Factories Act 1847

The Factory Act of 1847, also known as the Ten Hours Act was an United Kingdom Act of Parliament which restricted the working hours of women and young persons (13-18) in textile mills to 10 hours per day. The practicalities of running a textile mill were such that the Act should have effectively set the same limit on the working hours of adult male millworkers, but defective drafting meant that a subsequent Factory Act in 1850 imposing tighter restrictions on the hours within which women and young persons could work was needed to bring this about. With this slight qualification, the Act of 1847 was the culmination of a campaign lasting almost fifteen years to bring in a 'Ten Hours Bill'; a great Radical cause of the period . Richard Oastler was a prominent and early advocate; the most famous Parliamentarian involved was Lord Ashley who campaigned long and tirelessly on the issue (although he was not an MP in the session when the Act was passed), but the eventual success owed much to the mobilisation of support amongst the millworkers by organisers such as John Doherty and sympathetic millowners such as John Fielden, MP who piloted the Act through the Commons. The 1847 Act was passed soon after the fall from power of Sir Robert Peel's Conservative government, but the fiercest opponents of all ten-hour bills were the 'free trade' Liberals such as John Bright; the economic doctrines that led them to object to artificial tariff barriers also led them to object to government restricting the terms on which a man might sell his labour, and to extend that objection to women and young persons.