Andrew Ure, from The Philosophy of

Manufactures (1835)
The factory system was not without its advocates. One of the most influential was Andrew Ure, a
professor of applied science at the University of Glasgow. He was supportive of the efficiency and
productive capabilities of mechanized manufacturing. Note how the major criticisms of the reformers
(child labor, degrading and unhealthy work conditions, etc.) are methodically countered. Ure argued
that the owners of the mills and mines were not devils, but were actually abused themselves by the
demands of the workers.
Source: Andrew Ure, “A Defense of the Factory System,” in The Philosophy of Manufactures (London: Charles
Knight, 1835), pp. 282-284, 290, 300-301, 309-311, 398-399.

Proud of the power of malefaction, many of the cotton-spinners, though better

paid, as we have shown, than any similar set of artisans in the world, organized
the machinery of strikes through all the gradations of their people, terrifying or
cajoling the timid or the passive among them to join their vindictive union. They
boasted of possessing a dark tribunal, by the mandates of which they could
paralyze every mill whose master did not comply with their wishes, and so bring
ruin on the man who had given them profitable employment for many a year. By
flattery or intimidation, they levied contributions from their associates in the
privileged mills, which they suffered to proceed, in order to furnish spare funds
for the maintenance of the idle during the decreed suspension of labour. In this
extraordinary state of things, when the inventive head and the sustaining heart of
trade were held in bondage by the unruly lower members, a destructive spirit
began to display itself among some partisans of the union. Acts of singular
atrocity were committed, sometimes with weapons fit only for demons to wield,
such as the corrosive oil of vitriol [i.e. sulfuric acid], dashed in the faces of most
meritorious individuals, with the effect of disfiguring their persons, and burning
their eyes out of the sockets with dreadful agony.
The true spirit of turn-outs [strikes] among the spinners is well described in the
following statement made on oath to the Factory Commission, by Mr. George
Royle Chappel, a manufacturer of Manchester, who employs 274 hands, and two
steam-engines of sixty-four horse power.
“I have had several turn-outs, and have heard of many more, but never heard of a
turn-out for short time. I will relate the circumstances of the last turn-out, which
took place on the 16th October, 1830, and continued till the 17th January, 1831.
The whole of our spinners, whose average (weekly) wages were 2£. 13s. 5d.,
turned out at the instigation, as they told us at the time, of the delegates of the
union. They said they had no fault to find with their wages, their work, or their
masters, but the union obliged them to turn out. The same week three delegates
from the spinners’ union waited upon us at our mill, and dictated certain
advances in wages, and other regulations, to which, if we would not adhere, they
said neither our own spinners nor any other should work for us again! Of course
we declined, believing our wages to be ample, and our regulations such as were
necessary for the proper conducting of the establishment. The consequences
were, they set watches on every avenue to the mill, night and day, to prevent any
fresh hands coming into the mill, an object which they effectually attained, by
intimidating some, and promising support to others (whom I got into the mill in a
caravan), if they would leave their work. Under these circumstances, I could not
work the mill, and advertised it for sale, without any applications, and I also tried
in vain to let it. At the end of twenty-three weeks the hands requested to be
taken to the mill again on the terms that they had left it, declaring, as they had
done at first, that the union alone had forced them to turn out...”
Nothing shows in a clearer point of view the credulity of mankind in general, and
of the people of these islands in particu1ar, than the ready faith which was given
to the tales of cruelty exercised by proprietors of cotton-mills towards young
children. The systems of calumny somewhat resembles that brought by the
Pagans against the primitive Christians, of enticing children into their meetings in
order to murder and devour them...
No master would wish to have any wayward children to work within the walls of
his factory, who do not mind their business without beating, and he therefore
usually fines or turns away any spinners who are known to maltreat their
assistants. Hence, ill-usage of any kind is a very rare occurrence. I have visited
many factories, both in Manchester and in the surrounding districts, during a
period of several months, entering the spinning rooms, unexpectedly, and often
