The Burdens of Industrialization on the British Working Class

By Leslie Jacquez

The second industrial revolution led to the modernization of Britain, the creation of a class structure known as the working class and the creation of multiple cities in Britain, where previously it had just been London. Lower class members had a quieter life in the rural areas of Britain with not too demanding employers. However, industrialization drove ahead which led to a doubled population in 1831 and the creation of nine cities by 1851. There were many Irish immigrants coming to work in the factories, which ushered a higher increase of population specifically in the cities. Unfortunately, the glories of the industrialization era in Britain were not seen by the working class. The working class suffered from long and harsh working hours with the majority of those working in the factories being women and children. There were no set protections or limitations set for the working conditions for factory workers until the Factory Act of 1833. Beforehand, there was no governmental concern over the welfare of the working class nor their living conditions. During industrialization the mindset of the British Parliament towards the working class deemed them criminals simply amid their financial status and the dreadful factory and housing conditions that were endured set the precedent for the decades to come.

The harshness of child labor in industrialization had no limits as a consequence the living conditions increased death mortality and decreased the quality of life in children of the working class. On account of the weariness and lack of hours available of the working class parents, children were often “neglected by their parents” which consequently created the system of children raising younger children.^[1] Amid the urgent need for the mother to return to her factory position an infant would be left in the care of a “hireling or neighbor” which would on occasion be a little girl under the age of nine, who was considered too young to work in the factories, and she could even take up to three infants at a time.^[2] Consequently, a child is not an adequate caretaker of an infant leading to “ill-fed, dirty, ill-clothed” infants that would unfortunately not be able to survive their living conditions, which led to “more than one-half of the offspring of the poor” to pass away before their fifth birthday.^[3] James Kay in The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes Employed in the Cotton Manufacture in Manchester emphasized how they were completely innocent victims who could not do anything to help their situation and their parents would have to consistently have to see more than half of their children pass away in early childhood with no option for them to prevent the same cycle from repeating.

Industrialization gave no sympathy nor possibilities for children to live an expected childhood. There was no avail to the children who survived their infancy, they would soon begin working in a factory. The harshness of infancy is described by a poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and she encompasses the reality of child labor including “‘it is good when it happens,’ say the children, ‘that we die before our time!’”^[4] The reality Barrett Browning displayed is that to the children death was more of a comfort than being alive, working. With urgent moral need for reform, The Factory Act of 1833 was passed by parliament. This began the first set of limitations on child labor which included no child workers under the age of nine and would be confirmed with an age certificate, children from the ages of nine to thirteen could work no more than nine hours a day, children from the ages of thirteen to eighteen could work no more than twelve hours a day, children were not allowed to work any night position, and there was a required two hours of schooling for them every day, as well as four factory inspectors to ensure that factory owners enforced the law.^[5] Children would now have the opportunity to read and write which was previously unavailable to them, with hope that with education they could better their economic and social standing.

The hope of a more advantageous and brighter future did not last long for the working class as the reality of the repeated cycle of the British established social class structure was not made to benefit the poor. While the upper and middle class benefited from industrialization the working class sunk into a deeper hole of disparity. The laboring class included many poor immigrants from Ireland, with Irish Catholics being stripped of their land amid their religion by parliament, many escaped to English cities in order to find more working opportunities. Alongside English locals, the industrial revolution surrounded itself in factories and fabricated the “English proletariat.”^[6] Before the mass form of employment produced by factories, there were “old independent small masters” that involved craftsmanship that could allow the individual the possibility of expanding their expertise, but the inability of factory workers being able to raise enough “capital required to start a factory” would lead to the factory worker to “remain a worker for the rest of his life.”^[7] Friedrich Engels emphasizes in The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 how a working class member did not have the financial nor educational means to move into a higher social class, and the knowledge of craftsmanship was taken over by instead being a factory employee. Additionally, the 1834 Poor Law further displayed the mindset and viewpoint the upper British members had on the working class in lieu of their belief that the working class was simply lazy instead of them facing a financial block preventing them from succeeding.

Certain actions were taken towards assisting the lower class like the new Poor Law, which was intended to house all the beggars on the street, reduce the cost of having to provide for the poor, and that the workhouses would encourage poor people to be able to eventually financially support themselves again.^[8] In theory this new law was supposed to teach the working class how working hard will be sufficient to be able to provide for themselves and their families. Moreover, instead the reality of the workhouses were more like slave houses with horrible living conditions, harsh mandatory labor, separation of families by gender, and lack of nutritional meals. Rather than workhouses being viewed as comfort with the knowledge that a family can at least have a roof over their heads if they lose their home, in reality families were terrified of the threat of ending up at a workhouse. The new Poor Law was more of an Anti-Poor Law and gave the impression that the law was intended to punish people for being poor. The new crime of being poor. In The New Poor Law poster of 1837 pictured the reality of living inside a workhouse and the mentality the upper class had towards those in the workhouses, including an elderly man asking for ten minutes to rest but instead a man pulls out a whip as well as threatening and questioning him “what was the poor made for but to work?”^[9] The British class structure is clear from the beginning of industrialization, working class members are preordained to stay a part of the working class and upper class members are preordained to stay part of the upper class.

