Hitherto children had been sent to the mills almost as soon as they could walk, and in rush seasons young women were kept at work, usually under the most unhygienic conditions, all day and half the night as well. The main purpose of the Factory Act of 1833—which not only the employers but the poverty- stricken workpeople themselves did their best to evade—was to prohibit the employment of children under nine years of age, to limit the hours of work and improve the conditions in the mills.

To enable the Inspectors to enforce the provisions of this Act powers similar to those of a magistrate were conferred upon them; and to obviate the dangers of corruption to which their powers exposed them Government took pains to select only men of integrity—which generally meant in those days men of assured social position.

Not only was it immensely gratifying to Samuel Kent's self- esteem to quit trade and mingle on terms of equality with the landed gentry and professional classes; not only did the experience gained in his father's carpet factory—experience which his colleagues had to acquire—hold out the promise of early promotion, first to a full inspectorship and ultimately to a seat on the Board of Factory Commissioners itself; but the peripatetic nature of his work and the fresh contacts it con- tinually brought him exactly suited his energetic and gregarious disposition. By rail and by post-chaise he was ceaselessly on tour over an area which covered large parts of Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset.

Samuel Kent was the victim of that form of vanity which sacrifices everything to display. His clothes and his horses were the best that money could buy, he entertained his friends lavishly, and the houses he occupied were always larger than either his means or his requirements warranted. To offset these extravagances he became increasingly parsimonious over do- mestic expenses.

As he expanded in affability towards an ever-widening circle of friends his wife faded into the background. In the big house which he had taken at Sidmouth—and which he kept under- staffed—Mrs. Kent found herself very much alone. Instead of the bustle and activity outside the windows of Artillery Place she now looked out over a limitless expanse of empty sea. Cut off from all that was familiar, from a life warmed by family affection and friendships, and stimulated with interests, she now existed in a state of domestic isolation punctuated only by her husband’s constant departures and uncertain returns.

— Yseult Bridges, The Tragedy of Road Hill House, 1955, pp.22-3