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Child Labor In The British Industrial Revolution

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In the late Eighteenth century, Great Britain’s shift from an agricultural based economy to one based on industry began the period known as The British Industrial Revolution. With the increase in the population exceeding four million, the small, rural industries were not able to meet the market’s growing demands for the production of textiles and manufactured goods. In an attempt to create more efficient means of production, technologically advanced machines and new energy sources, such as James Hargreaves’ Spinning Jenny and James Watt’s steam engine, were created and placed in urban factories. As these machines required no skill level to operate, countless members of the poorer class, referred to as the working class, moved to urban …show more content…

Although the children in factories would often get injured by the machines, suffer beatings from their overseers and be forced to work as many as sixteen hours per day, employing these children saved them from poorhouses or living a life of crime on the streets. (3) Because it would be inefficient to suddenly ban children from working, activists were successful in getting an act passed that would preserve the children’s health, calling it the Peel’s Factory Act of 1802. This act, which only pertained to the young apprentices working in cotton factories, expressed that working hours were to be changed to 6am to 9am, as opposed to beginning at 5am, and for the first four years of their seven year apprenticeship, their employers were to teach them reading, writing and arithmetic, also referred to as the three R’s. (6) Although the main purpose of this act was aimed towards ending child labor by providing the children with healthier treatment to enable proper mental development, this act was the first to bring the government to look to education as a possible solution. However, along with many angry employers and parents who relied on their children’s incomes to support themselves, the idea of the working class being educated in three subjects did not sit well with many people in The …show more content…

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