Charles Aberdeen first started work in a cotton factory when he was sent to one in Hollywell by the Westminster Workhouse when he was twelve years old. Aberdeen was working in a cotton factory in Salford when he was sacked in April, 1832 for signing a petition in favour of factory reform. Aberdeen was fifty-three when he was interviewed by Michael Sadler and his House of Commons Committee on 7th July, 1832. Question: Does the business of the scavengers demand constant attention, and to be in perpetual motion, and to assume a variety of attitudes, so as to accommodate their business in cleaning the machinery to its motions? Answer: Yes, to go under the machine, whilst it is going. Question: Is it dangerous employment. Answer: Very dangerous when they first come, but they get used to it. Question: Are the hours shorter or longer at present, than when you were apprentice to a cotton mill? Answer: Much the same. Question: Will you inform the committee, whether the labour itself has increased, or other wise? Answer: The labour has increased more than twofold. Question: Explain in what way. Answer: I have done twice the quantity of work that I used to do, for less wages. Machines have been speeded. The exertion of the body is required to follow up the speed of the machine. Question: Has this increased labour any visible effect upon the appearance of the children. Answer: It has a remarkable effect. It causes a paleness. A factory child may be known easily from another child that does not work in a factory. Question: Has it had the effect of shortening their lives? Answer: Yes.
Question: What grounds have you for thinking so. Answer: I have seen men and women that have worked in a factory all their lives, like myself, and that they get married; and I have seen the race become diminutive and small; I have myself had seven children, not one of which survived six weeks; my wife is an emaciated person, like myself, a little woman, and she worked during her childhood, younger than myself, in a factory. Question: What is the common age to which those that have been accustomed from early youth to work in factories survive. Answer: I have known very few that have exceeded me in age. I think that most of them die under forty.
John Allett started working in a textile factory when he was fourteen years old. Allett was fiftythree when he was interviewed by Michael Sadler and his House of Commons Committee on 21st May, 1832. Question: Will you state whether the hours of labour has been increased. Answer: When I went at first to factories, I was at work about eleven hours a day, but over time this has increased to fifteen, sixteen, and sometimes to eighteen hours. I have seen by own children seem quietly lively; but towards the end of the week, they begin to get fatigued. Question: Are they almost continually on their feet? Answer: Always. There can be no rest at all. Question: Were they excessively sleepy? Answer: Very sleepy. In the evening my youngest boy has said, "father, what o'clock is it?" I have said perhaps, "It is seven o'clock." "Oh! is it two hours to nine o'clock?" I cannot bear it; I have thought I had rather almost have seen them starve to death, than to be used in that manner. I have heard him crying out, when getting within a few yards of the door, "Mother, is my supper ready?" and I have seen him, when he was taken from my back, fall asleep before he could get it. Question: When did that child first go to the mill? Answer: Between six and seven years old. Question: Do more accidents take place at the latter end of the day? Answer: I have known more accidents at the beginning of the day than at the later part. I was an eye-witness of one. A child was working wool, that is, to prepare the wool for the machine; but the strap caught him, as he was hardly awake, and it carried him into the machinery; and we found one limb in one place, one in another, and he was cut to bits; his whole body went in, and was mangled.
Elizabeth Bentley was born in Leeds 1809. She began working in a flax mill at the age of six. On 4th June, 1832, Elizabeth was interviewed by Michael Sadler and his House of Commons Committee. She told of how working in the card-room had seriously damaged her health: "It was so dusty, the dust got up my lungs, and the work was so hard. I got so bad in health, that when I pulled the baskets down, I pulled my bones out of their places." Bentley explained that she was now "considerably deformed". She went on to say: "I was about thirteen years old when it began coming, and it has got worse since." Question: What were your hours of labour? Answer: As a child I worked from five in the morning till nine at night. Question: What time was allowed for meals? Answer: We were allowed forty minutes at noon. Question: Had you any time to get breakfast, or drinking? Answer: No, we got it as we could. Question: Did you have time to eat it? Answer: No; we were obliged to leave it or to take it home, and when we did not take it, the overlooker took it, and gave it to the pigs. Question: Suppose you flagged a little, or were late, what would they do? Answer: Strap us. Question: What work did you do? Answer: A weigher in the card-room. Question: How long did you work there? Answer: From half-past five, till eight at night. Question: What is the carding-room like? Answer: Dusty. You cannot see each other for dust.
