Industrial Revolution

• Who built the first factory?


  Richard Arkright
• Why was the first factory built?


  To house his machine - the spinning frame
• Poor children did not go to school  but instead to work. Most would start work at the age of 5.
• Workers worked long hours, with a 12 hour day being common. Sometimes the working day could be as long as 15 hours.
• The air quality was poor due to the dust and pieces of cotton, this made many workers sick.
• Children would have to crawl under machine to collect scraps of cloth, this was very dangerous and could result in loss of limbs
• If you were late to work you were fined 3d
• If you talked, sung, or whistled you were fined 6d
• All breakages came out of workers wages
• A common punishment in the Midlands was to nail an ear to a wooden bench
• In the 1833 factory act, no children under 9 could work in factories
• In the 1833 factory act, children aged 9-13 to work a maximum of 9 hours a day
• In the 1833 factory act, two hours of school per day was compulsory for children
• In the 1833 factory act, 4 factory inspectors appointed to monitor conditions nationally
• By 1844, women allowed to work a maximum of 12 hours a day
• In the 1844 factory act, machines were made safer
• In the 1847 factory act, maximum on 10 hours all all women and workers under the age of 18
• In the 1885 factory act, children under the age of 13 to work a maximum of 30 hours per week
• In the 1878 factory act, no women were to work more than 60 hours a week.
• In the 1878 factory act, no children under 10 were to work.