THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 a
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped belo 
 
 ped below 

 
 WOMEN IN THE FACTORY
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 WOMEN IN THE 
 FACTORY 
 
 AN ADMINISTRATIVE ADVENTURE, 
 
 1893 TO 1921 
 
 BY ADELAIDE MARY ANDERSON 
 
 D.B.E., MA. 
 
 FORMERLY HIS MAJESTY'S PRINCIPAL LADY INSPECTOR OF FACTORIES, 
 HOME OFFICE 
 
 FOREWORD BY THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. THE VISCOUNT CAVE, G.C.M.G. 
 
 LORD OF APPEAL; FORMERLY HIS MAJESTY'S PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF 
 STATF. FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT 
 
 " Thou, O God, dost sell us all good things at the price of labour." 
 
 Leonardo da Vinci. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 
 
 1922 
 
 ro4
 
 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BT 
 BILLING AND BOSS, LTD , GUILDFORD AND E8HER
 
 DEDICATED TO 
 
 ALL WOMEN WORKERS 
 OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
 
 7 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 This book tells the story of the Woman Inspectorate 
 
 of Factories and Workshops from its beginning in 
 
 1893, when the first Women Inspectors (Miss May 
 
 Abraham and Miss Mary Paterson) made their first 
 
 inspection, until the year 1921, when thirty Women 
 
 * Inspectors saw the fruits of the work of their 
 
 £ branch, not only in greatly developed protection 
 
 * C for the woman worker, but also in her own increased 
 
 capacity to help herself. 
 
 It was a story worth the telling, for it is a chronicle 
 
 of a steady and dogged campaign, of few defeats 
 
 ) y and many victories. The adversaries to be met were 
 
 all the ills which threaten the "factory girl" — 
 
 poisoning by lead or phosphorus or arsenic or 
 
 i mercury, insanitary or unventilated rooms, acci- 
 
 i dents from unsafe machinery, phthisis, anthrax, 
 
 i overstrain, truck and sweating, and more besides. 
 
 H Readers who like a " thrill " will perhaps begin with 
 
 the chapters on " Dangerous Trades " and on the 
 
 War; and if their imagination serves them, they 
 
 may read between the lines of those brief records 
 
 stories of suffering, of endurance, and of rescue, 
 
 which will set them wondering why our predecessors 
 
 so long grudged to the woman worker the help 
 
 which only a woman can give. 
 
 Vll
 
 viii FOREWORD 
 
 But the whole book, with its documented record 
 of steady grinding effort and hard-won success, is 
 well worth reading. 
 
 Dame Adelaide Anderson went through it all, and 
 lor twenty-four out of the twenty-eight years with 
 which the volume is concerned filled the responsible 
 position of Chief Woman Inspector with untiring 
 devotion and conspicuous success. It was plainly 
 "up to " her to write the history of the struggle; 
 and all will like to read it who honour our working 
 women for their work and value their welfare. 
 
 (Signed CAVE. 
 Richmond, 
 
 Marcli 30, 1922.
 
 AUTHORS PREFACE 
 
 The writing of the following story of what Women 
 Inspectors did for women and girl workers under 
 the Factory Acts and Truck Acts was undertaken 
 in response to the wish of friends and colleagues 
 that it should be told, while memory was fresh, 
 by one who had seen the largest part of the 
 conditions and immediate effects of the work — a 
 work carried on under aims and organisation that 
 are now undergoing change. 
 
 The aims and the starting-point of the past 
 organisation are shown in the Introduction, and the 
 outcome, down to 1921, is unfolded in the following 
 chapters. 
 
 The material available in official reports for those 
 who wish to study the facts more closely is so full 
 of incident that, with the best will to be brief, it 
 has been difficult to tell the tale shortly. Keeping 
 entirely to published official records the whole 
 could be told over again with fresh illustrations. 
 And yet much that was significant and enlightening 
 can only be seen in innumerable notices in the daily 
 and weekly press and monthly reviews of the 
 period; a fairly full collection of these exists, but 
 they could only be quoted occasionally in these
 
 x AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 pages. Their correspondence in general tendency 
 with the outlook shown in Parliamentary Debates — 
 of which an account is given in Chapter VI. — is 
 noteworthy. 
 
 Next to the breadth of the field of action of the 
 Women Inspectorate, and the variety of their con- 
 tacts with local administration and the courts, as 
 well as with industry, the smallness of their numbers 
 from 1893 to 1914 strikes the mind. The strength 
 of the impulse that sustained and carried them 
 through their years of labour may be traced to 
 conditions summed up in words spoken to one of 
 them by a woman toiling at a heavy task, "Is it 
 right that I should have to do this work and only 
 have eight shillings a week for it ?" 
 
 There was a dominating impulse towards relieving 
 the hardships and sufferings of working women that 
 drew all the women who entered the Factory Depart- 
 ment into a real unity of endeavour — whatever their 
 social or political outlook before entering. 
 
 It is in the same spirit that they have lent me 
 indispensable help in the completing of this little 
 book. I wish gratefully to acknowledge the time 
 and thought freely given to it by those who have 
 long worked with me. Miss Martindale has criti- 
 cally read through all the typed manuscript, Miss 
 Squire the chapter on Wages and the Truck Acts. 
 Miss Squire has also most kindly revised the 
 Appendix I. on Special Regulations for Dangerous 
 Trades, written in 1913, and brought the details
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE xi 
 
 up to the present time. Miss Escreet supplied me 
 with most helpful summaries from the mass of 
 material in Annual Reports on child labour, heavy 
 weights, and religious and charitable institutions. 
 Miss Maura Brooke-Gwynne has devoted much time 
 and skill to a literary criticism of the text. Miss 
 Paterson and Mrs. Drury have kindly written 
 special contributions, the former on mothers and 
 child labour — subjects of special appeal to Women 
 Inspectors — the latter on a stirring day in the life 
 of a Factory Inspector. Finally, I wish to thank 
 Mr. Gerald Bellhouse for some figures in the Intro- 
 duction, and Dr. Legge for kindly reading through 
 the chapter on Dangerous Trades, for his helpful 
 comments, and for the tabulation of reported cases 
 of industrial poisoning. They are in no way re- 
 sponsible, however, for my facts or opinions. 
 
 A. M. A. 
 University Women's Club, 
 2, Audley Square, W. 
 April 2, 1922.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Introduction: How Women Inspectors 
 
 Came, and What they Came to Do - 1 
 
 II. The Women Workers and their Appeal ; Ex- 
 cessive Hours, Insanitation, and Other 
 Uncivilised Conditions - - - 22 
 
 III. Women's Wages and the Truck Acts; the 
 Pieceworker and her Pay 
 
 IV. Dangerous and Injurious Trades; Acci 
 
 DENTS AND SAFETY - 
 
 V. Employment op Mothers; Child Labour 
 Charitable Institutions - 
 
 VI. The Life of the Inspector and its In 
 fluence on legislation; experiences in 
 Courts .... 
 
 58 
 
 94 
 
 149 
 
 190 
 
 VII. The War and Women " Substitutes "; New 
 Light on Hours, Labour-Saving, Fatigue, 
 Food, and Efficiency - - - 224 
 
 VIII. Development of Factory Welfare and its 
 Recognition by Parliament; Works' Com- 
 mittees and Welfare Management - 250 
 
 Appendix I. Special Regulations for Dangerous 
 
 Trades ..... 287 
 
 Appendix II. Reported Cases of Industrial 
 
 Poisoning and Anthrax - - - 306 
 
 Index - - - - - - 308
 
 WOMEN IN THE FACTORY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION : HOW WOMEN INSPECTORS CAME, AND 
 WHAT THEY CAME TO DO 
 
 This book aims at giving some account of an enter- 
 prise that is felt by the Women Officers who lived 
 through it to have been a great experience and a 
 great adventure in the service of the State and Nation 
 — an account that must be somewhat less and }-et 
 more than a chronicle. 
 
 It is hoped, with the aid of outstanding facts 
 and features recorded in many Blue-books and 
 other documents issued during the time, to give a 
 picture of the undertakings and experiences of these 
 women, both at the outset and through the experi- 
 mental development of their administration of Acts 
 and regulations for women in industry, and to trace 
 changes that have followed in conditions of factory 
 life in a period of little over a quarter of a century. 
 
 Personal^ and the idealising powers of youth 
 (our average age at the beginning was twenty- 
 seven years), embarking on a calling that involved 
 conduct of legal proceedings and much other 
 technical knowledge of an entirely novel kind for 
 women of that day, counted for much. We had 
 also liberal, kindly direction and encouragements
 
 2 INTRODUCTION 
 
 behind our efforts from the higher authorities 
 responsible for sanctioning and carrying out the 
 decision to appoint us. Yet the main impetus came 
 from without, in the needs of the women workers 
 who had persistently called — from 1878 onwards — 
 for the personal aid and understanding of " Women 
 Inspectors," armed with authority and powers to 
 enquire into and enforce remedies for wrong con- 
 ditions, or to persuade sympathetic employers to 
 provide amenities that the law could not enforce. 
 
 Much that seemed novel then has, through the 
 publicity of our work and the spontaneous lively 
 interest taken in Parliament and elsewhere in our 
 published reports, become part of the natural order 
 of things. Yet in those days the first appearance 
 of a Woman Inspector in her proper field of work, 
 whether inside a factory or workshop* or on the 
 solicitors' bench in the police courts, was liable 
 to cause a sensation of surprise, sometimes very 
 favourable to the new-comer. 
 
 " Are you the lady inspector ? Why, I expected 
 to see a woman six feet high and a perfect virago;" 
 or, "Girls, it is a lady this time, come and tell her 
 everything she wants to know;" or (in Ireland), 
 "We had a gentleman inspector here last month, 
 and he said we must take dinner at the same hour 
 every day: now a lady like you will know that is 
 impossible!" In police courts it was not unknown 
 for waiting solicitors to enter with keen interest 
 into the merits of our cases and even try to offer 
 professional hints in support of our amateur efforts. 
 Yet the following is a typical press comment of 
 * See Note, p. 21.
 
 ENTRY OF THE WOMAN INSPECTOR 3 
 
 early years: "A small sensation was caused in 
 
 K Police Court when for the first time a lady 
 
 advocate appeared. . . . She made her statement 
 with as much clearness and ease as any more 
 accustomed advocate, and as the facts and laws were 
 alike indisputable, conviction necessarily followed." 
 When this story begins, in great industrial com- 
 munities of Europe, and pre-eminently in Great 
 Britain, women's labour in industry had for more 
 than a hundred years fundamentally depended, 
 without control by women, on such organisation as 
 was furnished by capitalist and middlemen em- 
 ployers, in a factory system that had been com- 
 pletely severed from domestic life. Trade union 
 organisation for women was generally a small, 
 young, and fragile plant where it existed at all. 
 In textile factories for upwards of fifty years Factory 
 Inspectors had applied certain outstanding statu- 
 tory limits and requirements in matters of hours of 
 labour, elementary sanitation, and safety; and for 
 a much shorter time in many non-textile factories. 
 Glamour had been lent to these questions of regula- 
 tion by movements for reform led by such out- 
 standing personalities as Robert Owen, Shaftes- 
 bury, Peel, Oastler, Sadler. The fact remained, 
 however, as official witnesses assured the Royal 
 Commission on Labour in 1891-92, that women 
 workers themselves tendered practically none of 
 the complaints that the Inspectors were there to 
 remedy and to which they looked for clues in 
 exercising their protective functions.* 
 
 * Minutes of Evidence, Group C, Vol. I. Questions 4638 
 and 6830. 
 
 2 
 
 /
 
 4 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Apart from the few industries where women had 
 in some degree carried their traditional skill over 
 from the domestic system of industry into certain 
 factory processes — I have to write in few words 
 of a many-sided, unevenly-moving change — the 
 entry and ever-extending rule of the power-engine 
 had brought " lower grade work and diminished 
 industrial self-respect "* for women workers in a 
 wide field. The loss also of leadership and super- 
 vision by fellow-women of better education in the 
 " making of things " (such as soap, candles, and 
 the many other articles formerly made at home) 
 that obtained under the domestic system — that is, 
 by women more habituated than workers to exer- 
 cise of direction — brought a new social cleavage 
 between them and working women. This meant 
 an incalculable loss to both classes of women. Yet 
 it meant still more for the whole community — the 
 elimination, for a dark period, of the guiding 
 ideas of women in regard to conditions essential 
 for a good industrial life of both women and 
 men. 
 
 Thus, the factory system of the nineteenth 
 century, " unsuited as we now know it to have 
 been to men, was far more unsuited to women. "f 
 For the worker it emptied more than half the 
 meaning from the ancient symbol of a social order 
 when master meant master of craft, " As the eyes of 
 servants look unto the hands of their masters and 
 the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress.' 
 
 ; * Report of Womon's Employment Committeo, Ministry 
 ' of Reconstruction, 1919, Cd. 9239, p. 60. 
 f Ibid.
 
 TYRANNY OF THE MACHINE 5 
 
 It wholly removed into the realms of mythology 
 classic pictures of the days when women's indus- 
 tries were entirely home industries — of Nausicaa 
 and her maiden laundresses on the seashore of 
 Corcyra, or of Penelope weaving in the days when 
 " Pallas taught the texture of the loom." 
 
 While mechanical power mainly ruled, instead of 
 serving, in the factory, the intervention of State 
 regulation merely prevented the greatest abuses. 
 Even constructive and efficient application of 
 scientific standards to human conditions of manual 
 work was almost unthought of, and the withdrawal 
 of the poet from the arena of industry proclaimed 
 the essential barbarity of its character. 
 
 And yet the official life that was lived by the 
 Women Inspectors in those early days of infinite 
 surprises and appeals was a most lovable and 
 enthralling one, of great movement and happiness. 
 We escaped all fear of " venturing the hand into 
 the spinning cog-wheels of the huge, implacable 
 machine." How much we owed to the fact that — 
 in a wonderful ignorance of ordinary official method 
 and tradition — we were sent out into a wide world 
 to find our tasks; sent with powers that could and 
 did effect changes, having eyes and hearts ready 
 and anxious to read the meaning of the system 
 under which a million and a half of our fellow- . 
 country women made the things needed to clothe j 
 and feed the body and to furnish and equip the / 
 home ! Understanding of the basis from which 
 we set out can hardly be attained without a brief 
 survey of the stages in the movement that led to 
 our appointment.
 
 6 INTRODUCTION 
 
 On February 19, 1891, Miss Emily Faithful, after 
 an interview with the Home Secretary, Lord Aber- 
 dare, about the working of the Factory Act, wrote 
 a letter to The Times. She said that as long ago 
 as 1872 the information she received from various 
 sources strengthened her conviction that Women 
 Inspectors were necessary if certain evils were to be 
 redressed and rules enforced in places where women 
 were employed. The first effectual advocacy of 
 the appointment of women as Inspectors came, 
 however, from a leader in Women's Trade Union 
 Organisation, Mrs. Emma Ann Paterson, wife of 
 Thomas Paterson, " a man of genius and of remark- 
 able range of knowledge belonging to the ranks of 
 labour." Working women owe to her, said Mr. 
 Hodgson Pratt, in an obituary notice, " an eternal 
 debt for her wise, practical, and incessant labours. 
 She founded in 1874 and conducted the Women's 
 Protective and Provident League.* It was not 
 easy to teach ill-paid, overworked women that by 
 association among themselves they could raise their 
 position . . . and combine for a demand of fan 
 treatment by employers. Women accustomed to 
 think themselves too weak and dependent, too 
 ' inferior,' women isolated and struggling for bare 
 life . . . how could they combine or do anything ? 
 Emma Paterson has taught hundreds of them — 
 bookbinders, upholstresses, dressmakers, machinists, 
 tailoresses, and others — that they can do all this. 
 She has given them a new life, shown them the 
 noble idea of mutual help and service . . . and 
 given them the power of organisation and self- 
 
 * Afterwards the Women's Trade Union League.
 
 EARLY EFFORTS 7 
 
 government."* Mrs. Paterson and another member 
 of the league were deputed in 1875 to represent 
 two of the London Women's Unions at the Trade 
 Union Congress in Glasgow, and there and in 
 various other industrial centres of Great Britain, 
 she extended her activities for trade union organisa- 
 tion of women. 
 
 In the year 1878 — the year of the first great con- 
 solidation of numerous Factory Acts — at the Bristol 
 Meeting of Trade Union Congress Mrs. Paterson 
 moved to include " women " in a resolution urging 
 upon the Government the appointment of " prac- 
 tical working men " as Inspectors under the Factory 
 Act. This was carried, and in 1881 she arranged 
 for a conference, at which Lord Shaftesbury pre- 
 sided, to advocate the appointment of women as 
 Factory Inspectors. She did not live to see the 
 reform, as she died in December, 1886. 
 
 Although Trade Union Congress never failed to 
 pass the amendment in favour of appointment of 
 working women as Inspectors, brought up year after 
 year by successors to Mrs. Paterson, Parliamentary 
 Committee was either unfavourable or lukewarm. 
 " Oh, pass it," one great person is reported to have 
 said; " it don't matter, they will never get it." 
 Fresh factors were needed to bring the administra- 
 tive reform into being. 
 
 ~~ln 1899, when a doubt had been expressed by 
 Mr. Matthews, Home Secretary, whether he had 
 power to appoint a woman, and even whether there 
 would be enough work for her to do if he had, the 
 
 * From an obituary notice by Hodgson Pratt in the 
 Women's Union Journal, in December, 1886.
 
 8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Fabian Society inserted a clause (eventually proved 
 unnecessary) in an Eight Hours Bill, expressly 
 declaring that women were eligible for the Inspec- 
 torate. Year after year the pressure grew stronger 
 from various sides, and was in no way lessened by 
 the appointment between 1881 and 1890 of a con- 
 siderable number of "practical working men" as 
 Inspectors. 
 
 As the agitation grew, the burden on women of 
 ever severer speeding-up of machinery and the so- 
 called " driving system " in cotton mills, of exces- 
 sively long hours and overtime in the dress and 
 clothing trades, of " sweated " wages in various 
 low-grade industries and outwork, and of the 
 increasingly-felt evils of bad sanitation, fines, and 
 deductions from uncertain wages, all gave point 
 and urgency to this claim. While wages for men 
 were rising, for women, on the whole, they were 
 stationary or falling. Enquiries into the sweating 
 system had shown its worst features to be low 
 wages, long hours, and insanitary surroundings. 
 In spite of the long years since Hood wrote his 
 " Song of the Shirt," these adverse conditions con- 
 tinued to affect women. Middle and upper class 
 women's political organisations began to move 
 energetically. The Women's Liberal Association 
 and Women's Liberal Federation had this question, 
 annually on their agenda, discussed, and resolutions 
 passed from 1890 onwards. 
 
 As Miss I. O. Ford wrote in 189G: " The idea that 
 it was not right, that it was unjust and sometimes 
 even cruel, for women to have no one but men to 
 whom they could appeal against any sort of abuse,
 
 FIRST APPOINTMENTS 9 
 
 had been steadily growing in people's minds. It 
 was an idea that appealed to everyone, both rich 
 and poor." Miss Ford had already spoken re- 
 peatedly in this sense, notably in 1892 at the Bristol 
 meeting of the National Council of Women Workers. 
 At last, between 1891 and 1893, the turning-point 
 in the movement came, with the appointment and 
 work of the Royal Commission on Labour. Four 
 Women Assistant Commissioners were appointed at 
 an early stage in the proceedings. One, Miss May 
 Abraham, Secretary to Lady Dilke (better known 
 as Mrs. H. J. Tennant, C.H.), became in the spring 
 of 1893 one of the two first Women Factory In- 
 spectors under the Home Office, the other being 
 Miss Mary Paterson, with valuable experience of 
 Labour questions in Scotland. Another Assistant 
 Commissioner, Miss Clara Qollett, became special 
 correspondent for women's industrial conditions 
 to the Statistical Department of the Board of Trade. J 
 The report of the Women Assistant Commissioners', 
 the first official women investigators of industrial 
 conditions, received high praise and conclusively 
 supported the demand for appointment of Women 
 Inspectors. One of the two Secretaries of the Com- 
 mission, Mr. Geoffrey Drage, furthered the movement 
 by employing University women and giving them 
 opportunity and training as clerks to the Commis- 
 sion. After the appointment of Miss Lucy Deane 
 in April, 1894, two of his staff were added to the 
 Inspectorate, Miss A. M. Anderson (July, 1894), 
 and Miss A. Tracey (1897), bringing additional 
 experience in precis-writing and knowledge of 
 foreign reports, especially of French, German, and
 
 10 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Austrian industrial codes. Miss R. E. Squire, 
 appointed in December, 1895, brought, like Miss 
 Deane, fresh and good experience as a Sanitary 
 Inspector. These first five Inspectors have all, 
 in time, passed to other tasks and responsibilities. 
 
 The comparative survey of international Labour 
 questions in the chief industrial countries that was 
 undertaken by the Royal Commission on Labour 
 followed soon after the work of the International 
 Conference on regulation of conditions of work in 
 factories and mines, held in Berlin in March, 1890, 
 at the invitation of the German Emperor. That 
 conference was followed in England by the passing 
 of the Factory Act of 1891. This limited the 
 employment of women after childbirth, raised the 
 
 / age of admission and employment of a child, and 
 provided for regulation of dangerous and injurious 
 
 [ trades. It is now of peculiar interest that that 
 " forerunner " of the Labour Convention under the 
 Peace Treaty of 1919 should be in a manner linked 
 with the first effectual employment of women as 
 Factory Inspectors. 
 
 At a political meeting of the National Liberal 
 Federation in January, 1893, Mr. Asquith spoke as 
 Home Secretary, among other subjects, on Adminis- 
 tration of Factory Laws, promising extension of the 
 Inspectorate, and adding: " I hope I may be able at 
 the same time to do something — it will not be much 
 — to gratify the desires of our lady friends for female 
 inspection." He did far more; he gave them their 
 liberal starting-point and wide field of activity. 
 Opportunities were maintained and extended by 
 Sir Matthew White Ridley and a long succession
 
 OFFICIAL STATUS 11 
 
 of Home Secretaries. Permanent Under-Secretaries, 
 too, furthered the work in its earliest stages by 
 carefully planned instructions ; Sir Godfrey Lushing- 
 ton was the first, and Sir Kenelm Digby succeeded 
 him in January, 1895, and largely guided our legal 
 work through nine eventful years. Sir Mackenzie 
 Chalmers followed him, until he in turn was suc- 
 ceeded, in 1908, by Sir Edward Troup. It was the 
 last who gave evidence to the Royal Commission 
 on the Civil Service in 1913 that the work of the 
 Women Inspectors, expressly organised as it was 
 on parallel lines with the men's, was comparable 
 with and as good as theirs. 
 
 The quality of the earliest Women Inspectors 
 did much to decide the official status of women 
 in the Inspectorate. Between some of the official 
 witnesses to the Labour Commission, who urged 
 that the appointments — admitted to be inevitable — 
 should be solely as subordinate assistants, " never 
 to be called on to discharge the higher duties of 
 the office," and outside claimants, who pressed for 
 their full appointment to all the powers and duties 
 of an Inspector, there stood a middle party with 
 moderating views. From them, led by Lady Dilke, 
 came the advice that women should enter as a 
 special class of officers to serve in trades in which 
 women were employed. Somewhere between the 
 extreme limits proposed the higher official decision 
 was made. It was there, in women's trades, thej 
 field at that time of women's greatest need, that' 
 the new Inspectors found their practically limitlesi 
 work. And by the decision they were saved, first, 
 from a hampering necessity of working entirely
 
 12 INTRODUCTION 
 
 under conditions and according to standards already 
 prescribed before they entered with their new 
 instinctive understanding of complaints made to 
 them by working women. Secondly, they were saved 
 from losing themselves in an overpowering mass of 
 technical requirements, such as elaborate fencing 
 of machinery* primarily affecting men, where — 
 presumably — Men Inspectors were sufficient without 
 women's aid. At the beginning their instructions 
 allowed them to take up any questions affecting 
 women and girls, including fencing. For a time, 
 and at their own instance, they referred all fencing 
 to the Men Inspectors, while they turned almost 
 exclusively to questions of general hygiene (cleanli- 
 ness, ventilation, temperature, sanitary conveni- 
 ences, etc.), hours, excessive overtime, fines and 
 deductions from wages, payment in kind in various 
 parts of the United Kingdom, dangerous and 
 injurious processes, industrial poisoning, employ- 
 ment of young workers, and of women after child- 
 birth; and to the encouragement of employers 
 making voluntary welfare arrangements in the 
 factories. Later, from 1901 onwards, they took 
 up special questions of fencing affecting women in 
 laundries and clothing factories, and there they 
 succeeded in standardising methods. 
 
 The Women Inspectors were, in fact, free under 
 the early official instructions to devote the con- 
 
 * " Fencing " is a term used but not defined in the Factory 
 Act, in Section 10 of 1901. Under this section, guards, auto- 
 matic as woll as fixed, are required for dangerous machinery. 
 Other dangerous parts — e.g., " mill gearing " — if not safe by 
 position must be securely fenced.
 
 A NEW FIELD AND TEAM-WORK 13 
 
 centrated energy of heart and mind, in enthusiastic 
 " team-work," to enquiry and action on these most 
 urgent problems. Happily they entered just when 
 public opinion, as distinct from specialised know- 
 ledge, was awakening to the immense extent of 
 inj ury and loss and to the great need for constructive 
 reforms in industrial life. Their first Chief (under 
 the Home Secretary, who had initiated this addition 
 to the Inspectorate), was Mr. R. E. Sprague Oram, 
 C.B. During his administration the important new 
 provisions of the Factory Act of 1891 were applied 
 and the preparatory enquiries for the yet more 
 important Act of 1895 were begun. This Act 
 furnished new starting-points and made provision 
 for more exact knowledge, in requiring regular 
 returns of persons employed in a factory or work- 
 shop with particulars as to age and sex, and notifi- 
 cation by medical practitioners and employers of 
 cases of industrial poisoning, together with other 
 provisions for regulation of dangerous trades. 
 These were carried to far greater developments under 
 our second Chief, Sir Arthur Whitelegge, K.C.B., 
 M.D., in what may be considered the culminating 
 period of Factory Act administration. 
 
 Before the retirement of Mr. Oram in 1896, the 
 five Women Inspectors were, in harmony with their 
 own wish, formally constituted a branch of the 
 Factory Department, under immediate superin- 
 tendence of Miss May Abraham, subject of course, as 
 all branches were, to control by the Chief Inspector. 
 Miss Abraham retired from the Inspectorate in 
 May, 1897, a year after marriage, and the branch 
 continued from that year until August 1, 1921,
 
 14 INTRODUCTION 
 
 under direction of the writer of this book. From 
 1896 the reports of the women were, until 1914 
 
 (/ inclusive, issued over the signature of this head 
 of the branch, as a separate section in the Annual 
 Rej)ort of _thejChief Inspector, thus giving a**cTear 
 history of the progress of their work. Staff Com- 
 mittees to enquire into and make recommendations 
 on organisation came and went at intervals of a 
 few years, but the only important changes affecting 
 organisation of the Women Inspectors' work that 
 came before 1921 were in 1899 and in 1908. In 
 1899 came the useful devolution, never extended 
 beyond two districts, of special district charge of 
 certain women's industries into the Women In- 
 spectors' hands. In the later year came the creating 
 of new group centres in the chief industrial cities 
 (Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, etc.), where 
 the Women Inspectors, under charge of a senior 
 woman, carried on their routine general inspection 
 and enquiries into complaints in factories employ- 
 ing women and girls, but with newly denned duties, 
 investigating notified cases of industrial poisoning, 
 accidents, and other matters specially affecting 
 women. All this work, however, was subject to the 
 central direction at the Home Office through the 
 Principal Woman Inspector, and was carried on in 
 definitely regulated co-operation with their col- 
 leagues, the Men Inspectors in charge of Districts, 
 as well as the Medical and Engineering Inspectors. 
 
 The number of Women Inspectors grew, from 
 five in 1897, to twenty-one just before the Great 
 War in 1914, increasing by temporary additions 
 during the War to a maximum of thirty. From
 
 ORGANISATION AND REORGANISATION 15 
 
 this point, further and adequate extension in 
 numbers of the women's branch was admittedly 
 impracticable without reorganisation of a funda- 
 mental character. To prevent cumbrous dual in- 
 spection of factories largely employing women it 
 was necessary to have either well-defined sharing and 
 division of the whole work of inspection as between 
 men and women, with interchange of Inspectors 
 as regards any factories not employing men or 
 women exclusively ; or a fusion more or less complete 
 of men and women for all duties and responsibilities. 
 This assumes that broadly they are alike effective, 
 whether for enforcing safety of men and boys in 
 shipbuilding, docks, blast furnaces, foundries, 
 engineering works, etc., or for securing health and 
 safety of women and girls in fruit-preserving and 
 confectionery works, laundries, corset factories, 
 millinery, mantle and shirt and collar factories, 
 textile factories. 
 
 (Fusion was the line of development chosen by 
 the Home Office, under a scheme that allowed in 
 1921 for 42 Women and 195 Men Inspectors; this 
 Qould not then be fully carried out as to numbers. 
 
 It is impossible to state exactly the present 
 proportionate number of men and women in factories 
 and workshops for purposes of comparison with 
 the earliest systematic figures, which were published 
 by the Factory Department in 18.96. At that time 
 there were in the United Kingdom 144,000 factories' 
 and workshops in which 1,403,568 women and girls 
 and 2,699,917 men and boys were employed. These 
 figures had risen by 1907 to 1,852,241 women and 
 girls and 3,274,868 men and boys. When the War
 
 16 INTRODUCTION 
 
 )roke out there were nearly 2,000,000 women and 
 girls employed in factories and workshops. By the 
 end of the War there were 3,000,000 women and 
 girls industrially employed, and in 1919 the women 
 and girls still numbered over 2,000,000 in a total 
 ^of over 6,000,000 male and female. The rise and 
 fall of " substitution " during the War and of unem- 
 ployment in 1920 to 1921, makes more recent exact 
 comparison difficult. At the outside the ratio of 
 female to all workers can hardly exceed 35 per cent. 
 
 While the reorganisation of the Inspectorate that 
 began in August, 1921, rounds off a well-marked 
 epoch in Factory Act administration, giving point 
 to the choice of period covered by this book, it is 
 well to remember that in industry itself there 
 remains, for the present, small change in the division 
 of occupations between men and women workers. 
 
 The hopes of a substantial widening of women 
 workers' activities, to follow after the great work 
 of their substitution for men in factories during the 
 War, have not been fulfilled, and in some processes 
 women have been excluded by the unions with 
 increased stringency since the War. The ratio of 
 men and women in industry probably remains 
 somewhere near that in 1907. Thus the greater 
 numbers of men with theirimmense problems of 
 safety and accident prevention provide the largest 
 call on the time of the whole Inspectorate. And 
 Women Inspectors are now bound to take a con- 
 siderable share of this work. 
 
 A great gain may be achieved by developing 
 fuller mutual interchange of special knowledge and 
 special experience between Men and Women In-
 
 ULTIMATE TESTS OF ORGANISATION 17 
 
 spectors as regards hygiene, safety, and welfare of 
 all the workers at a time when Inspectors are 
 becoming less and less corrective, and more and 
 more constructive, in their functions. It was a 
 matter of common regret among the earlier Women 
 Inspectors that they could do so little, even in- 
 directly, to further much-needed reform in condi- 
 tions of health and welfare for men and boy workers. 
 " Let the Women Inspectors come into our shops," 
 said a bold and advanced male trade union worker/ 
 at a meeting, early in the twentieth century, at whicu 
 the writer explained dangerous trades regulations; 
 " they seem to be able to frighten employers into 
 doing things !" 
 
 Any change of organisation can, however, in the 
 long run, be weighed and judged only by the result 
 in increased effectiveness and fineness of inspection, 
 not by greater official convenience, nor by a theory 
 of equality of men and women. We have j^et to 
 learn whether in face of the actualities of industrial 
 life complete fusion of the functions and activities 
 of Men and Women Inspectors can serve the many 
 distinct needs of men and women in factories and 
 workshops better than some degree of specialisation 
 and co-ordination. 
 
 In order to secure permanent, equal eligibility of 
 men and women for future appointments and 
 promotions in the department, some equivalence 
 in numbers is necessary. A minority which is no 
 more than approximately a fifth of the whole has 
 small chance of putting up as many able candidates 
 for promotion as the larger majority. As a general 
 rule the minority has, further, the extra handicap
 
 18 INTRODUCTION 
 
 of compulsory retirement on marriage. Thus some 
 approximation of the number of Women Inspectors 
 to at least the relative proportion of women in 
 industry is a necessary corollary of " fusion " of 
 the Inspectorate. The value of the special con- 
 tribution brought by Women Factory Inspectors 
 to the regulation of factory life for women and 
 girls is too well and authoritatively established to 
 be, as it were, accidentally lost. 
 
 The testimony of the Women's Employment 
 Committee under the Ministry of Reconstruction, 
 in 1919, as to the great " administrative success " 
 of the work of the Women Inspectors is strong.* 
 It can be tried and tested by a careful study of the 
 range of subjects the Women Inspectors covered, 
 and of the records of their actions, in the Annual 
 / Reports of the Chief Inspector issued by the Home 
 | Office from 1894 to 1914; by the testimony of 
 working women; by the official reports of Parlia- 
 i mentary Debates on Home Office Administration, 
 \ and on amending Factory Acts embodying recom- 
 mendations which they had been emboldened to 
 "make. More arresting and convincing, however, 
 for the general reader may be observations from 
 a distinguished onlooker outside official ranks. 
 
 Listen to the voice of Canon Scott Holland, 
 speaking in July, 1896, in the Editorial Notes of 
 the Commonwealth, on the new light that was 
 appearing in the dark places of factory industry: 
 
 " What used to be one of the most depressing and 
 uninforming of Annual Blue-books is now (issue 
 for 1895) one of the most interesting and valuable. 
 
 * Report quoted Cd. 9239, p. 61.
 
 A TRIBUTE TO THE INSPECTORS 19 
 
 ... I take from my shelf the starved- looking 
 report of the ' eighties ' and early ' nineties ' and 
 lay it out by the side of the two stout volumes just 
 issued, and wish that the people who are losing 
 heart ... all the wise people who have seen so 
 many things in their time that they can never 
 believe in an upright and vigilant officialdom, 
 would come and turn over the leaves with me. . . . 
 It is the report of crusaders; it brims with sugges- 
 tions of reform. . . . You feel that to be a Factory 
 Inspector is to be something splendid and stirring 
 and effective; that these men and women are the 
 missionaries of order and health, and that they 
 bring hope with them where they go. 
 
 " The state of things is in many ways disgrace- 
 fully bad, but it is something to see the State itself 
 exposing the evil and casting about for a cure. 
 Since 1892 the staff has been increased by 50 per 
 cent. . . . 
 
 " The joint report (of the Women Inspectors) is 
 a record of tremendous work, accomplished with 
 courage and judgment. 
 
 " The work of levelling up as to safety and health 
 goes on apace. ... It is cheering to see that many 
 manufacturers are becoming alive to the effects of 
 industry on health. . . . 
 
 " The report has a special interest on account of 
 its being the valedictory message of Mr. Sprague 
 Oram, H.M. Chief Inspector, who retires after half 
 a century of public service. ... It is no secret 
 that much of the go-ahead work of the last few 
 years has been due to his enthusiasm, initiative, 
 and devotion. . . . He hands over his duties to 
 Dr. Whitelegge, a distinguished authority on public 
 health, who should be a tower of strength ... in 
 the work of making every factory and workshop 
 fit for human beings to work in."
 
 20 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The entering of a breath of new life, obvious as 
 it becomes in the Annual Reports of 1895, 1896, and 
 onwards, is not, and must not be, attributed dis- 
 proportionately to the entry and work of the small 
 band of Women Inspectors — for that itself sprang 
 from a wider movement affecting the whole depart- 
 ment. None the less, it was a powerful new factor 
 that gained in effectiveness as time went on. And 
 it preceded in time even the highly significant and 
 essential addition of Medical Inspectors considered 
 in Chapter IV. If we do not speak here in detail 
 of the fine work done by Men Inspectors, it is 
 because that lies outside the scope of this brief 
 survey. They have had great pioneering days in 
 the early battles for Factory Act regulation. Their 
 service when Women Inspectors entered with a 
 new task before them had yet to be fully developed 
 in the light of scientific knowledge and method. 
 
 If these pages in any true measure picture, for 
 twentieth-century workers and employers, certain 
 conditions in industry during the twenty-eight years 
 under review; if they can put any clues into the 
 hands of legislators and administrators regarding 
 women's share and needs in industry, they will 
 fulfil their aim. They are designed to serve as a 
 finger-post to the original documents. By imagina- 
 tive study of them alone can the growth and change 
 of this profoundly interesting period be seen. 
 During its course, after about ninety years of tenta- 
 tive, experimental Factory Acts, something like 
 civilisation began to dawn inside industry. Out of 
 it there emerges, from about the year 1918, glimpses 
 of the possibility of a new order, when — instead of
 
 A NEW ERA IN INSPECTION 21 
 
 intervention by the State between diverging in- 
 terests of workers and employers — regulation can 
 partly spring from within industry itself, by Joint 
 Councils and Works' Committees, as well as by repre- 
 sentative Trade Boards. Factory Inspectors may 
 then become mainly technical and expert advisers 
 and counsellors in factories that are developing a 
 life of co-operation between manual workers and 
 employers as co-organisers of production. 
 
