A Pilgrimage of Mercy
Yorkshire’s fight for the rights of factory children in Victorian England.
The year is 1832. England’s industrial revolution is in full swing, and Yorkshire is populated by dozens of textile factories. Workforces included children as young as seven, working as much as 16 hours a day. The government had passed several factory acts attempting to regulate conditions, but they didn’t mandate inspections and were unenforceable.
Protests against these abusive conditions were brewing amongst workers across Yorkshire, eventually reaching the ears of agricultural estate manager Richard Oastler. The march he lead would be historic - and would crown him the Factory King. Explore the Pilgrimage of Mercy below!
Factory Children
The first legislation regulating child labour in England was introduced in 1802. The following two decades saw four more. By 1832, factories could only legally employ children between 9 and 16 for 12 hours a day at maximum. No one was checking these rules were being followed, however - so they were ignored. The situation was worsened by recent technological advances, which necessitated more child workers than before. Richard Robert’s 1825 automatic spinning mule, for example, needed 9 child workers for every one adult.
Conditions for these newly-employed children were dire. One father, interviewed in 1832 by a committee investigating working conditions for children, had three working daughters. The youngest started working when she was seven, and all three worked up to 19 hours a day. They slept and ate for four hours, then returned to work. Their pay? Just 3 shillings a week - roughly equivalent to £13 in today’s money.
Thousands of little children… from seven to fourteen years of age, are daily compelled to labour from six o'clock in the morning to seven in the evening, with only – Britons, blush while you read it. – [...] thirty minutes allowed for eating and recreation. Poor infants… feel and mourn that ye are slaves.
Richard Oastler, 'Yorkshire Slavery' (Leeds Mercury, 1830)
Richard Oastler
Onto this fraught scene strode Richard Oastler. Born in 1789 to linen merchants, he grew to be a man of contradictions. He was a staunch ‘Church and King’ Tory - but a life-long abolitionist dedicated to anti-slavery activism. In fact, it was his anti-slavery politics that first involved him in the plight of factory children.
While working as a steward for a West Yorkshire estate in 1830, Oastler submitted ‘Yorkshire Slavery’ to The Leeds Mercury Newspaper. It was the first of his passionate letters to ‘the working classes of West Riding’ calling for collective action to help working children. ‘Yorkshire Slavery’ sparked a wave of reactions; support from other Mercury readers and dissent from factory owners.
Oastler penned a second letter in 1831, in response to factory owners passing measures to enable child labour. It was so scathing the Mercury refused to print it all. The paper’s rival The Leeds Intelligencer had no such qualms, and Oastler’s words continued to connect workers across Yorkshire.
The Ten Hour Bill
The ultimate aim of Yorkshire’s opponents to child labour was the Ten Hour Bill. Though modest to modern eyes, its aims were radical at the time:
No child under 9 can be employed
No child under 21 can work nights
Under-18s can work a maximum of 10 hours a day (8 on Saturday).
Textile factory workers formed ‘Short Time Committees’ across Yorkshire, which worked solely towards moving the Ten Hour Bill through parliament. The Leeds Short Time Committee garnered 10,000 signatures on their pro-Ten Hours Bill petition; Bradford’s gained 4,000.
After the first iteration of the Bill was defeated in parliament in 1831, the Huddersfield Short Time Committee brought Oastler in to resubmit it through politician Michael Sadler. By 1832, Sadler had submitted his ‘Ten-Hour Bill’ to parliament. Short Time Committees held rallies in support across the county - but none were as large as Oastler’s Pilgrimage of Mercy.
The Pilgrimage of Mercy
April, 1832. Oastler publicly vows to make a pilgrimage from Leeds to York and back in support of the Ten-Hours Bill, and invites all of Yorkshire to march with him. The Leeds Mercury paper sneers that he has delusions as ‘king’ - which Oastler’s supporters use to crown him ‘The Factory King’.
The march was due to begin on Monday, 23rd April 1832. ‘Regiments’ of protestors, gathered in towns across West Yorkshire, assembled outside Leeds White Cloth Hall. They left just before midnight in torrential rain, to the sound of Leeds Parish Church’s bells ringing out.
There...
Easter Tuesday, April 24th
Rain finally eases in the early morning. As many as 24,000 soaking wet pilgrims reach York and Oastler leads them into the city for food. They’ve completed a 22-mile trip, so it’s sorely needed!
Five hours of factory reform speeches (split by lunch!) follow their arrival. Crowds are in good spirits, and are thanked for their good conduct by the High Sheriff.
At dusk, Oastler begins to lead the march home - and it starts to rain again!
...And Back Again
April 24th - Night
Rain soon turns to storm. Oastler leads the marchers to Tadcaster, 9 miles away, but many collapse on the way. Oastler’s comrade, Parson Bull, spends all night fighting through the weather to rescue stragglers with hired wagons.
In the morning, not to be deterred, pilgrims sing and chant the remaining 12 miles to Leeds. Cheering spectators line the streets upon their return, and Sadler himself gives the farewell speech. The pilgrims disperse, and begin their trek home.
April 25th
Growing Pains
The end of the Pilgrimage did not mark the end of the fight for factory children, however. Though Sadler lost his seat in Parliament that December, an altered form of his Ten-Hours Bill was passed in August of 1833. It covered much of the ground the Short Time Committees did: banned children under 9 from factories, mandated education, and set a limit of 12 hours of work per day for 13 to 18-year-olds. Crucially, it also appointed inspectors to ensure factories were following these regulations - though with only four inspectors assigned to the whole of England, this needed work.
There was no way just four inspectors could watch all of England’s factories close enough to reliably enforce the new laws, and factory owners exploited that. From struggles to prove the ages of children to work timetables manipulated to circumvent hours maximums, inspectors had their work cut out for them. Eventually, in 1844, further laws was passed to shore up legislative holes and tighten restrictions. It wasn’t until 1850, however, that ‘Grey’s Law’ finally defined a ‘normal working day’ as 6AM to 6PM. This still saw men working 10.5 hours a day, but was as close as any had seen to reaching the goal the pilgrims marched for decades before.
The Pilgrimage of Mercy is just one story in a long tradition of action by Yorkshire’s working people. The pilgrims didn’t see the fruits of their labour for over twenty years. Short Time Committees formed the basis for several trade unionist groups, and they kept pressuring for what they knew was right long after the march had ended.
Their strength and perseverance - and the results they achieved in time - are testaments to what working people can do when they put their power together. Though they marched almost 200 years ago, the power of their united voices continues to echo through fights for workers’ rights in Britain today.
With Thanks To:
Exhibition: Anna Goodridge, Niimi Day Gough, Patrick Gillett, Lucy Evans, Bryn Moore, and Ann Suter.
Digital: Niimi Day Gough
Bibliography:
Images:
Sir Edward Baines, ‘History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain: with a notice of its early history in the East, and in all the quarters of the globe ... and a view of the present state of the manufacture’ (London : H. Fisher, R. Fisher, and P. Jackson, 1835). All other images courtesy of The Leeds Library and The Thoresby Society.
Information:
Mark Harbor, ‘Why was legislation to improve factory conditions enacted between 1833 and 1850, and how much change did it bring about?‘, Online: The Peel Web (2016), Katrina Navickas, ‘Huddersfield‘, Online: ProtestHistory (2015), Marjie Bloy, ‘Richard Oastler (1789-1861)‘, Online: Victorian Web (2023), Gilbert Bonifas, ‘Richard Oastler, Tory Radicalism, and the Resistance to the New Victorian Order‘, Online: Victorian Web (2023).
