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(Image
awaiting copyright) |
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The
slow and contested rise of the factory
Although
factories were uneven in their hold over manufacturing their rise needs explaining.
The factory was often necessary in order to benefit from new machine technologies
particularly where water or steam power were employed but many early factories
simply gathered workers under one roof without significant change in technology.
This suggests that there were gains to be made from the increased supervision
and disciplining of labour and that factories had organisational advantages
over dispersed forms of manufacture which reduced operating costs improved
information flow, and enabled manufacturers to respond more effectively to
changes in demand.
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Thomas
Rothwell, The Forest Copper Works, Morriston 1791. Source:
Peter Lord: The Visual Culture of Wales: Industrial Society
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Early
steam engines were expensive and unreliable whilst factories and machinery were
a costly and by no means a secure investment given the fierce competition between
manufacturers, cyclical volatility of the economy and high rates of bankruptcy.
It thus paid manufacturers to continue to involve themselves in workshops and
domestic manufacturing throughout the nineteenth century even when they also
ran factories. It was easy to lay off domestic workers or subcontractors in
depressions but once a factory was closed machinery deteriorated, mortgage debts
accumulated and workers got dispersed. Factories were therefore often kept going
through thick and thin leaving domestic workers to face the brunt of depressions.
The spread of factories was also slowed because domestic workers often obstructed
innovation where
it threatened established trades and ways of working. The idea of shifting from
the relative independence of which artisans working in their own homes or workshops
enjoyed, to the disciplined hours and regular pace of work found in factories,
was generally regarded with horror. It is interesting that factory owners often
employed women and children because they had real difficulty recruiting a male
workforce from the ranks of former domestic workers and artisans . |
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Female
and child labour
As
early as 1816 children under 13 made up 13% of the cotton factory workforce.
In Bradford and Halifax worsted mills in 1835 females formed over 60% of the
workforce and in the West Country woollen industry women and children accounted
for 75% of labour. Women in particular were often regarded as having the right
sort of nimble-fingered skills for commercial manufacturing, including factory
work. Often these were skills learned early in home based production. In addition,
early factory employers made use of family hierarchies in the difficult task
of disciplining labour. They did this by employing whole families in a work
group paying only the male head whose responsibility it was to make sure that
all members of the group worked hard. Many technologies including Jacquard
looms (for weaving patterned cloths) were designed and introduced for adults
with child assistants and with the family work group in mind. Women and children
had very
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Factory
Children. Source: George Walker, The Costume of Yorkshire.
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commonly
worked in the pre-industrial economy. Indeed, the notion of childhood and of
children being anything other than small, potentially productive, adults was
much less prevalent than today. Education for children into the early teenswas
not compulsory until the 1874 Education Act and the State was slow to 'protect'
children from work as it was seen as a vital source of family earnings. |
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