 Note. — The terms " factory " and " workshop " are 
 defined in Section 149 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 
 1901. 
 
 Broadly they apply to any workplace where the manu- 
 facture of any article is carried on by way of trade or for 
 purpose of gain and any person is working under a contract 
 of employment. If mechanical power is used in aid of the 
 process, the place is a factory ; if not, as a rule it is a workshop ; 
 but certain workplaces — e.g., tobacco works and potteries — 
 are factories, even if there be no power applied.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE WOMEN WORKERS AND THEIR APPEAL ', EXCESSIVE 
 HOURS, INSANITATION, AND OTHER UNCIVILISED 
 CONDITIONS 
 
 " ' It's gey handy to have the likes o' you,' a Scottish 
 mother said when consulting Miss Vines on the effects of 
 employment on her daughter's health."* 
 
 The outstanding characteristics of the working 
 women of our country that immediately appealed 
 to the Women Factory Inspectors were their courage 
 and their endurance, their ready trustfulness, and 
 their loyalty. Instances of timidity, or fear of 
 losing employment — hard to get and easily lost — 
 by evidence necessary to establish infringements 
 of the law, these did but throw up, in high relief, 
 the dominating traits of the majority. The excep- 
 tions were only natural in the days of severe com- 
 petition for poorly paid work, especially before the 
 organisation in 1898 of the Industrial Law Indem- 
 nity Fundf for aiding workers dismissed by em 
 ployers after giving evidence that led to proof of 
 breaches of industrial laws. 
 
 A few months after my appointment to the 
 Factory Department I went into a factory just as a 
 girl of fourteen years had been carried to the local 
 infirmary suffering from a compound fracture of 
 
 * Annual Report of the Chiof Inspector, 1912, p. 113. 
 t Under the chairmanship of Mrs. H. J. Tennant. 
 22
 
 FORTITUDE OF WORKERS 23 
 
 her leg and other injuries. " She had been at work 
 at a card* for several weeks and was esteemed as 
 a careful, clever, and good worker. In the en- 
 deavour to keep her card in good order by steady 
 cleaning, her skirt had been caught in the driving 
 band and the mischief was done. . . . She had kept 
 perfectly clear and conscious, and had been chiefly 
 concerned that no one should alarm her mother, 
 who was ill at home."f The managing foreman 
 was much moved as he told me of this Lancashire 
 girl's serenity and unselfishness under the sudden 
 shock and suffering. Instances as strong and 
 stronger could be given by any Inspector of the 
 way that a high and fine spirit predominates when 
 accidents and casualties occur in a factory. Other 
 examples in 1913, eighteen years later, may be 
 compared with that one. "Of a girl partially 
 scalped," Miss Martindale says: 'Her pluck and 
 bravery were noteworthy; in fact, the qualities 
 show themselves in a remarkable degree in working 
 girls when they meet a severe physical shock;" 
 of another, whose hand had to be amputated after 
 vain attempts to save it, she says that the girl 
 mastered her disappointment, and in two or three 
 days after the operation began to practise writing 
 with her left hand, and in a month had become 
 almost as proficient as with the right. Or again, 
 Miss Tracey says of fifteen cases of serious lead 
 poisoning among women employed in a workshop, 
 where they were " heading " yarn (dyed with a 
 chromate of lead dye), "I visited these workers 
 
 * A carding engine in a cotton mill. 
 
 t Annual Report of the Chief Inspector, 1895, p. 112.
 
 24 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 at their homes and found them in different stages 
 of illness and convalescence. Their pluck will 
 always remain fixed in my mind; although many of 
 them were unable to put into words the suffering 
 they had gone through, yet not one of them but 
 was eagerly wishing to be well enough to go back 
 to work."* 
 
 This is a spirit that is one with that we saw in 
 the innumerable " substitute " women and munition 
 workers in the War. And before that movement 
 had well begun, an American employer in London 
 had said in my hearing that "B ritish women'g_ lakour 
 was the " best in the world ," versatile, patient, and 
 uncomplaining. 
 
 "•^YV'liat w75re the characteristic features in the 
 earlier days that the Inspectors saw — drilling and 
 testing the women ? First, a mute sense of in- 
 dujstrmljaferiefiity, outside the great textile indus- 
 tries, though even of them a " mill girl " could 
 write: "Mill girls need a sensible and educated 
 woman to further their cause. . . . How many 
 of our women are there that have to spend most 
 of their lives in unhealthy, badly ventilated and 
 unsanitary mills, and must go on and tolerate the 
 condition of things silently, not daring to complain, 
 and even if they have courage they shrink from 
 telling a man. A Woman Inspector would often 
 see irregularities without being told. Her own 
 instinct would enlighten her: I think that is one 
 thing in her favour. ... In cases where the law 
 had no power to enforce alterations, frequently the 
 Woman Inspector has by gentle arguments and 
 
 * Annual Report of the Chief Inspector, 1913, pp. 70, 89.
 
 SEVERITY OF SYSTEM 25 
 
 reasoning caused the employer to see that it was to 
 his own advantage as well as the workers' comfort 
 to effectuate the improvement."* Secondly, an 
 a bsence in the great majority of factories of any 
 
 woman i n a p osition of authority. Thirdly, in 
 
 spite of protective laws, a working day and week 
 
 in which the standard hours worked by womejK 
 
 frequently ex ceeded th ose for which men, in certain^ 
 
 great trades, had by means of tradeHnions secured 
 
 recognition from employers. Fourthly, a frequent 
 
 . la^ik^lsuitab^lB^oTe^^^'tteceTrtr and B ufficic nirganitary 
 
 ^accommodation, of cleanliness of a domestic nature, 
 
 and of other hygienic requirements, sometimes 
 
 injuriously affecting conduct and morals. Fifthly, 
 
 not only lo^_aj^erageand ind ividual wage s, but on 
 
 J the part of pieceworkers an intolerable uncertainty 
 
 ^v as to what their rates really were ; and, for all, a 
 
 liability to arbitrary deductions for fines and 
 
 alleged damages to work, which often brought 
 
 earnings below subsistence level. 
 
 These are all evils that specially and peculiarly 
 weig hed upon wom en, in a haphazardly evolved 
 factory system over which they had absolutely no 
 control. They shared with their fellow-men other 
 frequent, though certainly not universal, ills: 
 excessive heat in active, and cold in sedentary, 
 occupations; exposure to inadequately controlled 
 dust, steam, fumes; badly drained or damp floors; -' 
 handling of dangerous or injurious materials; often 
 poor and sometimes very bad general ventilation; 
 lack of washing conveniences, and means of pre- 
 
 * Yorkshire Factory Times, September 11, 1896. Articlo 
 by Julia Varley.
 
 26 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 paring and taking meals. The great matters in 
 which men's risks far exceeded women's lay in 
 injury by accidents from dangerous machinery, 
 explosion, and other causes, and these remain still 
 the largest risks to be reduced by guidance of a 
 thoroughly skilled Inspectorate, combined with 
 safety control through workers and employers. 
 
 A single illustration may bring home the rough- 
 ness and irresponsibility of supervision of girl 
 workers, sometimes associated in the nineties 
 with all the hardness of factory life. The circum- 
 stances were in some features exceptional, but by 
 no means solitary, in roughness and even barbarity, 
 as will appear in later pages of this book. It was 
 found, on investigation of a complaint from an 
 onlooker, that in a large textile factory an in- 
 competent managing foreman had, nominally as a 
 means of discipline, turned a great fire-hose on to 
 a large group of young tenters and weavers. The 
 water, drawn from the mill pond and filthy, was 
 directed over a partition upon them while they 
 were jammed in a narrow vestibule in which they 
 took refuge. The girls (of whom forty were 
 examined by the Inspector) were then turned out 
 on a cold March day, dripping, to walk in some 
 cases several miles to their homes. The whole 
 matter was outside the Acts and nothing could be 
 done by the Factory Department beyond visiting 
 the head office of the mills and drawing attention 
 to the circumstances.* A reprimand to the foreman 
 and his apology was so far satisfactory, but many 
 years passed by before the idea of supervision by 
 * Annual Report of the Chief Inspector, 1895, p. 119.
 
 AN EXAMPLE OF OPPRESSION 27 
 
 a woman was considered in textile mills at all. It 
 ^required the shock of the Great War to secure 
 provision in a broader way, as through the Act of 
 1916, which first brought welfare supervision and 
 conditions of welfare within administrative control. 
 
 The great majority of the earlier complaints 
 related, year after year, to h ours ojL _ffio.rk and 
 sanitary matters; the former predominated, especi- 
 ally in the" London area, and until the year 1912 
 complaints of legal and illegal o vertim e led in 
 numbers. Complaints relating to uncertain wages 
 under the Truck Acts and lack~~of piece-rate i 
 particulars steadily mounted, but this distinct 
 subject merits a separate chapter, as do also the 
 employment of mothers and dangerous trades. The 
 totals of all kinds of recorded written complaints i 
 (in addition to many verbal that we received 1 
 annually) rose from 381 in 1896, to 729 five years/ ~ 
 later, and to 2,025 in a further ten years. Con-' sg*t>^ 
 fidence grew steadily and rapidly, until in 1819"lT^ 
 woman organiser could say that women working 
 in factories of every kind of industry, in the north 
 as in the south, strongly and " passionately " call 
 for visits of Lady Inspectors. 
 
 L ong hou rs of work, then, at the outset of our 
 career were the greatest trial for working women — 
 with home duties claiming much of their strength 
 in most instances. The ordinary working day 
 generally took what the Factory Acts allowed, and 
 in the main still allow, although for at least the 
 past ten years hours of employment have falleii 
 to reasonable limits, not through amendment ojf 
 the law, but through movement of p ublic opinio n,)
 
 28 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 growing strength of women's organisation, and 
 common-sense of many employers. In textile 
 factories for young persons and women these hours 
 were, from Monday to Friday, ten, and on Saturday 
 six and a half. In non-textile factories the hours 
 might be respectively ten and a half, and seven and 
 a half on Saturday.* A spell of work in textile 
 factories could not exceed four and a half hours, 
 and in non-textile factories five hours, without at 
 least half an hour for a meal. In the latter case 
 firms often found it convenient to work two five- 
 hour spells with a break at midday of one hour, and 
 on Saturday an unbroken spell of five hours. The 
 heavy burden of labour on this basis was a perennial 
 source of complaint from women and girls for which 
 there was no remedy in the Factory Acts, and was 
 a cause of anxiety and regret to the Women In- 
 spectors, until the pressure of war-time production 
 proved its ineffectiveness for increasing output. 
 
 (We must also bear in mind that the legal hours 
 in unorganised industries were frequently and 
 widely exceeded. 
 
 A liberal allowance was made in the Acts for 
 overtime in many non-textile industries and pro- 
 cesses, f In such cases overtime could, if notified 
 to the Inspector, be used on forty-eight occasions 
 
 * I.e., in textile factories from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. or 7 a.m. 
 to 7 p.m., with two hours, which must bo specified, taken off 
 for meals; and on Saturdays a.m. to 1.30 p.m., with an 
 hour for a meal. In non-textile factories a period, 8 a.m. 
 to 8 p.m., was also permissible. 
 
 f Act of 1878, sect. 53, and third schedule, part three; 
 Jamended by Act of 1895, sect. 14, and Act of 1901, sect. 49, 
 second schedule.
 
 LONG HOURS 29 
 
 in the year (reduced in 1901 to thirty occasions) for 
 an additional two hours. This applied, until 
 amended by the Act of 1895, to young persons as 
 well as women. From 1896 onwards, the scandalous 
 length of a fourteen-hours' day on forty-eight days 
 in the year no longer legally overtaxed young 
 workers of fourteen years and upwards.* Elasticity 
 in the law for the causes allowed appeared reason- 
 able at first sight, but what was authorised as an 
 exception became under stress of competition a 
 principle, and one has sympathy with the young 
 woman who said, with a chorus of approval from 
 her fellow- workers, to the first Woman Inspector, 
 "The overtime exception just spoils the Factory 
 Act!" Equally readily did a fellow-feeling rise for 
 the workgirl who asked, " What sort of half -holiday 
 it was that began at four o'clock in the afternoon?" , 
 In illegal overtime the bad habit was continued for / 
 years, and many raids and devices were necessary ' 
 to overcome it. Pn? 1 pimpWr"""*- of women in a 
 combined retail shop and workshop was for long a 
 source of excessive hours. Thus, when they had 
 finished the legal day in the workshop, they might 
 have to serve in the shop until late at night. This 
 dual employment was not limited to the normal 
 daily period lawful in a workshop for women until 
 after the passing of the Act of 1901. Inspectors 
 had to watch overstrain of this kind helplessly for 
 years — where they could not move an employer to 
 see the harm it was doing. The case of the little 
 
 * And even thirteen-year-old workers, when they were 
 qualified by an educational certificate to rank as a young 
 person.
 
 30 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 thirteen and fourteen-year-old " matchers " in dress- 
 making establishments had to wait for effectual 
 remedy from another source. 
 
 A complaint we received in 1903 brought to light 
 extreme, but by no means unprecedented, over- 
 strain of a little girl of fourteen, legally a young 
 person. She " was engaged to clean and sweep the 
 workrooms, run errands, match ribbon and silks at 
 shops, and generally do work required of young 
 apprentices in the trade; in addition, however, she 
 cooked the occupiers' meals, including supper; did 
 the work of the house ; arriving at the workshop first 
 in the morning to light fires and ' tidy up,' she did not 
 leave till 11 p.m., and appeared utterly worn out."* 
 In the early years the impetus of our endeavours 
 to repress excessive hours was, at times, almost 
 checked by a possible consequence. Portable 
 particles of manufacture could easily be, and often 
 were, sent home with the worker at the close of the 
 legal day, and all the more easily in trades and 
 quarters where there was legal and legitimate " out- 
 work " by non-factory workers. This evil grew 
 to considerable proportions, until the law was 
 strengthened so as to make this evasion more 
 difficult. It was really rooted in starvation wages, 
 and eventually the advent of Trade Boards removed 
 most of the incentive to this insidious mode of 
 "sweating."! It was often extremely difficult for 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1903, p. 223. 
 f Ibid., 1910, p. 155. Section 31 of fche Factory Act, 
 1901, restricting employment inside and outsido the 
 factory or workshop on the same day, had but a limited 
 Effect.
 
 OVERTIME AND SWEATING 31 
 
 the wage-earner on a narrow margin to risk losing 
 an immediate addition to her wage (even if earned 
 by excessively long hours), through co-operating 
 with the Inspector by giving evidence as to long 
 hours at home. This co-operation was essential, as 
 the Inspector's entry into the home did not rest on 
 the same powers as entry into the factory. Yet many 
 successful prosecutions were taken in serious cases. 
 For example, in 1911, a girl of fifteen, working for 
 a feather manufacturer, after working 8.30 a.m. 
 to 7 p.m. in the workshop, took work home, and 
 worked 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.; or a girl knotted 
 " lancer " feathers, taken home, from 7 p.m. to 
 1 a.m., and from 5 a.m. next morning until she went 
 for her day in the factory.* Here and in many 
 other places the girl was compelled to do extra 
 work in order to earn enough to live. 
 
 In certain processes (making preserves from fruit, 
 preserving or curing fish, making condensed milk) 
 overtime was legal to the extent of a fourteen-hours' 
 day on no less than ninety-six days in the year, 
 until the Act of 1895 reduced the figure to sixty 
 days. The " gutting, salting, and packing of fish 
 immediately on arrival in the fishing-boats " was 
 altogether outside regulation by the Acts, whether 
 for hours or sanitation — for all workers, not except- 
 ing children. By the Act of 1901 children received 
 the protection of the Acts as regards hours of 
 employment in this industry as in others. In 1910 
 at Lowestoft some women attempted a revolt 
 against late night hours, but without success. 
 Again, at Grimsby in 1911, a group of very young 
 * Ibid., 1914, p. 54.
 
 32 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 women struck against hours that were usually 
 sixteen in the twenty-four. They were obliged to 
 return to work, as the employer, who also employed 
 them at other stations on the East Coast, pointed 
 out that they had broken their contract and could 
 claim neither wages nor return fares to their homes. 
 At length, when a record catch of herring at Yar- 
 mouth had brought the workers' endurance to an 
 end, a limit of daily and weekly hours was negotiated 
 by the Factory Inspectors and voluntarily agreed 
 to by the leading fish-curers. This has, since 1913, 
 lessened the trials of the hardy fish-curing girls 
 and men. The hours, unlimited during the summer 
 months — June to September, of workers engaged 
 in the " process of cleaning and preparing fruit, so 
 far as necessary to prevent the spoiling of the fruit," 
 have also been brought within a certain degree of 
 legal control by an Order of the Secretary of State.* 
 Regulation of hours in laundries followed a 
 tangled course too long to be told fully here. There 
 was, in 1895, within and without that trade, great 
 opposition to any control whatsoever on account 
 of the special character of the work and its relation 
 to the community, only half-developed as it was 
 from domestic to factory status, and closely de- 
 pendent on conservative household arrangements. 
 This led to a loose and ineffective form of limitation 
 of hours in the Act of 1895. The elasticity of the 
 governing section immediately appeared to give 
 sanction to the late hours and long days of work, 
 " hitherto regarded as unnecessary evils tolerated 
 in an unregulated industry. . . . The fourteen - 
 * Sefe Special Order, dated September 11, 1907.
 
 LAUNDRY HOURS AND A NEW MOVEMENT 33 
 
 hours' day met with outbursts of indignation from 
 women, who would ' like to see how men would 
 stand fourteen hours of this work in heat and 
 steam.' "* Packers and sorters alone benefited by 
 a net reduction in a weekly total of hours that had 
 for them often exceeded seventy hours. Sixty 
 hours became the normal legal period, augmented, 
 however, in seasons of pressure by permissible over- 
 time to sixty-six hours. And these hours might 
 be compressed into five instead of six days in the 
 week, and could even extend, on a single day, from 
 8 a.m. to 11.30 p.m. The amending and con- 
 solidating Act of 1901 made no improvement in 
 these hours, but in 1903 I was able to give the first 
 account of a new and hopeful feature, in the " steady 
 growth of a strong section of employers who have 
 set their minds on inaugurating a more rational 
 system of employment in conformity with ordinary 
 factory hours, "f This alone, the employers 
 claimed, in views ably expressed in a new periodical, 
 The Poiver Laundry, would raise the standards of 
 work and workers. Very considerable improvement 
 followed from the Act of 19J)7. Thus, in laundries! 
 as in textile factories a hundred years earlier, the! 
 fi rst determined efforts towards reform s prang fronjr 
 an e nlighten ed section of emp loyer s — in tlus*1rrgta*nce, 
 h o wever . Inmiirn gpj^-iay- Jjig. . Tn sp po tor s In 1899 
 and 1900 they gave much time to discussing these 
 problems with directors at the head offices of 
 multiple laundries, run by companies. Efficient 
 management has no doubt found that it could in 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1896, p. 67. 
 | Ibid., 1903, p. 223.
 
 34 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 course of time compete successfully on shorter 
 hours with less efficient management working the 
 full legal hours. There has been high social value 
 in the experiments in hygiene and welfare made 
 by leaders in industry fitted by their position to 
 secure an effective trial — in the interests not only 
 of the worker, but also of the whole community. 
 
 Without more study of details, so much may 
 suffice to indicate the public outlook in past days, 
 as expressed in the law so hard to amend, on the 
 working capacity of human beings in manufacturing 
 industry; and it may serve to measure the change 
 that has come about in ideas and habits in these 
 matters. 
 
 The movement within industry itself has almost 
 sufficed to bring the whole problem of hours out of 
 , the region of compulsory regulation into that of a 
 reasonable, voluntary control that ought to be the 
 natural birthright of workers in a factory system 
 possessing unlimited capacity for large-scale pro- 
 duction by applied power. Christian, after much 
 suffering with his friend Hopeful in the dungeon 
 of Giant Despair, remembered the key in his bosom 
 that " could open any lock in Doubting Castle." 
 And so they came out to " The King's Highway " 
 and fared on to the Shepherds of the Delectable 
 Mountains, whose names were " Knowledge, Ex- 
 perience, Watchful and Sincere." 
 
 \ While the illusory belief in a need for exceedingly 
 long hours lasted, it bore most severely on the 
 weakest manual workers — women and girls. 
 Although the best hours for any kind of industry 
 can only be reached by skilled scientific study, the
 
 EVASION AND CONCEALMENT 35 
 
 rough-and-ready, if slow, method of amendment 
 by complaint has had effect. After the Acts of 
 1891 and 1895 had increased the means of control 
 of illegal overtime, and when an increased Inspec- 
 torate came into activity, the first step was to 
 enforce the legal limits. Nowhere can a more vivid 
 account be read of the immense evil of excessive 
 illegal employment, and of the protean forms of 
 evasion of law, with connivance of intimidated 
 " sweated " workers, than in the pages by Mr. 
 Lakeman, in the Annual Reports of 1893 and 1894 — 
 published at the very time that the tide of com- 
 plaints began to flow to Women Inspectors. They 
 also said much to substantiate Mr. Lakeman's 
 contentions that " overtime is an evil, socially, 
 morally, commercially," weighing upon " a vast 
 aggregation of people slavishly earning a poor 
 lining from hard taskmasters," particularly in the 
 East End tailoring trade, where one sweating 
 employer oppressed another below him, and the 
 worker at the lowest end of the scale was utterly 
 helpless. The Women Inspectors were the first to 
 be free of a certain handicap in dealing with the 
 evasion and obstruction that led to concealment of 
 girl and women workers in lavatories and bedrooms, 
 and they were the first to be able to unravel tangled 
 threads of evidence by confidential visits to the 
 women's own homes. Even in a very extreme case 
 of evasion by locking of outer gates and darkly 
 shaded windows, a Woman Inspector has been 
 known to enter the premises before closing time 
 and wait in a dark corner of the yard, in order to 
 arrive in the workrooms at a suitable moment for 
 
 4
 
 36 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 a complete personal observation of the extent of 
 overtime. 
 
 So marked was the gain in detection of hidden 
 evils that a proposal was made in 1895 by some 
 Members of Parliament to bring bedrooms in the 
 same building with a workshop, used by women 
 or girls, within the scope of the Factory Acts, and 
 to give the Woman Inspector special power of 
 entry and inspection. Fortunately, however, the 
 proposal was not accepted, and peculiar power was 
 not allotted to the Woman Inspector. She was 
 able by quick observation and action, and use of 
 the Inspectors' ordinary powers of entry and 
 investigation, to achieve what was needful in such 
 cases of concealment; exceptional powers would 
 have been fatal to that intangible, yet potent, 
 personal influence of an Inspector, which rests 
 largely on having no more distinction from the 
 ordinary citizen than is just necessary to effect the 
 work required. Inspectors have always been able 
 to investigate matters not strictly breaches of the 
 law and yet needing regulation. In tentatively 
 sending a complaint of such matters, the Secretary* 
 of the Women's Industrial Council once wrote: 
 " I know how very much can be done by the tact 
 and personal influence of an Inspector, and even 
 if the Inspector effects no change, her visit does 
 afford the workers a sense of protection which is 
 very soothing when they are feeling aggrieved." 
 
 In manifold ways similar testimony was afforded 
 by communications from officers of the Women's 
 
 * The late Miss Wyatt Papvvorth, whose constant help 
 I desire gratefully to record.
 
 " A SPLENDID CATCH " 37 
 
 Trade Union League, the Legal Advice Bureau for 
 Working Women, the Industrial Law Committee, 
 and, above all, by the late Miss Mary MacArthur. 
 
 As the work grew in publicity through press 
 reports of prosecutions, confiding supporters sprang 
 up in many unexpected directions. They appeared 
 among customers of dressmaking businesses, clergy 
 and district visitors, club leaders, schoolmistresses 
 of half-time child workers, doctors, and many others, 
 not to speak of parents anxious to save a daughter's 
 health without risking loss of her employment. 
 One of our longest and most tangled enquiries 
 sprang from a communication from a casual reader 
 of the Star newspaper. 
 
 " Immediately on receipt of a complaint " — from 
 one or other of such sources, once wrote one In- 
 spector to another — " we made a raid on Saturday 
 afternoon between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.,* and had a 
 splendid catch, three rooms full. The man set in 
 the yard to watch for the Inspector offered to let 
 us in ' to see the housekeeper ' ; I merely remarked 
 that ' that would do very nicely for us,' and he did 
 not realise his mistake until we were half-way up 
 the narrow staircase !" The Inspector momentarily 
 " felt a pang " for the watchman — but a prosecution 
 followed in due course, and the firm, of European \ 
 and Transatlantic reputation as modistes and / 
 furriers, were convicted. 
 
 The theatrical costume industry, though not 
 
 large, was one that for many years exercised the 
 
 ingenuity and taxed the vigilance of Women 
 
 Inspectors — complaints being perennial. Excessive 
 
 ^ * The legal period closed at 4 p.m.
 
 38 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 hours, Sunday employment, illegal homework, over- 
 crowded workrooms, and obstruction of the In- 
 spector, were reported in 1902-03* and at intervals 
 •in a succession of years. In 1911 there was evidence 
 of a deliberate and organised breaking of the law 
 in the matter of overtime that did not appear in 
 any other industry. One London occupier, who 
 was prosecuted twelve times in ten years, was found 
 on three separate occasions in 1911 seriously con- 
 travening the law, a typical instance of long hours 
 being: Friday, 8 a.m. to 12 midnight, followed by 
 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday, with some Sunday 
 employment following. Penalties of £20 and costs 
 on conviction were evidently not deterrent. f In 
 the great majority of their concentrated attacks 
 upon illegal hours of employment in other industries 
 Inspectors found that most occupiers tended to 
 capitulate, in the end, to firmness and persistence 
 in enforcing the legal limits. 
 
 Seaside laundries, busy in the summer season, 
 offering residential employment to laundry girls 
 from inland towns, presented another serious 
 problem in suppression of evasions of the law. 
 
 Suppression of " timejcnbb^ng " (that is, exceed- 
 ing legal limits by--- small instalments) — during 
 prescribed pauses for meals and just before 6 a.m. — 
 in many textile mills in the North was a task of 
 a detective character, on a large scale, beyond the 
 small numbers of Women Inspectors, but one in 
 which they at least took their proportionate share 
 with their men colleagues. Undoubtedly women's 
 
 * AnnualJReport, 1902, p. 15 3; 1903, p. 22 4. 
 t Ited; loiTTjsr-teft — ~~
 
 STRAIN OF LEGAL HOURS— SANITATION 39 
 
 services in bringing home to the employer contra- 
 ventions of legal limits were more peculiarly needed 
 where proof turned not so much on the exact 
 moment of starting a huge engine driving machinery 
 in a large mill, but rather on patient examination 
 of witnesses in their homes as well as the workplace. 
 
 By the year 1 91_2_ an increasing number of comA 
 plaints showed a growing determination on the ! 
 part of women workers to secure such limitation of/ 
 hours as was enforceable under the Factory Acts/ 
 One complaint of excessive hours in a fancy 
 stationery factory disclosed quite an ordinary, and 
 legal, state of affairs: "Fifty girls over eighteen 
 years of age had been working weekly from 8 a.m. 
 to 10 p.m. on three days, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on 
 two days, and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, 
 as they were expected to do for from six to eight 
 weeks in the busy season." For young pieceworkers 
 the resulting fatigue can easily be imagined.* 
 
 In our earlier years of service, complaints of 
 defects in general sanitation in the factory and 
 workshop were, as already said, fewer than com- ) 
 plaints of excessive or illegal hours of employment./ 
 Later on, especially after voluntary improvement 
 in hours had begun, the workers' help in matters 
 of general sanitation in the workplace grew in 
 volume and understanding. The value of these 
 complaints, in bringing the Inspector to the spot for 
 observation of the concrete facts, was more direct 
 and immediate than in complaints of hours where 
 evidence was requisite from the workers. Even a 
 vague complaint such as: " Please I would like you 
 * Ibid., 1912, pp. 142, 145. 

 
 40 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 to call and see what sort of a place the women have 
 to work in, as it is in an awful condition," was good, 
 provided the correct address of the shop was given. 
 
 There were many and increasing complaints of 
 lack of messrooms, wholesome drinking water, seats, 
 cloakrooms, and washing conveniences, which were 
 outside the Act until 1916. Underground and ill- 
 lighted workrooms were also the subject of com- 
 plaint, and these still, in 1921, await full hygienic 
 control by the Factory Acts. Until the year 1901 
 even general ventilation of such places could not be 
 secured, and the result may be seen in a description 
 in 1900 of a low underground workroom, packed with 
 machinery, the narrow window slits at street level 
 being the sole means of ventilation, admitting dust 
 from the street, just where the gas engine was 
 placed. " In the back part, where pallid women 
 stand at the machines, gas light is always burning. 
 Here again we are powerless to order means for 
 introduction of tolerable air."* 
 
 Ill- ventilated, badly drained, uncleanly or other- 
 wise defective workrooms, were the subjects of 
 many complaints on hygiene of the workplace, yet 
 complaints on defects in sanitary accommodationf 
 and extremes of temperature were even more 
 numerous. Lack of means of heating or failure to 
 use means of heating was increasingly a subject of 
 complaint down to 1914. Many recalled the words 
 quoted by Miss Abraham in the Annual Report of 
 1894: "Is it not possible to compel Mrs. to 
 
 * Annual Report of the Chief Inspector, 1900, p. 367. 
 f Unsuitable, insanitary, not separate for the sexes, or 
 totally lacking.
 
 ENLIGHTENMENT 41 
 
 give her workgirls a fire ? . . . It may really 
 mean death to some of the girls. I do not know 
 what it will be like to-day, when they get there 
 with their skirts and feet wet after the snow." 
 The problem shifted, in that as in other matters of 
 health, after successive amendments of the Act had 
 given Inspectors power to intervene more effectually. 
 Increased stringency of the Acts appeared to extend 
 the number of employers anxious to improve the 
 conditions of factory life beyond the statutory 
 minimum. It was not only the employer, but, 
 sometimes even more rapidly, the workers who ^, 
 found enlightenment in seeing standards improved 
 or strengthened by legal requirements. At first 
 all the weight and mass of complaints helping our 
 administration came from the most elementary 
 needs. And, even there, too many workers were 
 mute, until awakened by proof that improvement 
 was possible. It was only later that the natural 
 intelligence of the worker could co-operate in build- 
 ing up larger and more specialised conditions of 
 welfare. Speaking of a great step onwards in 
 sanitation, Miss Paterson wrote, in 1902, that the • 
 indifference of the employer had resulted in a | 
 corresponding indifference on the part of the worker, I 
 who, " acquiescing at first in conditions which she 
 feels powerless to improve, gradually ceases to feel j 
 them an offence to her. There is no doubt one * 
 loses sensitiveness to indecent arrangements just as 
 surely as to impure air, but the moral effect in the 
 one case is much the same as the physical effect in 
 the other."* 
 
 * Annual Report, 1902, p. 154.
 
 42 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 Ten years earlier some working men representa- 
 tives of the Yorkshire textile industries gave it in 
 evidence before the Royal Commission on Labour 
 that mill life under the then existing conditions 
 and organisation of work was " not conducive to 
 ideas of propriety, gentleness, and nobility." 
 Against such conditions the Women Inspectors 
 never ceased to strive, by varied and vigorous 
 attack on insanitary conditions that blunted per- 
 ceptions of suitability, and by friendly appeals to 
 emploj^ers that sometimes met with excellent 
 response. Sometimes, again, action had to be 
 taken against indescribably bad conditions that 
 were obviously a legacy from mediaeval standards, 
 by the indirect method of laying an information 
 against the occupier of the factory for effluvia in 
 hot spinning rooms, before the law provided for 
 direct attack on the ground of the unsuitability of 
 the provision made. In a case that I took, in 1896, 
 against a Limited Liability Company in Lancashire, 
 after repeated written warning to the management, 
 one of the directors appeared in court to say they 
 had not realised the state of affairs in the mill. 
 After a long hearing, the magistrates asked me to 
 meet the directors out of court, with their solicitor, 
 which I did (the Inspector in charge of the district 
 accompanying me), in the gilded council chamber 
 of the municipal authority. The dignified group 
 of directors asked me then to " take the chair," 
 and we rapidly came to a conclusion, as to the 
 necessary constructive work, that satisfied the local 
 sanitary authority as well as myself. 
 
 Sometimes a local authority would act vigorously
 
 INSANITARY CONDITIONS 43 
 
 on receipt of notice of such defects from a Factory 
 Inspector, one asking for more notifications, another 
 inviting conference as to other mills, and they were 
 most ready to move where they had not themselves 
 to take the primary initiative against fellow- 
 townsmen. A single illustration may be given in 
 the case (by no means the worst of its kind) of a 
 large old textile mill, where local authorities, 
 acting on our notice, took up such matters with 
 increasing thoroughness. " Dark, un ventilated con- 
 veniences, used indiscriminately by men and 
 women, opened directly off hot spinning rooms. . . . 
 No attempt to secure privacy was made, the doors 
 were without fastenings . . . the whole connected, 
 not with a drain, but a huge cesspool — a state of I 
 things more injurious to morals a nd healt h can/ 
 scarcely be imagined. The amount of accommoda-/ 
 tion was seriously inadequate, besides being un-j 
 suitable and unhealthy."* There was an element 
 of hope in spite of the overwhelming amount of 
 work to be done, in that most of the very worsts 
 conditions of this kind were found in the oldest 
 industries and factories, such as Lancashire, York- 
 shire, Staffordshire Potteries, and the Black 
 Country, where the blunting of perceptions kad 
 been longest at work. This factor checked our 
 occasional feeling of despondency at often finding 
 the most barbarous conditions where trade union 
 organisation was at its highest strength. Inci- 
 dentally it at once confirmed the Women Inspectors 
 in thinking that they really had a new mission as 
 well as a more enduring place in the guardianship 
 * Annual Report^ 1903, p. 203.
 
 44 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 of women in industry. Even although this matter 
 of sanitary conveniences was but an elementary one, 
 yet it was fundamental, and the vVomen Inspectors 
 were only too anxious to clear the way for their more 
 progressive and difficult work in respect of health 
 and physical fitness of the women and girls expressly 
 allotted by the Home Office to their care. 
 
 The legal provisions for the sanitation of the 
 workplace are complex; the meagre basis of law 
 on which we had to build at first, and a few of the 
 results secured, can only be slightly indicated. 
 
 When we began our work there was no definition 
 in the law of what constituted overcrowding of a 
 workroom, and only on proof (a difficult matter) of 
 actual danger or injury to health of the persons 
 employed could any abatement of overcrowding be 
 enforced. Some of the worst examples were found 
 in country towns and in attic workrooms, often 
 used as bedrooms. Miss Paterson cited a case in 
 1894 where only 91 cubic feet of space was allowed 
 per person in a room with a roof 6 feet 4 inches in 
 height. Overcrowding was always rare in factories, 
 however, and complaints chiefly led us to cases 
 of crowded floor space, not definitely illegal. For 
 /general ventilation, as distinct from mechanical 
 I exhaust for dust, gases, vapours, and other im- 
 I purities generated by the work, there was no legal 
 Vprovision before 1901, and to this question in its 
 connection with lighting, heating, and cleanliness I 
 will presently revert. There was no provision at\ 
 all touching maintenance of a reasonable temperature J 
 before the Act of 1895. The provision then made 
 was quickly found defective, and we had to wait
 
 THE LAW AND GENERAL HYGIENE 45 
 
 luntil 1901 for powers to enforce means of heating 
 ithat did not interfere with purity of the air. 
 Drainage of workroom floors liable to become wet 
 could not (except under a special clause in the Act „. 
 of 1895 affecting laundries only) be enforced before 
 the Act of 1901. Power to determine what wasA 
 sufficient and suitable sanitary accommodation by an J 
 order of the Secretary of State was first provided/ 
 for by the Act of 1901. This had no legal force' 
 where local sanitary authorities — with widely vary- 
 ing standards — had adopted certain powers to 
 regulate the matter under the Public Health Acts. 
 In 1903 such an order was first made, based on the 
 experience and recommendations of the Women 
 Inspectors. This order gradually set the standard 
 frequently adopted by local authorities, but still, 
 in 1921, this remains merely a voluntary matter 
 in the majority of sanitary districts outside Scot- 
 land. " The new rules are just coming into force + 
 here," said one working woman correspondent to/ 
 an Inspector, in 1903; " they give us just what we 
 need."* In the previous years " a rain of resolu- 
 tions and petitions " reached my office from 
 organised working women, which demonstrated 
 that working women were, to use their own words, 
 " most ardently favourable in respect of the draft 
 order of the Home Secretary " just referred to, 
 " so that decent and satisfactory arrangements may 
 be completed and the hands of Inspectors strength- 
 ened in the discharge of duty."f As regards 
 cleanliness of the workplace, that universal need, 
 
 * Annual Report, 1903, p. 203. 
 t Ibid., 1902, p. 154.
 
