The Quaker work ethic and the factories

We are all aware of the stories of the great abolitionists of the early part of the 19 century — who finally forced through the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 and eventually removed the scourge of slavery from the British Empire in the 1840s.

But we are not so familiar with the battle that was going on at home in England. A movement against what was called ‘Yorkshire slavery’ in the factories.

Richard Oastler was the steward of a large estate near Huddlesfield and had been radicalised by the slavery emancipation campaign. When he heard about the conditions in local factories, he was moved to pen a series of long letters to the local newspaper.

On October 16, 1830 the Leeds Mercury carried a letter from Oastler which said

Let truth speak out: appalling as the truth may appear, the fact is true. Thousands of our fellow-creatures and fellow-subjects, both male and female, the inhabitants of Yorkshire towns are at this very moment existing in a state of Slavery more horrid than more horrid than are the victims of that hellish system “Colonial Slavery”.

Thousands of little children, both male and female, but principally female, from seven to fourteen years are daily compelled to labour from six o’clock in the morning until seven in the evening with only — Britons blush whilst you read it — with only thirty minutes for eating and recreation!

Oastler had set in motion the first campaign to limit child working hours in Britain. In the next decades he was to experience personal tragedy which led him to spend time in debtors prison as a bankrupt but he never stopped working to try to limit the most damaging effects of child labour in factories.

The movement was called the Ten Hours campaign and limited children to 12 hour days in factories (with 2 hours break) and eventually led to a fierce battle to become legislation in the Westminster parliament.

It seems more than slightly bizarre to contemplate anyone standing against the idea that children should only work 10 hour days, but there were some. And some of those were from the group we might least expect to stand against factory reform: the Quakers.

John Bright was the son of Lancashire mill-owners who became part of the political class. A long-standing Member of Parliament, a friend of Abe Lincoln, a defender of the American democracy, devout Quaker, rebuker of the hated Corn Laws, protector of religious minorities, abolitionist.

And loud advocate of the rights of factory owners to employ children for long hours in factories.

His strong belief in “laissez faire” economics meant that he could not accept the need for the state to instruct capitalists on how to manage their workers.

He liked to point out that however bad the conditions in the cotton factories might be, they were far worse in other industries, particularly agriculture where workers earned half the wages.

“None of the species of work in which children and young people are engaged require constant attention,” wrote the Leeds journalist Edward Bairnes in 1835 “..it is scarcely possible for any employment to be lighter”

John Bright’s argument seemed to be that limiting working hours limited the ability of workers to get the maximum pay that they could, which in turn limited their individual freedom to improve themselves. In his speech in the House of Commons in 1844, Bright tried to show that it was excesses in certain factories which were the problem, rather than child labour itself.

The argument raged on for several years until an Act limiting the hours of women and children was finally voted through in 1847.

…they liked more money, and they would have more comforts — a larger room, a better garden, and a journey by the railroad. They liked money as much as other parties, and they would have it, if it could be obtained by honest industry; and they would consider the House of Parliament their great enemies, if they by the law tied their hands for two hours, and took two hours’ wages from them.

John Bright in the 1847 debate

The Quakers of the mid 19 century had come a long way from their status as social pariahs a few centuries before. Deprived from education and access to high status jobs, families invested their time and money in ‘honest’ employment, which came to fruition as some of the largest and best known industries of the 19 century. They began to have prominent roles in politics and to be seen to engage with some of the great social issues of their time.

Great family dynasties emerged: the Darby ironworkers of Coalbrookedale, the Pease railway works of Darlington. Shoes, banking, chemicals, food, tea merchants. All had their Quaker industrialist empires.

Non-conformists, in particular the Quakers, had prominent roles in the movement to abolish slavery and have a reputation as builders of socially responsible business. But perhaps this reputation is unwarranted at some level. It is true that the Quaker Cadbury family built a model village at Bournville, but Fort Sunlight was the idea of the Congregationalist Lever family and Josiah Wedgwood was a Unitarian.

Unlike some of the other non-conformists, at least some of the Quaker industrialists opposed government enforced protections for workers.

Of course, we should not try to judge the people of the past by the standards of today, but there remains a bad taste in the mouth that those who worked so hard for change overseas could be so blind to the ethical problems with the things that were happening at home.

Additional sources:

Edwin B. Bronner (1949) John Bright and the Factory Acts: Humanitarianism vs Laissez Faire Bulletin of Friends Historical Association
Vol. 38

B L Hutchins and A Harrison (1911) A History of Factory Legislation PS King & Son

Edward Baines (1835) History of Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain Fisher, Fisher and Jackson