Fundamentals
The Factory Act of 1847 stipulated that as of 1 July 1847, women and children between the ages of 13 and 18 could work only 63 hours per week. The Bill further stipulated that as of 1 May 1848, women and children 13–18 could work only 58 hours per week, the equivalent of 10 hours per day.Previous Bills
Whig Bills
The 1833 Factory Act had specified an eight-hour working day for children (aged nine to thirteen) and a twelve-hour day for 'young persons' (fourteen to eighteen) but it had proved difficult to enforce, and its attempts to ensure the education of mill-children had failed. Under the Whig government of Lord Melbourne,Conservatives come to power
The Whigs were defeated in the 1841 general election, andThe education issue
In 1843, Ashley initiated a debate on "the best means of diffusing the benefits and blessings of a moral and religious education among the working classes..." The Royal Commission had investigated not only the working hours and conditions of the children but also their moral state. It had found much of concern in their habits and language, but the greatest concern was that "the means of secular and religious instruction.. are so grievously defective, that, in all the districts, great numbers of Children and Young Persons are growing up without any religious, moral, or intellectual training; nothing being done to form them to habits of order, sobriety, honesty, and forethought, or even to restrain them from vice and crime."2nd Report of the Commission on the Employment of Children (Trades and Manufactures), (1843) Parliamentary Pap[ers volume XIII, pp 195-204 as quoted in The State had no responsibility for the provision of education, and the working classes themselves had neither the capital nor the income to set up and support schools giving an effective education to their children. Through the Privy Council, government money (the Education Grant) was available to cover up to one-third (in principle; in hard cases up to a half) of the cost of setting up an 'efficient' school (one giving an effective education) where none existed. Since the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, many of the grievances of the Dissenters had been addressed, until the Whig government felt itself politically unable to go further because of the increasing concern (and resentment) of Anglicans at the systematic erosion of the Church of England's status as the national church (indeed Graham had left the Whig government to join the Conservatives because of his objections on this point). Church and organised Dissent regarded each other not as a colleague, but at best as a competitor, and too often as an opponent (and one which had been unduly favoured by the government). Consequently, ''two'' charities existed to assist the formation of efficient schools; the British and Foreign School Society for the Education of the Labouring and Manufacturing Classes of Society of Every Religious Persuasion was non-denominational and hence was favoured by Dissenters. Its implications for the Established Church were noted by an anonymous contemporary American commentator "Without swerving a hair's breadth from"( their declared principles) "they would by their mere negative influence, utterly subvert (and that at no distant day, if counteracting influences were not vigorously employed,) the church establishment, as such; and make Episcopacy in England what it is in this country, one of some dozen sects, all depending for their influence, and for the extent to which their doctrines and usages shall be received, upon the judgement, conscience, education, or caprice of their fellow men". Such an outcome would not be unwelcome to Dissenters; to avert it, churchmen had founded a rival organisation: the exclusively Anglican National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church in England and Wales. Its aim was that "the National Religion should be made the foundation of National Education and should be the first and chief thing taught to the poor, according to the excellent Liturgy and Catechism provided by our Church." Since the Factory Act required factory children to attend school, the factory inspectorate had been drawn into taking a view on the quality of schooling the children were getting. The "British" and "National" schools they considered acceptable and a very few manufacturers had set up their own factory schools of equivalent quality; but there were populous manufacturing districts (The 'National Factory Schools' experiment
