The Sadler Committee and the Factory Act of 1833

In 1830 Richard Oastler wrote a letter to a Leeds newspaper titled 'Yorkshire Slavery', comparing child mill workers to enslaved people, and launched a campaign for a ten-hour day. In 1832 MP Michael Sadler chaired a parliamentary committee that collected testimony from workers describing long hours, beatings and injuries. Mill owners protested that the hearings were one-sided, and a royal commission was sent to gather wider evidence.

The result was the Factory Act of 1833, which banned children under 9 from textile mills, limited children aged 9 to 13 to nine hours a day, required two hours of schooling daily, and limited those under 18 to 12 hours. Crucially, it appointed four paid factory inspectors to enforce the law. The Act was limited, but inspectors made it the first factory law with real teeth and a model for later regulation.