“Evidence of Robert Owen on his New Lanark Experiment”, In Report of Minutes of Evidence, Taken Before the Select Committee on the State of Children Employed in the Manufactories of the United Kingdom (London: Hansard, 1816), 20–28

Robert Owen’s growing involvement in factory reform campaigns from 1815 onwards was the logical follow-up to his New View of Society. Wishing to put his New Lanark policies to the test, he drafted a bill that he addressed to the House of Commons in June 1815. His proposals, which were meant to amend the Health and Morals Apprentices Act 1802, were submitted in 1816 to a Select Committee chaired by Robert Peel MP. Owen advised to extend the previous legislation to all child factory workers, not just labourers in cotton mills. He also advocated a series of radical labour regulations, directly inspired by his most ambitious measures at New Lanark, which he had introduced on 1 January, 1816. These included a ban on child labour before the age of ten, a ten and three-quarter hour’s working day and extensive educational provisions thanks to the inauguration of the Institute for the Formation of Character.