Why did David Livingstone begin working in a cotton mill at age 10?

David Livingstone began working in a cotton mill at the age of 10 because his family was poor and he needed to help support them. He was one of seven children raised in a single room at the top of a tenement building for workers at a cotton factory on the banks of the River Clyde.12

During this period of the Industrial Revolution, the use of child labour was common in textile mills, as the work often prioritized manual dexterity and alert response over specialized experience. Despite the long hours of factory work, Livingstone maintained a strong zeal for education; notably, he used part of his first week’s wages to purchase a Latin grammar.32