 46 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 1 there has been since 1 878 an absolute requirement 
 in the forefront of the Act that every factory shall 
 jbe " kept in a cleanly state." The duty of periodical 
 cleansing by lime-washing (or other prescribed 
 methods) of walls, ceilings, etc., has too often been 
 read as covering the whole ground, and methodical 
 and regular cleansing of floors and benches, by 
 moist as well as dry methods, has always been a 
 subject to which Women Inspectors have had largely 
 to devote their powers of persuasion. 
 
 The provision of drinking water — a fundamental 
 need of human beings engaged in physical labour, 
 and a subject of frequent complaint from 1894 
 onwards — was left solely to regulation by local 
 sanitary authorities, until an order was made in 
 1917, under powers given by the Factories and 
 Miscellaneous Provisions Act of 1916, This secured, 
 at last, that an order requiring a conveniently 
 accessible supply of wholesome drinking water 
 could be enforced in every factory or workshop 
 employing twenty -five or more workers. The 
 lighting of factories and workshops, whether natural 
 or artificial, has never yet been generally regulated 
 by any of the Acts from 1878 to 1916, although 
 there are many references to it in our published 
 reports from 1897 onwards. In 1911 the special 
 Report on " Illumination in Factories," by Mr. 
 D. R. Wilson,* ultimately brought the matter under 
 general review, and in January, 1913, a Committee 
 was ajDpointed by the Home Secretary; this was 
 to enquire into and report on the conditions neces- 
 
 * Included in Annual Report of the Chief Inspector, 1911, 
 p. 239.
 
 DRINKING WATER AND LIGHTING 47 
 
 sary for the adequate and suitable lighting (natural 
 and artificial) of factories and workshops, having 
 regard to the nature of the work carried on, pro- 
 tection of the eyesight of workers employed, and 
 the various forms of illumination.* Miss Squire, 
 who had given much attention and study to defec- 
 tive lighting and its remedies in factories, was 
 made a member of this Committee in November, 
 1920.f The bearing of this problem of lighting on 
 safety and accident prevention as well as on health 
 has been long in receiving the attention that it 
 deserved from the British legislature. In 1897, I 
 drew attention to its recognition by French, Belgian, 
 German, and Austrian legislatures. That the 
 workers felt an intense need of skilled attention to 
 the question is evident from a letter of complaint 
 in 1 9011 which besought an Inspector to " give a 
 call unawares and see the black holes of workrooms 
 we have to try and work in, with scarcely any 
 light. . . . Please say nothing about receiving this 
 letter, but act on its contents, and do for us what 
 we need in the way of proper light and ventilation.'/ 
 Probably the most important of the early con- 
 tributions of Women Inspectors to improved sani- 
 tation in the factory lay in their insistence, year 
 after year, on the close relation between good general 
 ventilation, cleanliness (including freedom from 
 dirt, dust, effluvia, and organic impurities), lighting 
 
 * Departmental (Home Office) Committee on Lighting in 
 Factories and Workshops, 1915, Cd. 8000; 1921, Cd. 118. 
 
 f See Annual Report of the Chief Inspector for 1920, 
 chap, ix., for a resume by Miss Squire of the recent ad- 
 vances and parallel delays, in progress, in this vital matter 
 in factories.
 
 48 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 and temperature, and on the value of exact tests 
 and standards in these matters. Time after time 
 phthisis was found to be rampant in particular 
 v ■ factories where anaemic, poorly nourished girls 
 worked long hours, in light sedentary work, and 
 at dainty white work, under combined defects in 
 cleanliness, ventilation, lighting, heating. In such 
 places, before the days when canteens and playing- 
 fields were considered suitable adjuncts to factory 
 life, the steady undermining of health that went 
 on was really greater than in many a factory under 
 special rules for dangerous processes, or supplied 
 with good exhaust ventilation for injurious dust. 
 In such instances the co-operation of local Medical 
 Officers of Health under the Public Health Authori- 
 ties, both directly and in their reports, was in- 
 valuable. As Dr. Niven in his Annual Report for 
 Manchester in 1902 observed: "Unless the work- 
 shop is free from dust no mode of ventilation can 
 Vbe quite satisfactory. The first requisite, then, is 
 cleansing, carried out in a proper manner. Ventila- 
 tion must be considered in reference to each indi- 
 vidual case, but cleansing is a universal requirement 
 as to which definite rules can be laid down . . . 
 it is imperative in the interests of health that 
 cleansing should be by wet sweeping." 
 • The extra need of fresh, pure air for maintenance 
 of their efficiency at work is a marked constitutional 
 feature in women and girls, and their sensitiveness 
 to cold and draughts is proportionate also to the 
 sedentary character of much of their work. The 
 Women Inspectors were thus rapidly brought up 
 against the interdepend ent problems of artificial
 
 PHTHISIS AND ELEMENTS OF HYGIENE 49 
 
 liglrting; and heating. Fine garment-making and 
 embroidery call both for good lighting and for 
 freedom from presence of coal-dirt and smuts in 
 the air, whether admitted by open windows or by 
 combustion inside the workroom. When we began 
 our inspection, closed windows and absence of fire 
 in the grates was the rough-and-ready way of 
 securing " clean " air for delicate fabrics, while 
 warmth had to be secured chiefly by using gaslight 
 burners of the bat's- wing type, as a means of main- 
 taining a temperature in which nimble fingers could 
 carry on their skilled work. Later, from January 1, 
 1896, the unhooded gas stoves — some of the crudest 
 type — fitted in many workshops and smaller factories 
 in consequence of the first legal requirement in the 
 Act of 1895 that " adequate measures shall be 
 taken for securing and maintaining a reasonable 
 temperature in each room in which any person is 
 employed " constituted strong new arguments for 
 powers to require good general ventilation. Even 
 so dangerous a gas as carbon monoxide, produced 1 
 in appreciable quantities by some of these stoves, 
 not being an impurity " generated in the course 
 of the manufacturing process," could not be held 
 legally subject to the provision for exhaust ventila- 
 tion.* Nor was there any legal remedy until the 
 Act of 1901 embodied a requirement that the 
 measures taken for securing a reasonable tempera- 
 ture should not interfere with the purity of 
 the air. 
 
 A great deal of work by the Women Inspectors 
 in support of cleanliness has directly furthered 
 * Factory and Workshop Act, 1878, sects. 3 and 36.
 
 J 
 
 50 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 maintenance of good natural light in workplaces. 
 Not only have they pressed for regular cleansing 
 by wet methods of floors, but also for the same 
 treatment of windows and skylights; and the atten- 
 
 /tion of occupiers was constantly drawn to the value 
 of such aids as reflectors, luxfer prisms, and the 
 like, in mitigating darkness or prolonging natural 
 light in underground workrooms. Innumerable 
 confidential complaints from workers furthered our 
 activity in this direction. " In all the rooms of 
 one badly lighted factory the windows were so dirty 
 I that . . . artificial light had to be used during the 
 day. . . . The gas with old flickering bat's-wing 
 burners being always in use, large numbers of the 
 girls complained of headache and weariness. This 
 they attributed to the bad light more than to the 
 impure air."* It was about 1903, after the amended 
 provisions regarding temperature and ventilation 
 had had time to work, that women began to send 
 increasingly definite complaints: "Nearly all the 
 workers suffer from colds . . . now the present 
 gas fire, whenever there is a down draught, drives 
 into the workroom poisonous carbonic acid gas." 
 
 The discomfort of low temperatures was intensi- 
 fied in some occupations, such as aerated water 
 works, where floors, usually of concrete or stone, 
 are liable to be very wet, and bottles and siphons 
 alike cold to handle. Bottle washers got some 
 comfort where the water was hot, but liability to 
 soaked garments aggravated suffering from cold 
 rooms in wet places. 
 
 Extremes of temperature in the workplace at the 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1911, p. 136.
 
 SCIENTIFIC CONTROL 51 
 
 other end of the scale, rising to 100° F. or 110° F., 
 or even higher, are specially connected as a rule 
 with the nature of the processes, and sometimes \ 
 increase the risks of dangerous and injurious indus- I 
 tries, especially where lead is present, as in certain^ 
 pottery processes. There the problem is to limit the 
 heat without injuring the process. In other cases the 
 heat results from the work, and can be mitigated 
 without injuring it. In laundries, for example, as 
 a mother once put it, young girls can get " all 
 faded " through unregulated heat and laborious 
 work; and sometimes sunlight streaming through 
 inadequately shielded skylights, say, in pressing- 
 rooms of clothing factories, or in jam factories, 
 causes temperatures of 96° F. and numerous cases 
 of fainting amongst the girls. Painting or white- 
 washing of such skylights, where blinds are not 
 practicable, was advised in mitigation of the dis- 
 comfort. 
 
 It is mournful to contemplate the amount of slow 
 injury to the human system, insidiously at work 
 and showing its effects in disturbed physiological >-^ 
 functions and malnutrition, sometimes with resul- 
 tant desire for stimulants. This must have long 
 handicapped not only the workers — vainly appealing 
 for removal of half-understood defects — but also the 
 efficiency in industry and the prosperity of manu- 
 facturers. The old British neglect of scientific 
 control of ordinary hygiene in the workplace has 
 to answer for much. Even when the nation was 
 apprised of the relation of disease to dirt, in environ- 
 ment, including air, and lack of means for main- 
 taining personal cleanliness — how slow-moving was 
 
 5
 
 52 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 action to apply the knowledge effectively, through 
 laws for protection of the health of the industrial 
 workers ! The relation of disease and accidental 
 injury to darkness and to unnecessary use of defec- 
 tive artificial lighting, an old problem, is only 
 beginning to come into serious consideration at the 
 close of the period covered by this book. 
 
 Along with recent advance in these matters we 
 have to reckon the benefits accruing from the recent 
 rational reduction in hou&s, and from development 
 of other fun damentals of welfare — before all, the 
 means of partakingoi good ioocT in many works. 
 
 It was significant that the Women Inspectors, 
 as a branch of the Factory Department specially 
 charged with the duty of interpreting and responding 
 to the needs of women workers, received throughout 
 their service certain appeals and complaints on 
 questions of conduct, or conditions in the factory 
 essentially flflW-tin cr mnn ls These appeals on 
 matleTs^not directly under the Factory Acts were 
 never numerous, though markedly increasing in the 
 flast few years before the War, when women workers 
 [were growing bolder in self-expression and self-help. 
 The relative smallness in their number was balanced 
 by their intensity. 
 
 From about 1896 onwards, the mere possibility of 
 the visit to any factory of a Woman Inspector 
 coming from headquarters in Whitehall — strongly 
 bent on sanitary reforms connected with increased 
 cleanliness, fresh air, light in the factory, physical 
 fitness of the worker, suitability in lavatory arrange- 
 ments — had a wide and marked effect. She gave 
 a new meaning to the technical requirements of the
 
 MANNERS AND MORALS 53 
 
 law by her steady insistence on the value of respon- 
 sible superintendence of working conditions. The 
 very concentration of the Women Inspectors in a 
 team-work that could be applied in any area or 
 centre, or to any particular problem in any industry, 
 tended to co-ordinate the work of the whole Depart- 
 ment in these technical things, as well as to unify 
 the outlook. Employers, sympathetic to advance, 
 were helped to come into contact, sometimes at 
 their own express wish being put in communication 
 with each other. Undoubtedly this whole move- 
 ment, linked as it was with a little united band of 
 enthusiasts, moving up and down the very dusty 
 ways of industrial life, did much to hasten im- 
 provement also in things affecting manners and 
 morals. 
 
 " Why have I never had a visit from a Lady 
 Inspector before ?" was a question from an employer 
 that indicates a sentiment expressed more and 
 more frequently as the Women Inspectors increased 
 in weight of experience. Nothing, however, excelled 
 in importance the confidence engendered between 
 the woman worker and the woman Factory Inspector 
 through the successful steady rooting out of abuses. 
 In 1902 a girl, who had given evidence for Miss 
 Squire two years earlier in a prosecution for illegal 
 employment, wrote to her of a criminal assault 
 made on her by a fellow-workman on a dark winter \ 
 morning in the factory, and she got help and advice, \ 
 though not under the Factory Act. At such wide \ 
 intervals as 1900, 1904, 1907, 1912, I see in our 
 published reports records of complaints of brutal 
 conduct by managers, foremen, overlookers, towards 
 
 \
 
 54 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 young girls. Even an employer in a spinning mill 
 was implicated in one of the earliest of these. " It 
 seems scarcely credible that nowadays (1900) little 
 doffers should be knocked down by grown men, 
 violently struck on head and shoulders . . . yet 
 there was evidence of little half-starved, under- 
 sized creatures who had suffered at the hands of a 
 burly overlooker and a tall imposing member of the 
 firm . . . too strong to be doubted. When tackled 
 with such conduct and warned, neither denied the 
 charge." Another complaint, in 1912, disclosed 
 similar conditions. The visiting Inspector, again 
 Miss Squire, chanced while half-screened by a pillar 
 in a workshed, to witness an example of such 
 brutality, when a foreman seized, shook, and flung 
 from him a young girl. She brought this, with 
 various serious contraventions of the Act that she 
 found in the factory,* before the managers, and 
 " shamed them into taking action to bring about 
 real improvement in the conditions." Cases of 
 drunkenness and abusive language and complaints 
 of immorality were similarly dealt with and im- 
 provements secured. In some cases the police, 
 investigating immorality of an employer towards 
 workgirls, sought our aid. In other directions, 
 employers would seek our guidance in controlling 
 moral risks. All such occasions afforded a welcome 
 opportunity to the Inspector for giving information 
 
 * For example, neglect to prosent seventeen little girls 
 for examination as to physical fitness by the certifying 
 surgeon, of whom five were subsequently rejected by him 
 and sent for medical treatment; sanitary conveniences not 
 separate for boys and girls.
 
 GRATITUDE AND THANKS 55 
 
 to the occupier about the well-attested gain of 
 wisely chosen, trained women's superintendence in 
 matters of hygiene and welfare in the factory. In 
 one noteworthy instance the discovery by Miss 
 Martindale of some oppressive treatment of little 
 half-timers in a great textile mill in Belfast led the 
 active-minded manager to ask her whether he could 
 find a trained woman to carry on, daily, in the mill 
 such work as she had done at a single visit. The 
 woman was found, and she did much for the 
 health and welfare of men, women, and children 
 there. 
 
 In 1896 it was first recorded that letters of thanks 
 from workers for improvements effected by the 
 Inspectors were coming in, sometimes without any 
 clue to the writers. And an Inspector would be 
 stopped in the street by a group of girls, who had 
 previously complained verbally during an inspec- 
 tion, to say how much better things were going 
 since " fining had been reduced " ; or a railway porter 
 lifting an official bag into the train would give a word 
 of thanks on behalf of a sister or friend whose over- 
 time had been reduced. Or one workgirl confiding 
 a hardship in her workplace to another girl casually 
 met outside, would be told to " come along to the 
 Lady Inspector who helped me a year ago," and, 
 investigation and prosecution following, would set 
 in train a similar series of remedial activities. 
 
 Ireland had, as in so many other things, special 
 ways of her own in appealing to and thanking the 
 Inspector for aid needed and rendered: "Please 
 . . . would you kindly see to the heating of our 
 Room . . . the stitching department is not venti-
 
 56 WOMEN WORKERS 
 
 lated, it is terrible fusty you would never want a 
 headache if you had to work in it . . . thanking you 
 in anticipation. We have proved your worth 
 before, every worker knows you are a lady." Another 
 hopeful set of complainants, who wrote of lack of 
 any means of heating in a draughty finishing loft, 
 signed themselves, " Yours expectant," and the 
 Inspector, Miss Martindale, on her arrival was 
 greeted with: "Thank God, you've come." Or, 
 again, another wrote thanks and pled for contin- 
 uance of her watchfulness: "Thank you, mem, 
 for coming to X. They are doing what is right 
 since you were here if you only knew how much 
 good you done . . . please mem be sure and watch 
 them."* 
 
 In England the expression of such thanks was 
 generally more impersonal, but not less grateful 
 and confident. One letter I received stands out in 
 my memory always, in its prompt response to inves- 
 tigation of a complaint of overtime by Miss Paterson. 
 "It is no use to send an Inspector to ask the girls 
 questions, for they depend on their living and dare 
 not say much ; but I must say that the lady sent was 
 just the sort of friend a dressmaker requires."! 
 Miss Tuckwell wrote in 1897, as Honorary Secretary 
 of the Women's Trade Union League, that the 
 confidence of the factory women was " based on the 
 Eact that their representations are received and 
 listributed by a woman, and by women enquired 
 lto and redressed"; "Our Women Inspectorate 
 has adapted itself exactly to English needs, and, 
 
 * A n mml R.ftpni-f, nf X U^-f-frtHpRntrrrr TTnTTpTTiz 1 ■ 
 
 t lUd., 1902, p. 153.
 
 PERSISTENCE AND REMEMBRANCE 57 
 
 as a Yorkshire workgirl remarked, ' We are well 
 suited by the Lady Inspectors.' "* 
 
 In all this part of the history of administration 
 of the Factory Acts one sees conclusive evidence 
 of the very great need there was of intuitive insight 
 and extraordinary persistence in probing or tracking 
 down ills peculiarly affecting industrial women and 
 girls that, as a whole, were never laid bare until y 
 the women had access to a woman in authority 
 armed with legal powers to initiate the remedies. 
 These ills afflicting women formed in some respects 
 a parallel to the earlier though grosser abuse of 
 child labour at the opening of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, and recall the words of Mr. Cooke-Taylor : 
 
 "It is of great and increasing importance that 
 that story be kept in memory; that it should never 
 be suffered to become extinct; as a pitiful . . . 
 warning against the preposterous doctrine . . . 
 that human affairs can be entrusted to impulses of 
 mere cupidity without shocking and degrading con- 
 sequences, "f It is difficult now, even for the Women 
 Inspectors, to reconstruct in the mind the barbarous 
 and grinding conditions that they were called to 
 disclose and to help to transform. The woman 
 worker was " subject to " mechanical power, and it 
 needed a labour of love to help her to free herself. 
 
 In nothing does this appear more clearly than in the 
 sphere of wages, touched on in the following chapter. 
 
 * "The Jeopardy of a Department," by Gertrude M. 
 Tuekwell. Published by the Women's Trade Union 
 League, 1897, p. 7. 
 
 f "The Modern Factory System," by Whateley Cooke- 
 Taylor, late His Majesty's Superintending Inspector o£ 
 Factories.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 WOMEN'S WAGES AND THE TRUCK ACTS ; THE PIECE- 
 WORKER AND HER PAY 
 
 " Tell me what shall thy wages be ?" 
 
 Long before the beginnings of the modern factory 
 system, and centuries before the idea of applying 
 standard requirements for health, safety, or limita- 
 tion of hours in factories and workshops had arisen, 
 Parliament had recognised the need and right of 
 the worker to receive full payment of the wages 
 /he had agreed to work for, in current coin of the 
 realm — " intr ug^ _a_nd la w juJUj none y . " * It also 
 recognised "Lis right to spend those wages as and 
 where it best suited him. 
 
 The law relating to Truck j was consolidated 
 quite early in the growth of the factory system by 
 the Act of 1831. This Act, and the A ct of 1887 . 
 which first brought in the very necessary aid of the 
 Factory Inspector to enforce its provisions and 
 strengthened the law, J are still in force, together 
 with the Act of 1896 . which first regulate^ fines 
 
 * These words arc in a sta tuto of F rhvnnrl W. 
 
 f A Franoo-gr(V f <° u '^nrrl mpiRrprig hn^f.Qr that appeared 
 in a statute of Georg c_L. after the Act of Union. Tho 
 Act o f 1831 was "^ to prohibit the payment, in certain 
 
 trades, of wages in goods or otherwise than in current coin 
 if tho realm." 
 X Kvtonflcvl a,t thi.-i (Iqhvf o TrolainLalno. 
 **^ 58
 
 " TRUE AND LAWFUL MONEY " 59 
 
 and various deductions from wages, making them\ 
 illegal unless in pursuance of a definite agreement/ 
 or " contract " with every worker affected. 
 
 In 1908 a Departmental Committee, appointed 
 by the Home Secretary, reported on the great need, 
 then generally recognised, for amending and con- * 
 solidating these Acts, and a minority of the Com- ) 
 mittee recommended entire prohibition of fines/ 
 and deductions regulated by the Act of 1896. 
 
 In the same year there was more than usual 
 activity, with markedly successful results, on the 
 part of the Women Inspectors in investigating and 
 prosecuting for contraventions of the Acts. From 
 about 1897 onwards they had gradually acquired 
 a unique acquaintance throughout the United King- 
 dom with the human results of uncertain and low 
 wages, peculiarly oppressive to women and girls, by . 
 their investigation of complaints, by long-drawn-out 
 legal proceedings, by special enquiries into home- 
 work, and into payments of wages in ove rvalued 
 groc eries and oth p/r~|rpndfj in l ofQQ d of rnftn"y Of a 
 packet of tea given in place of hard-earned coin, 
 the outworker would say: " And the tea indeed it 
 is not good, it is not worth putting water on." 
 " A pair of thin elastic-sided boots which consti- , 
 tuted the ' wages ' paid to a worker, who, according J 
 to the practice of the country-side (Donegal, 1897), / 
 generally went barefoot, were objects of longing "/ 
 to the Inspector as " articles of evidence."* 
 
 The Women Inspectors have also had carried 
 to the High Courts of England and Ireland five • 
 out of the six appeals, on points of law under the \ 
 
 * Annual Report of the Chief Inspector, 1897, p. 109.
 
 60 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 Truck Acts, taken at the instance of the Factory 
 Department since 1896.* Facts and details that 
 came out at their prosecutions in police and sheriff 
 courts passed into the public press. There, and 
 through published official reports, it became well 
 known in Parliament and elsewhere that wages 
 k below subsistence level afflicted women in many 
 v\factories, as well as in homework. Various volun- 
 tary committees pressed the matter forward, and 
 the Inspectors' evidence, published year after year 
 in Annual Reports, strengthened the A nti-Sweat ing 
 TVWglPjRnt- fr^m ahqiitJJ^HJ^J^^ Public opinion 
 was stirred afresh by the Sweated Industries Ex- 
 hibition of 1906, and eyes were opened to evils 
 almost forgotten since the work and report of the 
 Select Committee of the House of Lords in 1888-90. 
 The evidence of the Women Inspectors given to 
 the 1908 Committee on Truck was extensive as to 
 »' the evils affecting women and conclusive as to the 
 need of amendment of the law. In the same year 
 the Select Committee on Homework referred re- 
 peatedly to the assistance they had obtained from 
 " so experienced and competent an observer as 
 Miss Squire, of the Home Office."! The passing 
 [ of the Trade Boards Act of 1909 followed very 
 \ shortly on their~RepoTt ItTprbvided for payment 
 \by employers of a minimum rate of wages " ojejir 
 of_all deductions in certain industries specified 
 
 * Report of Committee on Truck, 1908, vol. i., appendix 
 iv., Cd. 4442. 
 
 f Report from the Select Committee on Homework 
 •ordered by the House of Commons to be printed July 
 22, 1908.
 
 EFFECT OF TRADE BOARDS ACT 61 
 
 in a schedule to the Act, and in others to be brought 
 in by Provisional Order where the " rate of wages 
 prevailing ... is exceptionally low"; and Trade 
 Boards were set up for the fixing of such minimum 
 rates. This Act provided for minimum time rates 
 and for general minimum piece rates, and, on the 
 whole, has secured as solid a general assent from 
 the community as did the Elizabethan provision 
 in earlier times for protection of the poorest 
 labourer from starvation pay " both in times of 
 scarcity and in times of plenty." 
 
 The Act was administered, not by the Factory 
 Department (as was proposed in 1908 by the Select 
 Committee on Homework), but by the Board of 
 Trade (later by the Ministry of Labour). It thus 
 only enters into the scope of this study because so 
 closely linked with the pioneering work of the 
 Women Inspectors when they really tested the Truck 
 Acts and the Section in the Factory Act for securing 
 to women pieceworkers (in non-textile industries) S 
 the protection of written " particulars " of their 
 work and wages. It also had a striking effect in 
 steadily sweeping away many of the deductions 
 from low wages with which we were specially con- 
 cerned. The beneficial movement was carried\ 
 decisively forward by the special wages conditions 
 administratively enforced for women during the 
 War. 
 
 The fundamental elements in wages problems 
 are in some ways simpler and homelier for every- 
 one than problems of scientific hygiene in the 
 factory. Most of us realise very well how much 
 our freedom and happiness depend on having, in 
 
 \
 
 62 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 our recompense for labour, a margin for spending, 
 above what is just necessary to keep us going, and 
 on being able to compute definitely from week to 
 week what the recompense will be. We do not 
 need technical knowledge to develop insight for 
 that. We can all readily grasp the truth in those 
 words of Adam Smith: " The property which every 
 man has in his own labour, as it is the original 
 foundation of all other property so it is the most 
 sacred and inviolable," and " no society can surely 
 be flourishing and happy of which the greater part 
 of the members are poor and miserable." And 
 thus, when the miseries of fraudulent payment in 
 goods or of excessive and uncertain deductions 
 from wages, or of sweated wages, are brought out, 
 it is clear to everyone that regulation must be 
 attempted with the least possible delay. 
 
 As regards the grosser abuses of payment in 
 goods, the law had become generally effective for 
 the principal wage earners in organised factory 
 industry before 1893. For women outside the 
 [factory system, these forms of Truck were then 
 knd much later to be found in certain homework 
 industries in directions to be considered presently. 
 And in the least organised factory industries en- 
 forced purchase and raffling of articles " damaged " 
 /in process of manufacture, and many oppressive 
 tforms of deductions and charges on slender wages, 
 were widespread. 
 
 Although, fortunately, laws relating to wages — 
 that is, Txnck___Acts, Particular s Clau g£+_JJrade 
 Boards Act — were ancT are applicable to men and 
 women alike, it is evident that, until strengthened
 
 SACRED AND INVIOLABLE PROPERTY 63 
 
 by help from Inspectors of their own sex in the 
 Factory and Trade Boards Departments, and by 
 recent development of their own powers through 
 leading women organisers, women have proved but / 
 poor bargainers for themselves, and weak in secur-* 
 ing their own welfare in matters of wages. This 
 weakness was, no doubt, closely linked with their . 
 art ificial exclusion from many weUj3a^oM n ^ us * r i es j 
 and" processes suitable for TEem, whiclimlensified 
 their competition for available employment. The 
 published reports of the Women Factory Inspectors 
 down to 1914 remain an historical record of the 
 depredations on their wages that the women suf- 
 fered, and of the pitiful smallness of their average 
 earnings — the details being, as viewed from the 
 standpoint of later improvements, almost stagger- 
 ing. Their " property in their own labour," outside 
 a few well-organised industries and often even in 
 fine-looking factories was, when we began, neither 
 " sacred " nor " inviolable," and, indeed, in many 
 places, barely existed. Although the Women In- 
 spectors were at work to track out and deal with 
 contraventions in " hard cases," yet the range of 
 area, processes, and numbers dealt with by them 
 in factories, workshops, and among outworkers 
 is so wide, and the figures were so carefully com- 
 pared with those given by manufacturers them- 
 selves, that their reports make a decisive addition 
 to the evidence contained in the Board of Trade 
 Wage Census of 1886 and 1906. The wage levels 
 for women in their chief industries, given in this 
 census, low as they were, were undoubtedly some- 
 what higher than in fact, and only covered returns
 
 64 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 from the firms responding to an invitation to dis- 
 close information in their wage books. Even if 
 the average wage per week for women over eighteen 
 years of age in non-textile industries was, as indi- 
 cated by the wage census, about 12s. lid.,* those 
 of an immense number of women employed inside 
 the factory did not rise above 7s. to 8s., out of 
 which came deductions for disciplinary fines, 
 charges for cotton, needles, etc., use of power, 
 standing-room, cleaning of the factory, damage, 
 or purchase of damaged articles, hospitals, supply 
 of hot water for tea ; so that for many young women 
 5s. to 6s. a week was nearer the mark. To such 
 numerous workers information that an average 
 of 12s. to 14s. was paid to women in their industry 
 would have meant nothing. It was their own 
 individual daily or weekly wage that was the reality 
 to them. The Act of 1896 required, as already said, 
 that a definite contract must be made by any em- 
 ployer with his workers before deductions could be 
 made from wages; other terms could be specified 
 in a notice affixed in the workplace. Among other 
 conditions the deductions had to be fair and reason- 
 able, the acts or omissions which entailed a deduc- 
 tion had to be specified in the contract, and par- 
 ticulars of any deduction actually imposed had to 
 be given to the worker at the time. Even when 
 the Inspector had severely pruned the contract, 
 deductions for such things as gas, needles, sweeping, 
 sick clubs, made a serious inroad; a rate of 6s. 6d. 
 
 * Compare figures given in " Lj^oin 1 onfl ('np' tnl aft^r 
 the Wa^ ' edited by S^J—Ghapmaii, C.B.E., iv., p. 80. 
 London, John Murray, 1918.
 
 LOW WAGES AND MANY DEDUCTIONS 65 
 
 would emerge as 5s. 5d., of 7s. 6d. as 6s. 5d., of 12s. 
 as 9s. 9d. for a week's work that might legally be 
 sixty hours.* 
 
 " Girls' wages are as a rule so pitiably low as to 
 leave no margin," said Miss Squire in 1898, " for^ 
 making good any damage to work entrusted t( 
 them, while the rapidity necessary in order to reaclj 
 the standard required of workers — paid by thf 
 quantity turned out — increases the risk of damage.' 
 
 In that year a letter reached me from the Leader 
 of a Factory Girls' Club in London about one of 
 its members, employed in decorated sheet metal 
 work, who " looked thoroughly miserable and over- 
 worked." The girl had been set to work, at 8s;v 
 a week, on a heavy " grooving " machine in place 
 of a man paid 28s. a week. A visit from the Irf^ 
 spectors was desired, and the girl said they would 
 find " plenty things to find fault with." Although 
 attention was promptly and closely applied to these 
 other things, I had to explain to the Club Leader 
 that the Factory Inspector was not concerned with 
 even the slenderest wages, except in so far as touched 
 by the Truck Acts, unless the pieceworkers should 
 desire to submit a claim for extension to them of the 
 Particulars Clause in the Factory Act. 
 
 In the same year an instance of deductions for 
 short quantity from girls soldering tins containing 
 perishable goods, being engaged, not on piecework, 
 but on a fixed weekly wage, again illustrates both 
 the smallness of wages and the subjection to heavy 
 pressure. Here the girls rarely (some never) 
 received full wage, Id. being deducted for every 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1898, p. 185.
 
 66 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 ten trays (twenty-four tins on each) short of the 
 total required daily, which was 190 trays containing 
 4,560 tins. The girls complained that this total 
 exceeded what their best efforts could produce. 
 "It is slavery. We do not dawdle. We are all 
 for scrambling for fear of losing our money." Miss 
 Squire examined the books for eleven workers 
 during five weeks, and none reached the total re- 
 quired, although two once came within two trays 
 of it. Rewards were given for care and good work 
 and were set off against " short quantity." Thus 
 from a wage of 8s. 9d., 300 trays being declared short, 
 2s. 6d. was deducted, and Is. added for good work, 
 resulting in a net wage of 7s. 3d. The Inspector 
 found in another factory under the same company 
 a woman whose wages were raised for good work, 
 who ordinarily sealed 120 to 140 trays daily, and 
 could do 170 trays at a push. Thus the deductions 
 in the first factory were manifestly unfair and they 
 were refunded after the investigation. The manager 
 subsequently informed the Inspector that there was 
 no falling off in number of tins sealed by the girls.* 
 • In a biscuit factory labellers, putting labels on 
 'four sides and the top of a tin, were paid at the rate 
 of Id. for twelve tins; for any one label damaged, 
 Id. was deducted, so that twelve tins would then 
 be labelled for nothing. f 
 
 The Women Inspectors were driven to realise by 
 such experiences that not merely was starvation 
 pay for women and girls prevalent in many in- 
 stances, but that the whole outlook of many 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1897, p. 112. 
 t Ibid., 1901, p. 190.
 
 REDUCTION OF PIECE RATES 67 
 
 employers on their standard and maximum wages 
 for women was darkened, and these employers had 
 almost uncontrolled power to fix and alter rates 
 for unorganised workers. As late as the middle 
 of 1914 Miss Whitworth (Mrs. Drury), taking 
 evidence for a prosecution, found that a piece- 
 worker, without the required written particulars, 
 was actually paid for some work in the week of 
 enquiry, without notice, less than she was paid in 
 the previous week for the same work. The fore- 
 man's explanation was: "What can one do, whenf 
 a girl is earning as much as 15s. a week, but loweij 
 the piece rate."* This was a not unusual attitude 
 throughout our experience up to the war period. 
 The fact of its existence and the consequences on 
 the output of the workgirl — faced with the alterv 
 natives of earning the same sum whether on a higher\ 
 or a lower piece rate, and naturally choosing the j 
 former — may be well seen in Mr. R. H. Tawney'sy 
 " Minimum Rates in the Tailoring Trade. "f 
 
 Of wholesale clothing factories in Colchester, in 
 1908, a local leading manufacturer told an Inspector 
 that he thought 7s. to 8s. would be the average 
 wage of the girls employed, and her " own observa- 
 tions confirmed this. Board and lodging cost 7s. j 
 a week at the lowest, so it is obviously impossible 
 for a girl to live unless she is at home. "J It is 
 noteworthy how often this average appeared to 
 rule in various parts of the country, as one turns 
 over many Annual Reports. 
 
 * Ibid., 1914, p. 49. 
 
 | Op. cit. (1915, G. Bell and Sons), p. 127. 
 % Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1908, p. 155. 
 
 6
 
 68 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 The remarkable thing about this l ow and limi ted 
 view "f the m 1 ^ "f n w^mp nVjw^rk, which ruled* 
 so generally as seriously to ri^pvo Ca ] ^ r own estim ates 
 of its value, was that a sudden alteration in the 
 valuation occurred immediately there was any 
 failure in punctuality of attendance, or quantity 
 and quality of output. And yet, sometimes, outside 
 public opinion, as reflected in the decision of a 
 police court magistrate or a sheriff, supported the 
 two apparently incompatible estimates. 
 
 In a case taken into court in South London, where 
 the contract for deductions for time lost rendered 
 the worker liable to a fine of Id. a minute lost, the 
 information was dismissed on the ground that the 
 contract was not in general unfairly enforced, 
 although it was shown that one worker earning 6s. 
 a week was fined 5d. for five minutes lost and 
 another 4d. for four minutes lost. While the girls 
 were at work the service was valued at l|d. an 
 hour, in a week of sixty hours' work.* In a South 
 London factory, where fining was at the rate of 
 Id. for any time lost up to five minutes, and 2d. 
 for more than five minutes, 276 girls out of 500 
 were fined sums from 4d. to 8d., and the total 
 amount collected by the firm in this way was £156 
 in a year. Incidentally punctuality was not secured 
 here by docking the low and hardly earned wages 
 of the girls. In many cases the attention drawn 
 to the matter by Inspectors induced employers to 
 refund deductions that should never have been 
 made. Heads of firms often gave far too little 
 personal care and attention to safeguarding their 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1911, p. 161.
 
 THE FINING SYSTEM 69 
 
 own employees from injustice.* In numerous 
 instances where, after careful investigation in a 
 factory by the Inspector of the whole effects of the 
 fining system, the matter was once fully brought 
 to the knowledge of the head of a firm, voluntary 
 abolition of the system followed. Where it was 
 abandoned in favour of better methods of discipline, 
 return to the system was unknown. The gain in 
 efficiency of management was well attested by 
 such employers in their evidence to the Committee 
 on Truck in 1908.f 
 
 A contrast appeared frequently between the 
 estimate of value put into an article by labour 
 expended on it, and of the worker's share in respon- 
 sibility for loss occasioned by any accidental slip of 
 the fast-moving fingers. In a rubber tyre factory, 
 for example, where the outer case of the rubber 
 tyre was trimmed — i.e., cut neatly along the edges — 
 by girls, at the rate of l^d. a dozen cases, a fine 
 of Id. was imposed for each case damaged by the 
 edge being unevenly cut or snipped. The loss to 
 the employer was indeed reckoned as 2s. 6d. ; the 
 loss to the worker, although only Id., equalled 
 four-fifths of what she could earn in an hour's 
 work .J In a safety-pin factory in the West of 
 England, where only good work was paid for and 
 some waste unavoidable — material being " weighed 
 out " in lots of 100 gross or 50 gross, and weighed 
 
 * Ibid., 1912, p. 157. 
 
 f Report of the Committee on Truck, 1908, Cd. 4442. 
 QQ. 7716-8, 8192, 8204, 8234, 17892, etc., and Report, vol. i., 
 p. 25. 
 
 X Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1898, p. 185. 
 
