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The Industrial Revolution - The Child Labour Debate

William Wilson - Medical Doctor

Graeme video
In association with Spartacus Education
 
  

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Good evening, I am Dr. William Wilson. I have been a medical doctor for eight years and I lived and worked in Manchester, before being employed by one Mr. Douglas; a merchant in Manchester, and chairman of the committee of cotton-spinners. I had once thought like some people, that child labour was bad. 

Until I saw that it benefited everyone. I went to sixteen cotton factories, and checked 428 children. Their general health of those children was very good. Only eight of them had something wrong with them, and they were slight from ricketty cases and others from diseases.  The problems with the children had nothing to do with their employment in the cotton factories.