ELLAND

Margaret Riley

Members of Elland Men’s Probus Club were taken back in time to the days when children worked in textile factories from 5am to 8pm for a weekly wage of two shillings and sixpence (twelve and a half pence), when John A. Hargreaves spoke on “Yorkshire Slavery”. Mr Hargreaves, the Halifax historian, recalled that Richard Oastler changed the focus of attention from the slave trade which had become illegal, to the children’s plight, with a letter to the Press, initiating and leading a campaign for changes. The campaign brought about an Act of Parliament in 1833, reducing the daily hours worked by children to eleven, and the appointment of factory inspectors to ensure the law was kept, followed by a law that children must have two hours education a day. This was the forerunner of the half-time system in which children worked in the morn-