During the Industrial revolution in England the employment of young children and women for very hard physical labor was a common practice. The jobs were not complicated, but very dangerous. For example, working in a mine was very risky because of explosions and caving that could kill the workers of trap them underground.
Besides, women and children employed as hurries and trappers were obliged to carry very heavy weights, which negatively affected their health. Moreover, the workers of mines often ended up having lung diseases and problems with breathing. One more negative side of this kind of work was the fact that it frequently was very hot in the mines, so the workers had to take off their clothing. As a result naked men and half naked female children ended up working side by side.
Patience Kershaw, a ragged and deplorable looking seventeen year old mine worker said, “sometimes they beat me, if I am not quick enough, with their hands; they strike me upon my back; the boys take liberties with me sometimes they pull me about” (2). A thirty seven year old Betty, a colliery worker also noted that many women had bastards because of the situation in the mines (Harris, 3).
At the same time, in the mills and workhouses young children were exposed to long hours of physically hard labor and experienced severe lack of rest and sleep. They were employed at a very young age. For example, a seven year old child could have fourteen hour shifts six days a week (Hebergham, 3).
After half a year of such work children were starting to have serious health issues such as weakness in their limbs or problems with breathing because of spending all day in hot and humid non-ventilated rooms. Besides, children were physically punished for being drowsy of sleepy at work; this caused more injuries, disabilities and health issues. There also were many cases of children and women beaten to death at work.
In the times of Industrial Revolution there were no regulations considering the laws for employment and labor. As a result, no limitations according to age, gender or health status were created. Besides, the population could not reject the job offers even in cases when they were aware of the dangers and risks. Poor families normally had many members and the payments of two parents were not enough to provide for everyone.
Starvation and poverty pushed all members of the families to seek employments and earn money to be able to feed themselves. Children often started working at the age of eight or even six. Children’s working shifts were as many hours as the ones for adults. Even families where every member had a job were starving because the hard physical labor was a very low paid work. The employers and owners of factories and mines were willing to exhaust all human resources they could get.
Besides, female and adolescent workers were paid less than adult men for being physically weaker and unable to carry out as big amount of work. The procedure of employment was simple – children were brought to a workhouse or a mill, where they were offered a shilling binding money, according to the interview with Sarah, who became a mill worker at the age of eight (Carpenter, 1).
Starving people could not possibly refuse to take the money, and accepting it meant signing the contract and staying at a workhouse for years. For the Victorian era exploitation of child labor was a normal practice, back then no laws or rules as to the rights of workers were established.
Both mills and mines were equally inappropriate workplaces even for adults. As for the child labor, today this practice is forbidden and considered to be illegal. Mills and mines and their exploitation of female and child labor created generations of seriously ill or disabled people. Average life expectancy of such worker was very short. Not many people survived till they were forty years old. Problems with limps, back, lungs and various female diseases were very common.
Besides, since workplaces forced women to work during pregnancies, the mothers-to-be were very likely to miscarry several times through their life. What makes mills a little bit better than mills is the fact that families could stick together and work next to each other in order to protect each other from various risks and dangers, while in the factories and mills children were taken away from their parents and mistreated in many ways without any chance for protection.
Both kinds of jobs were highly harmful for people’s health and both led to victimization of women and children, many of whom were dying or ending up severely injured and incapable of work in the future, which made them useless burdens for their families. The positive side of mine working is that children had a chance to attend Sunday schools, while, mills provided some clothing and food but no education for their young workers.
Works Cited
Carpenter, Sarah. Punishments and Other Experiences in the Early Factories. Interviewed in The Ashton Chronicle, 1849.
Harris, Betty. Two Women Miners. From Great Britain Parliamentary Papers 15, 17 (1842).
Hebergram, Joseph. Punishments and Other Experiences in the Early Factories. Interviewed by Michael Sadler’s Parliamentary Committee, 1832.
Kershaw, Patience. Testimony Gathered by Ashley’s Mines Commission, House of Commons, 1843.