Work Conditions and Child Labor in the Nineteenth Century

Work Conditions and Child Labor in the Nineteenth Century

At the beginning of the 1800’s most laborers worked at home. The family functioned together as a working unit for the common good of all its members. Children would stay at home to help until they got married. They usually did not become contributing members until they reached the age of ten. Girls started somewhat earlier because they would be assisting their mothers with the domestic economy(Gaskell, 91).

Agriculture was still the primary employer in England. In 1851 the English estimated that there were about One million people working in agriculture in Britain. This amounted to twenty-eight percent of the countries families were involved in the industry. Early on in the century life for the agricultural laborers was slightly better than their brethren in the emergent factories. However the situation was changing. A Parliamentary report of 1824 put the wages of farm workers at about 3 shillings(s.) a week. By 1840 this had increased to only 8s. to 9s. a week. But this was not much when considering that a half-gallon loaf of bread cost 1s. Ten years later England's economy had shifted from agriculture to industry(Burnett, 31). Men working in factories could make between two to three times more than they could as farm workers.

This change drastically altered English family life and society. Each member of the family would work at a different factory. On top of which they worked long hours. Many workers started their work day at five in the morning and would not return home until seven in the evening. During this time they were allowed two half-hour breaks, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and one hour break for dinner.

Girls no longer could lea...

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... New York: A. M. Kelley, 1969.

Burnett, John. The Annals of Labour: Autobiographies of British Working-class People, 1820-1920. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1974.

Gaskell, Peter. The Manufacturing Population of England: Its Moral, Social, and Physical Conditions, and the Changes which have Arisen from the use of Steam Machinery; with an Examination of Infant Labour. 1833. New York: Arno Press, 1972.

Gavin, Hector. Sanitary Ramblings, being Sketches and Illustrations of Bethnal Green, a Type of the Condition of the Metropolis and other Large Towns. London: Cass, 1971.

Kay-Shuttleworth, James. The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes Employed in the Cotton Manufacture in Manchester. London: Cass, 1970.

Southhall, Humphrey. Unionization. Atlas of Industrializing Britain 1780-1914. Ed. John Langton and R. J. Morris. New York: Methuen, 1986. 189-93.