Notes

I am going to write about the working conditions that children in the factories live with. I will use sources from different people in order to determine whether children's working conditions were safe or unsafe. In a source John Simkin had stated that "work was extremely dangerous. Children were expected to work whilst the machines were still working." This source is not reliable because it is a secondary source, as a secondary source it may have been changed or re-written. Although there is another source by Robert Blincoe that can back up this point, he was a child from the industrial revolution, this is proved to be a primary source from him because it is memoir from him. He says that a "poor girl was smashed on the floor by machinery." Another thing said about factories being unsafe for the children was made by a comment by a doctor from Manchester. He/she had said that "In many instances the muscles, and the skin was stripped down to the bone, and in some instances a finger or two would be lost." These three sources come to an idea that the factories were unsafe for the children however we have also found other sources that could be used to go against the point that factories are unsafe. sources like one by Dr Andrew Ure who had claims that he had visited many different factories and has never once seen a child beaten or unhappy. He said it was "delightful to see the ease with which they fixed the broken threads." This can be reliable but someone who also said something similar to Dr Andrew Ure was Nassau Senior who is a factory owner who gave his view. However if this factory owner is to give his view we wont know whether this is reliable or not because some factory owners or overseers may not be telling the truth to keep their job or to stay safe together and keep their business running.