Children employed as mule scavengers by cotton mills would crawl under machinery to pick up cotton, working 14 hours a day, six days a week. Some lost hands or limbs, others were crushed under the machines, and some were decapitated.

What did children work as during the Industrial Revolution?

During the Industrial Revolution, children – mostly girls as young as ten – were employed by factories to dip matchsticks into poisonous white phosphorus. The phosphorus made it easier to ignite the matchstick.

How many hours did children work in cotton mills?

16 hours
In the 1819 Cotton Mills and Factories Act the law was updated to state that no children under the age of nine were to be employed and that children aged 9–16 years were limited to a maximum day of 16 hours.

How did child labour start in the Industrial Revolution?

The nature of work changed during the Industrial Revolution. New factories, mills and mines opened in Britain and instead of working at home with their families children would be sent out to work. As more of the new workplaces opened and grew bigger they needed more workers, and so started to employ children.

What was the treatment of children working in factories?

Children often had to work under very dangerous conditions. They lost limbs or fingers working on high powered machinery with little training. They worked in mines with bad ventilation and developed lung diseases. Sometimes they worked around dangerous chemicals where they became sick from the fumes.

Why did parents choose to send their kids to work in the cotton cloth factories?

Families, trapped by poverty, were forced to send their children to work in poor conditions for equally poor pay. Many parents were unwilling to allow their children to work in textile factories. To overcome this labour shortage, factory owners had to find other ways of obtaining workers.

How did children work during the Industrial Revolution?

Interesting Facts about Child Labor during the Industrial Revolution Children who worked often received little or no education. Britain passed one of the first child labor laws in 1833. Sometimes children workers were orphans who had little choice but to work for food. Children in the coal mines often worked from 4 am until 5 pm.

What did people eat in the Industrial Revolution?

Our common food was oatcake. It was thick and coarse. This oatcake was put into cans. Boiled milk and water was poured into it. This was our breakfast and supper. Our dinner was potato pie with boiled bacon it, a bit here and a bit there, so thick with fat we could scarce eat it, though we were hungry enough to eat anything.

What kind of food did children eat in textile mills?

We had cheese and brown bread once a year. We were only allowed three meals a day though we got up at five in the morning and worked till nine at night.” In most textile mills the children had to eat their meals while still working. This meant that the food tended to get covered with the dust from the cloth.

What did children eat at Cressbrook Mill in Spartacus?

Sarah Carpenter was a child worker at Cressbrook Mill: “Our common food was oatcake. It was thick and coarse. This oatcake was put into cans. Boiled milk and water was poured into it. This was our breakfast and supper. Our dinner was potato pie with boiled bacon it, a bit here and a bit there, so thick with fat we could scarce eat it,…