sadler report: Child Labor

An essay i wrote, tell me what you think

The term "child labor" means children who work to produce a good or a service which can be sold for money in the marketplace despite the consequences of whether or not they are paid for their work. A "child" is usually defined as a person who is reliant upon other individuals, parents, relatives, or government officials for his or her livelihood. The exact ages of "childhood" vary by country and time period. Child Labor involved thousands of children in England to be employed in textile factories, workshops, and mines, usually working long hours for very low wages. Yet child labor did not begin with the arrival of the industrial revolution. The young had always worked beside their parents in the home, in the field, and as apprentices in skilled and semi-skilled trades, but the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries saw a severe transform in the form of labor children performed. Increases in employed children were push into treacherous and unhealthy situations within the adult working world, prompting reformers to call for legislative change. And in turn, became an issue to be acknowledged.

A transformation was spreading through Europe from England; the transformation was the Industrial Revolution and with it came a depression of the living standards of workers. Yet society wanted to ignore the poverty and misery of workers, wanting them to be spread about the countryside, yet as they began to live in the horrific Midlands industrial centers, society was made to opened its eyes to the conditions of the people.

Earl of Shaftesbury, the seventh English reformer was the first and most prominent on concentrating on the working conditions in factories and textiles. Yet another reformer Michael Sadler became increasingly worried about the suffering of the poor, and focusing his attention on the regulation of the working in factories but instead more on the regulation of the working condition of children in textiles mills. Sadler spoke about living "In a society which persons enjoyed unequal measures of economic freedom, it was not true that the individual pursuit of self-interest would necessarily lead to collective well-being." He added that "individual effort needed to be restrained and guided by the conscience of the community acting through the organization of the state." In time Sadler introduced a Bill of Parliament in 1831. As a chairman he referred the bill to a committee, the committee wanted evidence so they had testimonies from those that experienced the hardship of working as a child. Hundreds of testimonies were heard. A better understanding was conceived through hearing the testimonies of so many people.

Within the document two men in particular testify, one spoke of his childhood in the mills, and another the overseer and disciplinarian for the children within the mill he work within. The first a man of twenty two years, Mr. Matthew Crabtree remembers he was eight when he first was employed at the mill as a piercener a job that involves speed, and concentration, even through the fourteen hours day, sometimes sixteen hours when trade was brisk, this days starting at five o'clock in the morning with only an hour at noon to eat and rest. Even with these long days, wages were not at what they should have been, Crabtree confessed his wage was three shillings a week which meant half a penny a day. He recalled sever beatings if anyone came in late or to those who couldn't keep up with their work, even if they were exhausted. A place in which you never had a moment when you didn't hear a child crying.

The second man to testify was forty-eight year old, Thomas Bennett, his job a slubber, a disciplinary figure, and was familiar with the working of children in factories, as he had done so for twenty-seven years. Strange as it is, he had a family of eight children, all of whom had gone to work in factories, the first at the age of six, two of which were working under him. Being a slubber had its advantages, having two hours for breakfast and for dinner, while the children did not, for they had cleaning and work to do. At the end of the day he speaks of how his own children would come home and drop to sleep without food, and when they are given food and sent to bed, he would sometimes find the food next to them untouched. Bennett confessed that English children were enslaved worse than the Africans. He also confessed of an accident that involved a girl, in the evening part of a machine caught her when she was drowsy and asleep, the strap that ran close by her caught her at her middle and bore her to the ceiling, and then dropped her down and her neck appeared broken. Laying there another slubber ran up to her and pulled her neck, and Bennett carried her to the doctors. In the end she was okay.

Both men were asked what they thought the effect would be if there was a proper limitation to how many hours a child could work. The point of view from a man who as a child worked in the mill and dealt with the cruelties of it, said he would rather have lesser hours and receive less pay, then to have so many hours and be paid more. Yet both men agreed that if there was a limitation of hours given to a child that it would give children the opportunity to be happy, and to also have the time to go to school. Bennett the one to regret to not letting his children go to school.

This document shows the integrity of a man, Michael Sadler, who took the time to actually pay attention to the way children in his society were being treated within the places that they worked. He produced a Bill of Parliament that he thought would help working children by regulating and limiting the hours that they worked. For Sadler and his committee to actually listen to testimonies of hundreds of people, to completely understand the conditions of what life is like working in factories and mills. Through questions from the committee of two men, gave an insight to exactly what it was like for one man who started working at the young age of eight and of a man who was the one to be the person in charge and how they both preceded how life was like in the factories. Both thinking that Sadler's idea's in the Bill of Parliament would be a good thing to happen within factories and the lives of children.

Through reading this document, I have a better understanding of exactly what people of the past had to deal with. Poverty I can recognize as a lifestyle no one wanted to live with or even to acknowledge within their society. Child labor although cruel was an income to help out families, even if it was a small amount, anything helped. History is what creates the ideals of the future, for example women suffrage benefited the future by resulting in the success of making women and men have equal rights. As Michael Sadler fought to make the lives of children better, through regulating the conditions of children working in factories and mills.

Reading over the testimonies of the two men, Matthew Crabtree and Thomas Bennett, I found Matthew's testimony to be quite moving, opening my eyes to appreciate how the world today has changed since then. Children should have never been pushed to actually have to work in mills, especially at the ages that were mentioned. Reading about what children had to go through, childhood was not an option for them; it was just a fragment of their imagination. The pressure that they had to face, with waking up so early to have the time to at least have breakfast and then to race to work so they didn't get beat for being late, working fourteen to sixteen hours a day with only an hour for rest, not even adults today have to work that many hours for only a half a penny a day, so how these children did it, I will never know.

What angered me the most was Thomas Bennett's testimony, even with working with children in factories for twenty seven years, and knowing the conditions, he still let all his children work in factories as well, of witnessing his children go through the harsh life style of waking up in the wee hours of the day and hearing their cries as they woke. Watching them work those long hours, living their childhood within the walls of a mill, and fearing that they would be beaten for not working fast enough, all this for such little pay. How does a man live with himself when he beats other men's sons and daughter, as well as beating his own? He to me seemed so dimwitted; his only regret was not being able to give his children the opportunity to better themselves by attending school. Not at all being sorry for being the one to strike fear in the children he disciplined and beat through all the years he was a slubber.

In the end, the eyes of the world remain open to child labor, by setting rules of age when a child can work, and regulating how many hours he or she can work. History yet again has changed the future for the better. Eyes of a man, who saw the suffering of the poor, the torment of child labor, and actually giving his time to listen to those who lived through working those harsh conditions as children, Michael Sadler holds the honor of change and opening the eyes of those who didn't care, or didn't know. To those who stepped up and revealed their stories of their lives, they too changed the mind set of those around them and those to come, as well made the regulations of today possible.