primary source #4 - Dharini Trivedi Primary Source...

Dharini Trivedi
Primary Source Response #4
A Testimony for the Factory Act
1. A Testimony for the Factory Act is part of a report drafted by the Factories Inquiry
Commission, part of the English Parliament's House of Commons in 1833. It contains the
testimonies of three people, a medical examiner , a factory worker, and a mill owner. The
direct intended audience is obviously the English Parliament, as these testimonies and the
report as a whole were used in the proceedings conducted by Parliament when they were
deciding to pass the 1833 Factory Act.
2. This document was likely created to represent different perspectives on factory labor so
that Parliament would have all the information needed- or “every side to the story”
necessary to pass this act. By including the perspectives from three different individuals,
each representing a different facet of factory labor, Parliament could make a more
informed decision. The medical examiners uses their position as experts in medicine to
show the physical side effects that children incurred as a result of heavy labor. The
factory worker used his first hand experience working in these conditions to illustrate the
affects labor had on him and his family. The mill owner represents the other side of the
debate, as he argues against reducing the hours of labor because the output of the
factories would significantly decrease.
3. The author of each of the three testimonies uses a unique style. First, the medical
examiners use a combination of medical terminology and imagery to convey the physical
side effects the children suffer due to long labor-intensive hours in the factory starting
from young age. For example, they write “stunted growth...twisting of the ends of long