Debates in the House of Commons on the Factory Bill of 1819

Parliamentary Debates, XXXVII, 559-566, 581-588; XXXVIII, 342-371; in A. Aspinall and E. Anthony Smith, eds., English Historical Documents, XI, 1783-1832, New York: Oxford University Press, 1959,.pp. 732-34. Sir Robert Peel was a factory owner and the father of the future Prime Minister of the same name.)

19 February 1818:

Sir Robert Peel-. . . About 15 years ago he had brought in a Bill for the Regulation of Apprentices in Cotton Manufactories. At that time they were the description of persons most employed in those manufactories. He himself had 1000 of them....Since that time, however, the business had been much extended. Manufactories were established in large towns, and the proprietors availed themselves of all the poor population of those towns. In Manchester alone 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 sonic hours before daylight, and confined in the factories not less than 15 hours; and it was also notoriously the opinion of the faculty that no children of 8 or 9 years of age could bear that degree of hardship with impunity to their health and constitution. It had been urged by the humane that there might be two sets of young labourers for one set of adults. He was afraid this would produce more harm than good. The better way would be to shorten the time of working for adults as well as for children, and to prevent the introduction of the latter at a very early age.... The children ... were prevented from growing to their full size. In consequence, Manchester, which used to furnished numerous recruits for the army, was now wholly unproductive in that respect....

Lord Lascelles-.....The individuals who were the objects of the hon. gentleman's proposition were free labourers. This excited his jealousy; for, were the principle of interference with free labourers once admitted, it was difficult to say how far it might not be carried....

Mr. Philips strongly objected to the adoption of any measure of this description, and denied that the employment of children in the cotton factories operated, as had been described, to stint their growth, impair their comfort, or scatter disease amongst them... Small factories were often ill-ventilated, and from that circumstance the health of a person might suffer more in 6 hours in one of these factories than in 15 hours in a factory which was well ventilated and properly constructed in other respects. But how could this be cured by any Bill? The small factories generally went to ruin, and that was the cure for the evil. From the Returns made to the House, out of 31,117, the number of persons employed in these Returns, 1717, or 5 1/2 % were of the age of 10 and under, 13,203 from 10 to 18, and 16,197 of the age of 18 and upwards. Out of 27,827 persons, there were 1830 only who could not read....

Mr. Finlay ... warned the House against entertaining any measure which went, like the present, to interfere with a manufacture of such vital importance. . . . It employed more people than all the other manufactures of the country taken together. The exports from it exceeded 20 millions a year, and what was exported was not equal to what the home consumption was .... The Bill should extend to the linen and woollen manufactories, as the hours of confinement were in them equally long....

23 February 1818:

Sir Robert Peel-.... He could not think that little children, who had not a will of their own, could be called free labourers. They were either under the control of a master or a parent. . . . In the Bill brought in 1815, the age at which children might be employed was fixed at 10. He now proposed the age of 9 years, and that the powers of the Act should terminate when the child reached the age of 16, and could be considered a free agent. He therefore now recommended that children employed in cotton factories should, from 9 to 16, be under the protection of Parliament, and before 9 that they should not be admitted; that they should be employed in working 11 hours, which with 1 1/2 hours for meals, made in the whole 12 1/2 hours.... 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.... it was his wish to have no night-work at all in the factories....

27 April 1818

Sir Robert Peel-...... believed that the number of master manufacturers who supported the Bill was greater than that of those who opposed it, and that many of them were even anxious that its provisions should be extended to adults....

Lord Stanley-....The result of such a regulation must inevitably be that the children would cease to be employed, and that their parents would lose the value of their labour, while the children were consigned to unprofitable idleness....Children employed in cotton factories were not put to business at an earlier age, or kept longer to labour than in many branches.... Water-gilding was very pernicious to those employed in it, yet it was not under the operation of any legislative restriction. The plate glass business was allowed to be highly insalubrious. Children, however, were employed in it, though exposed to violent heats and draughts of air. Glasscutting also was unhealthy. The work was carried on in damp places; people of tender age were employed in it, but yet, in none of these cases did the Legislature think it necessary to interfere. Was the weaving trade less unwholesome than the cotton? And were not children put to it at as early an age, and kept as long at work? The weaver was pent up in a long, close, confined cabin, and often obliged to work upon a damp floor. Working people were exposed to the vicissitudes of excessive beat and cold, to damps of every kind, and to every species of bodily infirmity in the coal and lead mines, and yet nobody ever called for such legislative enactments in the management of those concerns.... One consequence of this Bill would be to create disunion between children and their parents....

J. Smith-.....The important allegation in the petition of the workmen of Mr. Owen had not been contradicted, viz. that in the shorter time of work they were able to spin quite as much cotton as when they laboured a greater number of hours in the day. In Mr. Owen's factory at New Lanark, the people did as much in 10 1/2 hours as was done by any other factory in 15. The reason was, that knowing they were not required to work beyond their strength, they went about it with more cheerfulness and alacrity....

Mr. Robinson-...... The circumstance that few persons were seen in the manufactories over 40 years of age was a proof that their strength had been wasted before they arrived at maturity. If the Bill went directly to interfere in the labour of adults, he thought it would be objectionable; but it would be going too far to say that by protecting the children the adults might be incidentally interfered with and that therefore the children should be left as they were. That would be establishing the position that there was no possible case, however strong it might be, where interference could be justified....