It makes an advance on the earlier legislation in the following directions.

It prohibits the employment in any factory or workshop of children under the age of eleven, and requires a certificate of fitness for factory labour under the age of sixteen.

It imposes the half-time system on all children, admitting, however, two methods, either of passing half the day in school, and half at work, or of giving alternate days to work and school.

It recognizes a distinction between the severity of work in textile factories and in non-textile factories, assigning a working week of about fifty-six and a half hours to the former, and sixty hours to the latter.

The exceptions of domestic workshops, and of many other forms of female and child employment, the permission of over-time within certain limitations, and the inadequate provision of inspection, considerably diminish the beneficial effects of these restrictive measures.
In 1842 Lord Ashley secured a Mining Act, which prohibited the underground employment of women, and of boys under ten years.