Excerpt from the Sadler Report

Transcripts of hearings held in 1831 and 1832 published in Paliamentary Papers in 1833

In January 1833 the British Parliament published transcripts of hearings conducted by one of its members, Michael Sadler (1780–1835), a year earlier. Sadler was a well-known author of pamphlets urging better treatment of factory workers, and in 1832 he conducted a parliamentary investigation into the condition of children working in textile mills. As chairman of a parliamentary committee, Sadler had interviewed eighty-nine child workers in an effort to persuade the British Parliament to enact new laws to safeguard the rights of child workers. In Britain at the time, children just eight or nine years old regularly worked for twelve hours a day in textile mills.

The Sadler Report, as the hearings were called, had a major impact at the time of publication and for many...