Michael Thomas Sadler
Michael Thomas Sadler M.P. (3 January 1780 – 29 July 1835) brought forward a Bill to regulate the minimum age and maximum working hours of children in the textile industry. No legislation had resulted before the Reform Act passed and in the election which followed Sadler stood for Leeds but failed to be elected. Parliamentary leadership of the factory reform movement passed to Lord Ashley. Publication of the evidence gathered by Sadler's Select Committee had a considerable effect on public opinion.[1]
In January 1832 Sadler introduced his bill to regulate the labour of children and young persons in mills and factories. It prohibited the employment of children under 9, limited those under 18 to ten hours daily work, and banned night work for those under 21. He presented numerous petitions in favour of factory reform, echoing the fervour of Richard Oastler’s campaign in support of the Ten Hours Bill. A select committee was set up under Sadler’s painstaking chairmanship, which met 43 times and heard 87 witnesses.
Sadler told his wife on 17 March:
'I spoke last night and I believe pretty well. Old Mr. Marshall (John Marshall) was under the gallery ... but I made a piece fly at his son Billy [William Marshall] who smiled while I was describing the misery of a factory child. Lord Althorp proposed him on the committee but I said I could not allow it and would divide the House upon it. I said I would not have one factory man upon the list and he yielded. The great physician here Mr. Blundel was under the gallery and said that all I said physiologically was quite correct. The House after all did not like it, I am persuaded; but the country is up, and will not have [children] to be worked 12 hours a day for a cotton lord in the land.'[2]
1835 'THE FACTORY SYSTEM. GLASGOW, SATURDAY.
A public meeting was held last night in this city, of persons employed in the cotton trade, for the purpose of taking into consideration the means of providing against the evils of the existing factory system.
Mr. ALEXANDER CAMPBELL was called to the Chair; and, on taking it, he proceeded to explain the object of the present meeting, which, he said, was not a new one, for the subject had been agitated for many years; and a Session-or two ago a Bill had been passed to meet evils which were complained of in the factory system; but after having been tried both masters and men have found that it has not worked well. It has led to the increase of immorality, and even parents have been found to commit perjury for the purpose of getting their children employed; and it is now admitted that the Bill, as it stands, has failed in its object. Resolutions would be brought forward for the consideration of the meeting, and he trusted that they would be fairly discussed, as it was desirable that an application should be made to Parliament on the subject in the ensuing Session.
Mr. HENRY DUNN then rose to move the first resolution. He commenced by referring to the early state of the system they had still to complain of, and said that when the first Time Bill was passed the factory system had reached to an unparalleled state of oppression. Many present were aware that great cruelties were practised, and it is known that destitute children were brought from London and Dublin and taken into these factories to be used in the most cruel manner, without rest, and without payment or remuneration. Their condition was far worse than that of the African slave, for to them the Sabbath was no day of rest. They had no cessation from toil even upon that day which they were commanded to hold sacred—that day which is a day of rest to the weary, and of reflection to the contemplative—(cheers). And what had been the result of this system? It had been found that of 1,000 persons so compelled to labour, 400 were afflicted with dyspepsia, 250 with diseased limbs, 200 with pains in the side, and 100 were crippled. The system under which these enormities could occur continued till Sir Robert Peel, the father of the present Baronet, brought in his Bill, which was ably supported by Lord Castlereagh and others, and was passed into, law; but it failed of producing much good from some radical defects in its provisions. The time in Sir Robert Peel's Bill I was restricted to 72 hours in the week, and this arrangement continued till Sir John Hobhouse brought in his Bill, when nine hours were taken off the time which had been previously prescribed; but Sir John's Bill failed, also from causes with which the meeting were well acquainted. The next attempt was made by Mr. Sadler; and when he brought in his famous Bill, even Sir John Hobhouse asked him if he wanted to be laughed at by bringing in a Ten Hours' Bill. Mr. Sadler, however, pushed the matter to a Committee, and brought forward such a body of evidence in support of his Bill as had never before been produced. After, however, all his labour, after all the evidence he had given, after the House had had the opinions of medical men, of philanthropists, and of all who were capable of enlightening them upon the subject, Lord Althorp turned round and said that he did not think that such a Bill as had been proposed could ever be brought to work, and the consequence was that the Bill was lost. A dissolution, unfortunately, then took place, and Mr. Sadler did not happen to be returned in the following Parliament. The next Bill may be called Lord Althorp's Bill, and a pretty Bill he made of it. The system of "relays" is one of the worst features in it. In the silk department, two-thirds of those employed are children, and it has been found, on a calculation, that not fewer than 17,000 children would be annually thrown upon society by this relay system, after they had been two or three years employed in the factories. If the factory system was thus to entail such-misery and such immorality, better that it should be abolished altogether—better that men should go back to the feudal systenna.nd depend upon other means for supplying the wants of nature (cheers). Mr. Dunn then referred to the arguments of the political economists upon the danger of foreign competition, and in doing so he read a passage of some length from a publication in opposition to such views. According to this statement, it appeared that Great Britain exports annually 461 millions some hundred thousand yards of cotton, valued at above 11 millions sterling, while France exports but two millions two hundred and forty thousand yards, the, wool to manufacture which is principally drawn from our colonies; and it appeared