The Industrial Revolution - Working Conditions and Reform

Question 1

What was the Poor Law and what year did it come about?

Answer 1

1834 Poor Law

The government introduced a new Poor Law. This abolished relief and instead said that the poor would now all be put in workhouses.

Question 2

Who was Sir Titus Salt?

Answer 2

He was a good employer and built a new mill on the outskirts of the town of Bradford, where the air was fresh, and working conditions would be more pleasant for his workers.

Question 3

When did Sir Titus Salt live?

Answer 3

Sir Titus Salt lived from 1803 to 1876

Question 4

Describe the working conditions for Sir Titus Salt’s workers.

Answer 4

It was a massive mill with space, light and warmth in his new mill.

The location was superb, in a green and pleasant area and the Mill opened in 1853 on Titus Salts 50th birthday.

Titus Salt created an entire village of houses, park, school, library, recreation and learning institute and outdoor sport facilities.

Question 5

What does “rural” mean?

Answer 5

Countryside

Question 6

What does “urban” mean?

Answer 6

Towns / cities

Question 7

What does “agriculture” mean?

Answer 7

Cultivating the soil, producing crops, and raising livestock

Question 8

What were tenements?

Answer 8

A new kind of cheap housing that was constructed. Here, dozens of families resided under one roof.

Question 9

What is Cholera?

Answer 9

A disease which is caused by bacterial infection of the intestines, and can kill within hours. It spreads through drinking water, which is infected with the bacteria or with sewage.

Question 10

What were workhouses?

Answer 10

Places where poor people who had no job or home lived. They earned their keep by doing jobs in the workhouse.

Question 11

What were slums?

Answer 11

Squalid and overcrowded areas of towns and cities lived in by very poor people.

Question 12

What are entrepreneurs?

Answer 12

These were talented and ambitious people who understood how to turn all these different developments into successful businesses to make money.

Question 13

What are Social Reformers

Answer 13

People who wanted to improve public health, social conditions and the lives of the poor.

Question 14

Name 4 negatives factory conditions during the Industrial Revolution

Answer 14

1. Long working hours
2. Low wages
3. Cruel discipline
4. Fierce system of fines

Question 15

Explain why children might have easily been injured or killed whilst working.

Answer 15

Children worked long hours with poor nutrition so they would have been physically tired. They worked with large, heavy, and dangerous equipment and this caused many accidents, injuring or killing children on the job.

Question 16

What / who were “piecers”?

Answer 16

Small girls worked in mills as ‘piecers’. They mended broken threads.

Question 17

What / who were “scavengers”?

Answer 17

’ Scavengers’ crawled beneath clattering machines to pick up scraps of cotton. They risked getting caught in the machinery, losing hair or arms.

Question 18

What / who were “parish apprentices”?

Answer 18

Parish apprentices were orphans from workhouses in southern England were “apprenticed” to factory owners, supposedly to learn the textiles trade. They worked 12-hour shifts, and slept in barracks attached to the factory in beds just vacated by children about to start the next shift.

Question 19

Name some of the Acts which made a positive difference to workers’ lives.

Answer 19

Health Act
Factory Act
Mines Act
Ten Hour Act

Question 20

How long were typical working hours during the Industrial Revolution?

Answer 20

12-14 hours per day plus working through mealtimes.

In extreme cases it could be up to 18 hours a day.

Question 21

What were wages like for men during the Industrial Revolution? And what were the implications?

Answer 21

Men = 15 shillings (75p) per week;

Boys often lost their jobs when they reached adulthood as it was cheaper to employ women and children.

Question 22

What were wages like for women during the Industrial Revolution?

Answer 22

Women = 7 shillings (35p) per week;

Question 23

What were wages like for children during the Industrial Revolution?

Answer 23

Children = 3 shillings (15p)

Question 24

What was discipline like for child workers during the Industrial Revolution?

Answer 24

• strapping,
• hanging iron weights around children’s necks,
• hanging them from the roof in baskets, nailing children’s ears to the table,
• dowsing them in water butts to keep them awake

Question 25

Describe what workers might be fined for during the Industrial Revolution

Answer 25

• talking or whistling,
• leaving the room without permission,
• having a little dirt on a machine.
• being late

Question 26

What did some unscrupulous Employers do to increase the number of fines given out to workers?

Answer 26

• altered the time on the clocks to make their workers late so they could fine them.
• some employers demanded that their overseers raise a minimum amount each week from fines.

Question 27

How did some unscrupulous Employers manage to pay children nothing or very little?

Answer 27

Orphans were subject to slave-like labour. The factory owners just gave the orphans food, shelter, and clothing.

Question 28

What Act improved working conditions for children?

Answer 28

Factory Act of 1833