ABSTRACT
The National Regeneration Society was founded on 25 November 1833 in support of the eight-hour working day, under the auspices of Robert Owen, trade union leader John Doherty, radical industrialist John Fielden, and the Oldham cotton factory owner Joshua Milne. The National Regeneration Society must be created with the intention of it acting as a lobbying organisation with a twofold plan of action: petitioning the most prominent Short Time Committee advocates adopting the eight-hour regulation, and encouraging factory operatives to stop working after eight hours. Proponents of the Ten Hour Bill deemed these demands economically unsound. By February 1834, the National Regeneration Society had opened about 30 branches, mostly among Lancashire cotton mill workers. It had garnered support from the radical press, including William Cobbett’s Black Dwarf and Henry Hetherington’s Poor Man’s Guardian, but failed to convince industrialists, with the exception of Milne and Fielden.
