Factory Act limits child labor

The Factory Act of 1833, also called Althorp's Act, applied to cotton, wool, linen and other textile mills in Britain, with silk mills largely excepted. Children under nine could no longer be employed. Those aged nine to thirteen were limited to nine hours a day and 48 hours a week, and teenagers aged thirteen to eighteen to twelve hours a day. Night work for anyone under eighteen was banned, and children had to receive two hours of schooling a day. Most importantly, the Act created four paid inspectors who could enter mills, with the power to enforce it.¹²

Britain's factory system, which began with Arkwright's water-powered mills (1769) and spread across the north of England, depended on cheap child labor, with many children working twelve to sixteen hours a day. Earlier laws, such as the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act (1802) and an 1819 cotton mill law, had been ignored because nobody was appointed to enforce them. Reformers such as Richard Oastler, the Tory 'Factory King', and Michael Sadler, whose 1832 parliamentary committee hearings recorded harrowing testimony from child workers, stirred public opinion. Mill owners argued that shorter hours would ruin their profits, and the Act was a compromise.¹

The 1833 Act was limited, and it covered only textiles, but the inspectorate was the key: inspectors reported on abuses and pushed for stronger laws. Later Factory Acts followed in 1844, which reduced children's hours and regulated machinery, and in 1847, the Ten Hours Act, which limited women and teenagers to ten hours. Over the century, the reach of the law grew from textile mills to mines (1842), workshops and eventually all industries. Britain's example was followed by other industrializing countries, and the principle that the state may regulate working conditions for children and others became settled.²