Samuel Greg had a strong hold over his employees; order of factory life was enforced in order to ensure he had an efficient disciplined workforce. The workers had few rights and anyone caught disobeying the rules would be heavily fined or dismissed. They were fined for things such as whistling, breaking windows or being late. At Styal fines were paid by children doing over time in their dinner breaks. A serious offence was to run away which caused a lot of inconvenience. The fine was 8d per day plus expenses, any money spent on their location and return. The apprentices were also sent to the punishment room. Greg didn’t believe in physical punishment, as the children would not be able to sleep, eat, walk, see or work the next day.
Owen strongly opposed to the use of corporal or physical punishment, so in order to keep discipline at the New Lanark Mills; he devised his own unique system. He placed a small four-sided wooden block, known as a silent monitor. The silent monitors were hung next to each worker in the mills, with each side displaying a different colour. Bad behavior was represented by the colour black; uncaring was represented by blue; good by yellow; and excellent by white. The superintendent was responsible for turning the monitors every day, according to how well or badly the worker had behaved. A daily note was then made of the conduct of the workers in the books of character which were provided for each department in the mills, if a certain worker kept getting the colour black they would be dismissed. This system worked well as workers worked efficiently to please Owen.
Punishments at Quarry Bank and New Lanark were light compared to the more brutal methods used to enforce discipline at the mills in the towns such at Manchester and Blackburn. Beatings were common, and sometimes vices or weights were attached to the nose and ears. Some masters were accused of having been in the habit of knocking down apprentices with clenched fists, kicking them about when down and beating them to excess with sticks, or flogging them with horse-whips; of seizing them by the ears, lifting them form the ground and forcibly dashing them down on the floor, pinching them until their fingers met. These physical punishments lead to the children being in pain from cuts, bruises and broken bones consequently, finding it difficult to work.
Both Greg and Owen provided a safe comfortable environment for their apprentices to live in. The boys slept on one side of the house and the girls on the other. There was a door between the apartments which was locked at night. The beds were reasonable; they slept two to a bed and had clean sheets at least once a month. They had blankets and rugs which were kept clean; the floor of the rooms was also kept very clean. The room was white washed once a year and aired everyday. They had clean shirts on every Sunday and new clothes once a year. There was a garden and allotment outside of the cottage where the boys worked to grow fresh fruit and vegetables. The houses built by Greg and Owen were similar to those built in the towns, but the villagers had the natural benefit of rural surroundings. In over crowded towns, with inadequate sanitation, such houses became slums. Houses at Styal and New Lanark were separated by courts and alleys where as in towns they were built back-to-back. As a result of no access to clean water an out break of cholera in towns was caused. At Style and New Lanark each cottage had its own allotment, and every house had its own privy. The town had as many as one hundred people had to share a privy. Many houses were totally undrained, and waste piled up around them.
Greg provided his apprentices with an education even though he was under no obligation to at the time. He wanted literate workers as they would be more likely to stay on after their indenture. As adult workers, it would also allow promotion to take place. Both boy and girl apprentices were taught to read, but only the more able boys would have been taught writing and arithmetic. Girls were also taught how to sew. School generally took place on the evenings and on the Sundays. Paper and quill pens were used by older intelligent students, while the younger ones used a box filled with sand which they traced figures and letters, before graduating to slates. Only the boys were able to move up to the intelligent table where quills were used, as Greg was slightly sexist and felt girls didn’t need to be as academic as the boys. He felt their only aim in life was to get married and have children. The boys were taught by a master and the girls by Greg’s daughters. The education Owen provided for his was very similar but more advanced. He had a nursery; nature tables were made the children sang and played games. The older children were taught the 3 R’s. In the mills in the towns the children got no education at all until it became compulsory for factory owners to provide the children with an education in 1802.
Food was good out in the country; they had an endless supply of vegetables form the garden. Styal had a co-op which sold items at reasonable prices and Oak Farm where they purchased fresh dairy. Breakfast was usually porridge with milk; it was thick like oatcake which they eat with their hands. Lunch was also porridge but sometimes included onions and leaks. In the evenings they were given lobstew, a stew with meat and vegetables. The food was always better on Sundays it would include meat, usually pork, and possibly a pudding made with soft fruits from the garden. Greg and Owen made sure the workers had a nourishing diet. This meant they would have more energy and were more efficient when working. The diet of the workers at New Lanark was very similar to Style due to them both being in rural areas, therefore they had easy access to fruit and vegetables. In the towns the general diet was poor. The workers existed on a diet of potatoes, bread, dripping and porridge. They had very little fruit or vegetables and food was often made impure by profit seeking shop keepers, by them adding chalk to the flour, watering down the milk and beer and by mixing sand into the sugar. The lack of vegetables and the impurity of fruit around resulted in the workers not being able to fight disease or infections.
All of the workers had to work long hours in dusty noisy environments which caused bad chests and lungs, eye problems and deafness. They had to carry heavy weights which gave them bad backs. However at Styal and New Lanark they were able to get out in the clean fresh air, they also walked to work which was good exercise. In their free time the children also got to play outside in the sun. The workers out in the countryside also got clean water and had a good diet. Greg employed Dr Holland who was in charge of checking all the apprentices’ health and strength. Greg and Owen wanted their workers to be fit and healthy as possible; this meant they would be more efficient to produce good quality work. There was hardly any out breaks of disease, in the country there was a much healthier workforce. Whereas in towns they didn’t have access clean water, which caused an out break cholera. As a result of the long hours worked employees never saw day light which meant they had bad bones due to the lack of sunlight. In the towns when the children finished work they had no where to play apart from the dangerous dirty streets.
The owners of the Mills in the towns employed children from the small age of five; they were only interested in making money and not the health of their employees. At Quarry Bank Greg employed the children over the age of nine, as he felt at this age they know right from wrong and consequences when they had done wrong, they had got rid all their childhood diseases and didn’t need as many breaks. Owen started to employ his children at the age of ten; they could handle the work a lot more easily and not get as tired.
Workers were used to working in the domestic system, where they were their own bosses they could take time off when ever they wanted, not having to travel to work and parents had no worries about childcare. Thus when they started working in the factories they found the rules hard to obey. These were the first factory owners and had no experience to draw on and felt the only way to make workers toe the line was harsh discipline, some stricter than others, Greg not believing in physical punishment, Owen not believing in corporal or physical punishment but factory owners in towns believing in both types of punishments. At Styal the workers never went on strike, in the towns strikes occurred frequently. Owen allowed the trade unions to campaign for better wages.
Styal Mill differed to a great extent from the town mills but has lots of similarities to New Lanark, mainly due to them both being sited in rural areas. The mills in the towns had many differences compared to Styal; the biggest diversity was the punishments. At the town mills harsh physical punishments were used as well as corporal, whereas at Style the workers were fined and apprentices sent to the punishment room. The environments also differed considerably, the squalor of the overcrowded towns with polluted air and workers not getting much sunlight really affected the workers making them unhealthy. On the other hand at Style the rural pleasant setting of style helped the workers to stay fit and healthy. Samuel Greg was a fair employer, who treated his employees well, but he did do this to benefit his self; healthy workers resulted in better harder working employees. Robert Owen being the best employer, who cared immensely his workers. The owners of the mills in the towns such as Manchester and Blackburn were the worst; they didn’t care about the health or the dangers they were putting their workers in only the money involved, not realizing that a healthier happier workforce could have benefited them.