How factory reformer Richard Oastler inspired Bradford statue

Standing next to him are two young children - a reminder that Oastler campaigned for the abolition of child labour.

Richard Oastler was born in Leeds in 1789, youngest of 10 children. He attended Fulneck Moravian school, where he claimed he learned to fear nothing but sin.

After his father died in 1820, Richard replaced him as land agent at Fixby Hall near Huddersfield, owned by absentee landlord Thomas Thornhill. He married Mary Tatham and they had two children, both of whom died shortly after birth. Mary suffered poor health and died in 1845.

In September 1830 Richard Oastler was visiting John Wood, an enlightened, paternalistic factory owner who lived at Horton Hall, Bradford. They talked into the night about the horrendous issue of the employment of children in Bradford mills. Child labour had been around before the Industrial Revolution. Indeed writers such as Daniel Defoe approved of children as young as four in the domestic wool industry, but they worked under the control of their parents who allowed them to rest when needed.

Oastler was shocked by Wood’s evidence. He had met a slave owner from the West Indies who was appalled how young children were employed 13- hour days in Bradford mills, and claimed this was worse than the way colonial slaves were treated.

Oastler angrily wrote to the editor of the Leeds Mercury on September 29, 1830. His letter, headed ‘Yorkshire Slavery’, called for a limit on working hours to abolish “slave labour” in mills. His language was regarded by some as extreme. He made the analogy with transatlantic slavery. He was dismayed that children were “victims at the accursed shrine of avarice” and “doomed to labour from morning to night” in the “horrid and abominable system” on worsted mills in Bradford. The Mercury editor, Edward Baines, hesitated to publish the letter as he didn’t want to offend mill owners. The Bradford Observer, a ‘liberal’ newspaper, at first attacked Oastler for similar reasons. But the impact put the issue on a national footing. Some mill-owners were hostile to Oastler’s campaign and cared little for the care of their ‘infant slaves’.

The Richard Oastler statue in Bradford's Oastler Square (Image: Newsquest)

How the Oastler statue looks now, following its refurbishment (Image: Newsquest)

Working with MP Michael Sadler, the pressure led to an inquiry by a Select Committee in Parliament, who listened to evidence from children and adults. There was a catalogue of harrowing abuse. Joseph Habergem, aged 17, had been crippled since the age of seven due to work in factories. He described how around 50 children were often sick as a result of excessive labour.

The factory system was notorious for strict discipline, harsh punishment, unhealthy working conditions, long hours and low wages. Oastler was supported by Leeds doctor Charles Turner Thackrah who considered “the factory system tends to produce a weak, stunted, short lived race.” Samual Collier had worked in the Washburn mills north of Otley from the age of eight, 13 hours a day, five days a week, and 11 hours on Saturday, for two shillings a week. Most harshly treated were pauper apprentices sent from workhouses as cheap labour. Greenholme Mills at Burley in Wharfedale, in 1818, employed 147 children from London. Parish records list children who died at an early age in the Washburn mills.

In 1833 the Factory Act was passed. Child labour was abolished for children under nine in textile mills; nine to 13-year-olds were only allowed to work nine hours a day; and 13 to 18-year-olds 12 hours a day. There was provision for two hours schooling and inspectors were appointed.

Oastler continued to campaign for the Ten Hour day, and the 1844 Factory Act set the maximum working day for under 13s to six-and-a-half hours and for women 12 hours. In 1847 the Ten-hour Act introduced the 10-hour day for under 18s and women.

Oastler, a Tory radical, was involved in the campaign to abolish slavery, and resistance to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. His fiery speeches and extreme Anti-Poor Law activities saw him dismissed by Thornhill from the Fixby estate. He saw the workhouse system as a prison, making poverty a crime. Bradford was a centre of violent protest. Attempts were made to delay the implementation of the new law and defy the poor law commissioners. Oastler’s opponents claimed his extreme political language bordered on revolution, some called him a ‘madman’. But he was a passionate champion of the oppressed. By 1839, the Anti-Poor Law Movement had merged into Chartism. Though he had sympathy for the movement, he was never a Chartist. Neither did he support trade unions. Whilst he aimed to enhance the welfare of the working classes, he was a supporter of women “in their place”, making the home comfortable for their men’s return from work. He was an effective orator. But after his dismissal from Fixby in 1838, he fell into debt and was sentenced to three years in prison in December 1840. Money was raised for him at Oastler festivals held in 1841.

Oastler died of a heart attack in Harrogate on August 22, 1861. He was buried at St Stephen’s Church, Kirkstall. A fund was set up for a statue in his memory. Subscribers overwhelmingly voted for it to be placed in Bradford. The statue we see today was sculptured by John Bernie Philip, from three tons of bronze, costing £1500. It was unveiled in Forster Square on Whit Saturday, 1869. Church bells rang and businesses were closed as up to 100,000 people attended the ceremony. It was later moved to Oastler Square - a tribute to the ‘Factory King’.