Illustration from the Penny Magazine
EVIDENCE ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN
1842
Children's Employment Commission
Appendix to the Second Report of the Commisioners
Trades and Manufactures
Reports and Evidence from Sub-Commissioners
This huge volume of 1842, reproduced as a facsimile copy on CD, is a government publication containing evidence on the employment of children. Evidence is stated by means of interviews with the employers, adult workers and children, relating to the work and life style conditions of the children.
Almost 900 pages of testimonies and interviews, covering various types of factories and work in a wide variety of places in Britain.
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An amazing and fascinating insight into conditions of work and peoples' lifestyle in 1842 in their own words.
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A few extracts from the reports and interviews are transcribed below. There are thousands of such reports in the book.
The book also has a 112 page (double column) index of names.
Sections:
- Reports and evidence on the trades and manufactories in the South of Ireland
- Reports and evidence on the trades and manufactories in the West of Scotland
- Reports and evidence on the trades and manufactories in the East of Scotland
- Report on the Glass Houses, Potteries, Paper Mills and miscellaneous manufactories in Northumberland and in Durham North of the River Wear.
- Reports and evidence on the trades and manufactories in the West and North of Lancashire.
- Reports and evidence on the trades and manufactories in the North of Ireland
- Reports and evidence on the trades and manufactories in South Gloucestershire
- Report and evidence on Potteries in Derbyshire.
- Reports and evidence on the Iron Trades and other manufactures of South Staffordshire and the neighbouring parts of Worcestershire and Shropshire
- Reports and evidence on detached manufactures in Hampshire, Surrey and Kent.
- Reports and evidence on Iron Foundries in the West of England
- Evidence on the manufactures in the North Wales District.
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Illustrations from The Penny Magazine
Illustration from the Penny Magazine 1842
Extract from Messrs. Williams & Jones Tobacco Manufactory, Chester.
Robert Johnson, aged 11.
How long have you been at work?
Two years and a half.
What is your work?
I turn the wheel, and pick and spread the tobacco-leaves.
Do you think it hard work?
Not at all hard.
Is it healthy?
Yes, I have always found it so. I had some swellings lately about the neck,
but I am much better.
Do you think the work you are engaged in brought them on?
No, I don't think so.
How many hours a-clay do you work?
We go to work at seven a.m. and work till six p.m.
Do you work overtime?
No, never.
Do you go home to dinner?
Yes.
What wages have you?
2s. a-week.
What use do you make of the money?
I give all to my mother for my food, clothing, &c.
Have you sufficient food and good clothes?
We have bread and butter at breakfast, and potatoes and bacon for dinner,
and in the evening we have tea or coffee and bread and butter or we have
bread and milk. I have very poor clothes, scarcely more than what I have
on, except a shirt or two.
Is your father alive?
Yes, he is a skinner.
What wages has he?
I think from 16s. to 18s. a-week.
Were you ever at school?
Yes, at the free-school.
What were you taught there?
I learnt very little there though I was a year at school, and have been a
year at Sunday-school.
Can you read?
No, not yet.
What is taught in the Sunday-school?
Spelling, the Reading Made Easy, and questions on religion.
Is your cottage comfortable?
Yes, I think so.
Have you knives and forks and a table-cloth at dinner?
No, we use a spoon and our fingers.
Is there a clock in the house?
No.
How many beds are there?
Two beds, they are in one room.
Does your father daily say prayers aloud for the family?
Yes, every night before we go to bed.
How do you employ yourself after work?
My father reads when he does not work over-time, and we walk out, if not
kept at home by my father, who gives us a lesson very often.
How do you spend Sunday evening?
We stay at home; my father won't let us play; both he and my mother often
read aloud to us.
Can you read?
No.
Can you spell your name?
No, I can't.
Are you inclined to learn?
Yes, if I had time.
This huge book is full of similar interviews!
Information straight from the mouths of our ancestors.
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Eliza Moran:
I am going on 12 years old; I live with my aunt at Balls-bridge, close by the factory; I have been working in this factory about 12 months; I am employed as a tierer; not always tierer for the same blocker; I have to spread colour on a piece of cloth with a brush for the blocker to put her block on, to receive the colour. I have not had anything the matter with me since I have been at work here; I am in good health, I come to work about half-past seven o'clock in the morning; leave at ten o'clock to go to breakfast; we are allowed three- quarters of an hour for breakfast ; we go to dinner at this time of the year about five o'clock, or as it gets dark ; are allowed three-quarters of an hour for dinner. On our return the works are lighted up; I then work till eight o'clock; I am now speaking of this time of the year, the winter. In the summer time I come in the morning at six o'clock, go to breakfast at, half-past eight o'clock; we are allowed three-quarters of an hour for our breakfast; we go to dinner at two o'clock, for which we are allowed three-quarters of an hour; we leave off work at six o'clock.
