ABSTRACT
MEANWHILE Owen, after his visit to Yorkshire already described, had proceeded to Lancashire, where he promptly added yet another to the irons he had already in the fire. On November 25 a conference at Manchester, inspired by Owen and John Fielden, and supported by the Lancashire Radicals and factory reformers, established the Society for National Regeneration. The full title of this body was the Society for Promoting National Regeneration, 1 and it had for its specific and immediate object the establishment of the eight-hours day-in the words of its own declaration 'to obtain for eight hours' work the present full day's wages, such eight hours to be performed between the hours of six in the morning and six in the evening'. This reform was to be put into force by a general refusal to work for more than eight hours, on March 1, 1834; branches of the Society were to be organised all over the country, and deputations were to go from the workers to the master manufacturers in each trade and district 'and recommend to them the adoption of the new regulation'. The conference which formed the Regeneration Society also passed a resolution in the following terms :
That Messrs. Oastler, Wood, Bull, Sadler and others, be urgently requested to desist from soliciting Parliament for a
ten hours bill, and to use their utmost exertions in aid of the measures now adopted to carry into effect, on the 1st of March next, the regulation of 'eight hours work for the present full day's wages'.
