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The Factory Question and Industrial England 1830-1860. By Robert Gray Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. xiv + 253 pp. Illustrations, tables, bibliography and index. $59.95. ISBN 0-5214-9659-4.
This book examines a well-worn theme: early nineteenth-century British industrialization in what the author describes as the classical territory of the industrial revolution. By this he means the Lancashire cotton districts and the woolen and worsted region of the West Riding of Yorkshire. In these areas, he looks at the "factory question"-the contemporary debate over the nature, scope and reform of mechanized factory production.
If the time-scale and subject matter of this study are rather narrow, Gray's source material and the scope of his investigation are not: as a social historian he attempts to unravel contests between business leaders, legislators, workers, reformers, medical men, and philanthropists. Besides the standard historical accounts, he uses a wide range of sources, such as private papers, novels, sermons, technical treatises, travelogues, broadsides, and newspapers.
Gray's study is split into two main sections. The first analyzes the pre1850 debate over the factory system, revealing a wide range of issues, campaigns and pressure-groups. In this debate, radical workers' demands for short-time working...