 J
 
 70 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 again when brought in — some exceptionally bad 
 deductions were found. A girl who had to cap 
 50 gross of pins for Is. 3d. was told when she 
 brought the lot in that she was f pound short, and 
 2s. 3|d. was deducted from her weekly wage of 
 5s. 7d. A married woman bringing in 84 gross 
 of good pins out of 100 gross booked to her, was 
 charged 2s. for 21 pounds short in the metal, and 
 instead of receiving Is. ll|d. for the 84 gross pins, 
 admittedly well capped, received her pay envelope 
 empty — with a note on it that she owed Jd. Here 
 the firm, aroused by the miserable conditions 
 brought to light by the Inspector, voluntarily 
 returned all deductions, exceeding 5 per cent, off 
 any weekly wage to the workers for the whole year, 
 and arranged for piecework books with careful 
 entries and for regular " check-weighing " by the 
 workers. 
 
 The number of instances is astounding where, by 
 the aid of the records required by the Truck Act 
 of 1896, Inspectors were able to track out pre- 
 posterous, long-standing " debts " of workgirls to 
 their employers for " damages " which they could 
 not test or verify themselves, in shirt and collar 
 and other clothing trades, in pen factories, and 
 other small metal works; the burden of the system 
 can only be grasped by a careful study of details 
 in numerous Annual Reports. The difficulties of 
 successful prosecutions in many bad cases are 
 touched on in Chapter VI. on legal work. " There 
 were cases in which the worker had remained in 
 debt for as long as eighteen months on a single 
 batch of collars machined, gradually paying off by
 
 REMEDYING FINES 71 
 
 such instalments as her weekly wage of 7s. to 10s. 
 would bear."* 
 
 In an Irish linen-weaving factory that I visited 
 with Miss Martindale in 1911 in the course of long 
 negotiations with the Manufacturers' Association, 
 carried on in the hope of securing voluntary im- 
 provements in harsh contracts regarding damaged 
 work, we found that 65-76 per cent, of the weavers 
 were fined an average of 8fd. in one recent week, 
 and 60-5 per cent., an average of 7|d., in another 
 week, six months earlier. The highest gross average 
 wage was 7s. 2fd., and the average net wage, 
 including a so-called time bonus, was 5s. 8|d. The 
 mill was making little or no profit, and, as I observed 
 at the time, I " never had so strong an illustration 
 of the truth that thr iving manufact ure_cannot be 
 built up onjite labour of depressed and half-starved 
 workers." In spite of warning, the percentage of 
 workers fined there rose yet higher, and the firm 
 was told that unless there was immediate reform 
 proceedings must follow. Here and elsewhere I 
 pressed for the institution of method and application 
 of skill in training the workers, and in this case it 
 was effectually established with results most satis- 
 factory to the management, while the number of 
 workers fined fell to 6-9 per cent. In another 
 weaving shed, where 33 per cent, were fined weekly 
 for cloth faults, after an Inspector's visit all fines 
 were abolished " as an experiment." The manager 
 in due course wrote that it was an unqualified success, 
 but that he did not wish his competitors to know, 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1902, p. 190.
 
 72 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 as it gave him an advantage in getting good 
 weavers.* 
 
 A great evil, particularly in connection with 
 clothing factories, developed out of charges for 
 damaged work, in " raffling " in order to escape 
 the burden of practically enforced purchase by the 
 \ workers of garments that they were alleged to have 
 Vlamaged. Even in 1898 factories were found 
 ,'Vhere this practice had been reduced to a regular 
 system. In one factory every worker was required 
 ^tijr expected to pay Id. a week to the foreman 
 towards a fund for paying back to the employee 
 the amount deducted from her wages for damaged 
 work, receiving in return a ticket for the raffle by 
 which damaged articles were disposed of week by 
 week. Three successful prosecutions, taken by 
 Miss Squire in 1905, did something to check the 
 growth of this practice in Leeds. In each case the 
 magistrate severely censured the defendants.! I 11 
 1906 it was found to be extensively prevalent in 
 Manchester " making-up " factories. " Leaving 
 aside," said Miss Paterson, "... the effect on 
 character of gambling even to so slight an extent, 
 I think it tends to make workers careless in their 
 work; to make foremen and employers careless 
 about training good workers, and indifferent to 
 fairness when they assess damage. "J Although 
 compulsory purchase by the worker of damaged 
 work, illegal as it was, decreased, it was far more 
 difficult to repress the insidious practice of " giving " 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1911, p. 1G2; and 
 1914, p. 50. 
 t Ibid., 1905, p. 328. % Ibid., 1906, p. 239.
 
 DAMAGED WORK AND RAFFLES 73 
 
 the worker or " allowing her " to take damaged 
 work, for which she had a deduction made from 
 her wages. The better employers agreed with the 
 Inspector in prohibiting anything of the kind in 
 their works. 
 
 This old evil, of com pulsory pur chase, bv^ the 
 wo rker o£ rjg.inp. gfid p roducts of her industr y, the 
 damage being due, not only to lack of care, but 
 sometimes to accident, sometimes to defective 
 material or implements, sometimes to overpressure 
 or defective training of the worker, appeared in 
 even the highly organised and relatively well-paid 
 cotton trade, which had at its own instance been 
 exempted from the scope of the Truck Act of 1896. 
 Some girls of fourteen and sixteen years left a cotton 
 factory in 1901 owing to heavy fines for faults in 
 the cloth. On claiming arrears of wages due, they 
 were each shown a piece of cloth and told they 
 must take the damaged pieces in lieu of wages. 
 "... Finding they could make no other terms, 
 they said they would take time to consider," and 
 meanwhile wrote to the Inspector, Miss Squire. She 
 accompanied them in the following week to the 
 factory office, " and the wages were paid over in 
 coin, the employer finding that the Truck Act, 1831, 
 was not to be lightly set aside."* 
 
 Deductions for motive power, used in the manu- 
 facturing process, were often found in our earlier 
 years of inspection, but they had already begun 
 to die out, and, I think, have long since done so 
 generally. They were mainly a survival from the 
 time of transition from handicraft to power-driven 
 
 * Ibid., 1901, p. 191.
 
 74 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 industry, and sometimes reflected the hardness of 
 those days — as when they covered not only cost 
 of fuel and repairs, but wages also of the man who 
 attended the engine. I made a calculation in the 
 case of some Lancashire clothing factories in 1897-98 
 that payment by the worker of Id. in the Is. earned, 
 or Is. weekly if wages rose above 9s., brought in 
 enough to run the whole power at the workers' 
 expense, ownership of the engine remaining with 
 the occupier. Charges or deductions for cleaning 
 the factory, or parts of it, such as lavatories, were 
 also a survival from other days when the worker 
 worked in his own domestic workshop; severe 
 scrutiny by the Inspector of many wage contracts, 
 and of local practices that were unrecorded in any 
 jformal notice, was necessary to free the worker 
 urom the burden of carrying the occupier's legal 
 responsibility for keeping his factory in a cleanly 
 condition. Levies of Id. a week on every worker 
 in a large factory would sometimes produce more 
 than the wage of a good charwoman in places 
 where there was not much evidence of her activity. 
 Even in 1901 the prosecution of a firm for employing 
 women in the dinner hour gave publicity, during 
 the hearing, to the details of how women and girls 
 supplied gratis, the labour, cloths, buckets, etc., 
 necessary to enable the occupiers of a world-famed 
 textile factoiy to keep it in the cleanly state required 
 by the Acts. The conviction did much to " shift 
 the burden on to the right shoulders."* 
 
 The odd topsy-turvy way in which law and 
 administration reacted in the difficult work of 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1901, p. 190.
 
 INCONGRUITIES 75 
 
 applying the Truck Act was seen by Miss Martin- 
 dale in a procession of workers who paraded the 
 streets of Belfast in 1911 carrying boards on which 
 stood in large letters the words: "Down with the 
 Truck Acts." This followed our long negotiations 
 with the Association of Manufacturers (already 
 referred to) in an endeavour to secure milder con- 
 tracts regarding deductions for damage. The 
 meagre results had been embodied, with other 
 rules over which we had no control, in a notice 
 (drafted by the lawyers to the Association), a copy 
 of which was handed to each worker. The notices 
 were headed by the words: " The Truck Act, 1896, 
 requires that a copy of the following terms and con- 
 ditions should be handed to every worker." The 
 " other rules " included such conditions as instant 
 dismissal of a worker when, in the opinion of the 
 employer, manager, or overlooker, she had been 
 guilty of certain acts or defaults, and discharge of 
 workers in any department without notice or com- 
 pensation if any of the workers in the factory strike 
 or decline to work. This blending of incompatible 
 terms could not be prevented by legal process with- 
 out amendment of the Act. 
 
 Up to the time of the passing of the Truck Act, 
 1887, and even later, a common opinion held that 
 deductions from wages in respect of fines were r 
 rendered illegal by the Act of 1831, through its 
 provision that the entire wages were to be paid in 
 coin. The important decision in Redgrave v. Kelly 
 (1889), however, established a different conclusion, 
 and left it so that the question of the reasonableness 
 of fines could not be raised under that Act. It was 
 
 i
 
 76 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 \chiefly against uncertainty and unreasonableness 
 m» such fines that the Act of 1896 was aimed. 
 Among the reactions from the very considerable, 
 though incomplete, degree of control introduced by 
 this Act came the development, especially in Irish 
 textile factories, of a so-called " bonus " system, 
 the real meaning of which was in nuTny*msTa*nces 
 a desire to " keep clear " of that Act. It appeared 
 in amounts varying from 5 to 20 per cent, of the 
 wage in many and subtle forms; for time-keeping, 
 for output and equality of piecework, and for 
 amount of wages earned in the week. Although 
 the bonus seldom seemed to raise the average wage 
 above the local level, it was treated by the employer 
 as a kind of gift, over and above wages, and the 
 whole or part was liable to be withheld, in addition 
 to imposing any specific fine mentioned in the con- 
 tract or a deduction for time lost. In a case 
 carried from Petty Sessions to the High Court in 
 Ireland, Deane v. Wilson, a weaver lost 2s. 4d. out 
 of a weekly wage of 10s. for a single small unpunc- 
 tuality. Arriving thus at the mill a few minutes 
 late, she was locked out for a quarter of the day 
 and forfeited her " bonus " of 2s. in addition to the 
 quarter time lost, reckoned as 4d. The High Court 
 confirmed the decision of the magistrates to dismiss 
 the summons, on the ground that the 2s. bonus could 
 not be computed as wages, and that therefore no 
 fine was inflicted. 
 
 The Committee on Truck, 1908, decided that the 
 bonus system was open to grave abuse, and on the 
 evidence placed before them believed that it was 
 abused. They made certain recommendations for
 
 THE BONUS SYSTEM 77 
 
 its control through empowering a court " after 
 considering all the circumstances of the case to 
 decide whether the bonus is used by the employeri 
 as a means of evading the requirements of the! 
 statute, and, in the event of deciding that it is so' 
 used, to convict the employer."* I confess that it 
 appears to me that if such a clause had stood in the 
 Act it would not have altered the decision in Deane 
 v. Wilson. Magistrates and Judges alike arrived at 
 the conclusion that the Truck Act did not provide 
 a remedy for a reduction by 2s. 4d. of a gross pay- 
 ment of 10s. for a week's skilled work (which 10s. 
 was regularly given to the wage earner if no unpunc- 
 tuality occurred). The reduction left the wage 
 earner with 7s. 8d. net for a week in which she only 
 lost a few minutes by her own lateness. The 
 recommendation of the Minority Report of the 
 Truck Committee " that the bonus system should 
 be prohibited by law " would hardly solve the 
 difficulty. Extra rewards to workers for good work 
 could never be effectually prohibited by law. The* 
 real problem is to assure to the worker a secure, net 1 
 minimu m wage, and to defeat evasion by unreason- 
 able orlinjust employers. f 
 
 The charges upon wages above considered have\ 
 been taken first — although not the earliest form of 
 Truck — because they were characteristic of the 
 factory system and specially harassing to large 
 numbers of women in the period from 1893 to 1914, 
 before great changes were brought by the War. 
 
 * Report of the Committee on Truck, 1908, vol. i., pp. 28, 89. 
 t Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1897, p. 110; 1906, 
 p. 240; 1908, p. 160.
 
 78 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 j Payment in " unprofitable wares " instead of in 
 '/lawful money " mainly troubled unorganised 
 yactory operatives during the transition from handi- 
 ^Cvsiit industry to mass production. Truck — that is, 
 in its original sense — survived in our official ex- 
 perience, and called for our intensified enquiry and 
 action among outworkers in rural districts: in 
 Cornwall and Somerset, over wide areas in Ireland, 
 and among knitters in Shetland. From these 
 directions complaints flowed in upon the Women 
 Inspectors, keeping them absorbed for many months 
 in activities that made them, for the time, almost 
 anything but Factory Inspectors. They led us 
 into almost incredible experiences* until eventually 
 various legal decisions made it plain that any out- 
 worker who was not under an express contract 
 personally to execute the manual work, however 
 poor or however clearly in need of protection, was 
 outside the Truck Acts. 
 
 Two ancient forms of oppressive " agreement 
 . . . understanding ... or arrangement . . . direct 
 or indirect " prohibited by law,f continued, how- 
 ever, in our time to trouble ill-organised factory 
 k\ orkers, irregular charges for rent, and compulsory 
 'expenditure of wages at an employer's shop. 
 
 " The people say it was a charity for you to stop 
 the checks, but it would be a greater charity if you 
 would stop the rents being kept off the workers." 
 " If the Inspector would look after shopkeepers 
 giving out work and making the workers take goods 
 instead of money, I think she would be doing a 
 service to the poor." Both these complaints have 
 * See below, Chapter VI. t Truck Act, 1831, sect. 25.
 
 DEDUCTIONS FOR RENT 79 
 
 the vivid, Irish ring, but they expressed the sore 
 needs of many a worker, and not only in Great 
 Britain and Ireland. As regards deductions for 
 rent, without a shadow of a legal right, no reported 
 instance is worse than that in a lucifer match 
 factory in England in 1898, followed by prosecution 
 and fine, where, in absence of any contract, the 
 employer was taking nearly the whole earnings of 
 a half-starved young girl worker for accumulated 
 and unrecorded rent, unpaid by her father during 
 a long epidemic of smallpox.* Another instance 
 nearly as bad was found in a factory in a great 
 textile district where, without rent-book or any 
 form of contract (which in any case could not have 
 been legalised), any wife or daughter engaged on 
 piecework was liable to receive her earnings reduced 
 by quite undefined amounts, said to be rent due 
 from husband or father. The mere fact that the 
 mill was sometimes " standing " added to the 
 uncertainty of the position; in one case successfully 
 taken into court, the employer's ledger showed 
 17s. l|d. deducted for rent in six weeks for a cottage 
 rented at 2s. a week.f The Irish complainant 
 (living in a house owned by his employer) was, 
 however, concerned far more with insecurity of 
 tenure and with the feature that " if you get dis- 
 missed out of your employment they won't give 
 you any money (wages) till the house is empty." 
 Uncertainty about the poorest roof over his head, 
 being his home, was to the Irish peasant yet worse 
 than insecurity of employment. 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1898, p. 182. 
 t Ibid., 1902," p. 191.
 
 80 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 Miss Martindale sometimes found dressmakers 
 employed in Irish country towns who " lived-in," 
 receiving their wages only once a year, who were 
 obliged to obtain articles on credit from their 
 employers, getting seriously in debt to them. She 
 also found hand-spinners and weavers in the tweed 
 industry paid in exorbitantly priced draperies and 
 groceries; a complainant, telling how a girl's wages 
 were pledged by her father to a rich shopkeeper for 
 five years for the paying-off of his debts, described 
 the girl as " sold " to her employer. The remark 
 made to Miss Martindale by a man who had very 
 special opportunities of knowing the poorer country 
 districts of Ireland, that " the people are born in 
 debt, die in debt, and liv e in bon ctage,^ struclHher 
 in the year 1 907 as""" undoubtedly only too true."* 
 
 In few places could the framework of bondage 
 be more complete than in a certain " townland," 
 where the owner of the principal shop and public - 
 house was also the owner of the flax-fields and flax 
 scutch mill, and employer of many of the inhabitants. 
 The women working for wages in the mill seldom 
 received coin; one girl, whose father and sister 
 were dependent on the same employer, received 
 none during a whole winter. Dealing at the shop 
 was practically a condition of employment. f A 
 successful prosecution in 1907, upheld on appeal 
 against conviction to Quarter Sessions, brought 
 in many communications of similar cases to Miss 
 Martindale, as did the well-known earlier prosecution 
 by Miss Deane at Ardara in 1898, and several more 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1907, p. 200. 
 t Ibid., 1907, p. 200.
 
 IRISH PAYMENTS IN KIND 81 
 
 by Miss Squire in Dungloe and neighbouring dis- 
 tricts, which led in 1900 to her hard-fought appeals 
 to the High Court, touched on in Chapter VI. These 
 ladies were indeed all the " petticoated Inspectors " 
 of whom a well-known Irish Q.C. declared at the 
 hearing of an appeal in June, 1900, that there was 
 " an army squatted around Dungloe, watching 
 every little industry and striving to throttle them."* 
 Many of the difficulties that the Inspectors had 
 to encounter in remote country districts, in their 
 endeavour to scotch or root out the habit of paying 
 in kind or in tickets usable instead of coin at a 
 particular shop, were not of legal interpretation. 
 They were largely of local circumstances. A fort- 
 night's residence in 1899 in a lovely district of 
 county Donegal enabled me, beyond my expecta- 
 tions, to gauge the character of these practices. The 
 open friendliness shown by the peasant woman and 
 car-drivers to an English visitor showed me some of 
 the essential factors of the situation. There was a 
 manifest sense of security among the law-breakers, 
 on the alert to conceal all traces of their methods 
 of payment since the £44 penalty secured against a 
 shopkeeping middlewoman by Miss Deane in 1898. 
 In their shops, their inns, their ownership of cars, 
 they represented the wealth and carrying power of 
 the local community; in their connections through 
 marriage with the priests' and magistrates' families, 
 and sometimes even their position as magistrates, 
 they represented the order of the community. It 
 was possible for me to ascertain, beyond doubt, 
 that not only outworkers, but also masons and 
 
 * The Donegal Vindicator, June 29, 1900.
 
 82 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 road workers, were being paujfortheir work mainly 
 (and sometimes wholly) in p;oods estiinaT^a ab o_ve 
 th eir rea l value; it was a long work of patient skill 
 to establish particular cases in court, and to Miss 
 Squire I left this part of our task. I could see 
 carts laden with yarn and groceries that drove out 
 for miles round the country and that brought back 
 knitted hose; the difficulty was to be on a spot 
 out in the country, or in a shop, at the exact moment 
 to see the transactions. " To be an eye-witness," 
 said Miss Squire, " of such payment is almost 
 impossible, for that it is illegal is well known; and 
 immediately a stranger enters a shop all trans- 
 actions cease. Baffled frequently, I succeeded on 
 one occasion, by a carefully-planned stratagem . . . 
 and saw the socks handed over the counter, yarn 
 for fresh socks given out, and packets of tea and 
 sugar given in payment. Except in this one case 
 I had, in undertaking prosecutions, to rely entirely 
 upon the workers, and even those who beforehand 
 appeared most staunch managed to evade service 
 of summons, disappeared from their homes in a 
 wonderful manner, and were with difficulty brought 
 to the court. Once there and put on oath, the 
 truth is told and conviction of the employers fol- 
 lowed in each case, the maximum penalty being 
 obtained in one case and £5 in each of the others. 
 . . . The immediate effect of the proceedings is 
 that money is handed now to workers by the agents, 
 J but a close watch will have to be kept lest . . . the 
 practice is continued in another and more hidden 
 form."* This was a prophetic utterance, as in- 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1899, pp. 275-7.
 
 GRATEFUL WOMEN 83 
 
 stances of struggles in later legal proceedings 
 showed, especially in two distinct appeals, Squire 
 v. Sweeney in 1900.* In many ways, by letter and 
 by word and gesture, the grateful women showed 
 the gallant Inspectors, Miss Squire and her successor, 
 Miss Martindale, how highly their adventurous 
 efforts were valued. At this time it came out 
 clearly that some local country agents of manu- 
 facturers of the big centres suffered from miserably 
 low commissions. One told Miss Squire that he 
 had no commission at all, that he had ceased to pay 
 in goods since her prosecution showed him it was 
 illegal, and he asked her if she could help him to 
 find a commission-paying employer. Special care 
 was taken to bring home to the head firms in the 
 North and West of Ireland the grave responsibility 
 they bore in this matter. 
 
 In the following year, not only in Ireland but 
 also in Cornwall, amongst guernsey knitters, and 
 in Somerset amongst kid-glove makers, Miss Squire 
 carried forward this endeavour to secure respect 
 for the right of the worker to " free control of her 
 own earnings unhampered by any condition as to 
 where and how they should be spent." 
 
 " Only by a daily intercourse with cottagers in 
 remote villages and the fishing folk of little seaside 
 towns . . . can the real nature of their business 
 transactions be fathomed. The information so 
 obtained and pieced together disclosed a state of 1 
 such widespread defiance of the law and contempt I 
 of the rights of the wage earner as it seems incredible / 
 could exist in England at the present time." In 
 
 * Ibid, 1900, pp. 29-30. 
 
 7 
 
 v 
 
 5
 
 84 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 the same year the Superintending Inspector for the 
 Northern Division noted that there existed " a 
 considerable amount of the old system of Truck," 
 in the Shetland shawl, the Harris tweeds, and the 
 fishing industries of Scotland. He thought it 
 hardly "remediable under the Acts by the Inspec- 
 torate." The features he indicated were just those 
 against which Miss Squire's carefully devised cam- 
 paign was directed in Ireland and South-West 
 England. Unquestionably, new and unconven- 
 tional methods of exploration of the trouble had 
 to be tried. The Cornish women excelled in their 
 knitting of yachtsmen's guernseys for which the 
 / nominal payment was 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. each, but 
 the payment was in drapery goods from the em- 
 ployer's shop " at whatever price and of whatever 
 quality the employer chooses to supply"; a poor 
 jcripple woman was found in great distress with a 
 /man's coat on her hands, when she sorely needed 
 *money for her rent. In Somersetshire villages the 
 kid-glove makers were being paid in goods from the 
 grocery shop of an agent who fetched the work from 
 factories, distributed it to the cottages, collected it 
 again, and returned it to the factories. The ten 
 cases successfully prosecuted against five drapers 
 and grocers, who were contractors in these counties, 
 had an immediate good effect that lasted for some 
 time, and some manufacturers were moved to open 
 a depot in Yeovil where they gave out the work 
 and paid the outworkers in coin through their own 
 clerk.* A recrudescence of the system was found 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief [nspector, 1900, pp. 352, 359, 
 404.
 
 OUTWORK, PIECEWORK, AND PROGRESS 85 
 
 by Miss Slocock in 1907 in Somersetshire after the 
 English High Court decision in Squire v. Midland 
 Lace Company. This, like the Irish decision in 
 Squire v. Sweeney, practically withdrew the pro- 
 tection of the Truck Acts, 1831 to 1887, from the 
 English outworker.* 
 
 These Acts have awaited amendment all these 
 years from 1908 to 1921, and meantime the scope */ 
 of wages problems for women has widened and 
 changed, in Great Britain at least. The War wentl 
 far towards establishing for women a legal claim/ 
 to a reasonable minimum wage; first, temporarily, 
 when they were employed as substitutes in great 
 organised men's engineering industries, and then 
 through T rade Boards gradually set up in trades 
 where no adequate machinery of organisation existed 
 for the effective regulation of wages. Women's 
 own great industrial services to the nation during 
 the War, fostered and encouraged by specialise^ 
 training, of course altered the outlook fundamentally 
 It was no longer a favour conferred on them merely 
 to employ them ; their work and their special apti- 1 
 tudes and skill were seen in a new light as a service 
 to the community. 
 
 Yet even before these new motives came in sight, 
 things had not stood still, for the Factory Act ^of 
 1895 had made secure the claim of tile" pieceworker 
 to a definite contract as to her prospective earnings 
 on any given piece of work. That Act directly 
 extended to all piecework ers in textile trades the 
 right to written particula rs, q£ W0 r ^ nrirl "^(pg in 
 a sectionf which was declared by Mr. Birtwistle — 
 
 * Ibid., 1907, p. 196. | Factory Act, 1895, sect. 40.
 
 S6 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 first Inspector of Textile Particulars — to be " with- 
 out doubt the most popular section of any Act of 
 Parliament ever passed in the interest of labour."* 
 The strong organisation of the textile trades, es- 
 pecially the Lancashire cotton trade, had secured 
 the beginnings of this protection to some textile 
 pieceworkers in the Act of 1891. f It was sug- 
 gested possibly by a similar provision for handicraft 
 silk weavers in an Act of 1845. 
 
 It was so immediately successful in setting these 
 workers free from the torment of insecurity in cal- 
 culating prospective earnings on intricate piece 
 rates, liable to frequent alterations, that other 
 pieceworkers soon called for its aid. This was 
 provided for by the power taken in 1895 to apply 
 the benefit of the provision by Order of the Secretary 
 of State " to any class of non-textile factories or 
 to any class of workshops . . . subject to such 
 modifications as may in his opinion be necessary 
 for adapting those provisions to the circumstances 
 of the case. "J 
 
 This just and simple measure, really indispensable 
 for intricate piecework in mass production, was 
 valuable, not only for collective bargaining between 
 employers and employed, but also for enabling 
 individual workers to understand and discuss the 
 basis of piecework earnings. It was happily appliecN 
 further, by the V f of ]_u. m to outworkers on pre-y 
 scribed lists kept by the occupier of a factory o/t 
 workshop and by contractors. § 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1896, p. 74. 
 
 f Act of 1891, sect. 24. $ Ibid., 1895, sect. 40 (G). 
 
 § Ibid., 1901, sects. 114 and 110.
 
 PARTICULARS FOR PIECEWORKERS 87 
 
 With the aid of many confidential complaints 
 from women workers, the Women Inspectors were 
 enabled to make a long series of effective investiga- 
 tions in many non-textile industries as to the 
 inability of pieceworkers to calculate what their 
 earnings would be at any given piece of work, and 
 as to their consequent bitter feeling of grievance 
 in the matter. In 1896 Miss Deane reported to the 
 Home Office on the need for application of the clause 
 to workers in blouse, apron, and handkerchief 
 trades. I reported similarly in that year on the 
 workers' desire for, and great need of, this provision 
 in the wholesale clothing trade in the North of 
 England, and I completed this enquiry for the 
 remainder of the great centres of the industry in 
 England and Scotland in 1897-98. It was at once 
 found that the practice of giving particulars to 
 pieceworkers was already in existence in fair-dealing 
 factories, and that the best manufacturers held 
 that " the only business-like system is to have a 
 clear contract with the workers, such contract to 
 hold good until the question of a new one has been 
 fully considered and threshed out." In 1898 II 
 reported that the general need of outworkers who/ 
 then stood outside the section for the protectioi 
 afforded by the section was even greater than tht 
 need of the factory worker.* The needs of piece- 
 workers in pen-making, hand fustian cutting, under- 
 clothing, shirt and collar industries were investigated 
 and reported on in quick succession chiefly by Miss 
 Squire, and in 1899 our first cases under an Order 
 for written particulars were successfully taken into 
 
 * Annual Report of the Chief Inspector, 1898, p. 1Sl\
 
 88 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 court by her. This advertisement of the possibility 
 of applying a remedy to one of their greatest handi- 
 caps and grievances — lack of power to calculate 
 earnings — brought a decided increase in complaints 
 about wages from women and girls. 
 
 The 1900 Order for particulars to pieceworkers 
 in the pen-making trade — where long and intricate 
 investigation into the conditions of calculating and 
 paying wages had been necessary in this industry 
 of many minute, successive hand-tool operations* — 
 brought strikingly good results in a remarkably 
 short time. The results were not only material 
 in wages to the worker, but, still more, moral in 
 engendering confidence between workers and em- 
 ployers. In 1898 there was much lack of confidence, 
 workers asserting that their " lots " of pens were 
 frequently larger than the nominal amount, and 
 employers were more or less resentful of investiga- 
 tion. In March, 1901, Miss Squire reported that 
 the occupiers of the twelve pen factories — all 
 situated in Birmingham — had set to work in a 
 " highly commendable way " to supply the pre- 
 cribed particulars. I doubt if any change in methods 
 of stating and fulfilling wage contracts was ever 
 more quietly and rapidly effected. The employers 
 seemed to understand thoroughly the spirit of the 
 Order, and they expressly recognised that Inspectors, 
 manufacturers, and workers had to work out the 
 details of the new requirement together in a har- 
 monious way. Here, and in various other trades, 
 the complexity and mass of detail that had to be 
 
 * E.(j., catting, piercing, marking, raising, grinding, 
 bending, polishing, etc.
 
 ORDERS FOR PARTICULARS 89 
 
 mastered in developing the various Orders for piece- 
 work particulars led to continual interchange of 
 information and help between the District Inspec- 
 tors and the floating staff of Women Inspectors. 
 The work done then and later by the whole Factory 
 Department must certainly have smoothed the way 
 for introduction of Trade Board minimum wage 
 scales. The Orders for locks, latches, and keys, 
 cables, chains, and cart gear, of 1902, specially 
 operated in this direction. 
 
 In some industries, and strangely in wholesale 
 fustian clothing factories situated in textile dis- 
 tricts where the idea of written particulars had first 
 prevailed, there was much patient work to be done 
 by the Inspectorate in overcoming a stubborn 
 adherence to defective methods of giving particu- 
 lars, such as chalk marks on garments, use of 
 symbols, and their refusal even to give particulars 
 at all. 
 
 Early in 1903 came the first and very important 
 extension of this protection to outworkers in the 
 wholesale tailoring trade. Their need could not be 
 expressed in the same clear, organised way as by the 
 factory workers. It was none the less surely to be 
 discovered by research among them, as Miss Squire 
 found when she investigated, directly or through 
 visits to firms, the needs of over 6,000 outworkers. 
 Her account of the variety in systems of giving out 
 work in the four great centres — Leeds, London, 
 Colchester, Bristol — and the risks of the bag- 
 woman or carrier system in the last two districts, 
 must be read to acquire an adequate idea of the 
 needs of the women:
 
 90 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 /"The b ag wom an or carjiex -sy*>iem is open to 
 much abuse, especially vvfiere these are really con- 
 tractors receiving the outwork price themselves' 
 and giving what proportion they think fit to those 
 to whom they pass on the work. Sometimes they 
 keep the grocery shop of the village, and if they 
 are sharp enough not actually to infringe the letter 
 of the Truck Act, sail very near the wind and obtain 
 an injurious control over their customers, dependent 
 as these are upon them for both work and grocery. 
 The prices paid to outworkers for either making 
 or finishing are incredibly low at the best; at the 
 worst, the ' slop clothing ' rate, they are cruel. 
 With all the sad experience one has gained in many 
 trades of the amount of work a woman will do for 
 a penny, one still marvels how anyone, however 
 poor, can be found to accept the rate given for 
 some classes of work, as, for example, elevenpence 
 a dozen for finishing (that is, all but the stitching 
 of the seams) men's trousers. When the rate of 
 wages is so low, it is of great moment to the worker 
 to know exactly what the price is; she wants to be 
 absolutely sure that she has not been misled by 
 some symbol into putting ' A ' quality work, which 
 takes more time, into a ' B ' quality garment, for 
 which she will receive a halfpenny less, or to run 
 the risk of being told when she takes the work 
 back to the factory that she was mistaken if she 
 thought the price would be eightpence, as it had 
 been lowered to sixpence. 
 
 ("That there is a real need for the outworker to 
 have . . . the written statement of the price the 
 emplo3 r er contracts to pay was abundantly proved. 
 In the absence of such written particulars the home-! 
 worker is, at best, uncertain as to the price she 
 will receive, and is at times in complete ignorance, 
 so that the door is open for fraud on the part of 
 'passer,' or carrier, or messenger."* 
 
 * Animal Report, 1902, p. 189.
 
 OUTWORKERS' NEED OF PARTICULARS 91 
 
 The nrrr]_pf -syrittnn pnrtinnlnr/j f nr ou^work ess 
 was voluntarily recognised by some employers, 
 but n*^j™»np I^BJaBaaa^Ie had been often fitfully 
 and carelessly carried out by their agents. It was 
 pre-eminently a case where law should step in to 
 bring up general practice to the level admitted by 
 public opinion to be the least that was due from 
 employer to employed. 
 
 At the end of 1903 the Order for particulars to 
 pieceworkers in the shirt, collar, linen underwear, 
 corset, and other wearing apparel trades widely 
 extended this safeguard to cover unorganised 
 women — to their immense satisfaction. "Mrs. A., 
 employed in a chiffon and straw hat workshop, 
 informed the Inspector how pleased she had been 
 to read in the political news of Lloyd" s about the new 
 Order. Formerly she never knew until Saturday 
 night when her job was done, what she would 
 receive for it. . . . Miss D., belt and tie maker, 
 . . . recently did fifty dozen, expecting 2d. more 
 a dozen than she received."* 
 
 The work of enquiry, followed by extension of 
 the principle of supplying written particulars to 
 pieceworkers, went on apace. Seventeen or more 
 trades were added in 1907 by composite Orders, 
 and more in later years. Every effort was made to 
 give administrative effect to all these Orders as fast 
 as possible. The Inspectors acquired, as it were 
 automatically, a wide and detailed acquaintance 
 with prevalent wage rates, and were again and again 
 struck by the tendency of employ 's, to. lower rules 
 " di rectly flirls get quick au rl ^ arn taQ—amfih 
 " It appears to be useless to point out that this is 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1904, p. 279.
 
 92 WOMEN'S WAGES AND TRUCK ACTS 
 
 /I very short-sighted policy, and that all incentive 
 V> quick, good work is crushed out."* 
 v. The time was evidently getting ripe for applica- 
 tion of the principle of minimum wageji egula tion . 
 
 And yet a word may here I)e"added on the valuable 
 help, in ratio of work to wages, that sometimes 
 could be brought, through the Factory Act and 
 the Factory Inspector, to a most helpless class of 
 workers, those in low-paid industries who were prac- 
 tically compelled to take work home at the close of 
 the legal day in the factory in order to keep body 
 and soul together. A striking example of an old- 
 standing breach of Section 31 of the Factory Act 
 of 1901 (restricting employment inside and outside 
 the factor}^ or workshop on the same day), with a 
 sinister effect on the wages of the girls, was brought 
 to light by Miss Escreet in Birmingham in 1913: 
 
 // " Workers in the warehouses of a pen factory had 
 been regularly taking home cards to thread with 
 elastic for the reception of pens, compasses, india- 
 rubber, etc. The Avorkers, who mostly lived some 
 way from the factory, arrived at their homes about 
 7.15 p.m., and in nearly every case worked steadily 
 for three nights in the week for three 4 hours or 
 more. Many of the girls with large quantities of 
 cards to do received help from their relations; even 
 where this was given, their leisure was encroached 
 on to the extent of one and a half to two hours, 
 and where it was lacking entirely, work sometimes 
 went on till midnight, or spread to four or five 
 evenings in the week. Ample evidence was at hand 
 to explain the continuance of this ' voluntary 
 work ' : the system had been long virtually used 
 
 * Miss Slocock in Annual Report, 1907, p. 193.
 
 MINIMUM WAGE REGULATION 93 
 
 to economise on the wages bill, for ' cards ' were 
 given out and their quantity increased at regular 
 intervals, when girls would normally be receiving 
 a rise. That the economy was a successful one 
 may be seen from the fact that the average weekly 
 warehouse wage of six adult workers, taken at 
 random, was 10s. Id., which they increased to an 
 average of 13s. 5|d. by doing ' cards.' This system 
 enabled the employer to economise in his insurance ■* 
 contributions as well as in wages, for, without the 
 card-money, he would have been liable for an 
 increased contribution. The girls were shrewd 
 enough to appreciate the unfairness of the system, 
 and welcomed its abolition, in spite of the fact that 
 their net wages have dropped. An increase has 
 been given at the factory, but not to the extent of 
 the weekly cards. Nevertheless, I was told in one 
 case by the sister of a worker that they had had 
 ' the happiest week for twelve years. ' And a * 
 grateful Jewish mother wished me ' a long life, antLr 
 God bless you ' over and over again." '
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 DANGEROUS AND INJURIOUS PROCESSES; ACCIDENTS 
 AND SAFETY 
 
 " 'Tis a sordid profit that's accompanied with the de- 
 struction of health." — B. Ramazzini, 1678. 
 
 Let us turn now from general conditions affecting 
 women and girls in factory life to special dangers 
 due to " any manufacture, machinery, plant, 
 process, or description of manual labour."* Here 
 the aid given by Women Inspectors, though ex- 
 tensive and indispensable, has hitherto been ancil- 
 lary rather than primary in character. They have 
 not before 1921 been brought into the Factory 
 Department expressly in the capacity of medical, 
 engineering, or chemical experts. And yet their 
 early research into many imperfectly explored 
 causes of injury to health and safety of women 
 and young workers was so steadfast, and their 
 evidence in Annual Reports so freely read and 
 quoted in Parliament and the Press, that they 
 stirred public opinion to a new outlook on women's 
 needs in these matters. As time went on the 
 Department was able to draw in an increasing 
 number of women candidates with good degrees 
 in science, and with considerable experience in 
 research or in work of an administrative character. 
 