From 1838 onwards, Robert Saunders, the (Anglican) factory inspector for the West Riding, had been attempting to interest the government in a scheme for improving the education of factory children in the district. He got no satisfactory response from the government, but considerable interest from the local Anglican clergy and from the National Society, with whom he had discussed the scheme. (He does not appear to have tried to similarly involve local non-conformist clergy, or the British Society, whose schools and approach to the religious instruction he considered inferior. Nor does he seem to have considered the omission significant; from consultation of the parents of factory children he thought "Many would send their children to a school where the principle of Mahomet, or the worship of blocks and stones, were inculcated, without concerning themselves in the matter, if only the school-fee was less at such school than at the best school in the neighbourhood. Exceptions are happily to be found, but they are rare."). In December 1840, the National Society sought his advice on how the central organisation could best supplement local efforts for the education of factory children in the district.R J Saunders "Report on the Establishment of Schools in the Factory District" in As a result of this collaboration, by the end of 1842, 940 children formerly attending factory schools were attending National Schools whose timetables were set up to accommodate the work patterns of the children (who in most cases were, as a result of Saunders' urging of mill-owners, working half-days - as envisaged by Fox-Maule's Factory Bill of 1839) The children were free to attend any Sunday school of their parents choice (the breakdown was 340 Anglican, 22 Catholic, 578 Non-conformist) but whilst at the National Factory Schools they received Anglican religious instruction; no parent complained of this (but 20 or so Catholic children had gone to a Catholic school in preference to the National Schools.) Meanwhile, Saunders had urged on Graham a scheme for "Government Factory Schools"; these would be run and controlled by Anglicans, and the default religious education in them would be as in National Schools, but parents could withhold their children from the specifically Anglican elements (the withheld children to be given instruction in other school subjects instead), thus obtaining a non-denominational religious education matching that in British Schools.Graham's Factory Education bill (1843)
The debate on Ashley's motion was markedly non-partisan. Responding Graham said that, although the problem was a national one, the government would for the moment bring forward measures only for the two areas of education in which the state already had some involvement; the education of workhouse children and the education of factory children. The measures he announced related to England and Wales; Scotland had an established system of parochial schools run by its established church, with little controversy, since in Scotland there was no dissent on doctrine, only on questions of discipline. To allow for the provision of efficient schools where voluntary efforts had failed, the 'education clauses' of his Factory Education Bill allowed for trust schools to be set up. These would be initiated by voluntary effort, and - as previously for efficient voluntary schools - a third of capital costs could be supplied by a government grant; Graham proposed that in addition another third could be met by a government loan to be repaid from the poor rates. The running costs of such a school would be met by the deductions from children's wages allowed by the 1833 Act, supplemented by a charge on the poor rates. The trustees would be the Anglican parish priest and two of his churchwardens and four trustees (of whom two should preferably be mill-owners) nominated by the magistrates. The default religious education in these schools would be Anglican, but parents would be allowed to opt their children out of anything specifically Anglican; if the opt-out was exercised, religious education would be as in a British School. Once a trust school was open in a factory district, factory children in that district would have to provide a certificate that they were being educated at it or at some other school certified as 'efficient'. The 'labour clauses' forming the other half of the bill were essentially a revival of Fox Maule's draft; children could work only in the morning or in the afternoon, but not both. There were two significant differences; the working day for children was reduced to six and a half hours, and the minimum age for factory work would be reduced to eight. Other clauses increased penalties and assisted enforcement.Reaction inside Parliament
A Second Reading debate was held to flesh out major issues before going into committee. There was considerable opposition to the composition of the trustees, both as giving no voice to the ratepayers and as handing control of the school (and hence its children) to the Established Church with no provision for a Dissenter member of the trust to see fair play. The provisions for appointment of schoolmasters were also criticised; as they stood they effectively excluded Dissenters. At Lord John Russell's urging, the discussion was temperate.Opposition outside Parliament
