Child Labour During The British Industrial Revolution

The British Industrial Revolution was the era where a series of technological discoveries increased the production rate of manufacturing, thus increasing the demand for products. This left the leading companies at the time looking for a way to quicken their production rate. The solution came in very small packages… children. They were a fundamental part of the human workforce that powered the Industrial Revolution. However, they were often treated in the most brutal ways possible. Therefore, we can state that child labour during the British Industrial Revolution brought benefits to the country’s economy. However, the physical and psychological impacts it had on them out-weighed the economical benefits.

Children often suffered physically from working long hours during the Industrial Revolution. Children working in factories were forced to go through long shifts of arduous work, ranging from 10 to 14 hours a day with very brief breaks in between. Infants had to go through a backbreaking schedule on a daily basis which one could infer that it caused permanent damage to their bodies as they developed deformities from long

Child labour was definitely a violation of children’s rights. However, Oxford 's Professor Jane Humphries research shows that The British Industrial Revolution could not have occurred without Child labour, for children in factories provided "free labour". This meant that they worked all day and in exchange received as little as food and shelter. Consequently, production costs of businesses were lowered which in the long run, helped them to prosper and succeed in the industry, building Britain’s strong economy. Therefore, in order for Britain to be where it is today, as one of the biggest economic powers in the world, the childhood of hundreds of children had to be