More than Half of Factory Workers in England are Women and Girls

"According to an official report the present statistics of the factory system are as follows:- Last year there were in the United Kingdom 6,378 factories; the total number of hands employed was 775,534, whereof considerably more than half, namely 467,261, were females. Of children, under thirteen years old, attending school and working half-time, there were 54,411; of whom, again, more than half, or 30,548, were girls. Lancashire alone contains one-third of the factories of the United Kingdom; Scotland only musters one-tenth of the number at work in England; while Ireland as yet possesses on the germs of this sytem of modern trade. She has within her island boundaries but 157 factories, employing in all but 37,872" (Merryweather, Mary. Experience of Factory Life; Being a Record of Fourteen Years' Work at Mr. Courthauld's Silk Mill at Halstead, in Essex. Third Edition, much enlarged, with a preface by Bessie Rayner Parkes. London: Printed and Published by Emily Faithfull and Co. Victoria Press, (For the Employment of Women), 1862) Preface pp. xviii-ix).