10.1.5

Factory Life

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Factory Life

The invention of new and efficient machines led to factories springing up across Britain, in which thousands of workers would produce cotton to be exported. The hours were long and the work was gruelling.

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Urban migration

  • As factories sprang up across Britain, many people flocked from the countryside to the growing cities in search of a stable job.
  • However, the factories were not pleasant places to work.
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Conditions

  • Hours were long, with labourers sometimes working up to fourteen hours a day, six days a week.
  • Pay was minimal, and families depended on their children to work as well, since they needed the extra money.
  • In the cotton mills especially, the cotton fibres and dust from the machines irritated the lungs of factory workers, and even caused lung diseases.
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Rules

  • There were strict rules in the factories, and these were enforced by the factory owner or the foreman.
  • Workers who broke these rules would have their wages cut, or risked being beaten or sacked.
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Children in the factories

  • Children in the factories faced dismal conditions.
  • They were often beaten for not working hard enough, carried out harsh physical labour that their undeveloped bodies were not able to cope with, and risked losing limbs from the moving machinery.
  • From around the 1830s, efforts were made to improve conditions in factories, particularly in regards to children.

Jump to other topics

1The Medieval World: 450-1450 AD

1.1Anglo-Saxon England

1.2The Contest for the English Throne

1.3Conquering the Holy Land, 10-96-1396 AD

1.4King John

1.5The Magna Carta & Parliament

1.6The Black Death

2Worldviews

3The Empire of Mali

4The Renaissance & Reformations, 1500-1598 AD

5The British Empire, 1583-1960 AD

6The Peasants' Revolt

7Religion in the Middle Ages

8Slavery, 1619-1833 AD

9The English Civil War, 1642-1660

10The Industrial Revolution, 1750-1840

11US Independence, 1775-1783

12The French Revolution, 1789-1815

13The British Empire, 1857–1930

14Suffrage

15World War 1, 1914-1918

16The Inter-War Years, 1919-1939

17World War 2, 1939-1945

18The Cold War, 1947-1962

19Civil Rights in the USA, 1954-1975

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