Archibald
Buchanan
was
a partner in a company that owned several cotton-mills in Scotland.
Archibald Buchanan was interviewed by Robert
Peel and his House of Commons Committee
on 25th April, 1816.
Illustration from Frederic Montagu's
book Mary Ashley (1839)
Child
Labour Debate Activity (International School of Toulouse)
Child
Labour Simulation (Spartacus Educational)
(1)
Archibald
Buchanan was interviewed by Robert Peel and
his House of Commons Committee on 25th
April, 1816.
Question:
What is your employment?
Answer: I am employed in the management of cotton-mills in Scotland,
the property of James Findlay and Company, merchants in Glasgow. I
am also a partner.
Question: How many years have you been employed in the cotton-spinning
business?
Answer: About thirty-three years.
Question: What number of persons are employed in the different works?
Answer: I can only speak to the works under my particular management.
There are 875 employed at the Catrine works.
Question: How many of those are under ten years of age?
Answer: Twenty-two males and thirty-seven females.
Question: What is the youngest labourer you employ?
Answer:
I suppose the youngest may be eight or nine: we have no wish to employ
them under ten years of age.
Question: What circumstances have led you to employ any under that
age?
Answer: The circumstances, generally the condition of their parents;
people with large families, who find great relief from having a child
or two put in the factory at an earlier age.
Question: Of the 875 persons, how many are there who cannot read?
Answer: There are eleven males and twenty-six females.
Question: How many who cannot write?
Answer: 660, I think.
Question: What are your hours of work?
Answer: They begin at six o'clock in the morning, they stop at half-past
seven at night, and they are allowed half an hour for breakfast and
an hour for dinner.
Question: What has been the state of the health of those children
that work in your factory?
Answer: Generally very good; much the same as those children in the
neighbourhood who are not employed in work.
Question:
Suppose the children were taken at six years of age, do you think
they would be able to work that number of hours without great indisposition?
Answer: I have seen many instances of children that were taken in
even as young as six, whose health did not appear at all to suffer;
on the contrary, when they got to maturity, they appeared as healthy,
stout, people as any in the country.
Question: Not crippled in their growth?
Answer: No.
