Does the information you propose to give come from the manufactory to which it relates?—No manufacturer would give information against himself.
State what you know relative to the number of hours which children and others are employed in their attendance on mills and manufactories?—About a fortnight ago I was in Leeds; and in conversation with Mr. Gott, whose name is well-known to many gentlemen in this room, he stated to me that it was a common practice, when the woollen trade was going on well, to work sixteen hours in the day: I was also informed by Mr. Marshall, who is another principal, and considered a highly respectable manufacturer in Leeds, that it was a common practice to work at flax-mills there sixteen hours a day whenever the trade went well: I was also informed by Mr. Gott, that when the Bill, generally known by the name of Sir Robert Peel's Bill, was brought in last session of Parliament, the night-work at Leeds was put an end to. In Stockport, on Sunday fortnight, I saw a number of small children going to the church; they appeared to me to be going from a Sunday school; the master was with them; I stopped the master, and asked him what he knew of the circumstances of the manufacturers in Stockport; he said he knew a great deal, because he himself had formerly, for many years, been a spinner in those mills; his name is Robert Mayor, of the National School in Stockport; he stated that he was willing to make oath that mills in Stockport, within the last twelve months, had been worked from three and four o'clock in the morning until nine at night, that he himself has frequently worked those hours.
Sir Robert Peel, Bart.
The house in which I have a concern gave employment at one time to near one thousand children of this description. Having other pursuits, it was not often in my power to visit the factories, but whenever such visits were made, I was struck with the uniform appearance of bad health, and, in many cases, stinted growth of the children; the hours of labour were regulated by the interest of the overseer, whose remuneration depending on the quantity of the work done, he was often induced to make the poor children work excessive hours, and to stop their complaints by trifling bribes. Finding our own factories under such management, and learning that the like practices prevailed in other parts of the kingdom where similar machinery was in use, the children being much over-worked, and often little or no regard paid to cleanliness and ventilation in the buildings; having the assistance of Dr. Percival and other eminent medical gentlemen of Manchester, together with some distinguished characters both in and out of Parliament, I brought in a Bill in the Forty-second year of the King, for the regulation of factories containing such parish apprentices. The hours of work allowed by that Bill being fewer in number than those formerly practised, a visible improvement in the health and general appearance of the children soon became evident, and since the complete operation of the Act contagious disorders have rarely occurred.
Diffident of my own abilities to originate legislative measures, I should have contented myself with the one alluded to, had I not perceived, that, owing to the present use of steam power in factories, the Forty-second of the King is likely to become a dead letter. Large buildings are now erected, not only as formerly on the banks of streams, but in the midst of populous towns, and instead of parish apprentices being sought after, the children of the surrounding poor are preferred, whose masters being free from the operation of the former Act of Parliament are subjected to no limitation of time in the prosecution of their business, though children are frequently admitted there to work thirteen to fourteen hours per day, at the tender age of seven years, and even in some cases still younger. I need not ask the Committee to give an opinion of the consequence of such a baneful practice upon the health and well-being of these little creatures, particularly after having heard the sentiments of those eminent medical men who have been examined before us; but I most anxiously press upon the Committee, that unless some parliamentary interference takes place, the benefits of the Apprentice Bill will soon be entirely lost, the practice of employing parish apprentices will cease, their places will be wholly supplied by other children, between whom and their masters no permanent contract is likely to exist, and for whose good treatment there will not be the slightest security. Such indiscriminate and unlimited employment of the poor, consisting of a great proportion of the inhabitants of trading districts, will be attended with effects to the rising generation so serious and alarming, that I cannot contemplate them without dismay, and thus that great effort of British ingenuity, whereby the machinery of our manufactures has been brought to such perfection, instead of being a blessing to the nation, will be converted into the bitterest curse.
Gentlemen, if parish apprentices were formerly deemed worthy of the care of Parliament, I trust you will not withhold from the unprotected children of the present day an equal measure of mercy, as they have no masters who are obliged to support them in sickness or during unfavourable periods of trade.
12.—Change in the Cotton Industry and the Introduction of Power-Loom Weaving [William Radcliffe, The Origin of Power-Loom Weaving, 1828, pp. 9-10, etc.], c. 1785-1807.
The principal estates being gone from the family, my father resorted to the common but never-failing resource for subsistence at that period, viz., the loom for men, and the cards and hand-wheel for women and boys. He married a spinster (in my etymology of the word) and my mother taught me (while too young to weave) to earn my bread by carding and spinning cotton, winding linen or cotton weft for my father and elder brothers at the loom, until I became of sufficient age and strength for my father to put me into a loom. After the practical experience of a few years, any young man who was industrious and careful, might then, from his earnings as a weaver, lay by sufficient to set him up as a manufacturer, and though but few of the great body of weavers had the courage to embark in the attempt, I was one of the few. Availing myself of the improvements that came out while I was in my teens, by the time I was married (at the age of 24, in 1785), with my little savings, and a practical knowledge of every process from the cotton-bag to the piece of cloth, such as carding by hand or by the engine, spinning by the hand-wheel or jenny, winding, warping, sizing, looming the web, and weaving either by hand or fly-shuttle, I was ready to commence business for myself; and by the year 1789, I was well established, and employed many hands both in spinning and weaving, as a master manufacturer.
From 1789 to 1794, my chief business was the sale of muslin warps, sized and ready for the loom (being the first who sold cotton twist in that state, chiefly to Mr. Oldknow, the father of the muslin trade in our country). Some warps I sent to Glasgow and Paisley. I also manufactured a few muslins myself, and had a warehouse in Manchester for my general business.