The Role Of Child Labor During The Industrial Revolution

During the nineteenth century, Britain underwent a drastic change of technologies, techniques and energy sources, this was known as the Industrial Revolution. However, to power these industries, an increase of child labour was necessary. It may be argued that some children were beneficiaries of the era; however, through an examination of their conditions in both the textile factories and mines, and their quality of city life, it is revealed that the majority were victims. Nevertheless, it may be said that children were protected by reforms, despite the questionable effectiveness of them.
During the Industrial Revolution, textile factories were one of the major industries in the employment of children. Children as young as six worked up to
These laws and acts helped to protect children and improve the conditions they worked at, limiting the amount of hours they could work for, the age they could start working and enforcing some sort of education for these children. In 1833, Althorp`s Factory Act, restricted work for children under nine and working hours were shortened. Night work was disallowed and children required age certificates while, four inspectors were appointed to inspect the factories, some-what protecting children rights (Evans, 2018). However, though these reforms theoretically sound, they were largely ineffective. Many factory owners ignored the laws, continuing to work children for up to fifteen hours; seen in an inspector’s official report (Figure 4). Factory owners would also hide underage children in toilets when factory inspectors visited and many families would produce fake age certificates in order to force their children to work (Bartley, 1987, p. 39-40). A member of the House of Commons once stated, “These children are dressed up to appear much older than they really are; I can mention the names of children who, at eleven years of age, have been certificated as being thirteen years old.” (Simkin, 2015). Additionally, the government followed ‘Laissez-faire’: a policy meaning that the government had no right to interfere with private companies (Smith, 2009, p. 39). Furthermore, much debate occurred over the reforms on child labour, taking up to thirty-three years for reforms to include other industries such as, printing, dyeing, matchmaking and pottery (Bartley, 1987, p.45). It is evident that even though reforms were intended to support child labour, they were not practical and took long times to