Evaluating a Primary Source in a History Task
A history task asks: 'How reliable is this source for learning about working conditions in a 19th-century factory?' The source is an 1842 government report containing testimony from a factory inspector: 'I have visited forty mills in this district. In thirty of them I observed children under ten working more than twelve hours a day. The owners denied it, but I saw the children myself.' A student writes: 'This source is reliable because it is a government report and the inspector saw the children himself. It tells us exactly what factory conditions were like.'
1. Evaluate the student's reasoning, identifying what is strong and what is missing.
Read the worked answer
The student has one good point: eyewitness observation by an inspector is stronger evidence than hearsay, and the source gives specific numbers (forty mills visited, thirty with under-ten children working over twelve hours) that can be checked against other records.
But the reasoning is incomplete in three ways. First, 'a government report' is not automatically reliable; governments can select which testimony to publish, and this report may have been compiled to support a campaign for factory reform. Second, one inspector's visits to forty mills are a sample, not all factories, so the source cannot tell us 'exactly what factory conditions were like' everywhere. Third, the student ignores the owners' denial, which the source itself records; a careful reading must ask why the owners disputed the finding.
The student should ask: who produced the report, for what purpose, whose voices are included, and what other sources could confirm or challenge it.
2. Write a stronger two-sentence judgement about the source's usefulness, using the details in the setup.
Read the worked answer
Model judgement: 'The report is useful evidence that at least some children under ten worked very long days, because an inspector recorded direct observations across forty mills and gave specific figures. Its usefulness is limited, however, because it is a sample from one district, it was published by a government with an interest in reform, and it records the owners' denial without resolving it, so it should be checked against mill records and workers' own accounts.'
Why this is stronger: it separates usefulness from reliability, states what the source does well (direct observation, specific numbers), and names its limits (sample, purpose, unresolved dispute). It also proposes corroborating evidence, which is what historians do rather than accepting or rejecting a single source outright.