LibGuides: Research Guide : The Making of the Modern World [1750-1914]: Experience for groups during the Industrial Revolution

The Life of the Industrial Worker in 19C England

The Life of the Industrial Worker in Ninteenth-Century England — Evidence Given Before the Sadler Committee (1831-1832)
The following primary source material comes from Readings in European History Since 1814, edited by Jonathan F. Scott and Alexander Baltzly (Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1930.) The headnotes preceeding each sections are by Scott and Baltzly.

“In 1832 Michael Sadler secured a Parliamentary investigation of conditions in the textile factories and he sat as chairman on the committee. The evidence printed here is taken from the large body published in the committee's report and is representative rather than exceptional. It will be observed that the questions are frequently leading; this reflects Sadler's knowledge of the sort of information that the committee were to hear and his purpose of bringing it out. This report stands out as one of three great reports on the life of the industrial class — the two others being that of the Ashley Commission on the mines and report on sanitary problems. The immediate effect of the investigation and the report was the passage of the Act of 1833 limiting hours of employment for women and children in textile work.”

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Contents
* Evidence Given Before the Sadler Committee
* Mr. Cobbett's Discovery
* The Physical Deterioration of the Textile Workers
* A Cotton Manufacturer on Hours of Labor
Opposition to the Chimney Sweepers' Regulation Bill
* The Benefit of the Factory Legislation
* Testimony Gathered by Ashley's Mines Commission
* Chadwick's Report on Sanitary Conditions

Consequences of Unemployment

When workers lost their employment-- which they might do at the end of the job, of the week, of the day or even of the hour — they had nothing to fall back upon except their savings, their friendly society or trade union, their credit with local shopkeepers, their neighbours and friends, the pawnbroker or the Poor Law, which was still the only public provision for what we now call social security. When they grew old or infirm, they were lost unless helped by their children, for effective insurance or private pension schemes covered only a few of them. Nothing is more characteristic of working-class life, and harder for us to imagine today, than this virtually total absence of social security.

Hobsbawm, Eric. Industry and Empire: The Birth of the Industrial Revolution, p. 133.

Source: Victorian Web - The Lack of Social Security in Victorian England