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The intention of this section is to revise if the wages in the first years in the factories were or were not higher than for the preceding generation of workers. In 1818, according to a newspaper, the men spinners had a net wage of 31s. at least, and the boys and girls at least 17s.Sigue leyendo «5.5. New Wage Conditions in the Factory»

The conditions of housing and sanitation in the towns of Lancashire, particularly Manchester and Liverpool, were bad and very bad. But this does not mean that all the persons in the textile industry in Lancashire, Cheshire, and Derbyshire had horrible housing. There were a large number of mills in the hilly areas with cottages forSigue leyendo «5.4. Life in the Mills outside the Towns»

FACTORIES ACTS REFERRING TO CHILDREN’S EMPLOYMENT Health and Morals of Apprentices Act 1802 Limited working hours for apprentice children in textile mills to 12 hours a day excluding breaks, and prohibited night work for them. But the owners did not apply it to “free” children. Cotton Mills and Factories Act 1819 (only applied to cottonSigue leyendo «5.3. Children’s Employment»

The bad working conditions of the apprentice children in the mills in the Pennines, up to 1800, were described by Dr. Aikin: “The invention and improvements of machines to shorten labour, has had a surprising influence to extend our trade, and also to call in hands from all parts, especially children for the cotton mills.Sigue leyendo «5.2. Working Conditions»

The working hours, for men, women, and children, were very long, from 12 to 15 hours. It appears that in the first years of the factories, the hours were not so long, but were increased starting in about 1815. Anyway, the long hours were part of the “contract”. The tiredness was exacerbated by the factSigue leyendo «5.1. Long Working Hours»

5.1. Long Working Hours https://history.pictures/2020/01/31/5-1-long-working-hours/ 5.2. Working Conditions https://history.pictures/2020/02/03/5-2-working-conditions/ 5.3. Children’s Employment https://history.pictures/2020/02/03/5-3-childrens-employment/ 5.4. Life in the Mills outside the Towns https://history.pictures/2020/02/04/5-4-life-in-the-mills-outside-the-towns/ 5.5. New Wage Conditions in the Factory https://history.pictures/2020/02/04/5-5-new-wage-conditions-in-the-factory/             The earliest existing advertisement of Arkwright for factory workers offers “good wages”: (Derby Mercury, 10th December 1771) We have seen that the people who enteredSigue leyendo «Chapter 5. How was their new Life in the Factory?»

Adam Smith was of the opinion that every working man in Great Britain had enough to live on: “In Great Britain the wages of labour seem, in the present times, to be evidently more than what is precisely necessary to enable the labourer to bring up a family. In order to satisfy ourselves upon thisSigue leyendo «4.4. What were their Monetary Incomes?»

The general idea, that the infant (0-12 months) and child (13-60 months) death rates in England in the Industrial Revolution were much higher than in the preceding decades, is not true. The infant and child death rates were very high in England during the eighteenth century, around 170 / 1000 for infants and around 170Sigue leyendo «4.3. How Long did they Live?»

There is no reason to suppose that the men and women working in the countryside of Lancashire and Yorkshire in the late eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, and who entered the mills in the following years, were poor, hungry, and backward.  Defoe in 1727 gives his impressions of the country districtSigue leyendo «4.2. How did they live?»

Years ago, the general academic position was that these people came from the poorest parts of the countryside, in a number of different and distant counties. This idea has now been discarded, due to a number of small-scale studies of areas which lost people to emigration, and of industrial areas, particularly Lancashire and Yorkshire, asSigue leyendo «4.1. Where did these Persons come from?»