Out of Parliament, the debate was less temperate; objections that the Bill had the effect of strengthening the Church became objections that it was a deliberate attack on Dissent, that its main purpose was to attack Dissent, and that the Royal Commission had deliberately and grossly defamed the population of the manufacturing districts to give a spurious pretext for an assault on Dissent. A crowded meeting at Leeds was told the bill was "..nothing more nor less than a new Test Act; it was virtually an attempt to impose, not merely Catholic, but also Protestant disabilities; and to exalt the Church at the expense of all classes of Dissenters ... If once they passed this measure, their liberty was at an end; that moment they would become enslaved; that moment would they become enslaved; that moment would they become enslaved to the priests of this country, which was the worst kind of thraldom it was possible to endure. These schools were designed, not to teach, but to throw them back into the middle ages, and to undo all that had been done by the advances of education during the last three centuries" Similar meetings were held throughout the country, and their resolutions condemning the bill and calling for its withdrawal were supported by a campaign of organised petitions: that session Parliament received 13,369 petitions against the bill as drafted with a total of 2,069,058 signatures. (For comparison, in the same session there were 4574 petitions for total repeal of theSuccessive retreats and final abandonment
Lord John Russell drafted resolutions calling for modification of the bill along the lines suggested in Parliament; the resolutions were denounced as inadequate by the extra-parliamentary opposition. Graham amended the educational clauses, but this only triggered a fresh round of indignation meetings and a fresh round of petitions (11,839 petitions and 1,920,574 signatures). Graham then withdrew the education clauses: "I hoped that it might be possible to obtain concurrence in a scheme of national education based on the principle of teaching the holy scriptures without an attempt to inculcate peculiar tenets. In that hope I have been wholly disappointed; I looked for peace, and I have encountered the most angry opposition, therefore I withdraw the educational clauses, although I take that step with deep regret, and with melancholy forebodings with regard to the progress of education" but this did not end the objections, since it did not entirely restore the ''status quo ante'' on education; indeed the education requirements of the 1833 Act now came under attack, the ''Struggle in Parliament for the ten-hour day
1844 - inconsistent votes on the ten-hour day; a twelve-hour Act is passed
In 1844 Graham again introduced a Bill to bring in a new Factory Act and repeal the 1833 Factory Act. The Bill gave educational issues a wide berth, but otherwise largely repeated the 'labour clauses' of Graham's 1843 Bill, with the important difference that the existing protection of young persons (a twelve-hour day and a ban onI never remember.. a more curious political state of things, such intermingling of parties, such a confusion of opposition, a question so much more open than any question ever was before, and yet not made so or acknowledged to be so with the Government ; so much zeal, asperity, and animosity, so many reproaches hurled backwards and forwards. The Government have brought forward their measure in a very positive way, and have clung to it with great tenacity; rejecting all compromise, they have been abandoned by nearly half their supporters, and nothing can exceed their chagrin and soreness at being so forsaken. . . . John Russell, voting for ' ten hours ' after all he professed last year, has filled the world with amazement, and many of his own friends with indignation. . . . The Opposition was divided, Palmerston and Lord John one way. Baring and Labouchere the other. It has been a very queer affair. Some voted, not knowing how they ought to vote, and, following those they are accustomed to following, many who voted against the Government afterwards said they believed they were wrong. Melbourne is all against Ashley ; all the political economists, of course ; Lord Spencer strong against him.Greville's Memoirs as quoted inFaced with these contradictory votes, and having considered and rejected the option of compromising on some intermediate time such as eleven hours, Graham withdrew the Bill, preferring to replace it by a new one which amended, rather than repealed, the 1833 Act. The 1833 definition of night time being unaltered the revised Bill gave no opportunity to redefine 'night' and Lord Ashley's amendment to limit the working day for women and young persons to ten hours was defeated heavily (295 against, 198 for), it having been made clear that the Ministers would resign if they lost the vote. As a result, the
...could any Government suppose that any such course would turn back into its former channels the feelings of the people, or make them forget what had passed the other night? No! the people would not forget it, and the Government would do well not to think so. He thought it very unimportant which way the majority turned this evening, as regarded the fate of the Measure; because it was already, above all governments and all majorities, absolutely decided. It was impossible now for any Government to stop a ten hours Bill. It was, in every moral sense, as much a part of the law of this country as any part of this interfering Bill which he held in his hand.
