6.
CHILD LABOUR IN 19th CENTURY BRITAIN
The beginnings of the Industrial Revolution
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Drastic increase in intensity of exploitation of child labour between 1780 and 1840 - child labour was not new in 19th century child an intrinsic part of the agricultural and industrial economy before 1780.
2. Most prevalent form of child labour in the early 19th century
was in the home/family economy e.g. spinning/weaving. There was opposition to factories because parents would be losing the help of children (cottage industries meant that all family were earning.) Girls occupied at homa baking, brewing and cleaning.. Break up of family economy in 19th century pauper boys of 7/8 apprenticed to colliers - received no pay one child who was beaten by his master, had coals thrown at him, slept in disused workings and ate candles found in the mine. 8 year old girl employed for 13 hours per day to open and close traps "I have to trap without a light and I'm scared. Sometimes I sing when I've light but not in the dark. I dare not sing then. The crime of the factory system was to inherit the worst features of the domestic system in a context which had none of the domestic compensations "it systemised child labour pauper and free and exploited it with persistent brutality. In the home the child's conditions varied according to the temper of parents in the mill the machinery dictated environment, speed, working hours, etc.
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Parents needed children's earnings and expected them to work. At least one third of all labour in cotton mills was under 21 in the early 1830's.
Sadler's Report 1833. "I have seen some children running down to the mill crying, with a bit of bread in their hand and that is all they may have till 12.00 at noon: crying for fear of being too late."
Old domestic crafts replaced in textile industries - allowed factory owners to dispense with adult male craftsmen and replace them with unskilled uvenile labour. Men knew that new machinery might offer work for his son but not for himself.
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Yorkshire Chartist: "I had never been to a day school in my life, when very young I had to begin working and was pulled out of bed between 4 and 5 o'clock ...in summer time to fo with a donkey 1 miles away, and then take part in milking a number of cows: and in the evening had again to go with milk and it would be. 8 o'clock before I had done.
7. Weavers resentment at movement from hand to power loom
break up
of family relationships - young children winding bobbins, older children watching for faults - pattern of family and community life grew up around loom shops - mills opened employment only for children.
Manchester weaver: "I have had 7 boys, but if I had 77 I should never send one to a cotton factory their morals are very much corrupted. They have to be in the factories from six in the morning till eight at night, consequently they have no means of instruction - there is no good example shown to them. "I am determined that if they will invent machines to supersed manual labour, they must find iron boys to mind them.
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