Child Labor
Child labor was a crummy piece of the Industrial Revolution.
Working Times.
The children were only issued short breaks when the factory owners gave them permission.
Kids started working at the age of at usually at the least, but if families were poor they would send their children in at the age of five.
Elizabeth Bentley, started at the age of six years old. (Her interview is shown in a later document).
Jobs Issued To Children.
Doctor Turner Thackrah stated that the children were clearly, "almost universally ill-looking, small, sickly, barefoot and ill-clad. Many appeared to be no older than seven."
The Parliamentary Investigation.
On the white paper document labeled, "Child Labor" The investigator asks Bentley when she began working, what her hours were, her business, meal times, if she was beat, and why children would receive punishments.
Her responses, were remarkably disturbing.
Elizabeth Bentley started working at six years old, each day she worked as a "little doffer" (A worker who changes bobbins on frames in the spinner machine) from six in the morning to seven o'clock at night.
Bentley ate one meal a day, or hardly even one. With a low appetite due to the dust, her forty minutes of meal time at noon was put to waste and her food was taken by the over looker who threw it to the pigs.
The over lookers and factory managers would make sure the children were doing their jobs, if they slowed down, were last in doffing, or even made one mistake, they would strap (beat) you. Girls and boys were beat evenly and Elizabeth took they consequence more than once.
More and more interrogations took place for the investigation for Parliament. There were many children that worked in the factories just like Elizabeth. Most of them suffered injuries and deformities caused by machinery accidents.