ABSTRACT
The Bill passed into law, and became the Factory Act of 1833. In several respects the new Act represented a great advance on previous legislation. All Factory Acts, except the original Act of 1802, had applied only to cotton mills; the new Act included woollen, worsted, hemp, flax, tow, linen and silk mills. The Government had wanted to do as little as possible in the way of a Factory Act; they had done a great deal more than they intended. If Ministers failed to appreciate what they were doing, so did the factory reformers. John Fielden explained in a letter to Cobbett how he and his friends proposed to apply their principles to the case of the Factory Act. By February, 1836, Richard Oastler and Bull had come to recognise its value, and Bull urged the factory workers “to hold fast, as for life itself, to the eight-hour clause, the education clause, and the inspection clause of the present Act.”