 * Factory and Workshop Act, 19Ul, sect. 79. 
 94
 
 APPLYING KNOWLEDGE 95 
 
 The steady pooling of knowledge and experience 
 that went on in the Women's Branch yielded good 
 fruit. 
 
 The Women Inspectors were immediately called 
 on by the Chief Inspector of 1893 to 1895 to share 
 both in enforcing new " special rules " for dangerous 
 and injurious processes,* and in conducting en- 
 quiries with a view to strengthening these rules. 
 They came into the service practically at the 
 beginning of the new movement for applying scien- 
 tific knowledge in these matters; knowledge of 
 some of the ills had existed before, but it had not 
 been applied and was therefore incomplete. Theyi 
 entered the Department five years before a ^ftfljca-w 
 Inspectors' Branch was set up, and three years 
 before the momentous requirement was made that 
 medical practitioners should notify certain diseases 
 (lead, p hosph orus, etc., arsenical poisoning or 
 anffirax ) , ""coTitracted in a factory or workshop, to 
 the Chief Inspector. 
 
 Before the entry of the Medical Inspectorate, the 
 long-established institution of part-time certifying A 
 surgeonsf had brought some medical observation, > 
 largely unco-ordinated, to bear on industrial con- ' 
 ditions. From their private practice among in- 
 dustrial workers the certifying surgeons often 
 gathered i mport anJLx ecQrd »-Qi-4 no!ivi rluni l eaasa of . 
 industrial poisoning, respiratory .iind-oiher. jiiseases, 
 
 y* Such as white lead manufacture, lucifer match making, 
 quaint and colour making, hollow ware enamelling. 
 
 f For examination of children and young persons under 
 sixteen years as to physical fitness for working in a factory,-" 
 and enquiry into certain grave and fatal accidents.
 
 96 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 arising from injurious conditions of manufacture. 
 These records could be and were fully utilised by 
 the Medical Inspectors in due course — as may be 
 well seen in the reports and other writings by Dr. 
 T. M. Legge and Dr. E. L. Collis. 
 r""Not until after the War (in 1£21) was a medical 
 Woman Inspector appointed to the Medical Branch 
 — Dr. E. M. Hewitt. During all the earlier years 
 Irom 1893 reliance was placed on the initiative of 
 the Women's Branch of the Department for the 
 highly necessary observation by women of condi- 
 tions and habits of women and girl workers. An 
 outstanding obstacle to obtaining exact knowledge] 
 of industrial mortality and disease amongst women! 
 arose from the omission to enter in mortality and 
 hospital records the occupation of married womenJ 
 whether occupied prior to or during married lifej 
 This entailed a closer individual investigation 
 among women than among men for clues to indus- 
 trial disease and careful following up of their cases 
 outside the factory as well as inside. When informa- 
 tion was needed on grave injury and early deaths 
 among, for example, asbestos workers or china 
 >' scourers, in cases of lead poisoning or phosphorus 
 necrosis, or mercurial poisoning in the days before 
 notification was compulsory, indispensable contribu- 
 tions were made by the investigations of Women 
 Inspectors in many directions, and especially as to 
 the effects of lead processes on maternal functions. 
 The earlier tentative " speciaj^xules " for safe- 
 guarding the workers against " dangerous and 
 [unhealthy incidents of employment " had been 
 Wade in 1892 and 1893, under the new powers of
 
 SPECIAL RULES AND REGULATIONS 97 
 
 the Factory Act of 1891 suggested by the special 
 rules under the Mines Acts. The special rules were 
 made on the proposal of the Chief Inspector to the 
 occupier of the factory after the process, machinery, 
 or manual labour in question had been scheduled 
 by the Secretary of State as being, in his opinion, 
 " dangerous or injurious to health, or dangerous/ 
 to life or limb, either generally or in the case on 
 women, children, or any other class of persons.'! 
 Each occupier had a right of objection to the rules 
 proposed, and provision was made for arbitration. 
 In the absence befo re 1896 jgf any m edical gxperts 
 on the stall' or of any substantial statistical evidence 
 of cases of industrial poisoning and disease, the 
 earliest special rules could only be few, simple, and 
 experimental in character. Gradually, under the 
 direction of the first Medical Chief Inspector, Sir 
 Arthur Whitelegge, and the very slowly added 
 medical staff, beginning with Dr. T. M. Legge in 
 July, 1898, knowledge and vigour of regulation 
 grew. Administrative methods of establishing regu- 
 lation were greatly improved, and the uncertainties 
 of arbitration in such highly expert questions were 
 removed by the Act of 1901. The early years of the 
 twentieth century saw what was unquestionabty 
 the most remarkable development that had ever 
 yet been attempted in any age or country in apply- 
 ing scientific knowledge and care to the protection 
 of workers from industrial disease and injury. At 
 last the reproach made by many medical observers 
 (and, particularly in our country, by Medical Officers 
 to the Privy Council in 1860) began to be lightened; 
 the reproach that " the canker of industrial diseases
 
 98 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 gnaws at the very root of our national strength," 
 that " the sufferers are not few or insignificant, . . ." 
 that " the magnitude of the evil is most imper- 
 fectly appreciated," whether by the authorities 
 or by the " slowly suffering artisans themselves " — 
 and that all this was going on for lack of expert 
 advice and the administrative application of scien- 
 tific methods to the problems involved.* It was 
 so long before the idea of industrial labour as a 
 social service began to gain ground that only a 
 few enlightened manufacturers, here and there, 
 could attempt to try remedies. 
 
 It was not only medical knowledge that was 
 needed to trace effects on the human frame of 
 poisons (such as lead, arsenic, white phosphorus, 
 mercury, etc.); of anthrax and tetanus germs; of 
 gaseous and acid fumes; of injurious and excessive 
 dust; of excessive moisture or heat; of muscular 
 or nerve overstrain and impure air. The work of 
 experts in engineering, physics, chemistry, and, not 
 least, in patient observation of the habits, working 
 conditions, ways and circumstances of the workers 
 affected, was equally indispensable. This had been 
 to some extent provided for in the reorganisation 
 of the Inspectorate that followed the Consolidating 
 Act of 1878. The Acts of 1883 and 1889 to regulate 
 white lead and cotton cloth factories carried this 
 matter further by exploration of some of the most 
 injurious conditions. Thus, in the ranks of the 
 general Inspectorate knowledge was available for 
 technical work in some of these directions. 
 
 * See especially Fourth Report of the Medical Officer to 
 tho Privy Council, 1861, pp. 29, 31, etc.
 
 DEVELOPING REGULATIONS 99 
 
 It must be remembered that the principal Act 
 had long provided for the great safeguard of exhaust 
 ventilation for removal of dangerous and injurious 
 dusts, fumes, or other impurities generated in the 
 processes or handicrafts carried on — though its full 
 preventive scope was only gradually realised. Its 
 significance was explicitly and repeatedly emphasised 
 in later days by the Senior Medical Inspector, Dr. 
 Legge,* and the pioneer work of such leaders as 
 the late Mr. E. H. Osborn, H.M. Superintending 
 Inspector of Factories, and the late Mr. C. R. Pendock, 
 H.M. Inspector, in the application of engineering 
 knowledge to these matters, should always be 
 specially remembered. Their work was carried 
 forward in due succession by Mr. Sydney Smith 
 and Mr. Stevenson Taylor. 
 
 Under the Cotton Cloth Factories Act of 1889 , f 
 administered by Mr. E. H. Osborn and by Mr. 
 Williams, now Superintending Inspector, exact 
 standards of ventilation and hygrometers were 
 first introduced in dealing with the dangers to 
 health from excessive humidity of the atmosphere 
 and high temperature in the workshops. Out of 
 these experiences came recognition of mfifchfldifiaJ 
 f ggtfi of abeBUCaLjaMatgfa of~Uia .ailL af workro o ms . 
 Later, scientific emphasis was laid — by Dr. Leonard 
 Hill, F.R.S. — on the truth that it is rather the 
 physical than the " chemical conditions of confined 
 
 * In " Occupational Diseases," by T. M. Legge, C.B.E., 
 M.D., etc., p. 68, and in " Lead Poisoning and Lead Ab- 
 sorption," by T. M. Legge and Kenneth W. Goadby, 1912, 
 pp. 98-102. 
 
 f Later amended and in 1911 developed into special 
 regulations under the Principal Act of 1901. 
 
 8 
 
 I
 
 100 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 atmospheres which influence health and happiness " 
 of the worker. Before it was laid down as a truth 
 that " overheated and still air decrease the activity 
 of the body furnace and so lead to lessened resistance 
 of disease," Women Inspectors were steadily bring- 
 ing persuasive pressure to bear on occupiers for 
 introduction of mechanical ventilation to ease the 
 visible strain they saw in industrial work in the 
 stagnant heat of many a factory or workshed. 
 
 When Dgpa.rt m ejitajjQnm m i fttes-s were set up, from 
 l_R^jjnwardit\ for enquiry into various dangerous 
 trades, o utsi t mndinnl "yprrt ' were appointed 
 as members before the advent of the Medical 
 Inspectorate. In 1^3 the precedent was first set 
 of appointing a Woman Inspector, Miss Abraham I 
 to such Committees where employment of women! 
 in the industries made this specially desirable. 
 ^Miss Abraham also served on the main Dangerous 
 <JXW]ps rnmmi&*M» r -I g.9/S f.n Mjtf M, on whose recom- 
 mendations various codes of special rules followed. 
 With Dr. Legge I served in the enquiry into Enamel- 
 ling and Tinning of Metals, begun in 1901, and 
 reported on for each section separately in 1903 and 
 1907 respectively. Less than ten years' application 
 of the first special rules of 1892 for these processes 
 pad sufficed to show their ii^tfeqita^y for controlling 
 yke risks of lead poisoning. Separate regulations 
 of the entirely distinct sources of danger in vitreous 
 enamelling and in tinning of metals was not at first 
 seen to be necessary; the obscurity of the sources 
 in the latter led us to a point where our need of 
 chemical assistance was evident, and this was 
 provided when the services of Mr. G. Elmhirst
 
 IMPROVED CONTROL 
 
 101 
 
 Duckering, H.M. Inspector of Factories and a 
 skilled chemist, were lent to us. A difference of 
 method in the tinning of hollow ware and of the 
 tinning of terne plates had given us a clue. His 
 long studies and exact measurements of the degree 
 of contamination of the air by fumes from the 
 tinning bath, and from the surface of the tinned 
 hollow ware article as it emerged from the tinning 
 bath, led to definite conclusions as to the presence 
 of lead chloride in the fumes breathed by the worker. 
 And so — at last — we reached the possibility of 
 obtaining effectual measures of control.* The 
 number of cases of poisoning began to fall in the 
 period 1909-11, and in 1920 only two were reported 
 (both women), and these from a factory where there 
 had been a breakdown in exhaust ventilation. 
 Meanwhile, methods of manufacture had become 
 less dangerous as well as methods of exhaust 
 generally more effectual. f 
 
 From this experience and from the parallel 
 activities of Inspectors, chemists, manufacturers in 
 the far greater earthenware and china industry, 
 came new^agthods of determination— of-^ust— and 
 P2J2£ns ^ n th^ aJji-jai-^^^rTTTrTn-ig There came also 
 re-enforced activity in mjg mo™*^^ tfisj^ of mechani- 
 cal exhaust for poisonous fumes and dusts; amend- 
 ment of construction of exhaust apparatus, and 
 other detailed progress in what Mr. Pendock well 
 described as " means of cleaning the atmosphere: 
 
 * Reports on Enamelling of Metals 
 and on Tinning of Metals, 1907 (Ccl 
 pp. 23 and following. 
 
 | Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1920, p. 53 
 
 1903 (Cd. 1C10), 
 3793), especially
 
 102 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 the nrionrip, nf air <p<iirifi£atiQ.n, and a highly im- 
 portant science it is."* 
 
 The extent of the work that was waiting, almost 
 untouched, in the last decade of the nineteenth 
 century, to be overtaken by persistent, meticulous 
 application of this science to protection of the 
 health of the industrial worker, may be partly 
 realised by a backward glance at some of the 
 appalling records as to disease and premature death 
 in certain dusty processes. It must be remembered 
 in considering the early figures that they were 
 gathered before the discovery and recognition of 
 the ubiquitous tubercle bacillus. 
 
 Let us take, first, fl ax preparation and carding, 
 where women workers were in the majority: 
 
 " Dr. Purdon, in 1g7g. states the mortality as 
 31 n e,r 1 QQO. and Dr. Whitaker in his report on 
 theTiealth of Belfast, 1S£2, says the carder's average 
 length of life is only 16 *8 years of work. If a girl 
 gets a card at eighteen her life is generally ter- 
 minated at thirty. The p reparer's avemg e is 
 28 "7 vem 's r>f ^'»'t The ' rougher ^ and the 
 'sorter,' said Mr. Osbom, work in a continual 
 cloud of dust composed of particles of the fibre 
 'which is inhaled, and irritates and dries the throat 
 and gradually finds its way into the lungs, producing 
 chronic inflammation of the lining membrane, which 
 soon manifests its presence by the worker being 
 attacked each morning with a paroxysm of dyspnoea 
 and coughing. A worker suffering thus is said to 
 be ' noucey ' (pouce=dust=pow.ss*ere) . . . sojjie 
 r oughing rooms have no v entilation but windows 
 
 * " Observations on Ventilation of Potteries and Re- 
 moval of Dust," by C. R. Pendoek, 1913, Stoke-on- 
 Trent. 
 
 /.
 
 FLAX AND FLINT DUSTS 103 
 
 opening at the upper part, and the workers face the 
 
 wall, wh 
 
 them."* 
 
 wall, which, of course, reverberates the dust upon. 
 
 Far higher was the mortality per thousand among 
 " chinaj^GQujcers " — a few hundred women exposed | 
 to rme flint dust in the china industry. This flint 
 dust also severely affected men in china biscuit- 
 placing shops, in saggar emptying, and other 
 operations. f China scouring is a dry process, of 
 which the word is descriptive, to which the ware 
 is subjected after it has been fired in the kiln. 
 Before firing each piece is buried in a bed of fine 
 flint dust in a receptacle known as a saggar, in 
 which it is placed in the kiln, so that it may not 
 adhere to the saggar or other pieces of ware during 
 firing. On coming out of the kiln it is necessary 
 to free each piece from adhering particles of the 
 flint dust by friction of three kinds: scrubbing with 
 a stiff brush moved by hand or by power, rubbing 
 with stiff flannel, and with sand-paper. The extent 
 of the injury from the process was found after 
 patient research by Miss Deane and Miss Pater son 
 in 1898. Rediscovered, one might more precisely 
 say, for the enquiries of the Royal Commission of 
 1841 on Employment of Children and Young 
 Persons had made it clear that the air of the rooms 
 in which china scouring was carried on was niled 
 with fi nely piilvprisp.H fl[nt, the inhalation of which 
 was " nearly as fatal as that of the grinding stones 
 of Sheffield." In these 57 years nothing had 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1893, pp. 194-5. 
 f Ibid., 1898, pp. 162-4. See also Annual Reports, 1919 
 and 1920.
 
 104 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 changed essentially. " Not many scourers live 
 4 long ; we all feel overloaded upon the chest and 
 'cough very much; I cannot lie down all night " 
 (Commission of 1841). " Against the danger of 
 this occupation scarcely any provision has been 
 made " (Sir John Simon to the Privy Council in 
 1860). In their preparation of some evidence for 
 an arbitration in Stoke-on-Trent in 1898 on revised 
 special rules chiefly concerning lead in earthenware 
 and china, the Women Inspectors discovered a 
 remarkable weakness in the rule controlling flint 
 dust. Whereas the stronger rule for elimination of 
 dust by a positive requirement of fans, applied to 
 " towing " of earthenware (i.e., rubbing soft clay 
 dust off the pots with tow), the far more dangerous 
 flint dust of china scouring was controlled only by 
 la rule requiring removal of dust " as far as prac- 
 ticable," by mechanical or other efficient means. 
 With energy they set to work to complete the 
 evidence as to the mortality of this occupation — by 
 examination of all death certificates, during two 
 and a half years, of women between fifteen and 
 seventy years who had died in Longton, the chief 
 china town, from respiratory diseases and phthisis, 
 and by visiting the homes of the persons. Com- 
 paring deaths per thousand among all women in 
 Longton attributed by the certificates to these 
 diseases with those, similarly, among women who 
 had worked regularfy at china scouring, they found 
 that these deaths per thousand in the two years 
 ^immediately preceding the enquiry had been nearly 
 fifteen times as great among china scourers as 
 among other women in Longton. The figures were
 
 CHINA SCOURING 105 
 
 given in detail in the Annual Report for 1898. The 
 Inspectors referred several cases of advanced fibroid 
 phthisis that came under their notice to the newly 
 appointed Medical Inspector, who attributed the 
 physical signs in the lungs to inhalation of flint 
 dust; three of these died within the year.* 
 
 The Inspectors visited all the factories where 
 china scouring was carried on and found that, 
 whereas efficient fan extraction had been installed 
 in a few, yet generally full advantage had been taken 
 of the permissive character of the rule regarding 
 mechanical extraction of dust by omitting it. 
 Some of the smaller china factories were wholly or 
 in part unfitted for use as workplaces. The rule 
 was amended as from January 1, 1899, with marked 
 results in improved mechanical methods and in 
 reduction of the disease by degrees. I found, by 
 a comparative enquiry, ten years later, that th« 
 high mortality from respiratory disease and phthisia 
 was reduced to less than half among china scourers, 
 but this was still far too high a rate, and many 
 extremely sad cases showed the need of strengthened 
 pro visions, f This information I gave with much 
 other evidence to the Departmental Committee 
 appointed in 1908 by Mr. Herbert Gladstone, since 
 Lord Gladstone, to enquire into dangers from use 
 of lead and injury to health from dust in china and 
 earthenware and incidental processes. J The chair- 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1898, pp. 135 
 and 163. 
 
 t Ibid., 1908, p. 144. 
 
 % The Committee reported in 1910, Cd. 5219, Cd. 5278, 
 and Cd. 5385.
 
 106 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 man was Sir Ernest Hatch, Bart., and the able 
 secretary, Mr. E. A. R. Werner, a skilled chemist. 
 
 To the work of this committee reference must 
 presently be made in dealing with lead poisoning 
 in potteries; here we must recognise the immense 
 advance in control of the dust problem in these 
 works that followed on the adoption of the recom- 
 mendations of the committee. The age of inactivity 
 on proven ills had passed. Undoubtedly the 
 presence on the committee of leading manufacturers 
 and workers largely conduced to the practical 
 thoroughness with which the problems were handled. 
 
 Many other dusty processes affecting women that 
 were not under special rules also engaged the close 
 attention of Women Inspectors, of which the fol- 
 lowing examples may be given: 
 
 -* (a) Asbestos sifting , mixing, and carding; an 
 industrysTngirTarly little considered until complaints 
 from the girls employed came in to us year by 
 year, from 1898 onwards. The sharp, jagged edge 
 of the insoluble mineral dust has undoubtedly 
 occasioned much illness, and death, from respiratory 
 diseases. The first asbestos factory I entered was 
 entirely without applied exhaust, one of the dustiest 
 processes being carried on in a cellar. In another, 
 revisited in 1906, on a complaint thoroughly justified 
 by the thick, fog-like atmosphere in the carding 
 room, ineffectual fan extraction had been intro- 
 duced, but not applied to the points of produc- 
 tion of dust. By this date there were good 
 examples of well installed mechanical exhaust in 
 large asbestos factories, and progress could be 
 secured in the smaller works. In 1911 Miss Whit-
 
 VARIOUS DUSTY PROCESSES 107 
 
 lock, M.B., an Inspector in the Women's Branch, 
 made careful study for us of this industry, and 
 found a considerable amount of phthisical, bronchial, 
 and gastric trouble still present. The least defect 
 in the working of the applied ventilation was 
 dangerous. 
 — (6) Silk wa-stift narrlincr and spinning gave rise to 
 woeful complaints of dust from women, from 1898 
 onwards. Increased injuriousness of the excessive 
 dust in preparatory processes coincided with the 
 introduction of an inferior quality of silk. Dr. Legge 
 found, in samples referred to him by Miss Squire, 
 debris of silkworms containing " an enormous 
 number of hook-like structures, probably portions 
 of the thoracic and abdominal segments of the 
 pupa case." This gave support to the apparently 
 strange opinion of the workers expressed to Miss 
 Squire that they were coughing up not silk but 
 silkworms; and it led us back to Ramazzini's 
 account, in 1678, of the effect on silk workers of 
 the combing of " grosser filaments, which have 
 parts of the bodies of silkworms mixed with them," 
 that they were troubled with " a vehement cough 
 and great difficulty of breathing . . . and few of 
 them live to an old age."* Again and again the 
 npftd for sp.ientificallY app lied psxfraust had to be 
 pressed for in this side of the silk industry, some- 
 thing inadequate was repeatedly tried, and choked- 
 up ducts to fans even led to the beating back of 
 dust on the workers. Eventually the introduction 
 of machinery for cleaning the material before 
 carding — steadily urged on the occupiers — helped 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1898, pp. 135, 171-2.
 
 108 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 to solve the problem of efficient extraction of 
 dust.* 
 — (c) T eazle brushing in hosiery fa ctories, a finishing 
 process lor smaller articles in Leicester and Notting- 
 ham, produced excessive dust of broken powdery 
 wool and cotton fibre, causing great discomfort in 
 eyes, and choking sensations in throat and chest. 
 The trouble was removed and valuable surplus dust 
 for reselling was saved by applying exhaust with 
 closely fitting cover to the machine and also a 
 I patent delivery roller at the back. Excellent 
 results were reported in the following year, to the 
 satisfaction not only of workers, but also manu- 
 facturers and foremen. f 
 
 (d) Mercerised cotton yarn dust was first noticed 
 in 1902 as giving rise to what was known as " mer- 
 cerised fever," shivering and sickness with cough 
 and oppression in the chest. It was attributed to 
 strong caustic soda in the cotton fibre, which was 
 irritating to the bronchial and nasal passages. The 
 trouble was removed by requiring e xhaust ven ti- 
 lation . % 
 
 (e) Miss Squire and her staff, when localised in 
 Manchester from 1908, had their attention drawn 
 (by complaints) to excessive dust in the making-up 
 warehouses in which girls were employed in " hook- 
 ing and lapping " heavily " sized " grey shirting 
 and stiffened muslin. " Stuff ed-up " chests and 
 throat trouble and sickness were the results, and 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1900, p. 220, and 
 1920, p. 75. 
 
 [)20, p. 75. 
 f Ibid., 1906, p. 221; 1907, p. 173. 
 j Ibid., 1902, pp. 171-2.
 
 VARIOUS DUSTY PROCESSES 109 
 
 great discomfort was felt even by the Inspectors 
 on their visits. They systematically served notice 
 on the occupiers to provide localised exhaust ^ 
 ventilation, which removed the trouble.* 
 
 (/) Buffing of plated arti cles — i.e., mechanical 
 friction with Trent sand sometimes mixed with lime 
 — in Sheffield electro-plate works was the subject 
 of a careful study by Miss Whitlock, M.B., to 
 whose interesting report reference may be made 
 by those desirous of following up the subject, f In 
 the majority of buffing shops the women stayed 
 in for their meals, and application of exhaust 
 ventilation was only found in one shop. She found 
 that the cases of phthisis among them were more 
 than double the rate per thousand of those amongst 
 women over fifteen years in the town, and that 
 anaemia was prevalent. 
 
 (g) Dust as well as other injurious features in 
 little scattered country flax scutch mills was specially 
 followed up by Miss Martindale from 1907 onwards 
 in North Ireland. Ineffective fans were fixed in 
 many of these mills, and described by the workers 
 as " a pest and a torment," through their alternative 
 capacity for stirring up the injurious dust and for 
 getting choked up with fibre ! In 1914 I took part 
 in a conference in Belfast between representatives 
 of the Factory Department and the Irish Board of 
 Agriculture and Technical Instruction with the aim 
 of concerted action as regards mechanical ventila- 
 tion of the scutch mills. These mills, being mostly 
 situated near flax fields for the first stages of pre- 
 paration of the dried fibrous material for manu- 
 * Ibid., 1909, p. 146. f Ibid., 1910, p. 129.
 
 110 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 facture, concerned both Departments. The War 
 intervened, and these problems have there fallen 
 to the charge of a new administration. The 
 question was again raised for the Factory Depart- 
 ment during the War, when flax growing and scutch- 
 ing was initiated by Government action in various 
 parts of England. 
 
 Many other dusty processes and the health of 
 women in them engaged our attention; in rag and 
 I refuse sorting, fur-pulling, in hatters' furriers' 
 (factories and horsehair factories, in starch rooms 
 lof confectionery works, hemp-rope works, sack- 
 mending, cotton waste works, indiarubber works, 
 eiderdown and kapok-filling factories, clay pipe 
 scouring, embossed paper lace-making, etc. In a 
 lace -tinting business for dressmakers we called in 
 Dr. Collis's aid for investigation of marked injury 
 to health of all the workers; he not only found the 
 soreness of nostrils and pharynx associated with 
 inhalation of dust, but also phthisical results from 
 the finely divided dust shaken out by hand from 
 the lace. Here the occupier at great expense 
 provided efficient exhaust, drawing off dust from 
 the lace without this shaking by hand. Improved! 
 methods of working were in our experience aj 
 frequent consequence of our demands for extractioi4 
 of dust. 
 
 In connection with an enquiry in Sheffield into 
 the association of phthisis and dusty trades Miss 
 Whitlock found that the system of compulsory 
 notification of consumption already in practice there 
 in 1911, combined as it was with enquiry into occupa- 
 tion of the patient, greatly facilitated her work.
 
 BRONZING AND IMPROVED METHODS 111 
 
 Bronzing,* whether by hand or machine, of all 
 kinds of paper programmes, showcards, prospectuses, 
 Christmas cards, etc., in lithographic works or 
 departments of works, affected workers in ways 
 that almost perennially commanded our attention. 
 Dust from bronzing was on the border line between 
 those that are simply mechanical in action on the 
 respiratory passages and those that are either 
 irritant or poisonous. In the earlier years the work 
 itself was generally intermittent, not continuous. 
 Although the Dangerous Trades Committee in 1896 
 made recommendations in their first interim report 
 for control of risks in this process by special rules, 
 the apparent absence of permanent injury to health 
 among those engaged in it led in the first place to 
 the application by the Home Office of voluntary, 
 not compulsory, rules for protection of the workers. 
 Our activities, conjointly with District Inspectors, 
 in pressing questions of dust extraction, means of 
 maintaining personal cleanliness, overalls, supply 
 of milk, examination of workers by the certifying 
 surgeon, and so on, fortunately led to improvement 
 in bronzing machines with vacuum arrangements 
 for dust. Probably they led also in part to the 
 concentration of the work in the hands of a few 
 occupiers that followed; finally, special regulations 
 were made compulsory in April, 1912. 
 
 In 1911 an important step was taken for more 
 systematic work by Women Inspectors in the field 
 of dangerously dusty processes. In conference 
 
 * Which produces the effect of gilding by application of 
 •<very finely divided metallic dust (copper, zinc, tin, 
 antimony, being various ingredients).
 
 112 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 with Mr. Pendock, as District Inspector and venti- 
 lating expert, arrangements were made by Miss 
 Lovibond (Mrs. Moorcroft) for the taking of records, 
 on tabular cards, of anemometer tests at hoods\ 
 connected with mechanical exhaust ventilation/ 
 so as to bring steady pressure to bear on occupiers 
 of factories for testing and maintaining efficiency 
 in their installations. As I said then: "There can 
 be no question that supervision of the provision of 
 really efficient exhaust, and steady maintenance 
 of it, when provided, in thorough working order is 
 the supremely important task of the Inspectorate 
 in all dusty trades where dust is of a kind inhaled, 
 whether the dust is simply mechanical or irritant 
 or poisonous in contact with the mucous membrane 
 or respiratory tracts."* The taking of these 
 records, of which copies were supplied to occupiers, 
 fortunately aroused much interest, and among 
 workers as well as employers. In the next year 
 about 1,000 records were made in the Potteries 
 alone, including all places where workers, reported 
 for lead poisoning, were working at or near the 
 exhaust ventilation. Miss Whitlock took over this 
 work at the close of that year and added an in- 
 valuable enquiry into nearly all the reported lead 
 cases among women in potteries in 1913, giving us 
 careful studies of the conditions and ways of workers, 
 with suggestions for future prevention. Early in 
 1914 we lost her increasingly valuable aid in medical 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1911, pp. 150-7. 
 The form of card record used can be seen on p. 219 of 
 " Lead Poisoning and Lead Absorption," by Drs. Legge 
 and Goadby.
 
 ANEMOMETER TESTS AND RECORDS 113 
 
 questions concerning women through her trans- 
 ference to the Industrial and Reformatory Schools 
 Department. Then the great upheaval of the War 
 turned us away from quiet, fruitful, concentrated 
 activities of this nature to the many problems 
 arising from the intensified industrial production 
 by women for national needs. 
 
 I have been here led from point to point by follow- 
 ing up one kind of protection, which is a funda- 
 mental one, against risks in industry from the various 
 types of dust and from lead fumes. This will 
 suggest, perhaps, as well as any other method 
 of approach, something of our share as Women 
 Inspectors on behalf of women workers in the 
 immense work that was carried on by the Factory 
 Department during the years 1893 to 1914 in striving 
 to lessen the special risks of injurious and dangerous 
 processes. It is impossible, except by devoting 
 a whole book to it, to do more than give samples 
 of our service in this side of Factory Act adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 Some notion of the magnitude and complexity 
 of dangers to be regulated and injuries to be pre- 
 vented, with the chief preventive measures embodied 
 in " special,, regulations," can be gathered from 
 Appendix I. — a tabular summary that I made in 
 1013 (and which has been brought up to the present 
 date by Miss Squire, O.B.E.), giving these details 
 in alphabetical order for all the trades, processes, 
 and descriptions of manual labour, that are certified 
 by the Secretary of State as " dangerous or in- 
 jurious to health or dangerous to life or limb." 
 
 In addition to the research needed before regula-
 
 114 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 tions were made, to the giving of evidence to Com- 
 mittees, Arbitrators, and Commissioners appointed 
 by the Secretary of State, when objections to draft 
 regulations had to be reviewed — besides instruc- 
 tion to occupiers and workers, and prosecution when 
 necessary — we gave a great deal of attention to 
 another side: the exclusion, or proposed exclusion\ 
 from very dangerous processes of classes of persons J 
 whose age or sex made them specially susceptible toy 
 poison or other risks. The special interest of the 
 whole community in protection of maternity and 
 health of young workers, for example, was the chief 
 point on which we had influence in developing 
 regulations for the white lead industry, in which 
 the extraordinarily dangerous character of the main 
 processes had led to special control years before 
 Women Inspectors entered the Factory Department. 
 Those who desire to follow out the history of regu- 
 lation in this industry, originally the foremost 
 among " occupations injurious to health," might 
 begin with the account in the Annual Report of 
 the Chief Inspector for 1879, when it was already 
 illegal to employ in it any person under eighteen 
 years of age; and might further consult a complete 
 concise account of the various processes, their 
 dangers and prevention, in " Lead Poisoning and 
 Lead Absorption," by Dr. T. M. Legge and Dr. 
 K. W. Goadby, Chapter XVI.* On and after July 1, 
 1899, it became illegal under special rules to employ 
 a woman in the peculiarly dangerous processes in 
 
 * A vivid description of women's work in blue beds 
 before conversion into white lead was given by Miss Sadler 
 in the Annual Report for 1913.
 
 LEAD POISONING 115 
 
 white beds, stoves, etc. And, so far as this industry 
 is concerned,* most of the effect of the Women and 
 Young Persons (Employment in Lead Processes) 
 Act, 1920, passed in pursuance of the Washington 
 Convention of 1919, had been long ago attained in 
 our country. 
 
 Other dangerous lead processes, originally highly 
 serious for young women workers, are found in the 
 electric accumulator industry. Here again our 
 evidence supported the exclusion of these workers 
 from such risks, and since 1903 " no woman, young 
 person, or child " may be employed " in the 
 manipulation of dry compounds of lead or in 
 pasting."f 
 
 Although it was not until 1908 that the primary 
 investigation by an Inspector of reported cases of 
 industrial poisoning or anthrax cases affecting 
 women and girls was assigned by the Home Office 
 to the Women Inspectors, we had always used 
 these reports for supplementary enquiries. We 
 had already, before 1900, a wide knowledge of the 
 conditions under which lead, phosphorus, and mer- 
 curial poisoning had occurred, and had brought 
 to light unreported cases, particularly of lead and 
 phosphorus necrosis, and some secondary effects 
 of lead poisoning in women. 
 
 The latter point was strongly exemplified in 
 some information that I presented in the Annual 
 Report for 1897, gathered by Miss Paterson and Miss 
 
 * Comprising twenty-one factories registered in 1920, as 
 compared with G39 for pottery manufacture and decoration. 
 
 t Regulations for Manufacture of Electric Accumu- 
 lators, 1903, No. 1004. 
 
 9
 
 116 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 Deanc during that year. They enquired into scvent}'- 
 seven reported cases of plumbism amongst married 
 women employed in lead processes in the Potteries 
 of Staffordshire, where the most injurious lead pro- 
 cesses — e.g., colour dusting, ware-cleaning — fell to 
 women. They found among these a high degree 
 of cliHdlcssncss, stillbirths, and miscarriages; that 
 thifty-six only had had living children averaging 
 three each, and of the total number of children 
 two-fifths had died, the majority succumbing to 
 convulsions in infancy. Two sample cases gave 
 a tragic warning as to the social as well as individual 
 physical effects of employment in lead processes 
 on maternity: " A.B., aged twenty-nine, married 
 seven years, had worked in lead ten years, had three 
 miscarriages, five stillborn children, and one child 
 alive who died in convulsions when a few weeks old. 
 CD., aged twenty-five, married seven years, began 
 to work in lead in her seventeenth year, had had 
 four miscarriages and three stillborn children; her 
 one living child was born after she was absent from 
 her work."* 
 
 Other cases as sad and sadder were found first by 
 Miss Martindale, then by Miss Vines, during their 
 successive and systematic work in the Potteries 
 from 1903 to 1908. The latter visited practically 
 all women reported for lead poisoning, and a striking 
 example was the case of Mrs. B., colour duster and 
 paintress, aged thirty-eight, married fifteen years, 
 who had nine miscarriages and one living child, 
 ill all the three years of its life; was herself disabled 
 with wrist drop of both hands. She had to take 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1897, p. 101.
 
 EFFECTS ON MATERNITY 117 
 
 her case into court to obtain compensation due 
 to her.* 
 
 Although such enquiries dealt with a grave evil 
 to some extent understood before, the subject gives 
 a good example of ways, arresting to the general 
 onlooker, in which women investigators seized on 
 features or consequences of industrial employment 
 of women that concerned the nation. Their con- 
 sequent action and recommendations emphasised 
 the need of steady investigation by qualified women 
 of absenteeism among women workers in lead pro- 
 cesses, and the extremely unsuitable conditions of 
 publicity under which medical examination in these 
 early days sometimes took place in the factory. 
 " This led, not infrequently," said Miss Deane, 
 " to failure in detecting the very evils which it is 
 the object of the examination to find out and elim- 
 inate."! 1^ appeared in 1900, when I took some 
 prosecutions against leading employers for neglect 
 of duties regarding medical examination, that there 
 was a strong tendency for girls who felt ill to leave 
 a pottery without the suspension by the certifying 
 surgeon provided for in the special rules of 1899. 
 Poverty, dread of loss of employment without com- 
 pensation — which was later made available for them 
 in such cases by the voluntary action of the manu- 
 facturers themselves — seemed to me the strongest 
 cause of that tendency. Records of poignant 
 individual cases accumulated by the Inspectors 
 made this factor very clear. 
 
 In the remarkable Pottery Code of Regulations, 
 1913, which followed on the general lines of drastic 
 
 * Ibid., 1906, p. 214. t Ibid., 1900, p. 369.
 
