Factory Wages in the Industrial Revolution

British mill workers in the early 1800s commonly earned a few shillings a week, with machine-breaking wages fights, long hours and child labor before reforms.

Overview

Nominal weekly pay for adult men in textile districts ran around one to two pounds for skilled roles and far less for women and children, whose employment was a scandal of the era. Real wage trends are contested: pessimists stress urban squalor and early-period stagnation, optimists point to eventual broad gains by mid-century. The Factory Acts progressively limited child hours, and the 1833 act introduced inspectors. Labor's share of the story, unions, strikes and chartist politics, was born in these wage disputes. All figures are rough historical estimates.