Living Conditions During The Industrial Revolution
The industrial revolution brought about significantly social changes in Britain. It is obvious that a class of industrialists, ship owners, merchants accumulated great weath. However, many researchers devoted their time in investigating the effects to ordinary people. According to a post of Nardinelli (n.d), there was an argument on the time when living condition were improved. “The pessimists claim no marked improvement in standards of living until the 1840s or 1850s. Most optimists, by contrast, believe that living standards were rising by the 1810s or 1820s, or even earlier.” No matter stance was correct, the labourers used to live in low condition. In The Condition of the Working Class in England Engels, Friedrich (1892). The Condition
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A typical shift lasted 12-16 hours. They were easily fired if they complained, got sick, got hurt and could no longer to work. Lives were so tough that a third of poor familly was without a male breadwinner, either as a result of death or desertion.
2.1 Children labour
With the mechanisation, the traditional cottage industries lost their position and many people became unemployed. Consequently, more and more poverty-stricken workers moved to cities and they often brought their family with them including their children. In such wretched circumstances, a child’s penny can help their parents with a small loaf of bread or fuel for fire. Some even, because of grinding poverty, sold their children to masters as “pauper apprentices”. Children were so badly treated that some were injured or even died. On her article on Daily Mail, Venning said that
“Some were shackled to prevent them escaping, with 'irons riveted on their ankles, and reaching by long links and rings up to the hips, and in these they were compelled to walk to and fro from the mill to work and to sleep'… Many child scavengers lost limbs or hands, crushed in the machinery; some were even
A typical shift lasted 12-16 hours. They were easily fired if they complained, got sick, got hurt and could no longer to work. Lives were so tough that a third of poor familly was without a male breadwinner, either as a result of death or desertion.
2.1 Children labour
With the mechanisation, the traditional cottage industries lost their position and many people became unemployed. Consequently, more and more poverty-stricken workers moved to cities and they often brought their family with them including their children. In such wretched circumstances, a child’s penny can help their parents with a small loaf of bread or fuel for fire. Some even, because of grinding poverty, sold their children to masters as “pauper apprentices”. Children were so badly treated that some were injured or even died. On her article on Daily Mail, Venning said that
“Some were shackled to prevent them escaping, with 'irons riveted on their ankles, and reaching by long links and rings up to the hips, and in these they were compelled to walk to and fro from the mill to work and to sleep'… Many child scavengers lost limbs or hands, crushed in the machinery; some were even