Peel and Social Reforms

The Health and Morals of Apprentices Act, 1802

Dealt with only apprentices employed in cotton factories, allowing magistrates to appoint inspectors to check that the apprentice was adequately clothed with sufficient religious knowledge

Report of 1819

In cotton mills 5% of workers were under 10 but 54% were under 19

Census of 1841

• Boys under 20

  • 90 000 in domestic service

  • 196 000 in agriculture

  • 45 000 in mills

• Girls under 20

  • 364 000 in domestic service

  • 62 000 in cotton mills

  • 22 000 in dress making

Why were so many children employed?

• School was not compulsory so children were an economic drain

• Concern of 'child idleness'

Factory Act 1833

• employers had to have an age certificate for child workers

• Children between nine and thirteen years could only work for 9 hours a day

• Children between thirteen and eighteen years could only work for 12 hours

• Children can't work at night

• Two hours schooling mandatory a day for under 13s which employer had to deduct for

• Four factory inspectors were appointed to enforce the law and report to home secretary

The Mine and Collieries Act 1842

Prohibited all underground work for women and girls of all age and boys under 10

The factory Act 1844

• Factory labour was forbidden for kids under 8

• Children between 8 and 13 could work max 6.5 hours a day

• women and kids between 13 and 18 can't work more than 12 hours

• Safety rules concerning the fencing of machinery put in place and kids can't clean moving machinery

• Inspectors had the right to enter factories and schools

• Surgeons were to be appointed to specify the age of the kids

• Parents or guardians had to ensure 3 hours of schooling a day

• Factory owners were to check that certification was taking place and pay the fees for schooling which they deducted from the kids wages

• Inspectors to supervise education provided and ensure it was ok

Who was Edwin Chadwick?

• Trained lawyer, never practiced

• Influential journalist and associate of influential reformer Jeremy Benthan

• Helped to frame the 1833 Factory Act

• Worked on Poor Law Reform

What is a Royal Commission?

• Group of people given the official task of investigating a particular issue in order to write a report

• Royal commission on the Poor Law, 1832

What was the impact of the legislation?

• Movement to enforce a ten-hour day for older children

• In 1844 Peel was insistent that it should not pass until 1847 when it was passed by anti-Peel tories and sympathetic Whig

Earl of Shaftesbury

• Anthony Cooper

• Tory MP from 1826

• Campaigned for the ten-hour maximum factory work day and preventing children from working in mines

  • Mines Act 1842

• Campaigned to reform the lunacy laws

The Madhouses Act & County Asylums Act

1828: Established stronger licensing and inspection regimes for asylums, initiating a shift toward treating the condition rather than punishing the individual.

The Lunacy Act 1845

This was Shaftesbury's most monumental achievement. It mandated that every county in England and Wales construct a public asylum for pauper patients, removing the mentally ill from local gaols.

The Lunacy Commission

Formed under the 1845 Act, this salaried, full-time body included both medical and legal professionals tasked with regular inspections of all asylums. Shaftesbury served as its chairman from its founding until his death in 1885

Why was poor law reform thought necessary?

• Rapid population growth

• Money spent on the poor from local rates had gone from £1.5 million in the 1770s to £8 million in 1818

• Even when bread prices fell, poor relief still costed £7 million

Poor Law Amendment Act

• 1834

• Parishes grouping into poor law unions with elected (by landowners and rate-payers) guardians to deal with the poor

• Guidelines set down for workhouse design - separate accom for men, women, the sick, and children

• Poor children educated and found positions as apprentices to prevent them from being a burden on family and parish

• Poor rates would fall due to adversity to the harsh workhouse conditions that separated families

• By 1836 where had outdoor relief for able-b

By 1836 where had outdoor relief for able-bodied males ended?

• Cambridgeshire

• Sussex

• Hampshire

• Buckinghamshire

• Essex

• Bedfordshire

1844 state of poor relief?

• A general order was sent out banning outdoor poor relief

• It could not be enforced in some areas but by 1839, 95% of all parishes were under the act

Maynooth Grant

• In order to increase catholic support for British rule and reduce repeal support, Peel proposed increasing the grant for Maynooth priest college

• Passed with whig support but this was firmly against the opinion of the strictly protestant tory party and the press who was accusing Peel of doing too much for the Catholics

The potato famine

• 1845

• Peel imported American maize because he didn't want to look like he faltered because of extra-parliamentary pressure from the anti-corn law league - he knew he had to repeal them but wanted better timing

• Between 1845 - 1851, 1 million starved to death and 2 million fled the country