Profile Major Works Resources

Michael Thomas Sadler, 1780-1835.

Portrait of M.T. Sadler

English businessman from Yorkshire, radical Tory MP and leader of the factory reform movement. 

Elected to parliament in 1829, Michael T. Sadler is perhaps best known for his campaign to limit work hours and improve conditions for child laborers.  Although unsuccessful during his parliamentary term (cut short by the parliamentary reform of 1832 - Sadler lost his seat), the campaign he started and the evidence he gathered eventually led to the new laws curbing child labor.

In economics, Sadler's main claim to fame is his 1830 Law of Population.  Malthus's old population doctrine recently had come under attack by Nassau William Senior in 1829,  who posited instead the "demographic transition", that fertility actually declines with prosperity as people naturally preferred to limit their families in order to achieve a "better" standard of living for themselves.  As Senior's argument gained ground against Malthus's, Sadler leaped into the fray with what seemed like a compromise, and proposed in his 1830 treatise, a modification of the Malthusian law, suggesting that population growth depended not only on food (as Malthus proposed), but also on space (Sadler's addition).  Thus the Malthusian law, Sadler proposed, would be weaker in places with greater population density ("the prolificness of otherwise similarly circumstanced, varies with their numbers", v.2, p.352).  As wealthier countries and places tended to have greater population density, it only seemed like fertility rates declined with wealth.  Sadler did not really explain the basis of his case - his voluminous work reviewed many of the past arguments about fertility, but he did not really connect the population density argument to them.  He simply assumed that population growth was greater in the countryside than in the cities. 

Sadler's argument was famously attacked by Thomas Macaulay in the Edinburgh Review and George Poulett Scrope in the Quarterly Review.

 

  

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Major Works of Michael Sadler

  • A First Letter to a Reformer, in reply to a pamphlet lately published by Walter Fawkes, Esq., entitled 'The Englishman's Manual', 1817 [bk]
  • Ireland, Its Evils and their Remedies, being a refutation of the errors of the Emigration Committee and others, touching that country; to which is prefixed, a Synopsis of an original treatise, about to be published, on the law of population, developing the real principle on which it is universally regulated, 1828 [bk]
  • The Speech of M.T. Sadler, M.P. for Newark, in the House of Commons, on the second reading of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, March 17, 1829 [bk]
  •  The Law of Population: a treatise, in six books; in disproof of the superfecundity of human beings, and developing of the real principle of their increase. 1830, vol. 1, vol.2
  • Refutation of an article in the Edinburgh Review (no. cii), entitled 'Sadler's Law of Population', containing also additional proofs of the principle enunciated in that treatise, founded on the census of different counties, recently published. 1830. [bk]
  • The Speech of Michael T. Sadler in the House of Commons, on proposing the establishment of Poor Laws for Ireland, 1830 [bk]
  • The Speech of Michael Thomas Sadler, M.P. on the Ministerial Plan of Reform, delivered in the House of Commons on seconding General Gascoyne's motion for retaining the present number of members for England and Wales, 1831 [bk]
  • The Distress of Agricultural Labourers, ilustrated by the speech of M.T. Sadler, Esq., M.P., upon a motion for leave to bring in a bill for their relef, on October 11, 1831
  • The Speech of Michael Thomas Sadler, Esq, in the House of Commons, March 16, 1832, on moving the second reading of the Factories' Regulation Bill, 1832 [bk]
  • Factory Statistics: The Official Tables appended to the report of the Select Committee on the Ten Hour Factory Bill, vindicated in a series of letters addressed to John Elliot Drinkwater, Esq., one of the factory commissioners. 1836 [bk]

 
HET

 
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Resources on Michael T. Sadler

  • The Englishman's Manual: dialogue between a Tory and a Reformer, by William Fawkes, 1817 [bk]
  • "Malthus and Sadler, on Population and Emigration", by G. Poulett Scrope, 1831, Quarterly Review, (v.45, Apr),  p.97 (review of Senior and Sadler)
  • Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Michael Thomas Sadler, Esq, by R.B. Seeley, 1842 [bk]
  • "Sadler, Michael T." in R.H. Inglis Palgrave, editor, 1894-1899, Dictionary of Political Economy [1918 ed.]
  • "Sadler, Michael T." in Leslie Stephen & Stephen Lee, editor, 1885-1901 Dictionary of National Biography [1908-09 ed]
  • "Sadler, Michael T." in 1911 Britannica
  • Sadler at Spartacus
  • Sadler page PeelWeb
  • Sadler entry at Britannica
  • Sadler entry at SNAC
  • Wikipedia

 

 

 
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