3-071-133 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

A government inspector visiting a factory, 1881. 'The employment of large numbers of young persons, both girls and boys, in the cotton-spinning and calico-weaving establishments of Lancashire, and in the West Riding of Yorkshire, is a peculiar feature of social life. Regulations have been imposed by law...which are stringently enforced by...Government Inspectors, to provide for the proper continuous school-teaching of these children, with a due limitation of their daily working hours, and for the maintenance of healthy and comfortable arrangements in every factory...The most serious drawback...is that the girls, being usually employed from childhood in tending the machines at the factories, at half time, with some hours of daily schooling, have little opportunity of learning household work: and too many of the wives and mothers are likewise tempted, by the earning of good wages, to forsake the proper womanly business of keeping a comfortable home. This is undoubtedly a grave social evil in the factory districts; and we are reminded of it just now by looking at the row of bright little maidens in our Artist's drawing, whose interview with the Government Inspector has been the occasion for our remarks upon a very interesting subject'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.