 118 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 recommendations made by the Departmental Com- 
 mittee under Sir Ernest Hatch,* careful requirement 
 was made that a private room should be provided 
 for the examination of workers by the certifying 
 surgeon, and other safeguards of privacy were laid 
 down. Some other provisions needed to secure 
 effectual use by the workers of safeguards provided 
 for them followed the lines indicated by complaints 
 of women workers to the Women Inspectors. On 
 these they had accumulated evidence, sometimes 
 with the aid of information given by officials of the 
 " Potteries Fund," a voluntary fund for assistance 
 of women and girls suffering from lead poisoning 
 in this industry. For example, separate washing 
 conveniences were now required for the sexes; 
 women had explained to me in detail how they 
 could not use the same conveniences as men coming 
 from hot and dusty processes such as " glost plac- 
 ing," in which a large proportion of the men and 
 boys were employed. New detailed care was given 
 in the regulations to provision and maintenance of i 
 protective clothing and messroom arrangements; \ 
 suppression of dust by methods and means addi- 
 tional to those of exhaust ventilation ; better control 
 of temperature; control of heavy weight carrying 
 by young workers, cleaning of floors, boards, and , 
 benches; new limitation of hours for men as well as 
 women in dangerous processes; exclusion of women ! 
 and young workers from certain processes. These ' 
 and other matters, particularly rules against heavy 
 weight carrying, and for better methods of cleaning 
 
 * Appointed 1908 by Mr. Herbert Gladstone, reported 
 1910, Cd. 5219, Cd. 5278, and Cd. 5385.
 
 THE POTTERIES CODE OF 1913 119 
 
 floors, boards, etc., which were strongly supported 
 by the evidence arising out of our long researches, 
 were remarkably thoroughly dealt with in the code. 
 An entirely fresh stimulus was applied to the sense 
 of responsibility in the occupiers of potteries by 
 a requirement that the occupier himself should 
 appoint a competent person to carry out systematic 
 inspection of the working of all the regulations, and 
 to keep records of the inspection. This was truly 
 a novel requirement in so ancient an industry, 
 relying as it too long had done on traditional 
 methods. How much it was needed may be seen 
 in a sample prosecution by Miss Martindale in 1913. 
 She had found that, so far, the tendency had been to 
 note and record only breaches of the code by workers. 
 She said: "Undoubtedly this is salutary, but not, 
 I take it, all that regulation 27 was intended to do. 
 I revisited with Miss Whitlock a factory in which 
 in October she had noted not less than twenty-six 
 breaches of the regulations. The record of self- 
 insj)ection showed no irregularities since July. . . . 
 The Works Inspector stated that he ' had not ob- 
 served any,' although the irregularities were such 
 palpable ones as: not providing milk, not affixing 
 thermometers and placards, not painting boards 
 red."* Conviction and heavy penalties followed 
 the taking of proceedings. 
 
 In addition to the industries above touched on, 
 where women and girls have run risk of lead poison- 
 ing, litho transfer making for decoration of earthen- 
 ware china gave us much thought in the past 
 owing to the exposure of young, anaemic girls to 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1913, p. 89.
 
 120 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 finely powdered dust containing lead. Inclusion 
 of the process under the stringent Pottery Regula- 
 tions, and improved methods of dust extraction., 
 have greatly reduced the risks. The glazing of 
 bricks with lead in the glaze, later shown to be 
 unnecessary, was found by Miss Squire in 1898 to 
 be causing fits among the girls who were scraping 
 the edges of the bricks. These attacks had been 
 thoughtlessly attributed to hysteria until brought 
 under medical observation. Heading of yarn dyed 
 by lead chromate and painting of perambulators 
 still take prominent place amongst other industries 
 from which lead cases affecting female workers are 
 notified. This may be seen in the Table given 
 below in Appendix II., which is included in order 
 to enable readers to appreciate the reductions in 
 industrial poisoning that have followed the changes 
 indicated since 1900. The interesting liability of 
 lead to turn up in miscellaneous industries, in 
 quite unexpected ways and places, and especially 
 in the great range of small metal industries in 
 the Midlands, is too wide a subject for further 
 consideration here. Sample cases and a long list 
 of industries may be seen in the Annual Report 
 for 1913.* 
 
 The great general fall in number of reported lead 
 rases, particularly in potteries, that had come about 
 by 1914 (see Appendix II.), and is still more marked 
 in later years, is no doubt due in the main to the 
 preventive measures I have so briefly indicated. 
 Foremost of all came impr oved methods of exhau st 
 ventilation, but very important also were c lean U- 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1913, pp. 137-8.
 
 REDUCED RISKS 121 
 
 n gfts and r eduction in k^""*"-^ ™y»h Until trade 
 is quite normal, however, the true effect of these 
 measures and of the great aid given first by legal 
 compensation and then by National Health In- 
 surance — which enable workers to obtain treatment 
 and rest from work at an early stage of illness — 
 cannot be fully known. The detailed, thorough 
 investigation done among the women exposed to 
 lead by Women Inspectors (and particularly in 
 1912 to 1914 by Miss Whitlock), which culminated 
 in a series of prosecutions for numerous contraven- 
 tions of the new regulations affecting them in 
 potteries, no doubt led to a fresh start for them. 
 Of industrial poisoning Miss Whitlock wrote in 1913 : 
 " Poverty with its attendant worry and lack of 
 nourishment appears to be a predisposing cause in 
 many cases. The youth of many of the workers is 
 noticeable. . . . Apart from the painful character 
 of the illness, the length of time the cases last is a 
 serious matter. ... I often came across cases 
 which had been over a year on compensation." 
 " A woman in a warehouse told me that she had 
 been over three years at work after three years on 
 compensation and still suffered from pains in her 
 limbs, and was obliged sometimes to absent herself 
 from work." Of cases of serious illness among 
 women heading yarn dyed in lead chromate, Miss 
 Tracey observed: " Without home visits it woulch 
 have been impossible to gauge the extent and/ 
 severity of the illness."* Unquestionably specialist 
 work by Women Inspectors still remains to be done 
 for women workers in dangerous trades, even 
 * Ibid., 1913, pp. 88, 89.
 
 122 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 .though the figures of poisoning seem to show them 
 f to be nOW in a much sj^rjnsitipn. thn.n_gjf n The 
 figures alone do not disclose the whole matter. 
 Much may yet be learned by following up " absent " 
 or " left " women workers, as well as by seeing 
 reported cases in their homes. A marked mobility 
 of women's labour in lead processes in potteries 
 was found in 1911 by Miss Sadler. In sixty-eight 
 potteries at the time of inspection (between January 
 and September) no less than 258 were marked in 
 the special register as "absent" or "left," apart 
 from suspensions and reported cases. Out of forty 
 cases diagnosed as lead, she found twenty-four still 
 suffering and in receipt of compensation; and also 
 that the majority were under thirty years and not 
 suffering from accumulated effect of bj'gone con- 
 ditions.* When compulsory compensation began 
 to take effect it was gratifying to watch the growth 
 of realisation among manufacturers of the poverty 
 caused by plumbism. In the past much had been 
 hidden in obscurity by the tendency of the poor 
 to suffer in silence. Manufacturers showed in- 
 creasing recognition of the importance of utilising 
 compensation to the best advantage for the indi- 
 vidual cases. 
 
 From time to time, though rarely, mention was 
 Jmade in Annual Reports of the appointment of a 
 /medical woman by employers to supervise the 
 I health of women and girls in a large factory. This 
 movement passed into a new phase during the War, 
 when national munition factories set the example 
 of appointing whole-time women medical officers. 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1911, p. 145.
 
 INTRODUCTION OF MEDICAL WOMEN 123 
 
 In 1920 we learned that in " a growing number of 
 factories medical women are appointed to supervise 
 health of women and girls."* In the same year the^ 
 first appointment of a woman as certifying surgeon/ 
 was made by the Chief Inspector — in West London. 
 These developments in drawing medical women 
 into official contact with industry, and particularly 
 the appointment of a woman as one of the Medical 
 Inspectors of Factories, have a greater significance 
 for future protection of the health of women workers 
 since the absorption of the Women Inspectorate, 
 from August. 1, 1921,. onwards, into the general 
 district work of the whole country. Instead of con- 
 centrating enquiries and action on behalf of working 
 women, the Women Inspectors must necessarily 
 give their time largely to men and boy workers, 
 male work ers being not less than 65j3e£j^aiL-odLall 
 pers ons employed in factories and .workshops. 
 
 'Meanwhile the whole pottery industry, the 
 match-making industry, and others with features 
 that concerned the health and safety of women in 
 a special degree, have reorganised themselves on 
 lines recommended by the Whitley Report. Their 
 Councils have happily immediately concerned them- 
 selves with improving conditions of health and 
 welfare. When one sees, as I have, the admirable 
 detailed work done for health and safety in a factory 
 with the aid of workers on a works' committee in 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1920, p. 84, 
 and Report of War Cabinet Committee on Women in 
 Industry, 1919; Memorandum by Dr. Janet Campbell 
 on Health of Women in Industry, p. 293, regarding urgent 
 need for Women Medical Inspectors of Factories.
 
 124 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 an industry with a National Council — particularly 
 in a factory with an experienced welfare superin- 
 tendent working harmoniously with the works' 
 committee — one realises what a long way has been 
 travelled since 1893. Each year, since 1919, has 
 seen contact of the Factory Department with new 
 Councils, in questions relating to health, safety, and 
 welfare — a matter to which we may revert in 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 The pursuit of certain salient developments in 
 control of foremost industries responsible for lead 
 poisoning where women are concerned has led me 
 so far to pass by absorbingly interesting work of 
 Women Inspectors on varied risks and injuries 
 during the twenty-seven years under review, thus 
 only (as in the question of control of dust and 
 fume by mechanical means) could I, in so enormous 
 a subject, sketch some kind of picture, that might 
 remain, of the women's claim and our lines of 
 response. 
 
 It is necessary, however, in order to have any 
 true picture of the work of the Women Inspectors 
 to sketch rapidly some other of its less closely 
 interwoven features. The effects of bisulphide of " 
 carbon as a solvent in the making of rubber articles; 
 of white phosphorus for the dipping paste in match- 
 making, producing phosphorus necrosis, called, with 
 a sinister familiarity, " phossy jaw "; of a solution 
 of mercury to assist felting in hatters' furriers, 
 causing varying degrees of mercurial poisoning; 
 these took even more of our time and thought in I 
 early years than did many of the injurious dusts 
 already mentioned. As for whi te phosphor us, con-
 
 VARIOUS INDUSTRIAL POISONS 125 
 
 siderable as was our share in tracking down hidden 
 cases of ng nrosi s and other ill-health in lucifer 
 match girls, and in helping to build up special rules 
 against the horrible risk of painful and disfiguring 
 disease, yet all that is now only of historical interest, 
 for s tatu to x^4^oi^iJbiUon ^l^lhe,, deadly ingredient 
 i^matcjjes, whether manufactured in our country 
 or imported, came in 19^B by an Act which took 
 A ffiflfiti fr nir> - Ta.min.ry i A&IO. And the active Joint 
 Council of this reformed industry and intelligent 
 works' committees in some factories, with their 
 highly developed mechanical methods, fittingly bear 
 moral responsibility for seeing that no such risks 
 ever arise again. Our last reference to any cases 
 of necrosis was in the Report for 1909, when three 
 young women were (all from one factory) under 
 treatment in a local hospital — one for her first 
 operation on the jaw, another for her fourth, while 
 the third, seen at home, had had two operations. 
 All had suffered much. Some cases arose during 
 the War among men employed in manufacture of 
 phosphorus. In india-rubber works of recent years 
 we have seen and dealt more with the effects of 
 naphtha fumes, dust, lead, great heat, and heavy 
 weights, than with bisulphide of carbon covered 
 by special rules. The last bad case we had was in 
 1911, from a factory where press of work led to 
 employment of girls for a longer consecutive spell 
 than the two and a half hours permissible under 
 special rules. Hysteria, bordering on insanity, 
 followed, and the poor girl was summarily dismissed 
 for " insobriety and rowdyism." She recovered 
 quickly on separation from the work, and was
 
 126 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 restored to her usual quiet self-control.* In the 
 following year we had some cases of mercurial 
 poisoning in a hatters' furriers' workshop due to 
 particles of dust from rabbit fur previously brushed 
 with a solution of mercury, the process being known 
 as " carotting." These were attributed to a failure 
 to maintain, in good repair and efficiency, the other- 
 wise excellent system of exhaust ventilation, and 
 to the use of an extra strong solution of mercury to 
 assist the felting property of inferior fur.f 
 
 As for anthrax, owing to the supreme importance 
 of bacteriological research and technical remedies 
 requiring specialists in this industrial disease, such 
 services as we were able to render, in investigation 
 of the circumstances in reported cases affecting 
 women, although far from negligible as regards 
 conditions in factories, were entirely subsidiary to 
 the work of the medical branch. Sometimes, too, 
 we disclosed hidden risks to women, engaged at 
 home in cleaning and mending of a husband's 
 clothing when he was employed in handling hides 
 or other infective material. Two out of six cases 
 affecting women in 1914 occurred amongst women 
 not working in industry, one the wife of a tanner. 
 The prosecution of a brush manufacturer for breach 
 of regulations in his factory brought out the fact 
 that one of his outworkers, who had suffered from 
 an attack of anthrax, was not covered by protective 
 regulations. The obscure origin of some cases, 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1911, p. 147. 
 The old Special Rules have been converted into more 
 modern Regulations in 1921. 
 
 f Annual Itcport of Chief Inspector, 1912, p. 138.
 
 ANTHRAX AND OTHER RISKS 127 
 
 even among factory workers, appeared in a, case 
 affecting a cotton spinner engaged in cotton that 
 had been shipped from Alexandria, and in various 
 cases among women sorting or mending sacks that 
 had conveyed bone dust.* 
 
 Carbonic oxide poisoning, particularly in laundries, \ 
 traceable to escape of gas through defective fittings \ 
 of ironing machinery, was a subject that repeatedly 
 engaged the attention of Women Inspectors receiv- 
 ing complaints of illness among the girls employed 
 on this work. In one laundry, which had escaped 
 inspection through failure of the occupier to notif}? 1 
 its existence, girls were found to have been gravely 
 ill with severe symptoms of this form of poisoning. 
 Proceedings instituted against the occupier for the 
 failure to notify occupation and for using a gas 
 iron emitting noxious fumes led not only to con- 
 viction, but to a special penalty (on account of the 
 injury to health due to his neglect of provisions of 
 the Act), which was applied to the benefit of the 
 injured worker. f 
 
 The use of bichromate of potassium, causing 
 " chrome holes " in the hands of workers taking a 
 very long time to heal, in dye works and in whole- 
 sale photography works, was also brought under 
 our observation. 
 
 In these kinds of risks, in cases of illness in 
 tobacco works attributed to nicotine poisoning, and 
 in numerous cases and varieties of trade eczema 
 (inflammation of the skin or dermatitis), we brought 
 much information to the Senior Medical Inspector, 
 
 * Ibid., 1913, p. 87. 
 
 t Ibid., 1902, p. 168; and Factory Act, 1901, sect. 136.
 
 128 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 and received his help in taking action to secure 
 remedies. Among the trades and processes in 
 which we gathered or discovered instances of 
 dermatitis — some severe and obstinate, others 
 quickly yielding to treatment — were lime-juice 
 manufacture, fancy biscuit finishing in confectionery 
 works, electro-plating with use of potash, mercurial 
 processes in electric meter fitting, enamel dipping 
 in metal hollow ware works, use of oil in tobacco 
 twist rolling, spinning and " batching " with use 
 of shale oil for softening the fibre in jute works, 
 use of naphtha as a solvent for paint on the hands, 
 lacquering in brass foundries, claret bottling, gut 
 preparing at salt machines. In fish curing, where 
 salt sores from the brine have been an affliction for 
 centuries for the workers engaged in pickling herring, 
 we did but turn fresh powers of observation on to 
 a well-known industrial ill; and in this seasonal 
 calling the making of a Home Office Welfare Order 
 providing for first aid as well as rest-rooms and 
 other amenities, has brought remedies that should 
 be thoroughly effective in Yarmouth and Lowestoft. 
 At the outbreak of the War the whole position as 
 regards the control of dangerous and injurious 
 trades and processes stood in complete contrast to. 
 the almost stagnant conditions of legislation for 
 hours of labour. Just when a new stage was set 
 for new risks as well as new experiments, the 
 Factory Department held the great advantage-point 
 secured by the long scientific work, described above, 
 in many different kinds of dangerous and injurious 
 occupations. A markedly successful reduction in 
 industrial poisoning had been achieved. Having
 
 TOXIC JAUNDICE, DOPE, AND T.N.T. 129 
 
 this body of knowledge and experience it was a 
 comparatively simple matter to supply the same 
 methods of control, when serious new kinds of 
 industrial poisoning appeared during the War, in 
 connection with the rapid development of aircraft 
 and explosives manufacture. Cases of " toxic 
 jaunglice-,'' popularly known as " dope poisxtning,'' 
 which occurred in the varnisjiing.. o£jJie_ .wings of 
 aeroplanes by means of a solution containing tetra- 
 chlorethane and, later, in the manufacture and use 
 of trinitrotoluene for high explosive known as T.N.T. , 
 could be quickly studied and the causes regulated. 
 In the varnishing of wings of aeroplanes the in- 
 gredients of the solution were ultimately changed.* 
 In the case of T.N.T. poisoning, resulting also in 
 toxic jaundice, the Factory Department were able 
 to supply to the Ministry of Munitions and Ex- 
 plosives Supply Department a sufficient body of 
 evidence and the example of special regulations, 
 for them to develop their own necessary safeguards 
 in the national and the controlled factories. In the 
 national and some of the controlled factories medical 
 officers were specially appointed at the works, f and 
 the whole of the evidence was reviewed both by 
 Dr. Legge, Senior Medical Inspector at the Home 
 Office, and the Medical Officers at the Ministry of 
 
 * The varnishing was to make the wings impervious 
 to moisture and air. For the interesting story of the 
 changed methods, see Annual Report of the Chief Inspector 
 for 1914, chapter xii., and further, regarding methods of 
 ventilation, the Annual Report for 1917, pp. 18-20. 
 
 t See Medical Research Committee Annual Report for 
 1916 and 1917 for experiments in laboratories and studies 
 in factories.
 
 130 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 Munitions. The remarkable reduction in cases of I 
 toxic jaundice may be seen in Appendix II. 
 
 Let us turn from disease or injury, the causes of 
 which — such as dust, poison, germs, irritants, or 
 a combination of any of these — could be definitely 
 ascertained and controlled, and let us glance at more 
 general features and conditions of work that tend 
 to impair the strength or diminish the resisting 
 capacity of the worker. Under this category the 
 items on which the Women Inspectors concentrated 
 energy and action, with marked results, were many. 
 Some I have already dealt with, such as excessive 
 | hours, bad general sanitation, extremes of tempera- 
 Iture, uncertain and low wages (leading to grave 
 \insufnciency of food and other necessaries). Fore- 
 most among those with which I have not yet dealt 
 were heavy weight lifting, carrying or moving, 
 beyond the physical strength or growth of the 
 worker; long hours of unnecessary standing; heavy 
 treadling or other undesirable use or strain of parts 
 of the body in processes where adapted appliances 
 should be substituted; excessive vibration from 
 heavy machinery ; excessively monotonous specialised 
 parts of processes that could not be carried on for 
 long without nervous strain; excessively wet or 
 humid conditions of work; lack of means of pre- 
 paring or taking food at the works, or of main- 
 taining personal cleanliness in dirty or offensive 
 processes (by suitable washing appliances and 
 protective clothing). 
 
 It is impossible to enlarge on the study and action 
 of the Inspectors in all these directions. The 
 questions of messrooms and food, washing con-
 
 OTHER INJURIOUS CONDITIONS 131 
 
 veniences, cloakrooms, protective clothing, and 
 seats are touched on in the last two chapters of 
 this book. A few words may be said here on heavy 
 weights which — in their great strain on children 
 and adolescent girls and on mothers — made a special 
 appeal to the Women Inspectors, and on undesirable 
 use of parts of the body for certain processes. 
 
 In 1897 I first reported on investigation of com- 
 plaints of an injurious pressure upon girls ancT"\ 
 women in factories to li ft or carry heavy weights^ / 
 I had to point to the fact that such complaints must 
 be classified as " outside the scope of the Factory 
 Acts," and that our " action has been confined to 
 noting the conditions, and, where it appeared 
 possible or likely to lead to good results, we have 
 drawn the attention of the employer to them." I 
 suggested that the system of preliminary examina- 
 tion as to physical fitness for the work to be done 
 should be a possible way of partly meeting the 
 difficulty in the care of young workers.* In the 
 Factory Act of 1901 a provision was included em- 
 powering the certifying surgeon to qualify his 
 certificate of fitness of young workers entering a 
 factory by conditions as to the work on which a 
 child or young person under sixteen is fit to be 
 employed. At the suggestion of the Factory 
 Inspectors this power was frequently used by 
 c ertifying surgeons i jn^nmxLy-differen tujidllgjaies. to 
 limit jbhe weight t hat mi ght , be lifted, raoyed^Qr 
 ca rried by these young worke rs — and with great 
 effect in the Staffordslnr£_Eottexi©s^" 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1897, p. 104. 
 t Ibid., 1910, p. 130. 
 
 10
 
 132 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 It was in 1900 that I quoted a view, expressed 
 with some prescience by Miss Squire, on the probable 
 effect of introduction into the English law of a 
 requirement (such as there was then in the French 
 law) specifically limiting the weights that might 
 be lifted, carried, or moved by young workers 
 and women. It has special interest in view of 
 wartime experience, in national factories, of State 
 control of labour-saving appliances to prevent 
 overstrain of women and girls. 
 
 > "We should probably see," she said, "a speedy 
 'increase in mechanical means of lifting and carrying 
 in factories and workshops, such as hoists and cranes, 
 trollies, endless bands, and other contrivances, now 
 so conspicuous by their absence. . . . The intro- 
 duction of such apparatus would not mean dis- 
 placing of women and girls, it would only increase 
 their remunerative work, for most of these affected 
 are pieceworkers, and the time now taken up by 
 journeys to and fro, fetching and carrying their 
 materials or work, would be occupied in manu- 
 facture, and increase both their wages and the out- 
 put of their departments. 
 
 " It is pitiable to see young growing girls employed 
 as beasts of burden, staggering under loads that 
 men hesitate to lift— yet in some trades this is an 
 ordinary sight. ... In brick-making, in tinplate 
 works, in iron hollow ware, and in warehouses in 
 hardware trades, I have found girls aged thirteen 
 to seventeen carrying loads which weighed from 
 30 pounds to 111 pounds in the ordinary course of 
 their employment. Many are the complaints of 
 weariness and overstrain made to me by girls and 
 young women — some of them mothers — who are 
 too poor or too unskilled to leave an employment
 
 HEAVY WEIGHTS 133 
 
 which is making too great a demand on their 
 physical powers, and which in some instances hasv 
 caused serious injury."* 
 
 I myself saw in a hollow ware works, and had 
 weighed on the spot, a weight of upwards of 50 
 pounds, consisting of piled-up galvanised iron 
 buckets, that a young girl had carried across a 
 yard and up a steep ladder steps without handrail. 
 Yet even that seemed to me less serious than the 
 heavy loads of damp clay carried by thirteen-year- 
 old boys in Staffordshire Potteries, with strained 
 looks and beads of perspiration on their brows. 
 This matter has been carefully regulated, thirteen 
 years later, by the special regulations for potteries. 
 
 In tinplate works girls of fourteen and fifteen 
 years were found to be carrying loads of sharp -edged 
 plates, weighing 100 pounds and over: one par- 
 ticularly small and slight girl of fourteen years was 
 carrying 107 pounds with difficulty. Complaints 
 were made of pains in the side and of swellings and 
 bruises from the heavy weight on the hip. In one 
 tinplate works boys with trollies were fetching and 
 carrying the loads for the girls, a measure said to be 
 impossible in other tinplate works. 
 
 y " Women are very much at the mercy of their 
 'foremen and of the men with whom they work 
 in such matters . . . girls in a wire-bound hose 
 factory were slowly heaving up large coils of iron 
 wire weighing 108 pounds from stair to stair up a 
 steep ladder staircase, resting at intervals to take 
 breath, while the foreman stood by and the rope 
 for elevating the coils to the girls' machine-room 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1900, p. 375.
 
 134 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 hung idle. . . . The employer gave a sharp repri- 
 mand when he was made aware of it. . . . An 
 obligation not to ' allow ' the lifting and carrying 
 by young persons and women of weights above a 
 certain standard would probably best effect . . . the 
 adjusting of work or the wages, the increased 
 vigilance to protect the weak from being imposed 
 upon, or the provision of labour-saving appliances^ 
 . . . required to remove the evil."* * 
 
 Remarkable examples were given by Miss Martin- 
 dale between 1902 and 1904 of weights, and aggre- 
 gate material, handled or moved in a day, in 
 potteries and brickworks — e.g., quarry bricks weigh- 
 ing 50 pounds each were carried by a woman or 
 girl to the kiln and handed up to a man to place; 
 girls wheeled barrows containing forty bricks 
 weighing 9 pounds each; a girl handled 55 tons of 
 clay a day in lifting bricks from a machine ;f a boy 
 of fourteen years weighing 77 pounds fetched clay 
 , for a moulder who worked in a shop up a steep 
 flight of stairs, the weight of the piece of clay he 
 was carrying was G9 pounds; % a delicate girl of 
 fourteen years fetched on an average three to five 
 lumps of clay an hour for the moulder, and was 
 found carrying 67 pounds; a girl of seventeen 
 fetched clay for eleven moulders, bringing them 
 each four lumps a day, each lump weighing \ cwt. 
 The mother remarked to the Inspector on the 
 exhausted state in which her daughter returned 
 
 ',-.' 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1901, p. 175. 
 t Ibid., 1902, p. 173. 
 
 % A small boy was once found by Miss Vines carrying a 
 weight greater than his own weight.
 
 HEAVY WEIGHTS 135 
 
 home after doing " men's work " ;* a boy of thirteen 
 years was found struggling up a steep flight of stairs 
 carrying clay weighing 78 pounds. 
 
 Patient observations of this kind went on in 
 numerous industries year after year, and the mass 
 of material in the published Annual Reports is 
 great. Ventilation of the question led to its in- 
 clusion in various Home Office Orders of Regulations 
 (e.g., fruit preserving works in 1907, potteries in 
 1913). The most important step, however, was the 
 passing of Clause 3 (4) in the Employment^ of 
 Children Act^gO^: " A child shall not be employed^ 
 to~lift7~carry, or move anything so heavy as to be 
 likely to cause injury to the child," and " child " / 
 was defined as a person under the age of fourteen / 
 years. In due course the Factory Inspectors took 
 cases into court under this clause, and penalties 
 were obtained. Public j>Dinion awakened to the 
 evil, and much godd was done by the Inspectors 
 when they simply called the attention of many 
 employers to the need of limiting weights lifted 
 and carried by young growing workers. When Miss 
 Lovibond, for example, drew the attention of 
 employers in Burnley to heavy cloth carrying by 
 children, they made no objection to discontinuing 
 the practice. In 1909 in the glass factories of 
 Sunderland women were working in pairs carrying 
 large iron trays piled with flint glass dishes weighing ±^/ 
 up to 120 pounds, cumbersome as well as heavy to 
 carry. " The difficulty could be overcome by suit- 
 able mechanical means, and it is satisfactory that 
 in these cases the danger had only to be pointed 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1903, pp. 221-2.
 
 136 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 out to have it remedied, although we were told that 
 for forty years the women had thus been beasts of 
 burden."* In 1912 in the Staffordshire Potteries 
 the employment of men instead of boys for carrying, 
 together with the increased use of trollies, is men- 
 tioned as a consequence of the action of the Inspectors 
 in drawing attention to the subject of injurious 
 weight carrying, and particularly to the prohibition 
 in the Employment of Children Act, 1903. In 
 Manchester " making-up " warehouses many in- 
 stances were found of girls and women carrying 
 pieces of cotton cloth weighing from 60 to 70 pounds, 
 a great strain and a continual grievance; serious 
 cases of overstrain resulting in absences from work, 
 unnoticed by employer, were traced by Women 
 Inspectors visiting their homes. In answer to the 
 employers' plea that the women were themselves 
 to blame, the Inspectors pointed to the systematic 
 laying of pieces weighing 70 pounds by men on the 
 shoulders of women (slight, city and slum dwellers, 
 and undeveloped girls), who filed past the men to 
 receive the cloth delivered by a chute from a room 
 above. Similar and greater overstrain was found by 
 Miss Squire and her staff in Lancashire among 
 weavers lifting loom weights at the back of their 
 looms. The injury caused is " often not noticed 
 until later in life."f Improvements in both these 
 classes of cases were reported in 1913. 
 
 Of all the various ways of using a part of the 
 human body in a disproportionate or unsuitable 
 manner to perform an industrial operation for 
 which a mechanical contrivance should be used, I 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspeetoi', 1909, p. 147. 
 t Ibid.. 1909, p. 147.
 
 LICKING OF LABELS 137 
 
 may mention here the one that appears most fre- 
 quently in my Annual Reports. The " li cking of 
 labels " by girls or boys instead of moistening the 
 gum on the labels by pads or a machine was brought 
 to my notice by a thoughtful employer in a country 
 thread mill, in the first year of my service with the 
 Factory Department, as a very undesirable practice 
 specially injurious to the health of young workers. 
 I investigated this practice, and finding it in fact 
 frequent, and associated with signs such as swollen 
 glands in the neck, I reported the matter for further 
 enquiry by the Dangerous Trades Committee. They 
 found that this was a practice not only in thread 
 mills, but also in silk and aerated water industries, 
 and probably in other trades also, and that in a 
 large Lancashire thread mill the tickets for bobbins 
 were almost entirely moistened by twelve full-time 
 young workers, licking up to fifty gross labels, and 
 thirty-five half-timers, licking up to twenty-five gross 
 labels a day, while a woman managed to lick forty- 
 five gross a day. As the firms concerned abandoned 
 the practice in favour of a damper when attention 
 was drawn to the subject, no regulation was recom- 
 mended, and the Committee merely laid stress on 
 their opinion that such a practice could not but be 
 prejudicial to health, particularly at an age when 
 growth is active and the system requires all its 
 digestive secretions, even if the gum used were 
 perfectly pure. More serious injury might be done 
 if infective organic material or poisons were present 
 on the labels.* 
 
 * Final Report of the Departmental Committee on 
 Dangerous Trades, 1899, pp. 31-3 (Cd. 9509),
 
 138 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 Many years' pursuit of this subject by the In- 
 spectors showed that the effective cause of the 
 continuance of the undesirable, and sometimes 
 injurious, practice was the pressure for rapid 
 output; under a system of piecework remunera- 
 tion a young worker could, by use of tongue 
 and saliva, acquire a rapidity exceeding the speed 
 obtained from the use of any available hand- 
 damper. By persistent work the Women Inspectors 
 tracked down factory after factory where the method 
 continued, and got the practice stopped. The last 
 bad instances reported on were by Miss Whitlock, 
 M.B., in 1912, in an Irish mill, where she found 
 girls fixing blue labels to a bronze band wrapped 
 round balls of thread. They had to lick the whole 
 surface of the blue label, and although not con- 
 tinuously engaged on the work, a girl would label 
 as many as 960 balls in a day. They suffered from 
 soreness of lips and tongue and bad taste in the 
 mouth, while a mother seen at home said her 
 daughter had lost her appetite and " failed terribly " 
 while at this work. She took her away from it, and 
 the girl had quite recovered her health when em- 
 ployed as a spinner. Not only did the manager 
 abolish the licking by providing and enforcing use 
 of dampers, he also raised the la I idlers' piece-rates 
 by one-third. It is a valuable example, for it is 
 n ot seldom fh;>t iutr ndiiction_Qf improve d methods 
 oFwor king may.cosfr t he workers more in immediate 
 
 1 ossjj£- wage8 -4r h ai t i t is^pcre srb ie t o r tliem t o - a ff o rd . * 
 Among the industries other than thread-spooling 
 
 * Anmial Report of Chief Inspector, 1912, p. 142, and for 
 1913, p. 90.
 
 ACCIDENTS AND SAFETY PROBLEMS 139 
 
 where licking was checked by the Inspectors, were 
 packeting of sweets (in gelatine bags closed by 
 licking), siphon-labelling, tin-labelling, and cigar- 
 banding. In 1903 I was able to give an account 
 of a good power-driven machine for punching labels 
 and pasting them on to thread-spools which I had 
 seen that year at work in silk mills in the Grand 
 Duchy of Baden, a health and time-saving machine 
 doing the work very efficiently.* 
 
 Accidents causing bodily injury or loss of life, 
 and problems of safety connected with fencing of 
 machinery! moved by mechanical power, and other 
 special safeguards against explosion, escape of steam, 
 falls, etc., involve highly technical questions. In 
 factory industry as a whole they affect male workers 
 in a far higher degree than female workers; in 1920 
 there were more than thirty times as many fatal 
 accidents to men as to women, and more than nine 
 times as many accidents non-fatal as well as fatal to 
 men as to women. J Thus the first concern of the 
 Women Inspectors, lacking as they did at the 
 beginning knowledge and experience in these 
 matters, was to refer risks of accident, observed by 
 them in connection with unfenced machinery, to 
 Men Inspectors in charge of districts. These then 
 took the action or gave the instruction to the 
 occupiers, and we were thus left free for concentra- 
 tion on the urgent questions already touched on, 
 to which we could bring new and indispensable 
 contributions. 
 
 * Ibid., 1903, pp. 222-3. 
 
 f See explanation in Introduction, p. 12. 
 
 { The figures are given below in Chapter VI., p. 196.
 
 140 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 The Women Inspectors, however, took great 
 interest in complaints made to them by the women 
 of dangers and of accidents actually occurring. 
 They soon gathered useful facts by their own observa- 
 tion, and the interest rapidly grew as they began 
 to see the close connection of accidents with condi- 
 tions of labour — other than fencing of danger 
 points — including pressure for output, long hours, \ 
 and very low rates of pay under the piecework^ 
 system, as well as methods of lighting the factory/ 
 
 It soon appeared to them probable that the 
 effectual prevention of accidents rested not only 
 on skill in fencing, but on detailed study of condi- 
 tions, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, on 
 responsible supervision of all conditions by good 
 management in the factories and workshops. The 
 knowledge they steadily acquired, through following 
 up complaints, of the immense suffering and loss to 
 individual workers and through them to national 
 y production, by preventible maiming and injury, led 
 them to give increasing time to study of the subject.* 
 
 The important amendment of the code governing 
 
 (notice of accidents in the workplace and their 
 investigation by the Inspectorate, that came into 
 operation on January 1, 189 6, brought them new 
 ojTportilam^ It became 
 
 compulsory for every occupier to keep a register of 
 the accidents occurring in the factory or workshop 
 of which notice had to be sent to the Inspector for 
 the district, and to enter particulars in the register 
 regarding such accidents within a week of their 
 
 * Annual Reports of tho Chief Inspector, 1896, p. GO; 
 1900, p. 377; 1901, p. 170, etc.
 
 PREVENTING ACCIDENTS 141 
 
 occurrence. Immediate access to this register 
 certainly increased the value of an inspection. It 
 acted as a finger-post to special causes of accidental 
 injury to workers in the particular workplace. 
 Much more important, however, for practical 
 knowledge of broad means of preventing accidents 
 was access to a general review of dominating risks 
 in an industry as a whole. This opportunity came 
 to me and my staff as an unforeseen consequence 
 of the devolution in 1898 upon a Woman Inspector 
 of district charge of a " special " district containing 
 a particularly large number of all kinds of power- 
 driven and hand laundries,* as well as factories and 
 workshops in which the making of wearing apparel 
 was carried on. It was soon discovered that, so far 
 as practical prevention of accidents went, the 
 Inspector in charge of the special district, by 
 receipt of notices of accidents, by thorough investi- 
 gation of their circumstances and of the complaints 
 of the workers, by conferences with laundry and 
 other engineers and study of safety appliances, 
 largely made up for her initial lack of training as 
 an engineer. Lack of engineering training was not 
 confined_jbo^Yomp,n-J^fteiifcars ; and, as laundries 
 lirsT^ame under the Factory Act after the Women 
 Inspectors were appointed, a special opportunity 
 arose for them of acquiring useful new knowledge 
 which was then available for the whole Factory 
 Department. This opportunity was seized, the 
 sympathies of a considerable number of laundry 
 occupiers and engineers were aroused, and fruitful 
 experiments were rapidly begun in this small special 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1900, pp. 377-9.
 
 142 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 district in development of guards for the preven- 
 tion of extremely painful and frequently maiming 
 accidents — chiefly to fingers, hands, and arms, and 
 largely to young workers — on ironing machinery, 
 wringers, hydro-extractors — in fact, on the most 
 dangerous machines in laundry plant. The com- 
 paratively recent development of specialised power- 
 driven machinery in laundries, and the incidence of 
 the most painful accidents on young girl workers, 
 tended to melt away opposition (on the part of 
 occupiers) to the Inspectors' zeal for encouraging 
 early trial of automatically acting guards for 
 preventing such accidents. An ingrainepL.hjalii4.0f 
 re garding acoident ( s a s _ somewhat unavoidab le was 
 not" inlaundries, a legacy from the past, nor had 
 it been acquired by the industry, and the presence 
 of women as manageresses and owners (as well as 
 their being the great majority of the workers) led 
 to a ready acceptance of a Woman Inspector as 
 one likely to know something about the subject. 
 The systematic tabulation of classified causes of all 
 serious accidents in laundries soon brought to their 
 notice, further helped to a reasonable outlook on 
 the problems of fencing. 
 
