THE EIGHT HOUR DAY
"THERE are 24 hours a day given us; eight of these should be for work, eight for sleep, and the remaining eight for recreation and . . . for men to do what little things they want for themselves." These words were Samuel Parnell’s, and could be said to be the guiding principle of his life. Parnell was born in London in 1810, and after an education in board schools he was apprenticed to a carpenter and joiner, in Theobald’s Road. By the time he was 24 he had a deep interest in the trade union movement, but never actually joined a union because of his inability to convince his shopmates. that a shorter working day should be their first main aim. Tired of fighting their resignation to tradition, he decided to go abroad and, becoming a land purchaser under the New Zealand Company, left England on the Duke of Roxburgh, arriving in Wellington in February, 1840. Shortly after he arrived in New Zealand, Parnell started building a store for a Wellington merchant who had been a fellow passenger on the ship out. He included in the contract for this job a stipulation that the men employed would work no more than eight hours a day. The merchant agreed to this (because of the shortage of carpenters in Port Nicholson-not because of any progres-
sive leanings) and thus the principle of eight hours a day had its first, if temporary, recognition. The story of the eight-hour day, and of Samuel Duncan Parnell’s share in making it possible, has been made the subject of a documentary to mark the occasion of Labour Day. This documentary, A Dream Fulfilled, written by Zenocrate Graham and Bryan O’Brien, will be heard on Sunday, October 21, the day preceding Labour Day, at 9.30 a.m. from the YA stations. 3YZ and 4YZ.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 897, 12 October 1956, Page 17
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307THE EIGHT HOUR DAY New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 897, 12 October 1956, Page 17
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