ABSTRACT
A distinct development comes with the demand by organized male labour for a reduction of the working day, enforced on occasion by industrial action, and latterly coupled with claims for legislative action. Throughout the Victorian period the general tendency was towards a shortening of the time spent in wage labour. This was partly the effect of legislative restriction, the earliest form of modern collectivist enactment. This control was first applied to the labour of women and children, especially in the textile factories. A Shorter Hours Movement recurred repeatedly during the period, and had some main phases. A reduction of the working week for the industrial worker was pressed by Trade Union action, coupled sometimes with a demand for legislative restriction. The Factory Extension Act and the Workshop Regulation Act virtually completed Victorian legislation on the matter, by extending the principles of the preceding Acts to a variety of other occupations and in a modified form to smaller non-mechanized establishments.
