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This assignment seeks to discuss the ideas and attitudes, which encompassed the factory reform movement in 19th century Britain; it will consider among others the position of the political economists, male workers, factory owners and those who would be directly or indirectly effected by any reform.
One of the earliest attempts of factory reform which was aimed primarily at limiting child (pauper) labour especially in the cotton factories was a resolution pasted my magistrates at the Lancaster quarter session of 1794, which said: That it is the Opinion of this Court, that it is highly expedient for the Magistrates in this County, to Refuse their Allowance to all Indentures of Parish Apprentices, who shall be Bound to Owners of Cotton Mills or other Manufactories, in which Children are obliged to Work in the Night or more than Ten hours in a Day. ...
It is reasonably clear from this that even before the passing of the first factory act, that some authorities where trying to protect the young apprentice workers, however it was to be some time before really effective legislation and subsequently reform could be pushed through parliament.
Both the 1802 health and morals of apprentices act and the 1819 factory act failed to provide for adequate inspection and enforcement of the acts and Taylor highlights these inbuilt deficiencies, the most serious of these being that no real inspection provision was put into place. ...
In this early part of the 19th century the social thinking of the ruling class was it has been suggested dominated by three strands being the anti –revolutionary teaching of Burke, second came the Evangelical religion, reaching politics largely through Wilberforce, Feiling suggests that neither of these were as strong a force as that of the economists and further implies that the generation for whom Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus wrote were violently critical and coming out of a tangle of ancient regulation and local ignorance . All their influence was therefore directed to making economic life free, it things where left alone, “natural” they argued rents, interests, profits and wages would find their own level this attitude resulted in the Dominant economic philosophy at this time being that of Laissez-fair, the idea that the state should not interfere with the rights of the individual (things should be left alone) and a number of factory owners allied themselves to this philosophy, which provided a powerful argument.
Approximate Word count = 1951
Approximate Pages = 7.8
(250 words per page double spaced)
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