Question: Did working in the card-room affect your health? Answer: Yes; it was so dusty, the dust got up my lungs, and the work was so hard. I got so bad in health, that when I pulled the baskets down, I pulled my bones out of their places. Question: You are considerably deformed in your person in consequence of this labour? Answer: Yes, I am. Question: At what time did it come on? Answer: I was about thirteen years old when it began coming, and it has got worse since. When my mother died I had to look after myself. Question: Where are you now? Answer: In the poor house. Question: You are utterly incapable of working in the factories? Answer: Yes Question: You were willing to have worked as long as you were able, from your earliest age? Answer: Yes. Question: And you supported your widowed mother as long as you could? Answer: Yes.
Stephen Binns was born in 1792. He began work as a piecener in the local textile mill when he was seven years old. When he was interviewed by Michael Sadler and his House of Commons Committee on 2nd June, 1832, he was working as an overlooker in a factory in Leeds. Binns told the committee that the children were treated better when the factory had visitors: "Yes, and the children have less to do, and the girls wash their faces, and comb their hair, and make themselves look better; and being in their Sunday clothes, they appear to be in more prosperous circumstances then they really are." Question: What is the temperature in the rooms in which hot-water spinning is carried on? Answer: It varies; at the factory where I was employed, it was about 80. Question: Is there any reason why the windows could not be kept open? Answer: Yes; because as soon as the windows are opened the yarn becomes injured, because the temperature of the room is lessened; it cools the water, and the hot water dissolves the gum, and assists the rollers in breaking the flax. Question: What is the temperature of the water? Answer: About 110, sometimes about 120. Question: Have the children to plunge their hands and arms into the water? Answer: Yes, continually. Question: What is the effect of the heat of the rooms, and the water, and the steam? Answer: Their clothes are steamed, as it were, partially wet. Question: Are the children endangered in going out into the street after labour, especially in winter time? Answer: Yes, I should think they would be frozen. Question: What are the hours of labour at Mr. Stirk's factory? Answer: Thirteen hours a day.
Question: Could you keep the children to their work for that length of time without chastisement? Answer: No; it is impossible to get the quantity of work from them without punishment. Question: Was the chastisement inflicted principally at the latter end of the day, when they became weary? Answer: Principally about two or three, or four or five o'clock, and in some degree all the day at times, but more after dinner than any other time. Question: Have the children any opportunity of resting. Answer: It is not allowed in any factory. Whenever I see a seat in our factory, a log of wood, or anything to sit upon, I order it to be taken away immediately. Question: Have you any reason to think that, upon inspections of visitors, the sickly children are kept away? Answer: I have heard say so. Question: Then the difference made in the mill by preparation for visitors is, that matters are made more tidy and clean than usual. Answer: Yes, and the children have less to do, and the girls wash their faces, and comb their hair, and make themselves look better; and being in their Sunday clothes, they appear to be in more prosperous circumstances then they really are.
Hannah Brown was born in Bradford in 1809. Hannah was interviewed by Michael Sadler and House of Commons Committee on 13th June, 1832. Question: How early did you begin to work in mills? Answer: At nine years old. Question: What hours did you work? Answer: I began at six o'clock, and worked till nine at night. Question: What time was allowed for your meals? Answer: No, none at all. Question: Did this work affect your limbs? Answer: Yes, I felt a great deal of pain in my legs. Question: Did it begin to produce deformity in any of your limbs? Answer: Yes; both my knees are rather turned in. Question: Was there punishment? Answer: Yes Question: Has Mr. Ackroyd ever chastised you in any way? Answer: Yes; he has taken hold of my hair and my ear, and pulled me, and just given me a bit of a shock, more than once. Question: Did you ever see him adopt similar treatment towards any others? Answer Yes: I have seen him pull a relation of mine about by the hair. Question: Do you mean he dragged her? Answer: Yes, about three or four yards.
Matthew Crabtree was born in Dewsbury in 1810. Matthew was interviewed by Michael Sadler and his House of Commons Committee on 18th May, 1832. Question: At what age did you first go to work in a factory? Answer: Eight. Question: Will you state the hours of labour? Answer: From six in the morning to eight at night. Question: Will you state the effect that those long hours had upon the state of your health? Answer: I was very much fatigued at night when I left my work; so much so, that I sometimes could have slept as I walked, if I had not stumbled and started awake again; and so sick that I could not eat, and what I did eat I vomited. Question: What work did you do? Answer: I was a piecener. Question: Will you state to this committee whether piecening is a very laborious employment for children? Answer: It is very laborious employment; pieceners are continually running to and fro, and on their feet the whole day. It is commonly very difficult to keep up with the work. Question: State the condition of the children towards the latter part of the day. Answer: Towards the close of the day, when they come to be more fatigued, they cannot keep up very well and they are beaten to spur them on. Question: What were you beaten with? Answer: A strap. Question: Anything else? Answer: Yes, a stick sometimes: and there is a kind of roller, which runs on the top of the machine.
