"I am, Sir,
"Your obedient Servant,
"Kay Clegg.
"John Fielden, Esq., M.P.
"House of Commons, London."
"To the Right Honourable the Lords of His Majesty's Privy Council for Trade, etc., etc.
"The Memorial of the Undersigned Mill-owners, Occupiers of Mills, Master-Spinners, and Manufacturers of the Township of Oldham, in the County of Lancaster.
"Showeth,
"That an Act of Parliament was made and passed in the third and fourth years of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled 'An Act to regulate the labour of children and young persons in the Mills and Factories of the United Kingdom.'
"That the eighth section of the said Act enacts 'That after the expiration of thirty months from the passing of such Act it shall not be lawful for any person whatsoever to employ, keep, or allow to remain, in any factory or mill for a longer period than forty-eight hours in any one week, any child who shall not have completed his or her thirteenth year of age.'
"That the said Act has prohibited the employment of children under twelve years of age for more than nine hours in any one day since the first day of March one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five, and such prohibition has tended greatly to injure the interests both of your Memorialists and the parents of such children, without any advantage resulting to the children themselves.
"That your Memorialists are looking forward with great anxiety and alarm to the situation in which they will be placed on the first day of March next, by the working of children under thirteen years of age being restricted to forty-eight hours in one week, for that such restriction will have the effect of throwing all children under thirteen years of age wholly out of employment, and will render it impossible for your Memorialists to work their respective mills with advantage, in proof whereof your Memorialists confidently appeal to the Factory Inspectors of this district for the truth of their assertion.
"That your Memorialists are far from wishing a total repeal of the provisions of the said Factory Act, but humbly submit that it is absolutely necessary to the carrying on of the cotton trade with advantage, to allow the employment of children of eleven years of age for sixty-nine hours a week.