The picture above are of some textiles I found at home and I decided to connect it to the Factory Act that was introduced in 1883 after Richard Oastler and Michael Sadler witnessed the appalling environment of the textile factories in the UK.
Thousands of factories mushroomed in the United Kingdom as a result of the Industrial Revolution. As it was a relatively new concept at that time, laws were extremely lax which allowed the factory owners to exploit the situation. Child labor was a vital issue during this period as they were no existing laws that protected their rights. For the factory owners, it was a boon as they do not have to pay as much to hire children. This is because the children who were looking for a job were often in desperate need of money to supplement the family income.
Thus, with their naivety, they’re more willing to work for less as long as they secure a job. Things started changing when the public finally noticed the disastrous conditions of these factories. They started campaigning and the Factory Act was consequently introduced. Under this law, children below the age of 9 were not allowed to work while the ones who were eligible were limited to 10 hour workdays.