1846 - a Ten-Hour Bill defeated
Lord Ashley introduced a Ten-Hour Bill in 1846 but then resigned from the Commons. The Second Reading of Ashley's Bill of 1846 was moved byI well remember being set to work in my father's mill when I was a little more than ten years old; my associates, too, in the labour and in recreation are fresh in my memory. Only a few of them are now alive; some dying very young, others living to become men and women; but many of those who live have died off before they attained the age of fifty years, having the appearance of being much older, a premature appearance of age which I verily believe was caused by the nature of the employment in which they had been brought up. For several years after I began to work in the mill, the hours of labour in our works did not exceed ten in the day, winter and summer, and even with the labour of those hours, I shall never forget the fatigue I often felt before the day ended, and the anxiety of us all to be relieved from the unvarying and irksome toil we had gone through before we could obtain relief by such play and amusements as we resorted to when liberated from our work.His Bill proposed a one-year experiment with an eleven-hour day before moving to a ten-hour day: Fielden did not rule out settling for a permanent reduction to eleven hours if the Bill was amended accordingly in Committee. There was considerable agitation in the country for a Ten-Hour Bill and more petitions were presented to Parliament supporting the 1846 Bill than for repeal of the Corn Laws; however, the Bill was defeated at Second Reading 193-203. The London ''Standard'' gave an analysis of the vote (including tellers) which summarised the voting of the three parties (Whigs, and the two Conservative factions) as:
1847 - the Ten Hour Act is passed
Within a month, the Corn Laws had been repealed, the Peel administration had fallen and a Whig administration under Lord John Russell had come to power. Russell's Cabinet contained both supporters and opponents of the 1846 Bill, and Russell declared at the earliest opportunity that the government had no collective view on the issue. In January 1847, Fielden introduced much the same bill as Ashley's Bill of the previous year. Most of the arguments in the 1847 Second Reading debate repeated those made in 1846, but there were three new ones: # the current trade recession was so severe that many mills were on short time and not working as much as ten hours a day - taking the lean years with the fact they had probably not worked more than a 10-hour day on average over the last decade # the working classes in the northern textile districts had been allowed to think that if they supported their masters in seeking the repeal of the Corn Laws their masters would support a Ten Hour Bill; whether or not the masters had made (or intended to keep) that promise, Parliament should see it was kept # that it was now inevitable that sooner or later the ten-hour day would become law (one speaker, referring to the extra-Parliamentary agitation and echoing comments about the Anti-Corn Law League said it hardly mattered what Parliament decided, the matter was already decided out of doors); better that Parliament should give it now with a good grace To answer two arguments which opponents of the 1846 Bill had made much of, meetings (twenty-one in all) were held in most of the major textile towns of Northern England: all were well attended, and at each motion were passed to declare that * what was sought was a ten-hour day (not an eleven-hour one) * that a reduction from a twelve-hour day to a ten-hour day was sought, even if there was a corresponding reduction in wages The 1847 Bill passed its Second Reading by 195 votes to 87 and went into Committee stage on a majority of 90 (190 for, 100 against). In Committee, the crucial vote for ten hours, rather than eleven was won 144-66 and the Bill subsequently passed its Third Reading by 151 to 88. Lord John Russell voted for the Bill (at Report Stage he had said he thought an eleven-hour bill safer but that would not persuade him to vote against a ten-hour one), Sir Robert Peel against.Popular support
In Lancashire and Yorkshire 'Short Time Committees' aiming to secure a ten-hour day had been formed by millworkers even before the 1833 Act. They had succeeded in establishing a strong feeling among millworkers for a Ten Hour Act, and in gaining supporters in all classes of societyMy Lords, the measures now proposed for your acceptance have originated in far different quarters than in the mind of one so little entitled to your Lordships' attention as myself. They have originated in the crowded receptacles of human labour—they have been elaborated in the factory and the alley, amid the whirl of machinery, and in those long rows of lodging houses which grow up around the giant chimneys of Lancashire and Yorkshire. This Bill has its root in the stern experience of the husband and the father. From this humble, but, I am sure in your Lordships' view, not contemptible seed, the idea has mounted upwards in the shape of such petitions as those which have encumbered your Lordships' Table. Men of higher education—men whose lives are one professional and practical exercise of philanthropy, have assisted the progress of the measure to the ears of the Legislature by their sanction and their advocacy; medical men in every branch of practice, clergymen of every religious persuasion. Springing from such a source, founded on such a basis of feeling and opinion, it has made its way through much difficulty against powerful opposition, till it has obtained the sanction of an influential portion of the Cabinet, of a conclusive majority of the House of Commons, and, so supported and recommended, has reached the Table of your Lordships' House.Lord Ellesmere moving the Second Reading of the Bill in the LordsThe so-called "ten hour movement", led mostly by members of the
