Dr. Southwood Smith: A Retrospect

by Gertrude Hill Lewes

One manager says: "I have known the children hide themselves in the wool so that they could not go home when the work was over. I have seen six or eight fetched out of the stove and beat out of the mill."

Another says: "After the children from eight to twelve years old had worked eight or nine hours, they were nearly ready to faint: only kept to their work by being spoken to, or by a little chastisement to make them jump up. I was sometimes obliged to chastise them when they were almost fainting, and it hurt my feelings; then they would spring up and work pretty well for another hour; but the last two or three hours were my hardest work, for they then got so exhausted."

And a third manager says: "I have seen them fall asleep, and they were performing their work with their hands, while they were asleep, after the 'billy' had stopped and their work was over."

Two great objections were made to any legislative limitation of the number of hours of children's labour. One was, that it was impossible to shorten their hours of work without also shortening those of the adults, who could not go on without them; the other, that it was wrong to restrict the liberty of the subject.

The first of these was, truly, a difficulty; but if the evil was so very great, it appeared to my grandfather and those acting with him that some change must be made in the mode of working, rather than overtax the children to this extent. Relays of children must be obtained, or grown-up workers must be substituted as assistants.

With regard to the second objection—that it would be restricting the liberty of private individuals if the law interfered—the Report shows that children, at the age at which they suffered these injuries, were not free agents, but were let out to hire by their parents, by whom their wages were appropriated, and who were easily rendered callous to their children's wrongs by a threat of dismissal, or a bribe of an additional penny an hour of wage. If the law did not step in to protect these unfortunate little ones from parents whose selfishness and ignorance was allowing them to grow up diseased and benighted, where, argues the Report, was their help to come from?

The question as to whether it is right in any instance for the Government to intervene between parent and child, is now practically settled by the many laws and enactments which regulate children's education and hours of labour. But in those days the idea of any restriction of a parent's right over his child excited much opposition. It was regarded by many people as both impracticable and undesirable.

The reformers, however, carried their point and achieved success. That very year the Factory Act passed, and the recommendations of the Report were nearly all embodied in it. No child was allowed to be employed at all under eight years old; children between eight and thirteen were only allowed to work six and a half hours a-day; and all those employed were obliged to attend school for three hours a-day. Inspectors were appointed to see that the provisions of the Act were fully carried out.

Of course there was considerable indignation on the part of the millowners, but many of those who at first objected to the restrictions were afterwards convinced of their utility, and as time passed on this conviction spread amongst all classes and gathered strength.

The only modifications of the Act of 1833 which have been made since, have been mere extensions of its principles. The regulations, which at first applied to cotton, cloth, and silk mills only, have been extended by subsequent Acts to bleaching and dyeing works. Powers have also been given to compel the fencing of machinery, and to enforce other safeguards against injury to the workpeople.