by Florence English

Some apprentices were luckier. At New Lanark Mills, near Glasgow, Robert Owen abolished corporal punishment. He set up the first infant’s classes and built a school called the New Institution. Children under ten did not work, and older children worked short hours, so that they were not too tired to study.

Commissioners were sent by Parliament to investigate the terrible conditions in the mills. They interviewed workers, and published their reports in gray Books. This led to Acts of Parliament being passed that reduced working hours. Factory inspectors visited mills to make sure that the new laws were obeyed.

Many of the conditions described on previous pages were common at the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign in 1837. Acts of Parliament gradually improved conditions, but there were never enough factory inspectors to enforce the laws everywhere. By 1900 though, harsh punishments, long hours and child labour had disappeared from most mills.

In the mill’s counting house, a book-keeper and clerks calculated the workers’ wages. Money was taken off for the rent of the workers’ cottages, any purchases from the mill store, loan repayments and fines for being late.

Sometimes, the clerks worked in silence from 7am until 6pm. They wrote their calculations in the accounts book and the wages trolley made its rounds on Fridays.

Many mills had their own stores. Some, known as "tommy-shops", sold poor quality goods at high prices. Workers were sacked if they did not spend their wages there. This was common in other industries too. For example, Navvies building the new railway lines HAD to spend their wages in their employers' shops. This practice, known as the "truck system", was stopped by mill owners such as Robert Owen.

At lunchtime, workers were given porage, potatoes and sometimes bacon. Other workers went to the store for lunch. At New Lanark, Robert Owen opened a store where his workers could swap tokens for cheap, high quality goods.

Robert Owen gave his workers coloured pieces of wood which showed how workers were performing: black (bad); gray (average); yellow (good) and white (excellent). Owen improved conditions and reduced hours. His happier workers worked harder and increased his profits. Many mill owners refused to follow Owen’s example until forced to by the Factory Acts.

Owners made steady improvements throughout the country. One mill owner, Sir Titus Salt, was disgusted by the filth of mill towns. Most workers lived in crampled, back-to-back terraces, These were often "one up, one down" with just a tiny yard in front. There was no back garden because it backed onto the terrace of housing in the road behind. (There is still a lot of this housing around in Burnley in the year 2000). Instead of these, Salt built a village around his mill at Saltaire in Yorkshire in 1853. He built large, comfortable houses on wide streets. Salt also built a church and school and created a riverside park for the workers at his mill.