The people deserved this measure. They had for many years besought Parliament to grant them a Ten Hours Bill; and he thought that the manner in which they had agitated the question entitled them to the most favourable consideration of the Legislature. They had sought to obtain it by the most peaceable means; they had never had recourse to violent agitations, to strikes, or combinations against their employers. They never had committed a breach of the peace at any of the great meetings held upon this question; but their conduct had always been characterized by regularity, and by manifestations of loyalty. It would, therefore, be only an act of justice to those loyal, peaceable, and industrious men to pass this Bill.Lord Feversham seconding the Second Reading of the Bill in the LordsThe year following its passage,
Major contributors
"At a General Meeting of the Lancashire Central Short Time Committee, held at the house of Mr Thomas Wilkinson, Red Lion Inn, Manchester, on Tuesday evening, 8 June 1847, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted. * That this Committee feel deeply thankful to the disposer of all good gifts, for the glorious success which has attended their efforts to ameliorate the condition of the women and children employed in factories, and sincerely congratulate their fellow-labourers in the good work on the peaceful and constitutional character of the agitation, as well as the triumphant manner in which the Ten Hours' Bill has passed the British Parliament. * That the hearty thanks of this Committee are due, and are hereby gratefully tendered on behalf of the working people of Lancashire, to the Right Honourable Lord Ashley, for his zealous and efficient services in this sacred cause, during a period of fourteen years of constant, consistent, and exemplary perseverance, to improve the moral, religious, and mental condition of the factory workers by endeavouring to obtain for them leisure hours to be devoted to that purpose; and especially for the zeal and activity he has displayed during the present session of Parliament. * That the best thanks of this Committee are also due toJohn Fielden John Fielden (17 January 1784 – 29 May 1849) was a British industrialist and Radical Member of Parliament for Oldham (1832–1847). He entered Parliament to support William Cobbett, whose election as fellow-MP for Oldham he helped to bring ..., Esq., MP, for the honest, consistent and straightforward conduct which he has ever pursued on behalf of his poorer fellow-countrymen; and especially for his exertions during the present session of Parliament in bringing the agitation for the Ten Hours' Bill to a successful issue. * That this Committee tender their heartfelt thanks to the Right Honourable theEarl of Ellesmere Earl of Ellesmere ( ), of Ellesmere in the County of Shropshire, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1846 for the Conservative politician Lord Francis Egerton. He was granted the subsidiary title of Viscount Brac ...and Lord Faversham, for their zealous exertions in conducting the Ten Hours' Bill safely through the House of Lords. * That this Committee are deeply grateful and tender their best thanks to J. Brotherton, Esq., MP, H. A. Aglionby, Esq., MP., C. Hindley, Esq., MP., and all those members who spoke and voted in favour of this measure during its progress in the House of Commons. * That this Committee are deeply impressed with the gratitude they owe to the Duke of Richmond, the Bishops of Oxford, London, and St. David's, and all the peers who spoke and voted in favour of the Ten Hours' Bill. * That this Committee offer their most hearty congratulations and sincere thanks to John Wood,Richard Oastler Richard Oastler (20 December 1789 – 22 August 1861) was a "Tory radical", an active opponent of Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform and a lifelong admirer of the Duke of Wellington; but also an abolitionist and prominent in the ..., W. Walker, Thomas Fielden, and Joseph Gregory, Esqrs., and to the Rev. G. S. Bull, for their support of this cause in times when it was unpopular to be ranked amongst its advocates; and also to all its friends and supporters out of Parliament. * That this Committee view with extreme satisfaction the past support of the clergy of the Established Church, as well as of those ministers of religion of all denominations who were ever found amongst the supporters of this measure, and sincerely hope that they will live to see realised the happy results which we believe were the aim and object of all their pious labours in this cause.…"
Lord Shaftesbury
TheRichard Oastler
John Fielden
Enforcement
Difficulties immediately arouse over the enforcement of the act, as millowners used legal loopholes to evade its provisions and the courts proved reluctant to intervene so that Lord Ashley, for example, concluded in 1850: "The Ten Hours’ Act nullified. The work to be done all over again". Supplementary acts in 1850 and 1853 did, however, see a ten-hour limit established in the textile industry, and without the negative economic effects its opponents had feared to come to pass. Thereafter the use of child labour certainly declined in Victorian Britain, though historians divide on whether this was the result of the law in action, as the Factory Prosecutions Returns would seem to suggest, or merely a by-product of technological change.E Greif ed., ‘’Institutions, Innovation and Industrialization’’ (2015) p. 339-43See also
*Notes
References
{{Reflist, colwidth=33emFurther reading
For more information on the Factory Act of 1847 and general information on the factory system in Great Britain in the 19th century: * ''The Age of Peel'' by Norman Gash * ''Speeches of the Earl of Shaftesbury'' * ''Prelude to Victory of the Ten Hour Movement'' by Kenneth Carpenter * Cowherd, Raymond. ''The Humanitarians and the Ten Hour Movement in England'' * Cooke-Taylor, R.W. ''The Factory System and the Factory Act'' (1894