alone, at different times of the day, and I never saw a single instance of corporal
chastisement inflicted on a child, nor indeed did I ever see children in ill-humour.
They seemed to be always cheerful and alert, taking pleasure in the light play of
their muscles, enjoying the mobility natural to their age. The scene of industry, so
far from exciting sad emotions in my mind, was always exhilarating. It was
delightful to observe the nimbleness with which they pieced the broken ends, as
the mule-carriage began to recede from the fixed roller-beam, and to see them at
leisure, after a few seconds’ exercise of their tiny fingers, to amuse themselves in
any attitude they chase, till the stretch and winding-on were once more
completed. The work of these lively elves seemed to resemble a sport, in which
habit gave them a pleasing dexterity. Conscious of their skill, they were delighted
to show it off to any stranger. As to exhaustion by the day’s work, they evinced no
trace of it on emerging from the mill in the evening; for they immediately began
to skip about any neighbouring playground, and to commence their little
amusements with the same alacrity as boys issuing from a school. It is moreover
my firm conviction, that if children are not ill-used by bad parents or guardians,
but receive in food and raiment the full benefit of what they earn, they would
thrive better when employed in our modern factories, than if left at home in
apartments too often ill-aired, damp, and cold...
Of all the common prejudices that exist with regard to factory labour, there is
none more unfounded than that which ascribes to it excessive tedium and
irksomeness above other occupations, owing to its being carried on in conjunction
with the ‘‘unceasing motion of the steam-engine.” In an establishment for
spinning or weaving cotton, all the hard work is performed by the steam-engine,
which leaves for the attendant no hard labour at all, and literally nothing to do in
general; but at intervals to perform some delicate operation, such as joining the
threads that break, taking the cops off the spindle, &c. And it is so far from being
true that the work in a factory is incessant, because the motion of the steam-
engine is incessant, that the fact is, that the labour is not incessant on that very
count, because it is performed in conjunction with the steam-engine. Of all
manufacturing employments, those are by far the most irksome and incessant in
which steam-engines are not employed, as in lace-running and stocking-weaving;
and the way to prevent an employment from being incessant, is to introduce a
steam-engine into it. These remarks certainly apply more especially to the labour
of children in factories.
Three-fourths of the children so employed are engaged in piecing at the mules.
“When the carriages of these have receded a foot and a half or two feet from the
rollers,” says Mr. Tufnell, “nothing is to be done, not even attention is required
from either spinner or piecer.” Both of them stand idle for a time, and in fine
spinning particularly, for three-quarters of a minute, or more. Consequently, if a
child remains at this business twelve hours daily, he has nine hours of inaction.
And though he attends two mules, he has still six hours of non-exertion. Spinners
sometimes dedicate these intervals to the perusal of books. The scavengers, who,
in Mr. Sadler’s report, have been described as being “constantly in a state of grief,
always in terror, and every moment they have to spare stretched all their length
upon the floor in a state of perspiration,” may be observed in cotton factories idle
for four minutes at a time, or moving about in a sportive mood, utterly
unconscious of the tragical scenes in which they were dramatized...
Mr. Hutton, who has been in practice as a surgeon at Stayley Bridge upwards of
thirty-one years, and, of course, remembers the commencement, and has had
occasion to trace the progress and effect, of the factory system, says that the
health of the population has much improved since its introduction, and that they
are much superior in point of comfort to what they were formerly. He also says
that fever has become less common since the erection of factories, and that the
persons employed in them were less attacked by the influenza in 1833, than other
classes of work-people. Mr. Bott, a surgeon, who is employed by the operatives in
Messrs. Litchfield’s mills to attend them in all cases of sickness or accident, at the
rate of one halfpenny a week (a sum which indicates pretty distinctly their small
chances of ailment), says that the factory workmen are not so liable to epidemics
as other persons; and that though he has had many cases of typhus fever in the
surrounding district, nearly all the mill-hands have escaped, and not one was
attacked by the cholera during its prevalence in the neighbourhood.