The "Factory Act" of 1833 was an example of a model law, or to be more specific, an idealization that did not correspond to reality. Immediately, ways were found to circumvent the Factory Act:

1. To get around the time limitations for women and child factory workers, night-work (night shifts 12 hours long) was introduced and the mill owners agitated to have the factory inspectors required under the Factory Act to tolerate or ignore the relay or shift system. Scheduling 'shifts' of work enabled employers to delimit hours during a single shift, but then assign workers to a second shift, circumventing the law. Workers could work two, three or six hours a day (in a single shift) during hard times; 13 to 15 hours a day (in more than one shift) during times of prosperity. The factory inspector could no longer interfere.
2. Although the government mandated two hours of schooling each day for child workers, the government did not provide schools nor teachers. Instead, the government permitted the mill owners to subtract money from the wages of the child workers in order to pay for their teachers. The mill owners then employed worn-out workers as substitutes for teachers.
3. Many mill owners disregarded restrictions of the Factory Act as the fines for non-compliance (if they were caught, let alone succesfully prosecuted) were trifling in comparison to the profits to be made.
4. Workers such as men displaced in their jobs by women or children, those displaced in their jobs due to injury, and those too old to be profitably employed, joined the ranks of the poorly employed as costermongers, etc., or the ranks of the unemployed in the workhouses, or as pickpockets, etc. whom Charles Dickens portrayed. In addition to this displacement of mill operators ("millies"), more and more of the operators were displaced by improvements in mill machinery. For example, methods were devised for 'coupling' (or 'double-decking') mules (for example, attaching two 300-spindle mules together to form one 600-spindle mule), a pair of which were then operated by one spinner while throwing another out of work.

Factory workers were worked to the point of physical exhaustion; frequently child workers were flogged and mistreated (permitted by law). When necessary the overseers had the child workers rousted from their beds at the beginning of their shifts. In addition to the factory horn, which awakened workers to get to work, some factories also employed a knocker up who went from house to house, knocking on doors with a stick to wake up the workers. When child workers overslept, some overseers were known to seize the child workers from their beds at home and drive them with blows to work. (The naked children carried their clothes with them.)

With the growing demand for child laborers in the mills, the pauper children from the workhouses became a regular article of trade. Three- and four-year-olds were forced to work for the mill owners under apprenticeship contracts.

The health environment of the mills where cloth was manufactured was extremely dangerous:

1. The cloth manufacturing mills had machines in the rooms that produced much heat (fires were not unknown). Fiber dust was in the air, causing diseases such as white-lung that killed many workers.
2. Workers were crippled by the long hours of standing. Any worker who sat down was fined, and there were a series of fines established for other 'infractions': for example, the female doffers were constantly watched by the doffing mistress to make sure that they quickly exchanged the filled spindles with empty spindles. Meanwhile, the mill owners rigged the clocks to show time in their favor. Clocks might be running fast at the beginning of the shift, so that employees would be 'caught arriving late' when they really were not, and then slowed at the end of the shift so that the employees were forced to stay later to perform more unpaid work. Another fraud (a mill owner's dodge) was to tie the speed of the clock to the speed of the machines, such that when the machines ran slower time itself seemed to slow down; when the machines stopped, or were being repaired, 'time' stopped for the employees as well.
3. These child workers had stunted growth, in general. Recall, the bones of children were still growing. The long hours of standing caused curving of the spinal column, curving of the leg bones (bone ends also being malformed), and knees being bent inward. Throstle-spinning caused knee-pan diseases when the knee is used to slow-down or stop the spindles, necessary when joining broken threads. In addition, the long hours of standing affected women specifically in their pelvic bones and these women had increased incidences of miscarriages. Women workers that were pregnant worked until the hour of delivery, fearing loss of their jobs otherwise. Menstruation also was abnormally affected.
4. Certain classes of accidents were common among cloth manufacture workers such as the crushing or loss of joints of fingers, entire fingers, part or entire hands and arms, feet, parts of legs, entire legs. In many cases, death follows due to lock-jaw. How could such accidents occur? "Strapping" was used to transfer energy (in the form of circular motion) a distance away. The strapping however was not generally enclosed due to extra expenses such as the increased time needed to access the machinery for cleaning or repairs. The result was that parts of bodies got caught in the strapping and gears. Such accidents were even more likely to take place when cleaning machinery while the machines were still in operation; such maintainence was commonly done to save costs.
5. Another common health problem was Onychia – inflammation of the nail on the big toe caused by spinners working in their bare feet in the hot and dirty water lying on the floor.
6. Dyspnoea was another occupational hazard. This is an abnormally uncomfortable awareness of one's own breathing effort as well as the expectoration of blood. Dyspnoea is caused by the enormous amounts of fine dust which affect the lungs of the spinners.
7. Kissing the shuttle referred to diseases passed from worker to worker.
8. The eyesight of workers failed as a direct result of eye strain of mule-spinning where the operators must fix their gaze upon a long row of fine parallel threads.
9. Weakness and a generally unhealthful environment was caused by the working conditions. For example, many workers fainted while at the machines due to hunger. Many workers postponed eating, then after work indulged in excess by drinking alcohol.

Various members of the British government were prompted to act due to the inreasing social agitation, which gave rise to several attempts at social reform. Socialism was born at this time (chartism, Fabianism, Marxism, etc.). The British government feared any form of activism, while at the same time it had to preserve the "goose that laid the golden egg" (the cloth mills). Thus, the tame "Ten-Hour-a-Day Bill" was eventually enacted. The "Yorkshire slaves" were balanced against the black slaves under the thumb of the West Indian plantation owners in Parliament and the rising colonialism in Africa.

References

Fredrich Engels: "The Condition of the Working Class in England"

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