Moreover, the living condition of the working class is very poor, increasing the spread of diseases with little to no personal time to express their own wants and freedoms. With a “normal working day” being considered around twelve hours which gave factory workers “less than two hours for meals” which would consist of “half an hour for breakfast,” “an hour for dinner,” and around “20 minutes or half an hour off for tea.”^[10] Even with the time set for their meals there is a lack of a proper nutritional meal. For instance, for breakfast the “meal generally consists of tea or coffee,” with dinner at noon “this meal generally consists of boiled potatoes,” however there are those with higher wages that could afford “a few pieces of fried fat bacon,” and lastly once they are off they might have another cup of tea.^[11] Despite their best efforts for proper meals Dr. James Kay observed in his findings that the “quantity consumed by the laboring population is not great.”^[12] In spite of their lack of nutrients the working class still performed and endured harsh working conditions, as well as long working days. Furthermore, outside of working hours factory employees would return to their small houses or apartments usually containing a minimum of two families crowded together, as well as some living in damp cellars where twelve to sixteen people would crowd into one room.^[13] Additionally, with the doubling of population, most working-class households were made back-to-back with no space not even for a privy. The lack of proper sanitation led to an increase in diseases and lack of a hygienic atmosphere. The working class faced long work hours, an innutritious diet, unsanitary living conditions, as well as the emotional toll of dealing with the deaths of more than half of their children. The Reform Bill of 1932 was an attempt but not enough modification for the working class. This all led to the rise of Chartism, which stood for their equal rights as British citizens and parliament representation for the working class. The working class wanted adjustment to their daily lives and the opportunity to be able to escape the harshness of their conditions. Although, with the mindset held by the upper class and parliament it was almost impossible to make dramatic and justified changes.

All in all, Britain’s second industrial revolution did lead to the creation of many new technologies, inventions, factories and cities, but Britain’s working class suffered all the negative repercussions of industrialization. Child labor was unregulated before the Factory Act of 1833 and even following there were still long working hours with a few benefits, but not the full ability to allow those children to be actual children. As well as criminalizing the act of being poor created more rifts and physiological separation between social classes, which fueled revolution in the working class and gave the British parliament no expectation for consideration of the wellbeing of the lower class. Furthermore, this sentiment ignited violence like the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, which as Robert Poole emphasized “was the bloodiest political event of the nineteenth century on English soil” when the English cavalry attacked “17” peaceful protestors who sought “parliamentary reform” killed them and left “over 650 wounded.”^[14] In addition, the working class was never able to rest amid their long working hours and horrible crowded living conditions, that life seemed more like a dreadful repetition of a cycle opposed to actually enjoying and living life. Even with multiple reforms to improve the living and working conditions of the working class, there were minor improvements, but overall continued to be stuck in their social work with little to no opportunity to escape that unfortunately continues to be a dreadful cycle for the British working class in the rest and following century.  

^[1] Kay, James Phillips. The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes Employed in the Cotton Manufacture in Manchester (London: Ridgeway, 1832), 4.

^[2] Kay, 4.

^[3] Kay, 4.

^[4] Barrett Browning, Elizabeth, “The Cry of the Children.” (1843) The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 8th Edition, Volume 2, 1079.

^[5] “1833 Factory Act.” The National Archives, November 10, 2022. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/1833-factory-act/, 2.

^[6] Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. New York: John W. Lovell Company, 1887. [Originally published in 1844], 9. A youthful visitor from Germany who encountered and observed England during the 1840s.

^[7] Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, 9.

^[8] “1834 Poor Law.” The National Archives, March 14, 2023. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/1834-poor-law/, 2.

^[9] “1834 Poor Law,” 16.

^[10] Hopkins, Eric. “Working Hours and Conditions during the Industrial Revolution: A Re-Appraisal.” The Economic History Review 35, no. 1 (1982): 52–66. https://doi.org/10.2307/2595103.

^[11] Kay, The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes Employed in the Cotton Manufacture in Manchester, 2.

^[12] Kay, 2.

^[13] Kay, 3.

^[14] Poole, Robert. “‘By the Law or the Sword’: Peterloo Revisited.” History 91, no. 2 (302) (2006): 254–76. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24427836. Page 255.