 During the first two years of responsibility for this 
 s pecial dist rict, wit h so many lau ndries in it, we 
 studied the conditions, the machines"^ the time, and 
 other circumstances in the occurrence of the acci- 
 dents, but I soon felt that a wider body of statistical 
 information, from all over the country, was needed 
 to strengthen our demand for use of good guards 
 on the dangerous machines.* I therefore examined 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1902, pp. 162-7.
 
 ACCIDENTS IN LAUNDRIES 143 
 
 every report by a certifying surgeon to the Chief 
 Inspector on an accident in a laundry from every 
 part of the United Kingdom, and tabulated these 
 according to source or causation of the injury and 
 according to age and sex of the workers. The 
 results were published in the Annual Report for 
 1902, and the work of tabulation was thereafter 
 carried on for me by Miss Tracey down to 1914. 
 At first the reporting of the accidents was incom- 
 plete, and the total annual number gradually rose 
 from 289 in 1901 to 435 in 1908, after which, in 
 spite of great increase of employment in factory 
 laundries, and in use of dangerous power- driven 
 ironing machinery, the total number of accidents 
 in the industry annually on the whole declined, the 
 average for the five years 1909 to 1913 being 391-4. 
 In all these years the classification of sources of 
 accidents was unchanged, the material risks had been 
 rightly inferred at the outset from close examination 
 of the machines and from investigation of individual 
 accidents. The stress we laid on the value of auto- 
 matic guards for stopping indrawing rollers (risk 
 arising from feeding all kinds of articles in between 
 the rollers) was justified by the proportionate decline 
 in number and severity of these accidents. Probably 
 in few other industries were accidents so predomi- 
 nantly caused by definite danger points in power- 
 driven machines. Out of a total during twelve years 
 of 4,235 accidents reported on by certifying surgeons 
 (including scalds and burns, which numbered 379), 
 2,648 were caused by indrawing rollers of ironing 
 and wringing machines, and an abnormally high 
 proportion affected girls under eighteen years of
 
 144 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 age — who were so largely employed in machine- 
 ironing.* These facts were brought out at a 
 conference of the Department with the laundry 
 trade in 1910, at an interesting exhibition of 
 laundry machinery, where the latest developments 
 in machinery and guards could be studied. After 
 this conference a memorandum standardising fencing 
 of laundry machinery was issued to the trade. | 
 Definite steps in this direction had been made 
 possible by the concentrated work of the Women 
 Inspectors on the industry, first when they were 
 definitely instructed to follow up fencing in laundries 
 throughout the kingdom, and secondly when, from 
 1908, all accidents affecting women and girls in 
 laundries were referred to the Senior Women 
 Inspectors in the various divisions for investigation 
 and the necessary action. 
 
 The industry was not one in which the general 
 risks of accident were high ; the total accidents and 
 the accident rate were small compared with those 
 of other industries. Without such concentrated 
 team-work on the question, the predominant risks 
 would probably long have escaped effective observa- 
 tion and control, and the painful and maiming 
 accidents to many young girls would have been 
 obscured by the greater roll of accidents in other 
 i industries; they would have failed to receive the 
 effectual check that they in fact did receive in 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1913, pp. 82-3. 
 
 •j- Published as Form 414, price Id.: "Memorandum on 
 Fencing of Machinery and Prevention of Accidents in 
 Laundries." Second edition issued in 1913. No revision 
 has been found necessary since that date.
 
 FENCING IN LAUNDRIES 145 
 
 consequence of the assignment to this branch of the 
 Inspectorate of a special opportunity and responsi- 
 bility in relation to the trade. It is an interesting 
 illustration of the value of _s jjgcinl wntk on selected 
 trades, and raises the question whether such special 
 work is not an adjunct that is indispensable for 
 efficiency in a system of administration by area or 
 territorial districts. 
 
 Important prosecutions were taken from time to 
 time, and repeatedly penal compensation was ob- 
 tained and applied to the benefit of workers injured 
 through neglect of the occupier to provide or main- 
 tain good guards. In 191 3 an unusually interesting 
 prosecution, of importance for Scottish laundry 
 workers, was taken by the late Miss Vines in the 
 Edinburgh Sheriff Court, for a failure to fence 
 securely the intake of a calender in consequence of 
 which neglect a young girl had lost the use of her 
 hand.* It was keenly contested, and Miss Vines's 
 account of the hearing may well be remembered here : 
 
 A 
 
 " A plea of ' not guilty ' was tendered, and 
 evidence was led at considerable length — I had 
 eleven witnesses — as to the question of secure 
 fencing. At the time of the accident the feed of 
 the calender was fenced only by a fixed bar guard, 
 while our contention was as to the necessity of 
 the provision of an automatic guard. We had 
 expert evidence from two witnesses, one the 
 member of a large firm of laundry engineers, the 
 other Miss Perry, whose evidence, owing to her 
 university degree in engineering, carried con- 
 siderable weight. The advocate for the respondents 
 also had two expert witnesses. In my argument 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1913, pp. 84 and 110.
 
 146 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 I referred to the case of Schofield v. Schunk (1855) 
 24 L. T. (o.s.), 253, in which it is laid down that 
 the machinery must be fenced according to the best 
 method known at the time, not merely in the 
 manner usual in the best regulated factories in the 
 district. After a hearing of some hours the Sheriff 
 convicted, saying that he thought it clear from the 
 evidence that the fence consisting of a fixed bar 
 was not of a satisfactory nature, and ,that an 
 improved type was now largely used." 
 
 A similar responsibility and opportunity arose in 
 the wholesale clothing trades, but the accident 
 risks were far smaller and chiefly due to " trans- 
 mission machinery " — e.g., shafting, driving bands 
 and pulleys to sewing machines, found also in many 
 other trades — these risks being already well known. 
 The one really new contribution there made by the 
 studies of the Women Inspectors lay in needle- 
 puncturing accidents with septic results, from the 
 use of power-driven sewing machines driven at a 
 very high speed, 2,000 to 3,000 stitches a minute. 
 Analysis of reported accidents showed that in 1907 
 35 per cent, of the total accidents to women and 
 girls in clothing factories arose from this cause, and 
 of these not far short of one-fifth resulted in septic 
 poisoning and consequent great loss of time. Often 
 the needle has to be removed surgically, and some- 
 times X-rays applied. A needle may enter the 
 finger several times before the hand can be with- 
 drawn, and serious injury sometimes results. So 
 far no guard had been devised to prevent these 
 accidents. Next year over 40 per cent, of the 
 accidents to women and girls in clothing factories 
 were due to this cause, and in relation to these and
 
 NEEDLE PUNCTURES, FIRST AID 147 
 
 other injuries the importa nce ™ f okiiinri gg^ n ^ was 
 brought out. In 1909 again the very great loss of 
 working time and health through these accidents, 
 at first classed as " slight," was illustrated, and the 
 extra urgency of first aid where invention of pre- 
 ventive safeguards against the accidents was still 
 lacking was further pressed home. In one large 
 clothing factory seven out of twelve accidents were 
 of this nature, and in even the slightest of them the 
 workers had been absent from work several weeks.* 
 Enquiry of a systematic kind was made into the 
 arrangements provided by the employers for render- 
 ing first aid at the works from this time on by the 
 Women Inspectors — not only when investigating 
 these, but all kinds of accidents. It was found that 
 the very enquiry and the recording of results on 
 the point stimulated emjuloyers already doing good 
 work in this direction, and that it aroused others 
 to a new interest in the matter. Miss Whitlock's 
 investigations showed how greatly lack of knowledge 
 of first aid increased suffering to the injured person. 
 For example, " a child's head was badly scalded 
 with boiling starch, and the wound made worse by 
 the forewoman immediately bathing it in cold water. 
 When a young woman was scalped in a clothing 
 factory, time was lost in getting her attended to, 
 for no one knew the quickest way in which to get 
 in touch with the ambulance authorities ; neither did 
 
 * By 1911 the attention directed to the matter at last 
 produced " an apparently satisfactory finger guard for 
 the needle," and in 1912 two more guards were devised. . 
 Such guards had their main effect where young machinists 
 were trained to their use from the beginning. For adult 
 trained workers their effectiveness was slight. 
 
 11
 
 148 DANGEROUS PROCESSES 
 
 anyone think of removing the scalp from the over- 
 head shafting until an hour after the accident, so 
 that by the time it arrived at the infirmary it was 
 too cold to treat in the usual way in such cases."* 
 
 Tin cutting, pen making, metallic capsule making, 
 bottle washing, and many other processes furnished 
 for our observation cases of septic poisoning, follow- 
 ing relatively slight accidents, which strengthened 
 our appeal for systematic development of first aid 
 in industry. It was wartime pressure for output tha£\ 
 ultimately clinched our argument as to its value f rony 
 the standpoint of production as well as of humanity^ 
 
 One example out of many may be cited to illus- 
 trate how guards preventing accidents were secured 
 sj^stematically on a machine when its danger was 
 brought to our notice. Teazle-brushing machines 
 in hosiery factories thus arrested the attention of 
 Miss Squire and Miss Tracey almost simultaneously. 
 Miss Squire was interested in complaints of dust, 
 Miss Tracey was engaged in tabulating accidents 
 affecting women and girls in the hosiery trade for 
 my information. The former saw the points of 
 danger apparent in the machine which was new to 
 her, and heard of severe accidents from the indrawing 
 teazle-covered rollers for the brushing of hosiery. 
 Miss Tracey presented the fact that seven out of 
 the fourteen reported accidents frcm this machine 
 in 1906 were " severe." Guards were asked for 
 through the District Inspector, and in 1909 I was 
 glad to see that accidents had been consequently 
 reduced to three for the year.f 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1900, p. 142. 
 t Ibid., 1906, pp. 207-8. and 1909, p. 1 10.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS; YOUNG WORKERS; 
 CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS 
 
 " Every wise woman buildeth her house." 
 
 " Give your women economic freedom, assure them 
 access to the sources of culture and you can safely leave 
 eugenic experimentation to them" ("Interpretations and 
 Forecasts," by Victor Branford, 1914). 
 
 Hitherto this survey of women's life in the factory 
 and workshop has simply accepted the fact oft 
 productive labour by women and its clear social and I 
 economic necessity. While admitting the existence 
 of differences and handicaps, physiological and 
 social, that in part distinguish them from male 
 industrial workers, we have only, in one instance, 
 touched on the i nfluence of m ar riage and maternity 
 on their employment. The sinister secondary effects 
 of lead poisoning on maternal functions inevitably 
 raised question of factors that, in a civilised com- 
 munity, must place certain limits or conditions on 
 complete liberty of women's employment in factory 
 production as hitherto carried on. This, already 
 long recognised in the United Kingdom in regula- 
 tions excluding women and young persons from v"'' 
 some of the most dangerous lead processes, has 
 been followed or extended in other industrial 
 countries since the Washington Convention. 
 
 149
 
 150 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 To one will deny, said the Report of the Women's 
 ^Employment Committee, 1919, that " woman should 
 be guarded from strain, from accident and racial 
 poison, to a greater degree than man is guarded," 
 and that report fairly indicated standards and tests 
 suitability in occupations for women. 
 
 In this present chapter we pass from the general 
 human considerations controlling industrial condi- 
 tions over to special groups of persons, where the 
 " human machine " to be safeguarded can least of 
 all be regarded simply as an economic, producing 
 unit. Here the interest of the community as well 
 as of the individual requires consideration from a 
 new angle of vision. 
 
 Children, the earliest objects of humanitarian aims 
 in the factory system, came first under a Factory 
 Act in 1802 in certain textile factories; adul t 
 women first in 184 4. Not until 1891 (after the 
 fcerlih Conference in 1890) was any provision what-\ 
 ever made in this country for obviating the necessity J 
 of employment of a woman too early after childbirtly 
 — in a factory system such as that we have been 
 considering in previous chapters. And then it came 
 only in the form of a prohibition of employment: 
 " An occupier of a factory or workshop shall not 
 knowingly allow a woman to be employed therein 
 within four weeks after she has given birth to a 
 child."* Effects, not causes, seem alone to have 
 been held in view ; what was to become of the woman, 
 without other resources, seeking employment at such 
 a time, was left to be sufficiently disclosed by the 
 
 * Factory Act, 1891, sect. 17; later sect. 61 of the Act 
 of 1901.
 
 GROUPS OF PROTECTED WORKERS 151 
 
 Women Factory Inspectors, who from 1896 onwards 
 tried to give effect to the prohibition by warnings 
 and prosecutions of the occupier so far as he could 
 be shown to be legally responsible for infringements. 
 
 Inmates of charitable and reformatory institu- 
 tions, engaged in production or manual labour of the 
 nature covered by the Factory Acts and not already 
 under Government inspection (as in workhouses, 
 prisons, certified homes, etc.), first seem to have 
 come, somewhat accidentally, under serious con- 
 sideration in connection with these Acts through 
 proposals to include laundries within their scope. 
 For laundry work was by far the most general 
 industrial occupation in charitable and reformatory 
 institutions — where the work was done not for the 
 institution itself but for outside clients, although 
 not carried on by way of trade, and where the 
 inmates were not working under a contract of 
 service or apprenticeship. Occupiers of ordinary 
 commercial laundries were willing to be included 
 within the Act only if these institutions were 
 also included. The opposition of the institutions 
 was, however, sufficient to secure their exclusion 
 from the Act of 1895, which in some degree covered 
 commercial laundries; they remained outside until 
 partially brought in by the Act of 1907, after 
 we had for some years inspected convent laundries 
 on a voluntary basis. Opposition of the managers 
 melted away steadily, as the advantages of friendly 
 advisory inspections were experienced. 
 
 For all but the last of these three classes of specially 
 protected workers, the legal or the administrative 
 position has substantially changed at the close of the
 
 152 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 period 1893 to 1921. And most of all has it changed 
 in the care of child-bearing women employed in 
 {•Industry, who were before 1911 completely dependent 
 on the Woman Factory Inspector for disclosure 
 of evidence on their position. The change in the 
 administrative point of view is most quickly realised 
 when one recalls the fact that responsibility for 
 applying the prohibition of employment in factories 
 and workshops of women after childbirth has in 
 1921 been transferred from the Home Office to the 
 Ministry of Health by Order of His Majesty in 
 Council. It is thus formally recognised as a " matter 
 affecting and incidental to the health of the people." 
 The cases of employment within four weeks of 
 childbirth were frequent in our experience. As 
 it was generally extreme poverty or desertion or 
 illness of the husband that drove mothers back to 
 work, and the prohibition was well known (being 
 included in the official abstract of the Acts affixed 
 in the workplace), they would in some way conceal 
 the date of birth from the occupier or manager, 
 or sometimes change the place of employment. 
 Thus in comparatively few instances could any 
 legal action be taken at all; even where it could, 
 the painful dilemma of the suffering woman became 
 evident. 
 
 The first case taken into court under Section 17 of 
 1891 was in the year 1897, by Miss Squire. It was 
 a clear case for testing the effect of the section, 
 and it revealed much. The mother, working in a 
 textile mill, had been sent for by the foreman, 
 who was short of workers, on the ninth day after 
 her confinement, although he had been informed of
 
 EMPLOYMENT AND CHILDBIRTH 153 
 
 the reason of her absence on the day she left. 
 Although she made some attempt to screen her 
 employers when called as a witness, she was dis- 
 missed from their employment, after they had been 
 convicted and fined. She obtained employment 
 from one of the magistrates soon after he had heard 
 the case, and this relieved her immediate need. 
 The effect of this dismissal on the minds of the 
 other workers remained.* 
 
 In 1898 old and new difficulties attending the 
 application of this section again made action diffi- 
 cult or impossible. A laundry visited on a com- 
 plaint of infringement of the section yielded only 
 the information that the woman was at home, the 
 regulation well known, and " as soon as it was 
 permissible she would return to work." The 
 Inspector, wishing to make sure of all the facts, 
 " went straightway to see the woman in her home, 
 and found her in the act of doing heavy washing 
 for the laundry in question." The occupier was 
 only legally responsible for knowingly employing 
 the woman in his laundry within four weeks of 
 childbirth, accordingly he had " sent the work to be 
 done in the home. The laundry was clean and the 
 surroundings ... in point of fatigue-saving appli- 
 ances incomparably superior " to those in which the 
 woman was found. " Her husband was a labourer, 
 she had four living children, and the entire family 
 inhabited two rooms; the woman was washing over 
 a tub raised on two stools in one of the rooms, a 
 small paved and drained yard lay at the back; it 
 was a rainy day, and she had pulled the tub into 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1897, pp. 96 and 107.
 
 154 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 the room to be under cover from the wet; she 
 dragged it into the yard to empty when needful."* 
 More often the difficulty of taking action turned 
 on the impossibility of proving knowledge of facts 
 on the part of the occupier, a knowledge which in 
 such a matter it was only natural he should avoid. 
 In any case it was shortly discovered that a young 
 mother of sixteen or seventeen was not covered by 
 the section, being not a " woman," as defined in 
 the Act (i.e., a person of eighteen years and over), 
 but a " young person." These enquiries soon drew 
 my attention to the high rate of infant mortality in 
 districts where women were largely employed in 
 heavy labouring work, such as brick making in the 
 Stourbridge area, and the galvanised bucket industry 
 in the Lye district, and some enquiries were made 
 to learn how far such work affected infant life. 
 
 In 1902 a conviction, with penalty, was again 
 secured in one of the instances of re-employment 
 of a woman within four weeks of childbirth. In 
 another case of re-employment — this time within 
 a fortnight of childbirth — in a wholesale clothing 
 factory, although a deplorable state of affairs was 
 disclosed, action was impossible owing to the entire 
 lack of evidence of responsibility for supervision 
 anywhere in the place. The Inspector took occasion 
 to press home the need of superintendence by a 
 competent woman, which in this case was promised 
 by the employer. She found that young single 
 women going to the workhouse for a confinement 
 were usually discharged at the end of a fortnight 
 if their state of health made it possible, with the 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1S98, p. 181.
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE DIFFICULTIES 155 
 
 result that their re-employment within three weeks 
 was practically unavoidable. 
 
 The whole position was, as Miss Squire put it in 
 1897, that "Section 17 of 1891, although of so 
 great importance to the community no less than] 
 the individual, must remain for the most part a I 
 dead letter owing to the difficulty of proving the I 
 employer's knowledge of all the circumstances, as » 
 well as for other obvious reasons."* 
 
 A welcome opportunity for wider dissemination 
 of knowledge and understanding of the whole 
 problem of employment of mothers arose through 
 the appointment of the inter-Departmental Com- 
 mittee on Physical Deterioration in September, 
 1903. An invitation was extended to me to give 
 oral evidence on the effects of factory and workshop 
 employment on the health of women and girls, 
 which I did at some length. Fuller information was 
 sought by the Committee on the effect of industrial 
 employment of mothers both on themselves and 
 their infants. By the help of my colleagues, I set 
 intensive study of the matter on foot in three 
 separate and distinctive industrial centres for 
 women's employment: in Dundee (jute trade), in 
 Lancashire, in Preston, Burnley, and Blackburn 
 (cotton trade), in the Staffordshire Potteries, in 
 Hanley and Longton (earthenware and china trade). 
 Two of these towns, Dundee and Preston, were 
 particularly characterised by an absence of employ- 1 
 ment for men of the same class as the women sol 
 largely employed. In all the centres of study 
 infantile mortality was high, although not higher 
 * Ibid., 1897, p. 107.
 
 156 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 than rates to be found elsewhere — e.g., in mining 
 centres where mothers are not industrially employed. 
 Widely varying conditions in local sanitation and 
 housing obtained in these towns. Wide variation 
 also was present in nature of the industrial work 
 done by the women, speed and pressure of work, 
 length of daily hours, presence of dust or lead in 
 the processes, and other circumstances. 
 
 The main effect of this enquiry, with the following 
 up of many cases of re-employment of mothers 
 after childbirth, was to establish more clearly than 
 ever before that such re-employment was not, as had 
 hitherto been often alleged, largely caused by the 
 women's preference for factory over domestic life, 
 but by the pressure of poverty, or actual want, on 
 the mothers. Much help was given by officers 
 of the local health authorities in making the 
 enquiry. 
 
 In 1904 I presented to the Committee a memo- 
 randum on " Employment of Mothers in Factories 
 and Workshops," containing full details, and what 
 the Committee described as a " wealth of informa- 
 tion " from the three Inspectors, Miss Paterson, 
 Miss .Squire, and Miss Martindale, who had carried 
 out my scheme of enquiry. The Committee gave 
 full publicity to the results in the memorandum, 
 including it as an appendix in their report, besides 
 favourably commenting on its conclusions. They 
 further definitely recommended fuller investigation, 
 on the lines suggested, into infant mortality rates; 
 locally, for particular areas in industrial towns, and 
 into general infant mortality rates for selected 
 industries throughout the country, and the speci-
 
 ENQUIRIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS 157 
 
 fying of the occupation of all mothers (married or 
 unmarried) in the Registrar-General's records. They 
 also recommended a strengthening of the prohibition 
 of employment within four weeks, either by throwing 
 onus of proof on the employer or by requiring a 
 medical certificate from the mother. 
 
 The Committee attached great importance to 
 observations of the Inspectors in the memorandum 
 on the stress and strain involved, through many 
 existing conditions in factory life, " in the employ- 
 ment of women from girlhood, all through married 
 life, and through child-bearing"; they specially 
 noted the fact that when decreasing physical 
 capacity brought the prospective mother " at 
 least some relief at the hands of the manager of the 
 mill and she is sent away," it is often only " to 
 take up the equally unsuitable occupation of char- 
 woman or scrubber." No general notion had then 
 arisen, or at least it had not been publicly expressed, 
 that national responsibility for release of child- 
 bearing women from wage-paid employment should 
 be recognised by the provision of some form of 
 maintenance at the time of their greatest need. 
 The Committee, on this financial point, only in- 
 cluded in their recommendations a suggestion that 
 " charitable efforts in manufacturing towns might 
 be directed towards endowing and maintaining 
 insurance organisations to which employees, assisted 
 by voluntary subscriptions, could contribute while 
 in work, and from which they might receive assist- 
 ance during a confinement and afterwards." I had 
 pointed, in my memorandum, to the experience at 
 Mulhouse in Alsace that organisation of a maternity
 
 158 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 fund by manufacturers, to which both employer 
 and employed contributed, had resulted in a reduc- 
 tion of infant mortality by half. I had also sug- 
 gested that " whether by local trade effort, or 
 larger national effort, provident insurance of the 
 kind might be expected in time to eliminate the 
 cases where infant lives are lost . . . and needless 
 suffering caused to hard-working, valuable mothers 
 by total absence of skilled attendance." I had 
 also laid stress on the need for fundamental re- 
 organisation of antiquated charities, in harmony 
 " with increased scientific knowledge," and with 
 the " changed economic conditions of women's 
 lives." 
 
 On this side the earliest help that came was, of 
 course, through the National Health Insurance Act 
 of 1911. In 1904, and onwards down to 1913, 
 Women Factory Inspectors continued to gather and 
 to present information on this subject, which never 
 seemed to them less poignant in the details, though 
 it took seven years to issue in any provision for 
 the sufferers. A summary of all that we learned, 
 as Miss H. F. Cohen said when she prepared such 
 a summary from my Annual Reports for the 
 Women's Employment Committee in 1919, " gives 
 only a faint idea of the state of things — it is only 
 the cumulative effect of instance after instance 
 which enables one to realise the impotence of the 
 law." 
 
 In 1904, in twenty-one cases of employment 
 within four weeks of childbirth investigated in 
 Scotland by two Women Inspectors, only three were 
 found suitable for proceedings, and a conviction
 
 IMPOTENCE OF THE LAW 159 
 
 was recorded in only one. " The others were 
 dismissed, one without trial, on the ground that a 
 Limited Liability Company could not be charged 
 with the offence; the other on the ground that the 
 woman was not " knowingly " employed, although 
 it was proved that the reason for leaving the mill 
 was known to the foreman, who re-engaged her 
 without enquiry. In the majority of cases the 
 woman did not return to the same factory as that 
 in which she worked before confinement." In a 
 very bad case of re-employment at one and the 
 same works the woman, working under a contractor, 
 was employed in very laborious work, the setting 
 and drawing of kilns. The manager of the works 
 ordered the contractor to send her home, as she 
 was obviously not in a fit condition to do the work. 
 Ten days after the child's birth she was re-engaged 
 by the manager who had ordered her to be sent 
 home, and employed at the same place in loading 
 wheelbarrows at the canal bank and other work. 
 " Sixteen days after its birth the child died. . . . 
 The occupier, who goes daily to the works, en- 
 deavoured to shift the legal responsibility on to the 
 manager, the latter on to the contractor. Until 
 the Woman Inspector put the matter before them 
 in what was evidently a new light, it had not 
 occurred to anyone that it was worth consideration, 
 or that even a legal, let alone a moral responsibility, 
 rested on anyone."* In Lancashire, in the same 
 year, one out of many cases of too early re-employ- 
 ment was taken into court. The fact that the 
 mother was back at her loom fourteen days after 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1904, pp. 273-4.
 
 160 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 the birth of the child was proved ; it was also proved 
 that the manager and tackier, as well as her fellow - 
 workers, knew the reason for the weaver's absence, 
 but the case was dismissed (after long and earnest 
 deliberation by the magistrate), because the manager 
 had not had the simple enquiry made as to the age 
 of the child, and therefore did not " knowingly " 
 allow her to be employed. In this case the reason 
 for the return was poverty, the husband being out 
 of work, and the woman had been alone and un- 
 tended at the birth of her child. The futility of 
 the unamended law for the protection of industrial 
 mothers against pressure of either poverty or 
 negligence was more than established. 
 
 " Some of the most pathetic incidents came to 
 one's knowledge," says Miss Paterson, in some 
 notes written at my request for this book, "in the 
 administration of the section which requires absence 
 of mothers from work for the short period of four 
 weeks after the birth of a child, for the poverty 
 or the fear of permanent loss of employment which 
 drives her to cut short her time for recovery generally 
 means that she is indeed in straits. Customs vary 
 in different parts of the country, and it is Scotland 
 that is in my mind chiefly when the figure comes 
 before me of the work-worn woman who appeared 
 to have a choice to make whether she would go out 
 to work or stay at home and work, but who had 
 in reality no alternative but to earn, at once, what 
 she could. ' If he could bring in a pound a week 
 constant,' said the wife of an unskilled labourer to 
 me, ' I would never think of going out, ' and I 
 believe this represents the feeling of the Scottish 
 married women, though they would not all put their 
 minimum at so modest a figure."
 
 PRESSURE OF POVERTY 161 
 
 In the returns of persons employed in factories 
 and workshops for 1907 the first attempt was made 
 to obtain official figures to show the extent of 
 employment of married women in industry. The 
 information could only be obtained by voluntary 
 returns, which were in many cases not forthcoming. 
 On the figures so obtained it appeared that in 
 textile factories 24-1 per cent, were married, 71-8 per 
 cent, unmarried, and 4-1 per cent, widowed; in non- 
 textile factories 16-3 per cent, were married, 79-3 per 
 cent, unmarried, and 4-4 per cent, widowed. A high 
 proportion of power-driven laundries made the return, 
 and in these 28 per cent, of the women were married. 
 
 The worst cases of too early employment of 
 mothers did not, however, necessarily appear in the 
 industries that were most characteristically women's, 
 but rather in poor or underpaid industries and in 
 towns or districts where women were largely em- 
 ployed without a sufficient balance of men's staple 
 industries to enable the husband and father to be 
 the main breadwinner of the family. Any high 
 degree of unemployment for the latter, of course, 
 immediately affected the security of the mother's 
 support at the time of child-bearing. Many of the 
 worst examples of too early employment after 
 childbirth came primarily from that cause. 
 
 "I know," wrote Miss Paterson in 1907, "of 
 no more tragic figure than that of the toil-worn 
 woman striving ... to do the work of two persons 
 with, as her background, the unemployed or in- 
 sufficiently employed man . . . desolate and 
 oppressed are the words which seem then to 
 describe her the best."* 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1907, p. 184.
 
 162 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 Some of the very worst examples came to our 
 knowledge in the five years preceding the modest 
 relief that came for maternity through the National 
 Health Insurance Act of 1911. In that year, at 
 the Congress of the Royal Sanitary Institute at 
 Belfast, Miss Martindale gave an address on Hygiene 
 and Industrial Employment, in which she stated 
 that in that city she had " come across women 
 returning to work of a hard manual nature, entailing 
 hours of standing, within ten days, and even four 
 days of their confinement." She was convinced 
 that " no woman would return to work within the 
 month if it were not poverty which compelled her 
 to do so. As one poor tired woman remarked, 
 ' Could I remain away from work for more than a 
 fortnight with five children under six years of age 
 starving at home V " The emigration of men in 
 Ireland often threw the burden of breadwinning 
 on to the women. 
 
 To those who wish to understand, even partially, 
 the extent of suffering and injury endured by poor 
 working mothers before any national attempt was 
 made to help them at the time of childbirth, I can 
 only say that the subject must be further studied 
 in the section of my Annual Reports from 1907 to 
 1911 dealing with employment of women before 
 and after childbirth.* The monotonous recital, 
 year after year, of facts revealed by complaints 
 investigated can alone give any idea of the matter. 
 One characteristic example must close the recital 
 here. The occupier of the factory had not " know- 
 
 * See Annual Report of the Chief Inspector for the years 
 named.
 
 MOTHERS AND CHILDREN 163 
 
 ingly " re-employed the mother within the four 
 weeks' limit; the woman's husband, a carter, had 
 been out of work seven weeks before the confinement, 
 and the Guardians gave relief in money and kind 
 for fourteen days after the birth. The third week 
 they refused an application for continuance of the 
 relief, and the woman returned to her employment 
 — her husband being still workless. The Inspector 
 asked the health visitor to interest herself in the 
 matter and secure assistance if possible for the 
 woman. Section 61 of the Act of 1901 only took 
 effect generally by bringing to our knowledge facts 
 that might otherwise be overlooked, and prevented 
 inconsiderate employers from directly requiring 
 women to return to work too soon after the birth 
 of a child.* Ultimately, when due care has been 
 secured for the poorest child-bearing woman, the 
 tale of their past suffering and neglect will seem a 
 terrible and incredible thing. 
 
 Let us now turn to the young worker in industry. 
 Strong though the appeal of this subject was to the 
 Women Inspectors — taking much of their time and 
 thought — in a sense it lies outside the limits of this 
 book, and it is far too great for adequate notice 
 in a fraction of a chapter. A few illustrations of 
 ways in which we came in touch with industrial 
 employment of children must suffice. " Children 
 in the factory " is a thought that irresistibly carries 
 memory back to tragic past wrongdoing, in cruel 
 overstrain and misuse of children's forces that no 
 one of our race or nationality can cheerfully recall 
 to mind. Yet we are bidden by the foremost 
 
 * See Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1909, p. 159. 
 
 12
 
 164 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 historian of the factory system, Mr. Whately Cooke- 
 Taylor, never to suffer the story to be forgotten lest 
 its pitiful warnings against the blinding power of 
 false doctrine should also die out.* 
 
 The earliest legal remedies for the worst evils of 
 child labour under the factory system were threshed 
 out in the first half of the nineteenth century by 
 English men themselves, long before it was imagin- 
 able that women might enter the Civil Service and 
 help as Factory Inspectors to apply these remedies. 
 It was, indeed, through the sufferings of little 
 children that the whole humanitarian movement 
 for reform of factory life by law and administrative 
 action began, and that it found its chance to grow 
 against many and powerful adversaries, as may be 
 seen in the life of Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord 
 Shaftesbury. 
 
 The sacrifice of the young workers made the first 
 opening through the outer framework or crust of 
 society, built up as it had been in the nineteenth 
 century on a basis of "machinery and steam. "f 
 The children had been drawn, as the children were 
 drawn by the Pied Piper, 
 
 "A wondrous portal opened wide 
 As if a cavern were suddenly hollowed; 
 And the Piper advanced and the children followed." 
 
 They had been drawn into the factories as helpless 
 dependents of the machine for the purely economic 
 reasons that were then generally deemed valid and 
 all-sufficient. In turn, they furnished the most 
 
 * See above, Chapter II., p. 57. 
 
 t "Economic Annals of the Nineteenth Century," by 
 Professor William Stuart, 1910, Preface, p. vii.
 
 CHILDREN IN ECONOMIC CENTURY 165 
 
 unanswerable argument against the doctrine of 
 laissez faire, and thus involuntarily helped to bring- 
 about its discredit. 
 
 The main provisions in the Factory Acts for 
 protection of the young worker had been framed, 
 and the very worst evils repressed, when Women 
 Inspectors entered the service in the last decade of 
 the " economic " century. Yet much remained to 
 be done, as has already been seen in certain examples 
 of hardness and barbarity, particularly in Chapter II. 
 The very institution of the " half-time system," 
 which first came as an enlightened practical remedy 
 for excessively long daily hours, and as the original 
 provision for compulsory elementary education, had 
 in our early official days begun to be more than 
 suspected as an evil in itself among reformers. It 
 lingered until the close of the War, for its prestige 
 had been great; it had grown into the very structure 
 of textile industries; and it had secured at least 
 that whatever schooling a factory child had was 
 given to it in the daytime. Many pages scattered 
 through Annual Reports of the Chief Inspector 
 record the injurious effects on health (as observed 
 by Women Inspectors) following on the attendance 
 of young workers at night school permitted by some 
 education authorities in cases of family poverty, as a 
 condition of allowing the young worker of thirteen 
 and fourteen to work full time during the day. 
 
 This latter point came out so markedly because 
 of the close attention that was given by myself and 
 my staff to applying the provisions for securing a 
 reasonable degree of physical fitness in j T oung 
 workers in factories. We did all in our power to
 
 166 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 bring home to parents as well as employers that 
 examination by the certifying surgeon of the child 
 for half time or young person for full time employ- 
 ment, as to their physical fitness for " working daily 
 for the time allowed by law in the factory," was a 
 serious, not a merely formal, matter. We freely 
 used our powers as Inspectors to suspend a child 
 or young person for re-examination, wherever it 
 appeared to us that she was unfit by " disease or 
 bodily infirmity " for the daily work during the 
 legal hours. Out of this came the evidence that 
 led to strengthening of the law by giving to the 
 certifying surgeon power to examine any process, 
 and to qualify the certificate by conditions as to 
 the work on which a child or young person is to 
 be employed. The younger the child the greater 
 our concern for all this, and from the first we worked 
 in close contact with the teachers in the schools 
 attended by half-timers, whose age or delicacy 
 called for our enquiry. Incredibly small and baby- 
 like were some of the eleven-year-old children still 
 lawfully employed in factories up to the year 1899. 
 A few ten-year-old children were still lawfully 
 employed in 1893 when the first Women Inspectors 
 began their work.* In some notes sent me by Miss 
 Paterson at the close of 1921, written for this book, 
 she says: 
 
 * The Factory Act, 1891, sect. 18, raised the age of 
 entry from ten to eleven years, but tho change took effect 
 only in January, 1893, and even then not for any children 
 lawfully employed before January 1. The age was raised 
 to twelve by the Elementary Education Act Amendment 
 Act, 1899, in England and Wales. The Act of 1901 made 
 the obligation general.
 
 PASSING OF THE HALF-TIMER 167 
 
 "Amongst the changes in the law during my 
 official service few were so completely satisfactory 
 as those which have contributed to the passing of 
 the half-timers. Each advance of a year in the 
 age for entering on employment was accompanied 
 by gloomy forebodings of the result to industry 
 of preventing a child from acquiring facility while 
 its fingers were still supple — as if a non-wage-earning 
 child sat with hands folded in inaction — and (by 
 some people) of the effects on character of too much 
 leisure in youth. A well-known sheriff added to 
 his reluctant convictions of several firms for illegal 
 employment of children an exhortation to me to 
 consider carefully what I was doing before bringing 
 more such cases to tins court. In his opinion I 
 was doing much to fill the place with young criminals 
 who would have me to thank to some extent for 
 their ruin." 
 
 Some remarkably enlightening information came 
 out of enquiries made by Miss Paterson in order to 
 find an answer to the question, " What becomes of 
 young workers rejected by the certifying surgeon 
 in a factory as physically unfit for the work ?" It 
 was carried on, as much of our work was, in co- 
 operation with the certifying surgeon. In 1900 
 79 cases of rejection were followed up to the child's 
 home, 56 having been rejected as under age, 11 for 
 weakness or disease of the eyes, 6 for skin disease, 
 1 for deficient intelligence, and 5 for personation 
 of another older child. It became clear that the 
 children did not go back to school, that they tended 
 to go either into casual employment outside the 
 factory system, or into a workshop where the 
 certificates were not required and where a register 
 need not be kept, that the work they went to was
 
 168 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 as hard as, or harder than, that for which they were 
 rejected, and that the children lived under pressure 
 of circumstances impossible for them to combat — 
 sometimes selfishness, oftener the extreme poverty 
 of parents, sometimes carelessness or indifference 
 of employers. This information was embodied in 
 evidence I gave to the Departmental Committee on 
 Employment of School Children in 1901,* and thus 
 fortunately became promptly utilised. The interest 
 of the general community in the matter became 
 evident, and not only from the standpoint of future 
 efficiency of the child; for example, it was ascer- 
 tained in one case that a child rejected for a con- 
 tagious skin disease went into a process not under 
 the Factory Act — namely, the picking and cleaning 
 of fruit for making preserves. The close enquiry 
 into the reasons for rejection brought out again 
 very clearly what I had pressed forward several 
 years earlier, the unsatisfactoriness of the conditions 
 of publicity, noise, etc., under which the certifying 
 surgeons had to make their examination of the 
 young worker in the factory and the handicap they 
 felt in trying to make it sufficiently thorough. f 
 The uselessness of a perfunctory examination 
 became the clearer as one saw more of the wide 
 range of possible occupations in a large factory. It 
 was recommended on the results of this enquiry 
 that better arrangements should be made for the 
 examination, that the surgeon should have power 
 to qualify his certificate, and that enquiry should 
 
 * Cd. 819. 
 
 f Annual Reports of Chief Inspector, 1896, p. 69 ; for 
 1900, p. 396; for 1902, p. 184.
 