Question: What is the effect of the piecening upon the hands? Answer: It makes them bleed' the skin is completely rubbed off, and in that case they bleed perhaps in a dozen parts. Question: Do you take your food to the mill? Answer: Yes. It was frequently covered by flues from the wool; and in that case they had to be blown off with the mouth, and picked off with the fingers, before it could be eaten. Question: Did you attend the Sunday School? Answer: Not very frequently. I very often slept till it was too late for school-time, or for divine worship; and the rest of the day I spent on walking out and taking the fresh air. Question: How many grown-up females had you in the mill? Answer: Perhaps there might be thirty-four or so that worked in the mill. Question: How many of those had illegitimate children? Answer: A great many of them; eighteen or nineteen of them, I think. Question: Did they generally marry the men by whom they had children? Answer: No. Question: Is it your opinion that those who have the charge of mills very often avail themselves of the opportunity they have to debauch the young women? Answer: No, not generally; most of the improper conduct takes place among the younger people that work in the mill.
Eliza Marshall was born in Doncaster in 1815. At the age of nine her family moved to Leeds where she found work at a local textile factory. Eliza was interviewed by Michael Sadler and his House of Commons Committee on 26th May, 1832. Question: What was your hours of work? Answer: When I first went to the mill we worked for six in the morning till seven in the evening. After a time we began at five in the morning, and worked till ten at night. Question: Were you very much fatigued by that length of labour? Answer: Yes. Question: Did they beat you? Answer: When I was younger they used to do it often. Question: Did the labour affect your limbs? Answer: Yes, when we worked over-hours I was worse by a great deal; I had stuff to rub my knees; and I used to rub my joints a quarter of an hour, and sometimes an hour or two. Question: Were you straight before that? Answer: Yes, I was; my master knows that well enough; and when I have asked for my wages, he said that I could not run about as I had been used to do. Question: Are you crooked now? Answer: Yes, I have an iron on my leg; my knee is contracted. Question: Have the surgeons in the Infirmary told you by what your deformity was occasioned? Answer: Yes, one of them said it was by standing; the marrow is dried out of the bone, so that there is no natural strength in it. Question: You were quite straight till you had to labour so long in those mills? Answer: Yes, I was as straight as any one.
Joseph Hebergam was born in Huddersfield in 1815. Joseph was interviewed by Michael Sadler and his House of Commons Committee on 1st June, 1832. Question: At what age did you start work? Answer: Seven years of age. Question: At whose mill? Answer: George Addison's Bradley Mill, near Huddersfield. Question: What were your hours of labour? Answer: From five in the morning till eight at night. Question: What intervals had you for refreshment? Answer: Thirty minutes at noon. Question: Had you no time for breakfast or refreshment in the afternoon? Answer: No, not one minute; we had to eat our meals as we could, standing or otherwise. Question: You had fourteen and a half hours of actual labour, at seven years of age? Answer: Yes. Question: Did you become very drowsy and sleepy towards the end of the day? Answer: Yes; that began about three o'clock; and grew worse and worse, and it came to be very bad towards six and seven. Question: How long was it before the labour took effect on your health? Answer: Half a year. Question: How did it affect your limbs? Answer: When I worked about half a year a weakness fell into my knees and ankles: it continued, and it got worse and worse.
Question: How far did you live from the mill? Answer: A good mile. Question: Was it painful for you to move? Answer: Yes, in the morning I could scarcely walk, and my brother and sister used, out of kindness, to take me under each arm, and run with me to the mill, and my legs dragged on the ground; in consequence of the pain I could not walk. Question: Were you sometimes late? Answer: Yes, and if we were five minutes too late, the overlooker would take a strap, and beat us till we were black and blue. Question: When did your brother start working in the mill? Answer: John was seven. Question: Where is your brother John Working now? Answer: He died three years ago. Question: What age was he when he died? Answer: Sixteen years and eight months. Question: What was his death attributed to? Answer: He died from a spinal affection after working long hours in the factory? Question: Did his medical attendants state that the spinal affection was owing to his having been so over-laboured at the mill? Answer: Yes. Question: Have you found that, on the whole, you have been rendered ill, deformed and miserable, by the factory system? Answer: Yes. If I had a thousand pounds, I would give them to have the use of my limbs again.