I like the work I am employed at: I do not get tired before night. I have a good appetite for my meals: I get bread and butter and tea or milk for breakfast, and potatoes and milk for my dinner - about twice a-week, sometimes three times a-week, I get meat for my dinner - bacon, or bullock's head, or pig's cheek; I get potatoes or bread for my supper, sometimes milk and sometimes tea; I go home always to my meals - we all do. Sometimes I have been kept as late as twelve o'clock at night: this is when the work is to be done in a hurry; I have not been kept beyond eight o'clock but once, that I recollect, since I have been in this factory.
I am never employed at any other work in the works but "tiering", and never have been. There is no machinery where I work, or any of the children; I do not change my dress; I sometimes wash my face and hands before leaving the works, and some- times wash them at home; there is no separate place in the works for either washing or changing clothes; there are very few who change my part of their dress but the pinafore. I work in the pinafore I have now on, and have done so since Monday morning. The room we work in is generally about the same heat it is to-day, that heat is required for the works we are employed on; I have no fault to find with the heat, it is not too hot; I do not mind the smell of the work, now that I am used to it. At the work I and all the children are employed at tiering, we can sometimes sit, stand, and kneel. I have never any pains in my legs or body from my work, there is no time allowed for play or recreation; we have only Sundays, Christmas Day, and Good Friday for Holidays.
We are not very busy just now, and several of us have nothing to do; we are allowed to wait in the work-rooms, but not to leave the works. I have not been at work to-day; there are several of the children who hare not been at work. Mr. Downey, the foreman, hires us; we do not get work every day; it is only when we work we get paid. Mr. Downey gives the money to the blockers, who pay us. In the winter time I get 1s. 7d. per week, in the summer 2s., if we have full work, and are every day employed, I take my money to my aunt, and give it to her; I get paid by the day- all the tierers get paid by the day, and are always paid by the blockers for whom we tier ; I get paid in money, and so do all the children. Mr. Downey, the foreman, makes out the lists of what is to be paid to the blockers and to the tierers also. I do'not get any reward for any exertion, nor do I get beaten- it is not allowed for the blockers to beat us; as tierer I am entirely under the control of the blocker I tier for; nobody but my mistress, as the blocker for whom we tier is called, interferes with me.
I attend the Sunday-school at Sandy mount; I go to mass early in the morning, and go to school at 12 o'clock, and remain till three: I then learn to read and write; I do not go to any other school, I am glad to go to bed when I get home at night, after I have had my supper. I like Mr. Duffy, he is very kind to us all; I have no fault to find with Mr. Downey or any of the overseers. Mr. Downey, the foreman, is a very kind man to us. I am in very good health, the work does not do me any harm: it is not hard work; I have not any fault to find with the time I am employed; I have never been employed at night-work, but we are sometimes kept an hour or two longer at night, when there is a press of work. Fires are kept in the work rooms in summer as well as winter; I do not make any change in my dress either winter or summer. Just now work is rather slack; I only got one shilling last week.
Illustration from The Penny Magazine
Illustrations from the Penny Magazine
Did your ancestor work in a factory?
Put meat on the bare bones of your family history by understanding how they
lived and worked.
Perran Foundy, Cornwall
William Henry Opie. 13 years old, examined August 21, 1841
Is employed moulding. He has been here about 12 months; always at the same work. Was before that employed at a small foundy in Truro for five or six years. His work was the same as now, "making cores". He suffered from headache at that time, which often kept him from work. Since he has lived in the country he has been free from this. He was at the free-school (national) at Truro for a short time before he went to work. He has fogotten what he learned. Cannot read.
[This employment, "making cores" consists in mixing equably, and forming, by the aid wooden moulds, into definite shapes, a wetted mixture of a particular sand and cinder. These shapes, being subsequently hardened by heat, are placed so as to act as "cores" or centres, around which the melted metail becomes fixed in the required concave form. The bench on which the moulding of the "core" is performed is placed under sufficient shelter, but little, if at all, exposed to the influence of the furnaces or liquid metal.]
All illustrations on this page are from The Penny Magazine, available on CD from Archive CD Books, for the years 1832 to 1844 in separate volumes.