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Child Labour During The Industrial Revolution Essay

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Child Labour During The Industrial Revolution Essay
The experiences of the urban working classes during the industrial revolution were harsh and unforgiving compared to our modern urban lives. People who used to live in serene farms or peaceful towns and were now forced to live in dark and crowded cities to in order to support their own/ family needs. These places are usually filthy and filled with disease-ridden air. Exposure to this kind of environment could cause a poor health conditions for the people who were living in that area especially children. Due to this, many ill people are forced to work when they’re sick, making the diseases easier to spread. To make matters worse, children as young as five were qualified to work in factories. These underage children were usually taken out of …show more content…
Because of this, it was also the first country where the nature of children’s work changed so dramatically that child labour became seen as a social problem and a political issue. Often families were very large and therefore the parents could not support all their children. Child labour is a harmful process. Underage children are forced to work for a very long hour and in terrible conditions. Source A is an extract from the Parliamentary Inquiry into the “State of Child Labor in Manufacturing in the United Kingdom”, 1816. In this source, it is stated that children between the ages 5-8 were mostly found working in a factory, although they are well fed and clothed, this does not stop the children from growing in a non-standard way. Source A also indicates that a shocking number of 500 children were found by Robert Owen, working at the mill. The second source which is Source B is an extract from data provided to both Houses of Parliament regarding children in cotton mills, 1818. This data provide us with information about the average working hours for children. It is stated that “The average working hours per day, during which these children are made to work, is from six o’clock in the morning to eight o’clock at night…”, which is startling considering that these children (commonly ages 5-10) are made to work for 14 hours per day. This could cause them to stop growing properly and stopping them from gaining new knowledge from school or other

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