Essay On Child Labour During The Industrial Revolution

During the Industrial Revolution, the use of child labour was very common. Most families did not have enough money and so, their children had to work to bring money into the household. They had to work long hours in dangerous conditions getting little to no pay. Children were useful in the workforce because of their size allowing them to fit in small spaces in mines or factories where adults couldn’t fit. Working conditions were harsh, they would have to wake up very early and then work for as long as nineteen hours a day. Children were deprived of an education simply because their families just did not have enough money.

Their lives revolved around work, they hardly got to see much of their families. “Very often the children are woken at four in the morning. The children are carried on the backs of the older children asleep to the mill, and they see no more of their parents till they go home at night and are sent to bed.” Richard Oastler, interviewed in 1832.

Children worked as street cleaners, sold products on the streets, worked in the match factory, cotton mills, shipyards, construction sites, chimney sweeping and coal mining. Children were first being employed in cotton mills in the Industrial Revolution.
Child labour was mainly of benefit to factory owners and industrialists, they were able to get a large workforce at a low cost. The working conditions were dangerous where many injuries and even deaths occurred. The child labourers were seen as cheap, unskilled and easily replaced by their employers. There were various factors that served a role in ending child labour, adults were pushing for child labour to come to an end simply because many jobs were taken from them and given to children, along with laws being passed to change child labour. The factory owners just wanted to make a profit, their greed and capitalism put young children under dangerous