from a statement by Dr. Bovrring, that in France cotton yarn was from 45 to 75 per cent. dearer than in England, and that the French Government had imposed duties to prevent English yarn from meeting them in the market. From these statements, then, it was evident that foreign competition was all a bugbear, and which Mr. Poulett Thomson, Mr. Fox Maule, and Mr. Joseph Hume, had been in the habit of using as an argument. If these economists had the power, one would not see an idle man in the streets, for all those who had the means would leave the country, and the remainder, like a certain Irish Nobleman's tenants, would die of starvation—(cheers). In France the hours of labour were not anything like what they were here; neither were they so long in America, nor in any other country. Even in Russia, the land of serfs, they had not so severe a period of labour. And yet this was the boasted land of liberty ! This was the country to set his foot upon which instantly made the slave a freeman ; and yet, after all this boasting, he would ask them to tell him of any other country where tender children of nine years of age were so compelled to labour merely to pamper luxury, and to enable a few individuals to accumulate fortunes—(cheers). After some further observations, he concluded by moving the following resolution :—"That the existing law regarding public factories, intoduced by his Majesty's Ministers, to supersede the Act proposed by Lord Ashley, has been, after two years' experience, found altogether unworkable in practice, and alike injurious to the employer and the employed; and that the system of relays is impolitic and vicious, in so far as it will increase the amount of labour in one branch of manufacture, and proportionately reduce the value of labour below the lowest point of comfortable subsistence. And further, as all other regulations proposed or put in practice have hitherto proved defective, there is an absolute necessity for the Government of the country to resolve on some more efficient remedy for the oppressive evils entailed on society by the existing factory system."
This resolution was passed unanimously.
Mr. A. STAVELY rose to move the next resolution, and said that the omission of the clause laying a restriction in the moving power gave opportunities for gross abuse. The kind of materials of which the Bill was composed had made it, what Mr. Hume said it would soon become, a dead letter, and he was confident that the introduction of such a clause as he had referred for restricting the moving power into any new Bill would be of the greatest benefit. After shortly alluding to other objectionable clauses in the existing Bill, Mr. Stavely concluded by moving the following resolution :—" That the principle of the Bill published by Mr. Hindley appears to this meeting as correct, and with a few alterations in the details, such as changing the proposed gradual reductions of the daily hours of labour to a more speedy process, would, if carried into a law, he found fully sufficient to meet the views of all parties without making any violent or hurried change, and giving full time for the capitalist to make his arrangements accordingly."
This resolution was also passed unanimously.
Mr. EDMUND DUNCAN then said that he had to propose the next resolution to their consideration. They wished to obtain the assistance of all the public bodies in accomplishing the object which they had in view, and to seek for that assistance the present resolution pledged the meeting; but certain public individuals, although they seemed to sympathise a great deal with misery that was far removed from their doors, were strangely blind to what was every day passing before their eyes. The suffering of their own countrymen they affected not to know, and this was an anomaly in their conduct which the persons he alluded to could themselves best explain. With respect to the profits of the capitalists, the point principally urged by the economists in the House of Commons, he believed that these people had no objection to any kind of humanity which would aot have the effect of lessening profits. But was such a consideration to stand in the way of bettering the condition of the people ?—(cheers). If the political economists be suffered to deluge the House with their anti-social doctrines, it was time that petitions should be poured in, and that they should be persevering and resolute in seeking for redress—(cheers). Mr. Duncan concluded by proposing the third resolution, which was as follows :—" That all the public bodies in Glasgow and the west of Scotland, as well as trades and districts, be respectfully requested to join in representing to Government the desires of this meeting, as feeling a humane interest in the amelioration in the condition of such an extensive branch of industrious workers, and petition for the adoption of a Bill founded on the principle of the one proposed by Mr. Hindley, and that a deputation be now chosen from this meeting to respectfully wait on the power and band loom weavers in order to solicit their co-operation in petitioning the Legislature on the above subject." -
This resolution was also unanimously agreed to.
An individual, whose name was not distinctly heard, shortly addressed the meeting on the treatment which children were subjected to in many of the factories, and he concluded by moving the following resolution on the subject, which was passed unanimously, viz. :—" That the meeting views with indignation the practices carried on in cotton factories of compelling the children there employed to devote a portion of their time allotted to meals to the cleaning of the machinery, thereby increasing their hours of labour beyond what either law or justice requires, and this meeting considers that immediate steps should be taken for the abolition of such practices."
A Mr. GRANT, from Manchester, was then introduced to the meeting, and after congratulating them on the resolutions which they had passed, he said that the Bill for their relief was in the hands of a great mill-owner, Mr. Hindley, and on this gentleman being applied to as to his views (in consequence of a report, of his being the advocate of 11 hours labour), he declared that he would never cease making every effort for a 10 hours' Bill, and he besought the operatives themselves to join in a united effort to accomplish the measure—(cheers).
A vote of thanks was then passed to Mr. Hindley for his advocacy in Parliament, and thanks were also given to the Chairman; after which the meeting separated.'[3]