Why Is It So Difficult To Find Out What Children’S Working Conditions Were Really Like In The 18th And 19th Centuries?

In the 18th and 19th centuries many children worked in various jobs, most of which were dangerous and demanding. Nowadays laws have been put in place to stop this; however, it was not easy to change the laws surrounding children’s working conditions. One group felt strongly that the environment was too hazardous for children and yet the other disagreed. This lead to facts being exaggerated as to fit one side’s point of view and therefore sources can be biased or unreliable. It is hard to tell whether a picture or writing is true but I am carefully going to lead you through a selection of sources taking into account its background information and its content.

One of the many jobs untaken by children in this time period was working in the fields. My first source was painted by an artist called Samuel Bough in the middle of the 19th century. It shows Scottish children and their parents in the fields at harvest time. The day is bright and sunny, the usual weather for July and August. There is plenty of food and crops in a large pile. The people have time to relax and enjoy themselves, some children even flirting together. It is mainly showing adults doing only gentle work and the children talking, sitting and smiling. Altogether the picture reminds me of more of a social gathering than hard work gathering the food. The message the artist wants to give people is that life in the countryside is easy and calming. In the centre of the picture is a huge amount of food which suggests there is always a good harvest and enough food to go around. Everyone is very laid back and has relaxed body language. The majority of people are not doing any work and the main couple at the front immediately catch your eye; I think this was done intentionally so that the first thing you see are two flirty people socializing. A combination of all these points indicate that the artist was trying to show that the countryside is a lovely place to be and you will gain friends and comfort in life there. My second source is a very different view of working in the fields. It was drawn in 1867 and it shows a gang of children hard at work in what looks to be the winter months. The message the artist clearly wants to get across is that life in the countryside was not easy but hard work. The children in the picture have an overseer which could mean that they do not trust the workers and that there are rules. The ground is frozen, so most of their work is going to waste and you can imagine how cold it would be. A child has collapsed and although they are looking over, the other children are not allowed to help. These views of working on the fields are the complete opposite of each other and this is likely to be because they are supporting two different groups point of view.

The development of factories was one of the most important changes that took place between 1750 and 1900. Children were ideal for factory owners as there were a cheap supply of labour. My third source is taken from a book called �The History of Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain’. It was written by Edward Baines and published in 1835. The picture suggests that the mill was a nice place to work by having a spacious and airy room. The workers are only doing gentle labour and are in quality clothes. The workers look healthy and there is no overseer. There is only one child in the picture and they are not doing any harsh work. However, the only reason this picture is so perfect is because it is biased. Edward Baines, the author, was the editor of a newspaper called �The Northern Mercury’ which was read by many northern mill owners. If he would have written that the factories were bad places to work then less people would have joined the mills and it could lead to a government investigation. The mill owners that read the newspaper would not buy it anymore because Baines has potentially damaged their business. This is a clear example of why someone would change the facts and therefore this is a misleading source. My next source is an extract taken from the �Report of the Select Committee of Factory Children’s Labour’ written in 1831- 1832. It is part of an interview with Charles Burns, a 14 year old worker in a Leeds textile mill. Although interviews are particularly useful because they are exactly what the person thinks and are a private account of working in the mills, they can also be slightly unreliable because leading questions may have been asked. The source says how the employees worked long hours in bad conditions that were very unhygienic, some of which could have lead to illnesses such as coughing or spitting blood. There were strict rules that if you failed to stand by meant you received a harsh beating. Even though this is the case, I can immediately see leading questions in this report. The interviewer asks two of these leading questions which are �Did you spoil and wet your clothes constantly?’ and �Had you a cough with inhaling the dust?’ these are