Besides the acts that dealt with the unemployed, the act that dealt with those who had jobs in the factories, Lord Althorp’s Factory Act, was a failure in dealing with another domestic problem between 1833-1841. The factory workers were forced to long ridiculously long and monotonous hours that the Ten Hours Movement developed and other reformers such as John Fielden and Michael Sadler emerged. A Royal Commission, led by Edwin Chadwick, was set up, creating the Factory Act of 1833 that based its grounds on efficiency instead of humanitarianism. New rules on the hours such as children aged 9-12 to work a maximum 9 hours a day were implemented only in textile factories or mills which resulted in hope from the Ten Hours Movement that adults’ hours would change. To their dismay, there was no restriction on hours men worked as they were ‘free agents’ and would ruin the ‘laissez faire’ way Britain’s economy was running as restricted hours meant falling profits and workers would be laid off. Employed sneakily got around the hours of the children by employing them in shifts. The Act also failed to break the parents’ mentality as they wanted their children to bring home much needed income and issues on the children’s’ ages arose as it was only from 1839 official records were kept. From here, it is shown that the Factory Act of 1833 was another Whig failure in dealing with Britain’s domestic problems during 1833-1841.
The problem of the mentality of children working was intrinsic to the issue of education, with the government grant for education as another Whig failure. The Factory Act stated that those between 9-13 years old should be educated for two hours, but in reality parents refused to send their children to school so they could add to the family income through work. The concept of state education was non-existent, but instead education was religiously inspired. The National Society was funded by the Church of England and mirroring this was the British and Foreign School Society funded by non-conformist groups. Although the newly created Education Department of the Privy council gave the societies a grant of £30,000 in 1839, the meagre amounts were not powerful enough to create anything special, supported by the fact state education was not established. The lack of change confirms that the government grant for education was a failed Whig reform that did not deal with Britain’s domestic problems.
Whilst the Church was given funding for education, there were problems with the Church in Ireland, even after the Irish Church Act in 1833. 90% of the population in Ireland were Catholic but had to pay tithes and church rates towards 22 bishops and 2500 parishes that belonged to the Church of Ireland, and consequently this caused disruption as seen by the tithe war that started in 1831. This led to passing of the Irish Church Act, which reduced the number of bishops and abolished parishes where there were no Anglican churchgoers. Nonetheless they were unsuccessful in attempting to appropriate the surplus income of the church for secular purposes like education. There was a Irish Tithe Act in 1838 that transferred the payment of tithes from tenant to landlord, yet this made no difference the to peasants as landlords passed the burden of the tithe to the peasant via increased rents. Overall this shows that Ireland’s domestic problems were not solved in the Whig reforms of 1833 – 1841, making their reforms generally a failure.
Despite all of this, the Whigs were able to create some success in their reforms to deal with domestic problems, such as the Municipal Corporation Act in 1835. This transformed the borough electoral system, which managed to turn around the corruption and inefficiency of some boroughs such as members of the town council ignoring vital issues like public health and social care. The act passed in September 1835 pinpointed the known abuses through abolish the idea of a secret borough as council has to be elected by all adult male ratepayers. Those on the council were to sit for 3 years, generating a healthy turnover on councillors and additionally there was to be a paid town clerk and accounts would be regulated a scrutinised to evade corruption. Conversely, these successes were still limited as it was regarded as a middle class affair as the working classes were yet to see the right to vote. Likewise, few councils chose to take the option of using the powers to alleviate social distress, making no impact on social improvements. This suggests that although there was success in the borough electoral system, the success was still limited pointing towards why Whig reforms were still generally a failure.
However, even though there were no social improvements by the borough councils, there was success for the administrative efficiency of the poor concerning the Poor Law Amendment Act. From the ratepayers’ point of view, the poor laws were an achievement because the figures of those in receipt of poor relief dropped dramatically after 1834. The horrendous conditions of the workhouse seemed to pay off as it seemed to deter the unemployed and the administrative apparatus it generated created a springboard for future substantial social changes. Thus, from an administrative point of view the poor laws were a success, but the humanitarian side of the harsh treatment of the poor as discussed earlier on far outweighs the benefits the poor law produced for the government. Therefore, this illustrates why the Poor Law Amendment Act was still a failure even though in the eyes of the government it was a ‘success’.
There was still some success for the public and not the government however, as Church reforms were quite successful with the domestic problems the Church of England was producing and issues with non-conformists and Catholics. The politically powerful Church of England was rich due to its wealth of land, church rates and tithes. A significant gap appeared between the rich lifestyle of the bishops in comparison with the poorest parish clergy. This was tackled through the redistribution of church money to the poorer clergy and to build new churches in the cities, together with creating the payment of the tithe into a money payment – much less burdensome for the public. Non-conformists and Catholics were permitted to marry in their own churches in 1836, whilst the Anglican monopoly on marriage and funeral services was broken through the introduction of a civil register on births, civil marriages and funerals. University College London granted entrance and degrees to anyone irrespective of religious allegiance. In spite of this, the traditional universities of Oxford and Cambridge refused to follow suit. The Church Rates Bill, which transferred upkeep costs of churches from parishioners to church funds, was rejected by the Commons. This demonstrates that there was some success in the Church reforms, but as always were still limited showing that Whig reforms did not successfully deal with Britain’s domestic problems.
In conclusion, the decade of reform in which the Whigs attempted to deal with Britain’s domestic problems was overall a failure, mainly due to the shortcomings of the Poor Law Amendment Act as well as other factors such as the 1833 Factory Act. Some successes arose such as the Church reforms and the Municipal Corporation Act, yet these successes were limited each time, suggesting that the Whig reforms of 1833-1841 were unsuccessful in dealing with Britain’s domestic problems.
