Britain's Factory Act regulates child labour
- Date
- 1833
- Category
- Social & demographic
- Region
- United Kingdom
- Era
- Modern
- Significance
The Factory Act of 1833, passed by the Whig government, was the first effective British legislation to regulate the conditions of factory labour and a landmark response to the human costs of the new industrial system.
Applying to textile mills, it forbade the employment of children under the age of nine, limited those aged nine to twelve to nine hours a day and those under eighteen to twelve hours, banned night work for children, and required two hours of daily schooling and age certificates. Crucially, it created a small, salaried inspectorate of factories answerable to the Home Office with powers to enter mills and impose penalties, establishing the principle that the state could and would enforce workplace standards. The Act fell short of the ten-hour day that reformers such as Anthony Ashley-Cooper (later Lord Shaftesbury) had campaigned for, but it set decisive precedents for later Factory Acts in 1844, 1847, 1850 and 1853 and for the wider development of labour and social regulation in industrial societies.
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Empires active in 1833
- Russian Empire1721 CE – 1917 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
- French Colonial Empire (Second)1830 CE – 1962 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
Related social & demographic events
- The Great Irish Famine1845–1852
- Emancipation of the serfs in Russia3 March 1861 (19 February O.S.)
- Influenza pandemic of 1918–19201918–1920
- The Holocaust and the 'Final Solution'1941–1945
- Bengal Famine of 19431943–1944
- Indian indenture system begins in Mauritius2 November 1834
Further reading
The wider story
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