nardinelli 741, "The 1833 Factory Act"). According to it, children between the age of eleven and thirteen were permitted to work a maximum of twelve hours per day. Those between nine and eleven years were limited to an eight-hour workday or a forty-eight hour week (Blaug 213). If children under thirteen were employed, the manufacturers had to provide them with schooling for at least two hours a day ("The 1833 Factory Act"). The limitation of working hours in combination with the costs for schooling led to an implicit taxation of child labour (Nardinelli 743). Most importantly, so-called government or factory inspectors under the control of the Home Secretary were appointed, who were to check and control whether the factory owners followed regulations (Blaug 213, Marvel 380, "The 1833 Factory Act"). In Howard P. Marvel`s view [the]combination of the social welfare justification for intervention into industrial activity with the decision to place enforcement responsibility in an arm of the central government marked the beginning of economic regulation as we know it today (380).

In the following years, the number of children employed in textile factories fell from 56,000 to 33,000 and child labour declined from 15.9 per cent to 7.9 per cent (Nardinelli 743).

Further Factory Acts followed:

The Factory Act of 1844

With the Factory Act of 1844 safety regulations were introduced ("Key dates"). Therefore, it can be regarded as the first health and safety act in Great Britain ("Later factory legislation"). These safety regulations included, for instance, that all dangerous machinery had to be fenced in and that mill machinery was not to be cleaned while it was in motion ("Later factory legislation"). Furthermore, the minimum age for employment was lowered from nine to eight years but the maximum hours of work for the eight to thirteen year old ones was reduced to six and a half and the schooling hours were raised to three hours a day (Blaug 217). Young people between thirteen and eighteen and women were allowed to work a maximum of twelve hours ("Later factory legislation").

The Factory Act of 1847

With the Factory Act of 1847 finally Ashley`s bill for a ten-hour working day for adults and children was put into notion ("Ten Hours Act")(Blaug 217, "Key dates").

The Factory Act of 1867

The Factory Act of 1867 or Extension Act extended the existing factory laws and legislations to all factories which employed more than 50 people and to other specified industries, e.g. iron, glass, paper etc.("Later factory legislation"). Previously, the factory legislations were restricted to the textile industry and its factories. In addition, the employment of children and women on Sundays was forbidden ("Key dates").

The Factory Act of 1891

With the Factory and Workshop (Consolidating) Act of 1891 the minimum age of employment was again raised from eight to eleven years ("Key dates").

Sources

• Blaug, Mark. “The Classical Economists and the Factory Acts — A Re-Examination.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 72/2 (1958): 211-226. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1880596. Accessed 9 February 2021.
• "Key Dates." Parliament.uk, https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/livinglearning/19thcentury/keydates/. Accessed 9 February 2021.
• "Later Factory Legislation." Parliament.uk, https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/livinglearning/19thcentury/overview/laterfactoryleg/. Accessed 9 February 2021.
• Marvel, Howard P."Factory Regulation: A Reinterpretation of Early English Experience." The Journal of Law & Economics, 20/2 (1977): 379-402. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/725196. Accessed 12 February 2021.
• Nardinelli, Clark. “Child Labor and the Factory Acts.” The Journal of Economic History 40/4 (Dec. 1980): 739-755. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2119999. Accessed 9 February 2021.
• "The 1833 Factory Act." Parliament.uk, https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/livinglearning/19thcentury/overview/factoryact/. Accessed 9 February 2021.