3. Why in Britain the ways of the workers were low?
Answers
Life in Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution underwent rapid social and economic changes due to the developments of mechanized working methods based on the factory system and the steam engine. As a result, work became more regimented, disciplined, and moved outside the home. Large segments of the rural population migrated to the cities, causing dramatic lifestyle changes.
The industrial belts of Great Britain included the Scottish Lowlands, South Wales, northern England, and the English Midlands. The establishment of major factory centers helped develop networks of canals, roads, and railroads, particularly in Derbyshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, and Yorkshire. These regions saw the formation of a new workforce, described in Marxist theory as the proletariat. The Industrial Revolution helped create opportunities for employment for all members of the family. Any improvement to the quality of life for the working class, however, came despite hard and bitter experiences among factory laborers.[citation needed]
It is generally agreed that the impact of the Industrial Revolution, was negative for children.[1] In the industrial districts, children tended to enter the workforce at younger ages than rural ones, although child labour was not a consequence of the Industrial Revolution: children were first exploited by their parents on farms.[2] Many of the new factory owners preferred to employ children, whom they viewed as easier to deal with than adults. Although most families channeled their children's earnings into providing a better diet for them, the physical toll of working in the factories was very great and led to detrimental outcomes for children.[3] Child labourers tended to be orphans, children of widows, or from the poorest families.
Children were preferred workers in textile mills because they worked for lower wages and had nimble fingers. In general, children were required to work under machines and were constantly cleaning and oiling tight areas. Young children were worked to near exhaustion, as was evident from those who fell asleep over their machines. If children were caught sleeping or showed up to work late, they were beaten and tortured by their supervisors. Such cruelty was enacted on children as a result of the drive of master-manufacturers to maintain high output. While it is a common view that some children's bodies become crooked and deformed from their work in the mills and factories,[4] it has also been argued that the prevalence of childhood diseases in this era made a bigger contribution to deformity.[5]
Children in the mines suffered similarly. Both boys and girls would start working at the age of four or five. A sizeable proportion of children working in the mines were under 13 and a larger proportion were aged 13-18. Mines of the era were not built for stability; rather, they were small and low. Children, therefore, were needed to crawl through them. The conditions in the mines were unsafe, children would often have limbs crippled, their bodies distorted, or be killed. Children could get lost within the mines for days at a time. The air in the mines was harmful to breathe and could cause painful and fatal diseases