The Industrial Revolution took time to take effect in Scotland and it was from the mid 18th century that families began moving from their rural homes and settle in what were to become the major engineering, chemical and shipbuilding towns along the River Clyde. Be in no doubt of the magnitude of the change taking place as by the end of the nineteenth century the central belt of Scotland was the most heavily industrialised area on earth.

The mill children

The development of power looms saw more jobs become available that were suitable for women and children. This was a great change as the children moved from a home working environment where there was some relaxation to the less personal and supervised factory conditions. Some manufacturers believed there were advantages in employing young, small children to clear fluff from under the looms, and that they should be under 12 years of age if they were to be trained for future work in the mill.

Amongst the better arrangements to come out of the new mechanical age was the New Lanark mills of David Dale who built a barracks capable of housing 500 orphaned children. These were a model of cleanliness , with the children clothed and educated whilst also working in the mills during a 13 hour day. Clearly not wholely philanthropic in its initial provision, it was Dale's son in law, Robert Owen, who took things further. Under Owen no children worked under the age of ten but went to day school, those over ten having an evening school for an hour and a half.

Elsewhere the long hours and demand of the overseers to keep up with the "rhythm of the machines" often led to terrible accidents with fingers crushed or amputated, limbs caught in unguarded machinery or the child dragged by their ragged clothing into the machines. Chest illnesses such as pneumonia and bronchitis were prevalent and made worse in the wet spinning flax factories where barefooted girls from ten to fourteen years of age worked, soaked to the skin, on wet stone floors. Tuberculosis was rife especially in the dry and dusty conditions to be found in cotton spinning, such that boys employed there were noticeably thinner and paler then elsewhere.

Mining community

There were two main coal fields, those of the West of Scotland in Ayrshire and Lanarkshire; and the coal fields of Fife in the East. They were major sources of work and became increasingly important with the mining of ir ore and development of the iron, engineering and ship building industries.

How sad the coal miner who said:

"Children were and are property, for they are taken down as soon as they can carry coal ".