In September 1848 the mills and works within the limits of the town of Manchester, subject to the factory laws, were as follow : In 1850 a return was made to the House of Commons respecting factories, more detailed and instructive than any before prepared. We will give a few of the results, calculated to illustrate different aspects of the subject.
First, in respect to different parts of the United Kingdom we have :— In this table, the horse-power includes both steam engines and water-wheels employed in working the machinery in the factories ; they are nearly in the ratio of four-fifths steam power to one-fifth water power. The term children is applied to those at and under 13 years of age ; from 13 to 18 the term applied is young persons.
Taking the whole of the United Kingdom in one entry, and regarding only the ages and sexes of the persons employed, we find the following numbers:7 In respect to females, one entry includes young persons and adults, as the same laws now apply to both classes. Of 100 persons work ing in factories 58 are females and 42 males. About 6 per cent of the workers are under 13 years old.
The next classification we shall notice is that which depends on the kind of operations carried on. There are four classes, as fol
lows :— Next in regard to the five principal lands of materials employed, we find the factories to be distributed as follows : Cotton factories .. 1,932 330,924 Woollen „ .. 1,497 74,443 Worsted „ .. 501 79,737 Flax 393 68,134 Silk „ .. 277 42,541 4,600 596,082 The number of factories here given (4,600) is in excess of that given in the first table (4330) ; this probably arises from some of the factories being entered twice, in cases where they work mixed fabrics of cotton and woollen, or cotton and silk, or woollen and silk. The cotton factories are rather less than half the whole number, but employ more than half the entire number of operatives. The average number of operatives in cotton factories is 120 ; the average in all factories is 75. Out of the 1932 cotton factories, no less than 1235 are in Lancashire; out of the 1998 woollen and worsted factories, no less than 1298 are in Yorkshire. It will be seen that a remarkable parallelism exists in these num bers ; 64 per cent of all the cotton factories are in Lancashire, and 65 per cent of all the woollen and worsted factories are in York shire.