The Factory Acts also included regulations for ventilation, hygienic practices, and machinery guarding in an effort to improve the working circumstances for mill children.

At best, it only partially paved the way; its restriction to apprentices (where there was a long tradition of legislation) meant that it was left to later Factory Acts to establish the principle of intervention by Parliament on humanitarian grounds on worker welfare issues against the "laissez-faire" political and economic orthodoxy of the age which held that to be ill-advised.

He doubted whether shortening the hours of work would be injurious even to the interests of the manufacturers; as the children would be able, while they were employed, to pursue their occupation with greater vigour and activity.

Complaints could only be pursued if made within three weeks of the offence; on the other hand justices of the peace who were the brothers of millowners were now also debarred from hearing Factory Act cases.

[11] Hobhouse advised Richard Oastler, an early and leading advocate of factory legislation for the woolen industry, that Hobhouse had got as much as he could, given the opposition of Scottish flax-spinners and "the state of public business":[f] if Sadler put forward a Bill matching the aims of the Short Time Committees "he will not be allowed to proceed a single stage with any enactment, and ... he will only throw an air of ridicule and extravagance over the whole of this kind of legislation".

Sadler had resisted this: "if the present Bill was referred to one, it would not become a law this Session, and the necessity of legislating was so apparent, that he was unwilling to submit to the delay of a Committee, when he considered they could obtain no new evidence on the subject".

[19] Parliament was prorogued shortly afterwards: Sadler gave notice of his intention to reintroduce a Ten-Hour Bill in the next session[20] Sadler, however, was not an MP in the next session: in the first election for the newly enfranchised two member constituency of Leeds he was beaten into third place by Thomas Babington Macaulay a Whig politician of national standing and John Marshall, the son of one of Leeds's leading millowners.

Casting around for a new parliamentary advocate for factory reform, the short-time movement eventually secured the services of Lord Ashley, eldest son of the 6th Earl of Shaftesbury.

Millowners resented and political economists deplored legislators' interference in response to public opinion, and hoped that the Act could soon be repealed (completely or in part).

Otherwise, the bill made no changes to age limits or hours of work, but repealed the education clauses of the 1833 Act, replacing them with literacy tests.

[42] His political opponents mocked the thought of Lord John Russell turning his undoubted talents to the production of a reading primer, and it was soon announced that once the Bill went into committee it would be amended to restore the 1833 education clauses.

[45] Ashley later attacked the government and its complacency and connivance at the shortcomings in the current Factory Act identified by the government's own Factory Inspectors:[48] "After these representations .. by his own inspectors, how could the noble Lord opposite reconcile it with his conscience as an individual, and with his public duty as a Minister of the Crown, during the whole course of his administration, never to have brought forward any measure for the removal of so tremendous an evil?

""He wanted them to decide whether they would amend, or repeal, or enforce the Act now in existence; but if they would do none of these things, if they continued idly indifferent, and obstinately shut their eyes to this great and growing evil, if they were careless of the growth of an immense population, plunged in ignorance and vice, which neither feared God, nor regarded man, then he warned them that they must be prepared for the very worst result that could befall a nation.

[73] At Lord John Russell's urging, the discussion was temperate, but there was considerable opposition to the proposed management of the new schools, which effectively excluded ratepayers (who would repay the loan and meet any shortfall in running costs) and made no provision for a Dissenter presence (to see fair play).

[91] Faced with this impasse, and having considered and rejected the option of compromising on some intermediate time such as eleven hours,[l] Graham withdrew the Bill, preferring to replace it by a new one which amended, rather than repealed, the 1833 Act.

However, the new bill left the 1833 definition of 'night' unaltered (and so gave no opportunity for redefinition) and Lord Ashley's amendment to limit the working day for women and young persons to ten hours was defeated heavily (295 against, 198 for),[93] it having been made clear that the Ministers would resign if they lost the vote.

John Fielden, although no orator, was indefatigable in his support of the cause, giving generously of his time and money and – as the senior partner in one of the great cotton firms – vouching for the reality of the evils of a long working day and the practicality of shortening it.

The 1833 Act had hoped that two sets of children would be employed and each work a full half-day (the 'true relay' system, which left the other halfday free for education).

[97][p] Lord Ashley sought to remedy this by a short declaratory Act restoring the status quo but felt it impossible to draft one which did not introduce fresh matter (which would remove the argument that there was no call for further debate).

The Home Secretary Sir George Grey was originally noticeably ambivalent about Government support for Ashley's Bill: when Ashley reported his difficulties to the House of Commons, Grey announced an intention to move amendments in favour of a scheme (ostensibly suggested by a third party)[98] which established a 'normal day' for women and young persons by setting the times within which they could work so tightly that they were also the start and stop times if they were to work the maximum permitted hours per day.

The Short Time Committees had previously been adamant for an effective Ten-hour Bill; Ashley wrote to them,[99] noting that he acted in Parliament as their friend, not their delegate, explaining his reasons for accepting Grey's "compromise", and advising them to do so also.

[100] The key provisions of the 1850 Act were :[2] Various public meetings in the textile districts subsequently passed motions regretting that the 58-hour week had not been more stoutly defended, with various stalwarts of the Ten-Hour Movement ( various Cobbetts and Fieldens (John Fielden now being dead) and Richard Oastler) offering their support and concurring with criticism of Ashley's actions, but nothing came of this: the meetings were poorly attended (that at Manchester was attended by about 900[102]) and the Ten-Hour Movement had now effectively run its course.

Magistrates had taken inconsistent views as to whether this applied where the "mill gearing" was not readily accessible; in particular where power shafting ran horizontally well above head height.

In April 1856, the National Association of Factory Occupiers succeeded in obtaining an Act reversing this decision: mill gearing needed secure fencing only of those parts with which women, young persons, and children were liable to come in contact.

This logic began to be applied in reverse once it became clear that the Ten Hours Act had had no obvious detrimental effect on the prosperity of the textile industry or on that of millworkers.

[121] Shaftesbury spoke in the Lords Second Reading debate; thinking it might well be his last speech in Parliament on factory reform, he reviewed the changes over the forty-one years it had taken to secure a ten-hour-day, as this bill at last did.

And so it had proved: the Cotton Famine had thrown thousands out of work, with misery, starvation, and death staring them in the face; but, "with one or two trifling exceptions, and those only momentary", order and peace had reigned.

By 1910, Sidney Webb reviewing the cumulative effect of century of factory legislation felt able to write: The system of regulation which began with the protection of the tiny class of pauper apprentices in textile mills now includes within its scope every manual worker in every manufacturing industry.

From the hours of labour and sanitation, the law has extended to the age of commencing work, protection against accidents, mealtimes and holidays, the methods of remuneration, and in the United Kingdom as well as in the most progressive of English-speaking communities, to the rate of wages itself.

Neither logic nor consistency, neither the over-nice consideration of even-handed justice nor the Quixotic appeal of a general humanitarianism, was permitted to stand in the way of a practical remedy for a proved wrong.