Definition
A factory is a building or collection of buildings, together with the surrounding close or curtilage, in which goods, wares, or utensils are manufactured through the application of steam, water, or other mechanical power. The term encompasses the physical premises, the machinery necessary to produce the relevant goods, and the motive power driving that machinery.
In a distinct older usage — primarily found in commercial and colonial law — factory denotes a trading establishment maintained in a foreign country by commercial agents (factors) of a merchant house or chartered company. This meaning survives in historical sources and maritime contexts.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A building or other place where manufacturing takes place; also used in computing to describe a function or method that creates an object; informally, any device or process that produces something at scale.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A house or place where factors (commercial agents) reside to transact business for their employers; also, the body of factors stationed at any place; and separately, a building or collection of buildings appropriated to the manufacture of goods.
Editorial note: Webster's 1913 captures both the commercial-agent sense and the manufacturing sense simultaneously, reflecting a period when both were in active legal use. Modern common usage has shed the commercial-agent meaning almost entirely. Researchers reading factory in a 17th- or 18th-century legal document must determine which sense governs — the overseas trading post or the domestic manufacturing site — because the legal consequences differ substantially.
Common Confusion
Factory (manufacturing premises) vs. factory (trading establishment): These are not merely two definitions of the same word; they arise from different legal frameworks and different historical periods. The trading-establishment sense — a colonial or foreign outpost staffed by factors — is the older meaning and dominates in commercial law sources through the 18th century. The manufacturing-premises sense becomes the dominant legal meaning in the 19th century, driven by English factory legislation. Conflating the two in historical research produces significant interpretive errors.
Factory vs. manufactory: Anderson's Dictionary treats factory as a contraction of manufactory. The terms are functionally synonymous in manufacturing contexts, but manufactory appears more frequently in older American statutes and deeds while factory becomes the term of art in labor and regulatory law.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Factory acts: English statutory scheme (beginning with acts in the early 19th century) regulating conditions of labor in factories, particularly for women and children. These acts gave factory its most precise legal definition in English law and are the primary source for the building-and-curtilage formulation reproduced across historical dictionaries.
Factory (trading establishment): The overseas commercial posting maintained by factors of a merchant house or chartered company — distinct in purpose, governance, and applicable law from the manufacturing establishment.
Why It Matters in Research
The dual meaning of factory is a genuine research trap. A document from the 17th or 18th century using factory almost certainly means a trading establishment in the commercial-agency sense. A document from the mid-19th century onward — especially in an English or American regulatory or labor context — almost certainly means a manufacturing premises. The pivot point is roughly the first wave of English factory legislation in the 1830s and 1840s, which hardened the manufacturing-premises definition into statutory language and exported it into American legal usage.
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus should note that Burrill's Dictionary treats factory primarily through the Scots law lens of a factor's commission or power of attorney — a third sense that can appear in Scottish and Scottish-influenced legal documents. This sense is not manufacturing and not an overseas trading post; it refers to the instrument of agency authority itself.
The curtilage element matters for regulatory and insurance coverage questions: the statutory definitions in English factory acts extended coverage to the entire close or curtilage of the manufacturing premises, not merely the building itself. Historical sources that reproduce this formulation (Black's, Bouvier's) are tracking the statutory definition, not a common law one.
Jurisdictional variation in American law is significant. American states enacted their own factory inspection and labor statutes independently, and statutory definitions of factory diverged — some covering only establishments using mechanical power above a threshold, others extending to any premises where manufacturing occurred. The Law Mind corpus entries for labor law and manufacturing regulation contain the relevant state-level statutory history.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's converge on the English statutory formulation — buildings and premises within the close or curtilage, powered by steam, water, or mechanical means. This is directly traceable to the English factory acts and is the most precise legal definition available. Anderson's confirms the contraction-of-manufactory account and emphasizes the tripartite structure: building, machinery, and motive power. These sources are in agreement on the manufacturing sense.
Burrill's stands apart by treating factory through Scots law as a power of attorney or commission given to a factor — a usage the other dictionaries do not address in their factory entries. This is not an error; it reflects a genuinely distinct legal context.
Rapalje & Lawrence does not provide a substantive independent entry for factory, with its relevant text concerning factor and related terms. Researchers should not expect Rapalje & Lawrence to be authoritative on this term.
None of the historical dictionaries adequately addresses American statutory variation or the transition period when both the commercial-agent sense and the manufacturing sense were simultaneously in active use in American courts and legislatures. That gap requires consultation of primary sources.
Jurisdictional Note
English factory legislation — beginning with the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act 1802 and developing through the Factory Acts of the 1830s–1860s — produced the precise statutory definition reproduced in Black's and Bouvier's. American states followed with their own factory inspection laws in the latter half of the 19th century, but definitions were not uniform. Researchers applying a definition from English sources to an American state statute should verify the specific statutory text.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Labor Law (factory legislation, inspection regimes, labor conditions)
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Manufacturing Regulation (statutory definitions, regulatory scope)
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Commercial Agents (factors, factorage, trading establishments)