Ure's book, The Philosophy of Manufacturers, was condemned by factory reformers as it claimed that child workers were treated well in the factories and mills. For example, this is what he said about his visit to Manchester : "I have visited many factories, both in Manchester and the surrounding districts, during a period of several months and I ...

Andrew Ure Defends the Factory System’s use of Child Labor and Long Hours, 1835 (Andrew Ure (1778-1857) was one of the chief liberal defenders of the factory system and a vigorous opponent of factory legislation.

In the 1830s Ure wrote two remarkable books, The Philosophy of Manufactures (1835) and The Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain (1836). His books drew an inescapable conclusion: by repealing protectionism, England would become vastly wealthier, benefiting all her citizens and bettering relations with her European neighbors and the United States.

Andrew Ure, The Philosophy of Manufacturers, 1835 (Andrew Ure, The Philosophy of Manufactures, 1835, pp. 5-7, 23, 301; in J. F. C. Harrison, ed., Society and Politics in England, 1780-1960, New York: Harper & Row, 1965, pp. 144-46. Ure, a professor in Glasgow, became a well known writer on science and industry.

Fig 1. Tide page of Andrew Ure, The Philosophy of Manufactures term and Ure used the supposed lightness of the labour involved to argue against any restriction on the hours of child labour. Often, he suggests, factory children rest for four minutes at a time, and when their work is done, they skip happily away from the