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15 June 1844
This is one of a series of laws intended to improve working conditions. The great and the good who make up the government-appointed commissions of enquiry tend to focus on the plight of women and children, and even then, the interests of the workers are always balanced with those of the factory and mine owners. Under the 1844 Factory Act: • The minimum age for a child worker is eight. (It used to be nine!) • Children 8 to 12 years old can work only 6.5 hours a day. • Adolescents 13 to 18 years old and adult women can work only 12 hours a day. • Dangerous machinery must be fenced off. Reformers – notably the Ten Hours Movement and the Chartists (see 1838 The People's Charter) – press for further changes. They have partial success in 1847 when the Ten Hours Act limits women and the under-18s to a ten-hour working day. In 1850, another Factory Act clamps down on employers who use shifts of children, by stating that all factories must have the same working day, and that women and children can work only between 6 or 7am and 6 or 7pm. It also introduces meal breaks and early closing on Saturdays. These Acts apply only to large textile factories. Workers in trades and small factories continue to be exploited. |
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