Health & Safety Learning Journey
During the early years of the Industrial Revolution little heed was paid to health and safety within the working environment. Erecting safety fences, stopping machinery for cleaning, regulating temperatures in the work place, providing sanitation facilities and drinking water, allowing employees adequate breaks and time off, all cost money and received scant attention in an age when large profits were of foremost concern and working people were of little consequence.
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Health & Safety Learning Journey Step 5: Reducing working hours
The Factory Act of 1844 (Labour in Factories) laid down a maximum of twelve hours per day for working women and young people (aged 13-18). The minimum employment age was lowered to eight, but children under thirteen were limited to working 6½ hours per day and for this reason the Act became known as the 'half-time' Act.The Act also broke new ground because for the first time machinery was officially required to be guarded. Reformers however were still pressing for a maximum ten hour day for women and young people (aged 13-18). This aim was finally achieved in 1847 and it is the reason why the Factory Act 1847 became known as the Ten-Hours Bill. John Fielden, M.P. for Oldham and a mill-owner, but a social reformer and a man of integrity, received much of the credit when the Ten-Hours Bill became law. His book, 'The Curse of the Factory System' , published in 1836, highlighted the suffering of the factory children and the cruelties inflicted on them, and did much to sway public opinion. The main clause of the Ten-Hours Bill was that women and young people could work no more than ten hours a day, or fifty eight hours in any one week, in the textile factories. Subsequently, the 1850 Factory Act also banned night working for these two groups, but raised the basic ten hour day to ten and a half hours and the basic week to 60 hours. However, the 1874 Factory Act reduced the working day for women and young people to ten hours once again; reduced their working week to 56½ hours; and raised the minimum employment age to nine. Read 'The Curse of the Factory System' (John Fielden, 1836) on this web site |
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