For the millions of unskilled laboring poor throughout Europe and the United States, work remained difficult and temporary. Work continued in the docks, as builders, as scavengers, chimney sweeps, woodchoppers, rag collectors, messengers, and coachmen which provided a wage but barely enough to live on. Women in the garment industry (especially after the introduction of the sewing machine. Much of this work was seasonal, and occasional unemployment was a fact of life; hence genuine fear existed among the middle and upper classes of this unskilled and semi-employed mass of people. “White collar” work was the fastest growing part of London’s population as thousands of clerks worked in the banking, insurance, and brokerage industries, most of them men until the As children almost always worked on the farm, their work continued during the Industrial Revolution just now outside of the home and for wages and was increasingly needed to combat the poverty and low wages for their family. They represented a cheap, easily disciplined labor force with small hands that could reach more places. The average child started work at the age of 10 but could be as low at 6 or 7. Larger incomes and small families helped to delay the moment at which a child was forced into the adult world of wage-earning work. Many children testified that they enjoyed the work and would rather work than be at school; it certainly gave them some freedom and a purpose but in an exploitative manner.
Accidents during the Industrial Revolution was common with unprotected machinery that often caused wounds for the overworked and often tired workers or through accidents. Injuries to children’s hands were especially common. Loose cloth also being caught in the machinery was a common cause for injury. No compensation was required to be given to the affected. Additionally, the working hours long and subjected to debate. In 1832, the British House of Commons began debating the number hours children should work per day, but was unwilling to law a law that limited those under 18 to ten hours a day. Desire for the working class to work as much as possible.
Figure 5: Children at Work
John Birley grew up in workhouse for orphans after the death of his parents. He was apprenticed out to a local cotton mill at the age of six or seven where he was treated harshly and essentially worked as forced laborer. After complaining back to the orphanage, the master cleaned up Birely and his fellow children-workers when inspected and ensured that the children were questioned with the master in the room to limit any truth from being known.
Birely recalls: “Our regular time was from five in the morning till nine or ten at night; and on Saturday, till eleven, and often twelve o’clock at night, and then we were sent to clean the machinery on the Sunday. No time was allowed for breakfast and no sitting for dinner and no time for tea. We went to the mill at five o’clock and worked till about eight or nine when they brought us our breakfast, which consisted of water-porridge, with oatcake in it and onions to flavour it. Dinner consisted of Derbyshire oatcakes cut into four pieces, and ranged into two stacks. One was buttered and the other treacled. By the side of the oatcake were cans of milk. We drank the milk and with the oatcake in our hand, we went back to work without sitting down. We then worked till nine or ten at night when the water-wheel stopped. We stopped working, and went to the apprentice house, about three hundred yards from the mill. It was a large stone house, surrounded by a wall, two to three yards high, with one door, which was kept locked. It was capable of lodging about one hundred and fifty apprentices.”
Likewise, Elizabeth Bentley, who was born in 1809 and started work at the age of six remembers: “It was so dusty, the dust got up my lungs, and the work was so hard. I got so bad in health, that when I pulled the baskets down, I pulled my bones out of their places.” By the age of 13, she was “considerably deformed” and in poor health
Elizabeth Bentley was interviewed by Michael Sadler as part of a House of Commons investigation in 1832. She stated: Question: What were your hours of labour? Answer: As a child I worked from five in the morning till nine at night.Question: What time was allowed for meals?Answer: We were allowed forty minutes at noon.Question: Had you any time to get breakfast, or drinking?Answer: No, we got it as we could.Question: Did you have time to eat it?Answer: No; we were obliged to leave it or to take it home, and when we did not take it, the overlooker took it, and gave it to the pigs.Question: Suppose you flagged a little, or were late, what would they do?Answer: Strap us.Question: What work did you do?Answer: A weigher in the card-room.Question: How long did you work there?Answer: From half-past five, till eight at night.Question: What is the carding-room like?Answer: Dusty. You cannot see each other for dust.
Abraham Whitehead told a parliamentary committee in 1832: “I have seen a little boy, only this winter, who works in the mill, and who lives within two hundred or three hundred yards of my own door; he is not yet 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.”
Children were commonly beaten as punishment and the factory owners and bosses continued to exploit child labor.
In contrast to these children, other children were thieves-a child of seven was capable of earning 10 shillings per week thieving-to make the same money he would have to make 1,296 matchboxes a day. This only worked to reinforce notions of an out of control young and poor population that needed harsh discipline and a stronger police force.
