Food in the Factory: Describe the meals for each child worker:
3.) John Birley:
4.) Mathew Crabtree:
5.) Sarah Carpenter:
British History >Child Labour >Factory Food
▼ Primary Sources ▼
Factory Food
Factory owners were responsible for providing their pauper apprentices with food. Sarah Carpenter was a child worker at Cressbrook Mill: "Our common food was oatcake. It was thick and coarse. This oatcake was put into cans. Boiled milk and water was poured into it. This was our breakfast and supper. Our dinner was potato pie with boiled bacon it, a bit here and a bit there, so thick with fat we could scarce eat it, though we were hungry enough to eat anything. Tea we never saw, nor butter. We had cheese and brown bread once a year. We were only allowed three meals a day though we got up at five in the morning and worked till nine at night."
In most textile mills the children had to eat their meals while still working. This meant that the food tended to get covered with the dust from the cloth. As Matthew Crabtree pointed out: "I began work at Cook's of Dewsbury when I was eight years old. We had to eat our food in the mill. It was frequently covered by flues from the wool; and in that case they had to be blown off with the mouth, and picked off with the fingers, before it could be eaten."
Abraham Whitehead was a cloth merchant from Holmfirth who joined the campaign for factory legislation. He told a parliamentary committee in 1832: "The youngest age at which children are employed is never under five, but some are employed between five and six, in woollen-mills, as piecers.... I have frequently seen them going to work between five and six in the morning.... They get their breakfast as they eat; they eat and work; there is generally a pot of water porridge, with a little treacle in it, placed at the end of the machine."
John Birley complained about the quality of the food: "Our regular time was from five in the morning till nine or ten at night; and on Saturday, till eleven, and often twelve o'clock at night, and then we were sent to clean the machinery on the Sunday. No time was allowed for breakfast and no sitting for dinner and no time for tea. We went to the mill at five o'clock and worked till about eight or nine when they brought us our breakfast, which consisted of water-porridge, with oatcake in it and onions to flavour it. Dinner consisted of Derbyshire oatcakes cut into four pieces, and ranged into two stacks. One was buttered and the other treacled. By the side of the oatcake were cans of milk. We drank the milk and with the oatcake in our hand, we went back to work without sitting down."
3.) John Birley: John Birley complained about the poor quality of the food provided at the factory. He mentioned that their breakfast consisted of water porridge with oatcake and onions to flavor it. For dinner, they were given Derbyshire oatcakes cut into four pieces, with one stack buttered and the other treacled. They also had cans of milk to drink with their meal.
4.) Mathew Crabtree: Mathew Crabtree mentioned that the food they had to eat at the mill was frequently covered by flues from the wool, and they had to blow it off with their mouth and pick it off with their fingers before they could eat it. They were forced to eat their meals while still working, resulting in their food being covered in dust from the cloth.
5.) Sarah Carpenter: Sarah Carpenter, who worked at Cressbrook Mill, described their common food as oatcake that was thick and coarse. They would have boiled milk and water poured into it for breakfast and supper. For dinner, they had potato pie with boiled bacon, but it was so thick with fat that they could barely eat it. They were only allowed three meals a day, even though they worked long hours from five in the morning until nine at night. Tea, butter, and cheese with brown bread were only given once a year.