 CERTIFICATES OF PHYSICAL FITNESS 169 
 
 be sj^steniatically made as to what became of a 
 rejected young worker. Miss Squire had two years 
 earlier laid bare, in vivid words, the narrow basis 
 on which a surgeon then had power to reject. 
 
 "The certificates must by law be granted if the 
 child or young person is of the proper age, and is 
 not ' incapacitated by disease or bodily infirmity 
 for working daily for the time allowed by law in 
 the factory named.' The number of girls and boys 
 so incaj)acitated is small; is the number of those 
 physically unfit for the employment to which they 
 are set also small ? Certainly appearances in the 
 factories are often against such a conclusion. Many 
 a factory is a town in itself; the processes of manu- 
 facture carried on within its walls are as different 
 in character and conditions as they can be; a boy 
 or girl is certified as physically fit for them all. 
 Yet it is conceivable that a child or young person 
 may be physically fit for one department or process 
 and physically unfit for another; quite fit, for 
 example, in a silk mill for winding, quite unfit for 
 the intense heat of the gassing room; quite fit in 
 steel pen works for sorting or stamping, quite unfit 
 for the strained position and dust-laden atmosphere 
 of the grinding shop ; quite fit in fancy box factories 
 for pasting on the paper, quite unfit for waiting on 
 the glue room by carrying up and down heavy 
 pails; or physically strong for rough work, but 
 with eyes unfit for strained attention on work 
 requiring close application. Could not certifying 
 surgeons have power to exclude from a certificate 
 a specified department or process, or to name in 
 the certificate one department or process only, and 
 for this purpose have power of entry to factories 
 in order to see the work in relation to the child ? 
 In a district known to me where both these powers 
 are, with the co-operation of occupiers, exercised,
 
 170 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 no one regards a certificate of fitness as an empty 
 form ; a dead system has been galvanised into life. 
 
 " I have often thought whether the doctor -who 
 saw the little, delicate, narrow-chested girl in the 
 office, and was ' satisfied that she was not incapaci- 
 tated by disease or bodily infirmity for working ' 
 for the legal time, were to see her as I see her in the 
 stress and strain of work toiling up flights of stairs 
 with a load I cannot lift, streaming with perspira- 
 tion in steam and heat, bent double straining over 
 minute work, he would have been able to certify 
 her as physically fit for such employment had 
 such a certificate been requisite. Having regard to 
 eyesight alone, what misery entailed by impaired 
 vision might not be spared by the exercise of a 
 judicious control over the kind of employment 
 permitted to boys and girls with defective eyes." 
 
 Frequently, when it was necessary for an In- 
 spector to suspend a child or young person from 
 work until re-examined by the certifying surgeon, 
 or to prosecute an employer for neglect to obtain 
 a certificate for the young worker, it was found that 
 the occupation itself had increased some constitu- 
 tional delicacy or weakness.* In such cases the 
 young worker had to be sent for medical treatment. 
 Many prosecutions were taken for entire failure to 
 obtain the certificate, but so frequent was the 
 neglect that most of them were taken into court 
 only after warning, and on account of unhygienic 
 conditions to which the young workers were exposed. 
 
 * Such as delicate eyes of girls of twelve and fourteen 
 becoming inflamed and suffering from conjunctivitis 
 when exposed to dust from rabbit skins dressed with 
 mercury solution in fur-pulling works. See Annual Report 
 of < Ihief Inspector, 1899, pp. 273-4.
 
 SUSPENSION AND RE-EXAMINATION 171 
 
 Heavy weight carrying and other kinds of injury 
 have been dealt with as regards workers generally 
 in the chapter on dangerous trades. Here I must 
 record the strong impression early made on the 
 Women Inspectors by the liability of children to 
 suffer overstrain of many kinds in the factory, 
 simply because of the general lack of sufficient super- 
 intendence by someone whose duty it was to protect 
 them, and because of their own eagerness and 
 readiness for effort. It was, as Miss Paterson said, 
 " almost incredible the extent to which details 
 connected with employment are allowed to be 
 nobody's business." 
 
 "The use of heavy irons, carrying or dragging 
 of heavy loads, continuous strain of one kind or 
 another, is just as often as not the result of that 
 want of thought on the part of responsible persons 
 which occasions, in all circumstances of life, so 
 much misery, and which it is so hard to overcome. 
 ... It was my duty early in the year to take 
 proceedings against a firm in whose factory I found 
 a little girl engaged in work for which she appeared 
 to me to be physically unfit. I served a notice on 
 the firm requiring them to discontinue her employ- 
 ment unless the certifying surgeon, on a re-examina- 
 tion, found that she was fit for it. On a revisit I 
 found her still there, neither dismissed nor re- 
 examined. It would have been easy for the firm 
 to have replaced her ten times over from the 
 immediate vicinity of the factory, so that there 
 was no reason for the disregard of the instructions 
 except carelessness and indifference."* 
 
 As time went on, and especially after the certi- 
 fying surgeons had the power given by the Factory 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1901, pp. 186-7.
 
 172 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 Act of 1901 to attach conditions to certificates of 
 fitness for individual girls and boys, interest grew 
 among employers and managers in setting the 
 young workers on to more suitable work under 
 more favourable circumstances. They realised the 
 possibilities for good in the examination as they 
 had not done under the past more formal methods. 
 In cases where young persons were employed in 
 very dusty processes — bronzing in printing factories, 
 shaking up and cleaning feathers in quilt and cushion 
 works — those who complained of ill effects were 
 found to be " mouth-breathers " on account of 
 nasal obstruction, and by arrangement with the 
 occupiers these were removed to non-dusty pro- 
 cesses.* In potteries where a good many prosecu- 
 tions had to be taken for neglect to obtain certifi- 
 cates of fitness — so necessary for the heavy work 
 to be done there by young workers — good effects 
 were particularly seen in new potteries. At one, 
 notices were distributed by the occupier at intervals 
 to all the sub-employers in the different depart- 
 mentsf reminding them of their duty immediately 
 to report the engagement of workers under eighteen ; 
 in another a clerk was set in official charge of the 
 general register and health register with the duty 
 of regularly ascertaining whether the prescribed 
 examination had been carefully carried out. En- 
 quiries were systematically made into reasons for 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, pp. 319-20. 
 
 f In this ancient industry the feature of sub-employ- 
 ment by working potters obtained, and gave a distinctive 
 quality to the workplace as compared with that of other 
 more modern industries.
 
 SAFEGUARDS FOR CHILDREN 173 
 
 and results of rejection, and an extensive report on 
 such activities may be read in the Annual Report 
 for 1905. Official visits to medical officers of 
 health as well as conferences with certifjang 
 surgeons in the special question of rejections for 
 uncleanliness led to development of co-operation 
 between the different authorities. By 1913 co- 
 operation with education authorities and the 
 juvenile labour exchange was added. Great 
 advance in the care of children was then brought 
 about by co-operation between the school medical 
 officer and the certifying surgeon. When a child, 
 known to have a physical defect or weakness, goes 
 from school to the factory, the certifying surgeon 
 is notified, and he subjects the child to a searching 
 examination. 
 
 Careful investigation in earlier years of the 
 certificates of school attendance of half-timers 
 showed the attendance to be good. The possibility 
 of securing a labour certificate at thirteen years of 
 age for full-time employment had a good deal to do 
 with this in places where the certificate was granted 
 on a high standard of attendance. This meant, said 
 Miss Paterson : 
 
 " Hard work at school in the years before the 
 child is twelve years of age . . . and between 
 school work and factory work the Lancashire full- 
 timer is often pitifully small, thin, and nervous. 
 In a Scotch cotton mill I noticed a little girl, twelve 
 years old, exempted from day school on condition 
 of attending a night school, and working full time 
 in the mill on the ground that her work was 
 not employment within the Act. She had been 
 examined by the certifying surgeon and passed for
 
 174 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 ' messages only, not to work in the mill,' and carry- 
 ing messages upstairs and downstairs from one 
 department to another was her work from 6 a.m. 
 till G p. m. Her home was not far from the mill, 
 but the night school which she attended from 
 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. was a mile from her home, and 
 altogether her day's work was one that few people 
 double her age would willingly undertake.'"* 
 
 And yet, in spite of much serious, heedless over- 
 strain of children and of deplorable illegal employ- 
 ment in Great Britain in our time, Ireland, and 
 particularly Belfast, exceeded all other parts of the 
 United Kingdom in what must be described as 
 exploitation of child labour. Economic and political 
 conditions there, accompanied by backwardness in 
 education, no doubt retarded a general improvement 
 in public appreciation of the vital interest of the 
 community in conservation of the strength and 
 care of the natural development of the child. And 
 it was the additional misfortune of the Irish child 
 that the conditions of the chief industry — flax — in 
 its many dusty and humid processes, inevitably 
 contained much that was undesirable for the physical 
 well-being of the young growing worker. 
 
 "Public opinion," said Miss Martindale in 1908, 
 " on this subject of child labour in Ireland lags far 
 behind that in Great Britain, f I have never so 
 vividly realised this as when I prosecuted a firm 
 on behalf of five little girls who had been employed 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 314. 
 
 f She had been working there and presenting living 
 pictures of conditions in industry for several years, and the 
 accompanying Annual Report for 1906 should be specially 
 studied to see what she did.
 
 CHILDREN IN IRELAND 175 
 
 full time in fairly strenuous work. Three of them 
 were twelve years of age, and had been employed 
 full time since they were nine or ten years of age. 
 It is impossible to describe the antagonism aroused 
 in the whole district by this prosecution . . . and 
 the case was dismissed on a small technical point. 
 . . . Several cases of illegal employment . . . 
 could not have occurred except for public opinion 
 in that district. ... In a flax scutching mill one 
 morning I found a little girl aged twelve years 
 ' stricking ' flax with a rapidity and dexterity which 
 showed considerable practice. My enquiries met 
 with the most bare-faced untruths. ... I was 
 told that the child was at the mill for no other 
 purpose than bringing tea to the workers. On 
 visiting the school ... I was told that this little 
 girl and her sister, aged ten and a half years, worked 
 alternate weeks at the scutching mill, and were 
 employed there from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on every 
 week day, including Saturday. I could not hear 
 of any steps having been taken by the teacher or 
 managers to stop this obviously illegal employment. 
 In another factory I found a little girl of thirteen 
 years working full time with a certificate which 
 showed clearly she was only in Standard IV., and 
 of the illegality of the employment the teacher must 
 have been aware."* 
 
 It was evident from the Report of the Belfast 
 Health Commission, published in 1908, that very 
 adverse circumstances affected the health of 
 adolescent workers in Belfast, though housing 
 conditions and unhygienic conditions of school- 
 rooms may have been answerable as much as 
 working conditions. Although the infant under 
 five years of age had a better chance of life in Belfast 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1908, pp. 154-5.
 
 176 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 than in Manchester, not so the young persons aged 
 fifteen to twenty years; in that age-group the 
 mortality was found to be double that for the same 
 age-group in Manchester. 
 
 "It needs," said Miss Martindale, "little power 
 of imagination to realise the pain and wretchedness 
 which must have preceded these deaths, and as the 
 death-rate is a sign of the standard of health, it is 
 not difficult to picture the number of children who 
 are living on, but who are robbed of that health 
 which brings vigour, buoyancy, and light-hearted- 
 ness. Mrs. Dickie, the Local Government Board 
 Inspector of boarded-out children, who has had 
 many years' experience of work amongst Irish 
 children, has, I think, put her finger on one factor 
 in the cause of the high death-rate when she says 
 of half-timers : ' Commencing as they do just at 
 the time when all their physical powers are needed 
 for the merging of childhood into adolescence, the 
 strain of the long day in the hot, noisy mill or 
 factory leaves them without the reserve of strength 
 necessary to support growth of mind and bod}'.' "* 
 
 In a wonderful degree the publication of the 
 reports I received from Miss Martindale on such 
 considerations, and on many details and aspects 
 of the employment of children in Ireland, arrested 
 attention there, and aroused true sympathy for the 
 cause of child protection. Not only were the 
 reports, and her very words, widely quoted in 
 the daily Press, but regularly there were leading 
 articles to drive her points home when the Report 
 of the Chief Inspector of Factories annually appeared. 
 In June, 1909, the General Assembly of the 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Jns-pector, 1908, p. 154.
 
 SYMPATHY FOR CHILD PROTECTION 177 
 
 Presbyterian Church passed the following resolu- 
 tion : 
 
 "That the assembly feeling deeply the obligation 
 for the safeguarding of child-life, especially in manu- 
 facturing districts, recommends ministers of this 
 Church to study official documents bearing upon 
 the question of child labour, and to endeavour to 
 arouse public opinion in favour of enforcing the 
 law with a view to the protection both of the 
 children and of the law-abiding employer." 
 
 In the counties of Antrim and Down, out of 
 50,686 persons employed in textile factories at that 
 time, not less than 13,691 were under eighteen years 
 of age, and of these 4,144 were half-timers. Thus 
 the question was not a small one for these districts, 
 having regard to the heavy and debilitating atmo- 
 sphere of dust or humidity, in which so much of 
 the work was done. Miss Martindale felt that a 
 spinner was right when she said, pointing to a group 
 of half-timers, " Ah ! indeed, they are hard enough 
 wrought." It was not surprising that the Belfast 
 half-timer was undersized and delicate. A little 
 girl aged twelve (one of many of the same size) she 
 had weighed in a factory in 1906. Her weight was 
 58 pounds, instead of the 76 pounds that might 
 have been expected for her age.* 
 
 The total number of young lives in factories and 
 workshops under some degree of protection by the 
 Factory Acts in the United Kingdom in the first 
 decade of the twentieth century was approximately 
 1,099,841 persons under eighteen years of age, and 
 of these 459,698 were under sixteen years of age; 
 * Ibid., 1906, pp. 230-1.
 
 178 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 of the latter, 37,129 were half-timers, the majority, 
 19,211, being girls. The lowest age-limit of ad- 
 mission had been established and duly observed 
 without difficulty over the greater part of the 
 kingdom, but in Ireland we had many attempts at 
 evasion to contend with — generally from the side 
 of the parents; both Miss Martindale and her 
 successor, Miss Slocock, frequently had to follow 
 up falsified certificates, and prosecution of a father 
 was repeatedly necessary.* 
 
 A great deal of valuable work was done in Lan- 
 cashire and Yorkshire textile districts by Miss 
 Squire and her staff, and by Miss Vines in Scottish 
 textile districts, not only in giving effect to the 
 actual requirements of the law, but in watching 
 over details of employment that seriously strained 
 the young worker, such as bobbin carrying up and 
 down stairs, weft carrying by the tenter in the 
 weaving shed (" the tenter has always a tired 
 look "). Conditions affecting them in Dundee jute, 
 hemp, and flax factories were in many ways quite 
 as bad as conditions in Belfast factories. 
 
 It is impossible to give here more than this bare 
 idea of the scope of our activities in the matter of 
 child labour, and I can merely refer to the fresh 
 care that had to be devoted to the question during 
 the pressure of wartime. At that time the eager- 
 ness of children to help again led to much illegal 
 employment before the legal age of admission, or to 
 full time when only half time was permissible, to 
 employment in school holidays, and at all kinds of 
 
 * See Annual Reports of Chief Inspector, 1911, J5p. 156-7; 
 1912, p. 149; 1913, p. 98.
 
 ILLEGAL EMPLOYMENT IN WARTIME 179 
 
 illegal hours in many miscellaneous industries. 
 Many prosecutions had to be taken in London, 
 Birmingham, and the North of England, and in 
 Scotland. Increasing support was given by magis- 
 trates and sheriffs in repressing this evil. In 1917, 
 in one case taken by Miss Vines, where very young 
 girls had been employed for excessive hours, and a 
 defence was set up that the pressure of work had 
 led the management to overlook the youth of the 
 workers, the sheriff severely observed that " no 
 one could be so busy that he could not see a girl 
 of thirteen was not eighteen." In Birmingham, 
 Miss Martindale in the same year prosecuted nine- 
 teen firms and five parents for illegal employment 
 of children, and in Coventry she prosecuted a firm 
 for employing a child of ten years in a bakehouse. 
 In an outstanding case in the North-Western Divi- 
 sion a fruit preserving company was prosecuted by 
 Miss Tracey for employing little girls of eight to 
 ten years, mostly in the intervals between school, 
 in preparing fruit for bottling, two of them being 
 in poor health and absent from school. There was 
 found to be great and special need during the later 
 years of the War for watchfulness by the Inspectors 
 against serious overloading of young workers or 
 their employment near dangerous machinery.* 
 
 We have already seen above that certain religious 
 and charitable institutions first came within the 
 purview of the Factory Acts in 1907 as regards 
 industrial work of then inmates, and the ques- 
 tion of their inclusion or exclusion had long 
 been a subject of controversy — in fact, ever since 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1917, p. 16. 
 
 13
 
 180 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 the Act of 1895 had partly regulated commercial 
 laundries. It is somewhat surprising, in view of the 
 long discussions and the fear frequently expressed 
 by ordinary laundries of unfair competition from 
 the side of institutional laundries, when one learns 
 that the total number of working inmates of insti- 
 tutions under Section 5 of the Act of 1907 never 
 exceeded round about 9,550, of whom 9,417 were 
 engaged in laundry work for persons outside the 
 institution, 4,068 of these inmates being engaged 
 in laundry work aided by power-driven machinery. 
 In commercial laundries fully regulated by the Act 
 of 1907, the last returns to the Factory Department 
 — published in 1911 — showed that 103,635 women 
 and girls were employed, besides 11,466 men and 
 boys, and that 75,774 of the women and girls 
 worked in power-driven or " factory " laundries. 
 When it is further remembered that even the largest 
 institutional laundries are relatively small compared 
 with very many large commercial laundries, it is 
 evident that the question of their competition with 
 these laundries barely arises, and that the adminis- 
 trative question of chief importance in the institu- 
 tional laundries always has been, What was the 
 form of regulation most likely in the special circum- 
 stances to aid in securing the well-being of the 
 inmates ? The latter are mostly brought into the 
 institution for charitable aid or reform, or special 
 training or special protection against their own 
 weakness, and generally they lack the self-pro- 
 tecting habits of normal industrial workers. The 
 Factory Acts were in no way devised for control- 
 ling, nor competent to regulate, either the domestic
 
 INSTITUTIONAL LAUNDRIES 181 
 
 conditions in the lives of these inmates or their 
 training or education. The aim of inclusion under 
 the Factory Act was simply to secure that, when 
 they were actually engaged on industrial work (for 
 purposes outside the institution itself, even if not 
 by ordinary way of trade), they might be assured 
 of conditions of work, health, and safety, not less 
 favourable in their circumstances than those enforce- 
 able for a worker employed in a factory or workshop. 
 It was about the year 1899 that we began, as a 
 branch Inspectorate, to come in touch with certain 
 convent or religious institution industries; first, 
 through the complaints of the ordinary trader that 
 they were in an unfairly favoured position, and, 
 secondly, through the research of Miss Deane and 
 Miss Squire in Ireland, into convent industries 
 really carried on by way of ordinary trade. Here 
 the workers were definitely employed under a 
 contract of employment in lace making, knitting 
 by hand or machine, embroidery, shirt making, 
 laundry work, and weaving of flannel, tweeds, and 
 linen. Some of these were inspected for the first 
 time in 1900 by Miss Squire. She and the instruc- 
 tions she gave under the Act were well received 
 by the Superiors. The successful example and 
 high standard set by the Rev. Mother Superior 
 of Foxford Convent, county Mayo, where a woollen 
 factory with dye works had long been carried 
 on (with profit to the peasants of the district as 
 well as the convent), inclined other convents, 
 attempting to carry on small manufactures, to 
 welcome the visit of a Woman Inspector. These 
 were not places for reformatory or protective
 
 182 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 occupation of girls and women — not so-called 
 penitentiaries — but real productive establishments. 
 In no such place previously uninspected did Miss 
 Squire find any objection to her official visits; a 
 hope was, however, expressed that the Inspector 
 might always be a woman; she came to the con- 
 clusion that occasional friendly inspections were 
 all that was necessary to secure that the spirit and 
 intentions of the Acts would be complied with. 
 When I had the pleasure of visiting them myself 
 later on, beginning with the interesting Foxford 
 Factory, where the nuns managed the business 
 and supervised the work in the worksheds, I found 
 the same spirit, and in that particular factory an 
 attractive combination of successful management 
 with picturesque charm. 
 
 The discussions in Press and Parliament in 1900 
 and 1901 on the problem of regulating the other 
 type of religious institution workplaces, of a re- 
 formatory or charitable character — largely for dere- 
 lict women and girls — when the Act of 1901 was 
 passing into law, led me to enquire into comparative 
 methods of regulating such places in the chief 
 industrial countries of Europe. My enquiries of 
 the officials of sister Factory Departments in France, 
 Belgium, and Germany led to my receiving warm 
 invitations from the Inspectorates of these countries 
 to visit them and see their method of administration. 
 The invitations were accepted, and this was alto- 
 gether a happy experience; details may be read in 
 the Annual Reports for 1901 and 1902.* 
 
 * Annual Reports of Chief Inspector, 1901, p. 152, and 
 1902, pp. 147 and 194-205.
 
 INSTITUTIONAL LAUNDRIES ABROAD 183 
 
 It was not only the friendly, helpful reception 
 that was gratifying, it was the discovery that in 
 these countries, and most completely in France 
 and Germany, the general hygienic and safety 
 provisions of their industrial laws applied to the 
 religious, charitable, and reformatory workplaces 
 equally with ordinary industrial establishments, 
 and were enforced by the same administrative 
 methods. In France the Inspector had " not to 
 enquire whether a charitable institution works for 
 gain or the technical instruction of its workers; 
 it sufficed that there is manual labour for the law 
 to apply." Regulation was the more necessary in 
 that there were no less than 1,472 religious or 
 charitable establishments employing 48,432 workers, 
 of whom the majority were under eighteen years of 
 age. The long time, over twenty years, during 
 which regulation of the hygiene and safety of these 
 institutional workplaces, including laundries, had 
 been carried on under the ordinary safeguards of 
 the law, gave me a helpful object lesson in France. 
 Commercial laundries had, moreover, been regulated 
 as other factories and workshops had been, and 
 for the same length of time. Thus I saw in them 
 a higher standard of cleanliness, ventilation, and 
 fencing of dangerous machines than had yet been 
 obtained under our more recent regulation of 
 laundries in England. In Germany, where I was 
 received in the Grand Duchy of Baden as a colleague, 
 and accorded the privilege of attending a staff 
 conference of the Inspectorate, under the late Dr. 
 Worishoffer, their learned chief, I was interested 
 to find how strict was their protection of young
 
 184 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 workers against risks of severe accident or dangerous 
 machinery, and how much less they were employed 
 in factory work than with us. 
 
 After this experience followed our regular volun- 
 tary inspection for several years of a considerable 
 proportion of charitable and religious institution 
 workshops and factories (chiefly laundries), which 
 had submitted themselves to such inspection at the 
 invitation of the Home Office. In Ireland, where 
 the institutional laundries were larger and more 
 numerous than in England, I made some personal 
 visits in 1905 to representative institutional laundries 
 and other workplaces possessing varied charac- 
 teristics and aims, and began a study of similar 
 English institutions. A few were found to be 
 entirely willing to receive and act on advice from 
 Inspectors in the carrying out of standards laid 
 down for commercial workplaces as to hours, sanita- 
 tion, safety; others were willing to comply in part. 
 Objections to compliance were sometimes on 
 the score of expense in providing safeguards to 
 machinery, screens, and ironing stoves and so on; 
 sometimes on the ground that great care in super- 
 vision obviated need for other safeguards; some- 
 times that precise limits in hours or fixed meal- 
 times, or affixing notices and abstracts of the law 
 interfered with discipline; the last-named, and the 
 possibility of an Inspector speaking to a worker, 
 were the measures of protection for the working 
 inmates that were most frequently opposed. 
 Explanations tended, on the whole, to smooth 
 away obstacles, j^et in an undue proportion of the 
 institutions nothing was changed under " volun-
 
 VOLUNTARY INSPECTION 185 
 
 tary " inspection, and in these cases, finally, the 
 only course was to refuse to continue the inspection. 
 Full reports on the results of inspection on such lines, 
 by Miss Deane and Miss Martindale in Ireland, and 
 by Miss Paterson and Miss Tracey and other 
 Inspectors in England and Scotland, appeared in 
 Annual Reports for 1905, 1906, and 1907. Remote- 
 ness from ordinary life in the atmosphere of these 
 workplaces, too strong a tendency to place produc- 
 tion for profit before thorough training of the 
 workers, and too close a dependence on laundry work 
 alone instead of experimenting with varied occupa- 
 tions — in preparation for life outside the institu- 
 tion — were among the defects most frequently 
 commented on by the Inspectorate. Lack of under- 
 standing of elements of personal hygiene for the 
 worker as well as of hygiene of the workplace was 
 widely found, and, even after the law and com- 
 pulsory inspection applied, striking illustrations of 
 resultant ill-health among the inmates were re- 
 peatedly reported. At the same time illustrations 
 of good and understanding care (always found in 
 some places) grew in number and greatly developed 
 in enlightened ideas as time went on. Some of the 
 extraordinary risks found in certain places — e.g., an 
 unfenced power wringer fed by a feeble-minded 
 girl; an uncovered hydro with friction cones and 
 driving belt totally uncovered fed by a girl of 
 sixteen with long, loose hair; newcomers set to 
 feed an unguarded calender, for the greater part 
 apparently without accident — tended to suggest 
 that leisurely methods and care in supervision did 
 to some extent lessen risks. In an orphanage
 
 186 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 laundry with an uncleanly wash-house and very 
 long hours of work, little girls were found with sore 
 eyes, and some cases were also seen among inmates 
 who were domestic workers. The Sister said they 
 had had a great many cases lately, and that it 
 seemed " almost as if the children infected each 
 other"!* Poor feeding of inmates often came to 
 the knowledge of the Inspectors through uninvited 
 communications from the managers or Sisters, and 
 records of accounts in printed reports of the insti- 
 tutions showed a very low average expenditure per 
 head on this item — e.g., 2s. lOd. per inmate weekly 
 in one Scottish institution— many inmates being 
 young, undeveloped girls, and here the hours were 
 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., with one and a half hours' intervals 
 for meals; in another the report stated that the 
 average cost of dieting superintendents and inmates 
 was 3s. 1 Id. per week, and average cost of clothing 
 inmates £1 10s. per year. After application of the 
 Act of 1907 to these institutional workplaces we 
 occasionally learned of serious outbreaks of ill- 
 health among working inmates, and invariably we 
 called in the services of the local medical officer 
 of health, or the certifying surgeon, or both — 
 improvements following. In one case escape of 
 sewer gas into the house; in another defective 
 management of working conditions, with dreary 
 routine and absence of play or outdoor exercise 
 for growing girls; in yet another pressure for 
 output, with long hours of work, was found to be 
 the immediate cause of cases of illness occurring. 
 In very many institutions, however, the inmates are 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1905, p. 258.
 
 APPLICATION OF THE ACT OF 1907 187 
 
 of poor constitution to begin with, and not equal 
 to standard industrial hours until after some care 
 for the building up of their health. At first we 
 had many places to inspect where inmates were 
 more or less feeble-minded, but gradually these 
 have passed under care of the Board of Control for 
 the Mentally Deficient. 
 
 In 1907 the last of the "voluntary" inspections 
 were specially welcomed by managers, who increas- 
 ingly applied for advice and information. In 1908 
 compulsory inspection was generally cordially wel- 
 comed and Inspectors were often pressed to return. 
 Conferences on aims and method of conducting the in- 
 stitutions increased among associations of managers. 
 Educational and character-forming occupations were 
 in a few places added to laundry work or substituted 
 for it, and attempts were here and there made to 
 try and suit the special needs of individuals. For 
 example, a woman who made nothing of laundry 
 work or needlework took whole-heartedly to the 
 printing of programmes and notices. One began 
 to see hope of the passing of the listless, lifeless 
 condition of many inmate workers, and of the 
 coming of something of the vital, " alive," and 
 frequently graceful movements of the " factory girl." 
 It is not impossible even with laundry work as the 
 chief occupation of the institutional workers to 
 find happy activity among them — when the Sister 
 Superior or manageress is sufficiently young in spirit 
 to develop " hobbies " in recreation, and to en- 
 courage in the girls a sense of responsibility. I know 
 of one institution where the Sister Superior aims at 
 self-government in the best spirit of a " public
 
 188 EMPLOYMENT OF MOTHERS 
 
 school." And here, when charming baskets made 
 by the laundry girls were brought out for my 
 inspection, they asked eagerly that I might also " see 
 Sister's work." Still, it must not be supposed that 
 there was not very much to be done to secure 
 compliance with the letter and spirit of the Act of 
 1907 during the seven years following its coming 
 into force. 
 
 Although desire of exceptional treatment in the 
 matter of hours declined, still, on the whole, the 
 total extent of hours spent at work is more nearly 
 drawn out to the full permissible limits than is 
 recently customary in commercial workplaces. 
 Safety of the machinery and sanitation of the work- 
 place were gradually secured, but it was a slow 
 and tedious process to develop any enlightenment 
 as to the value of shortened spells and hours. In 
 a few cases there was obstinate resistance to instruc- 
 tions in the requirements of the Act, and reform 
 was not secured until the Home Office had exercised 
 the power of withdrawing all privileges allowed 
 under the Act. The last reported case of that kind 
 was one in 1914. Yet " in the great majority of 
 homes under Section 5 of 1907 there continues to 
 be faithful observance of the law."* The War 
 brought reverberations into these workplaces as 
 well as into all others. New ideas were aroused 
 among managers by the varied experiments in 
 special workrooms for unemployed women, during 
 the first few months of the War, under Queen Mary's 
 Fund-t The great general demand for women's 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1913, p. 94. 
 t Ibid., 1914, pp. 46-7.
 
 EFFECTS OF THE ACT 189 
 
 and girls' labour altered the whole position for any 
 of them willing to retrieve themselves by service to 
 the nation, and it was interesting to learn that the 
 numbers in the Homes markedly declined. After the 
 War, girl inmates began to show their new powers 
 of initiative by writing to the Senior Lady Inspector, 
 thus showing the value of abstracts and notices 
 with names and addresses affixed in the workplace. 
 In one such place a complaint was seriously justified 
 by the investigation that followed. Long hours of 
 work for very young girls, total absence of outdoor 
 games, with poor dietary, had resulted in much 
 sickness. I visited the head of the Sisterhood, of 
 which this institution was a branch work, with the 
 Senior Lady Inspector, and we found her open to 
 the reception of new ideas. A change in manage- 
 ment followed, with happy results. We received, 
 some months later, direct from the girls and their 
 new Sister Superior, a hearty and welcome invita- 
 tion to attend their annual festivity.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR AND ITS INFLUENCE ON 
 legislation; EXPERIENCES IN COURTS 
 
 " I doubt very much whether the office of Factory 
 Inspector is one suitable for women. ... It is seldom 
 necessary to put a single question to a female. . . . Pos- 
 sibly some details, here and there, might be superintended 
 by a female Inspector, but looking at what is required at 
 the hands of an Inspector, I fail to see advantages likely to 
 arise from her ministrations in a factory ... so opposite 
 to the sphere of her good work in the hospital, the school, 
 or the home." — Chief Inspector of Factories, October 31, 
 1879.* 
 
 " The men's and women's sides of the Inspectorate . . . 
 will be amalgamated into a single organisation. Women 
 Inspectors will be regarded as eligible for all posts. While 
 the complete fusion, which is the ultimate aim, can only 
 be brought about gradually, the main principles will bo 
 put into effect from the commencement." — Chief Inspector 
 of Factories, June 8, 1921.f 
 
 While we await the development of the later of 
 these two extremes in official views on the possi- 
 bilities of employment of Women Factory Inspectors, 
 there is ample material in the intervening Annual 
 Reports of the Chief Inspector, and in comments 
 and conclusions in Parliamentary Debates upon 
 them, for grasping the realities in the life and 
 activity of the Inspectors. 
 
 * Annual Reports of Chief Inspector, 1879, p. 98. 
 t Ibid., 1921, pp. 9 and K . 
 ISO
 
 FIELD OF WORK 191 
 
 In the reports it is clear that they were engaged 
 all the time on work that really mattered in its 
 immediate effect on the life and conditions of 
 women as workers in the factory and workshop, 
 as outworkers, as mothers, and as industrial inmates 
 of charitable institutions; and that the Inspectors 
 brought new light, health, and safety into working 
 conditions for adolescent girls and children. Their 
 work was not formal, nor simply a question of detail, 
 but constructive for the nation in the things that 
 most needed new thought and perception. The fact 
 that they never instructed occupiers of factories 
 about " fencing " of dangerous machinery* that was 
 operated solely by men did not lighten their work. 
 It simply set them free to concentrate on immense 
 human problems needing their special attention. 
 Women workers had also to be drawn to confide 
 in the Inspectorate, and to co-operate intelligently 
 in transforming factory conditions from within. 
 Growth of the spirit of self-help in the women was 
 noticeable in details of Annual Reports from 1896. 
 I was able expressly to point to its growth in 1901 
 and onwards. 
 
 As regards " a great many provisions " in the 
 Factory Act of 1895, Mr. Asquith, speaking in the 
 House of Commons on July 31, 1896, said he was 
 " quite satisfied from recent experience, that these 
 provisions could not be satisfactorily enforced 
 except by female inspection." And Sir Matthew 
 White Ridley, then Home Secretary in succession 
 to Mr. Asquith, replied that " much good had been 
 done in the interest of female workers of the 
 * See footnote, Introduction, p. 12.
 
 192 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR 
 
 country by the appointment of these Lady In- 
 spectors." 
 
 In 1904 Mr. Asquith, in pressing on another 
 Home Secretary, Mr. Akers-Douglas, the need of 
 really sufficient additions to the number of Women 
 Inspectors (then numbering twelve), did so for the 
 reason " that the girls and women of the country 
 might be more efficiently protected." This had 
 followed many annually repeated pleas in the House 
 by various members, foremost Sir Charles Dilke 
 and Mr. H. J. Tennant, for more liberal development 
 of the work of the Women Inspectorate, and sug- 
 gestions were made for placing them in district 
 charge in centres of many women's industries — 
 e.g., in potteries, in Ireland — and commendation 
 was expressed of an experiment of this kind in the 
 West London Special District. 
 
 Mr. Theodore Taylor, speaking as a factory 
 owner in the debate on Home Office Estimates on 
 August 4, 1904, desired " to acknowledge the very 
 great debt of gratitude which employers generally 
 were under to the Women Inspectors. There were 
 very many abuses which employers were not aware 
 of until they were brought to light by the Women 
 Inspectors ... he joined in the strong request 
 that the number should be largely increased . . . 
 the adoption of this course would tend to the 
 efficiency of factory labour." Mr. John Burns held 
 that " their work had to do with matters which no 
 average man could understand," echoing a point 
 made in earlier debates by Mr. Asquith, that the 
 Women Inspectors could " bring themselves into 
 close contact with the workers and obtain from
 
 INSPECTION BY WOMEN ADVOCATED 193 
 
 them with greater spontaneity actual facts of the 
 real duties of their lives and work," and that this 
 freedom of communication resulted in much better 
 administration of the law.* Mr. Akers-Douglas, 
 replying in 1904 to the demand for increase in the 
 Women's Branch of the Inspectorate, " had been 
 very much struck by the unanimous opinion ex- 
 pressed that day," as he had been also, he said, 
 by "reading the very valuable report " of that year 
 on the work of the Women Inspectors. 
 
 Members of Parliament, indeed, showed through- 
 out that they were entirely convinced that efficiency 
 and economy followed on the spontaneous character 
 of the work of the Women Inspectors' Branch, and 
 that the confidence reposed in them by the workers, 
 for whose aid they were appointed, was appreciated. 
 As Mr. McKenna said on March 8, 1898: "We 
 know the very high favour with which they are 
 looked upon by the working classes." The only 
 definite exception that I can find to this general 
 commendation is in a complaint by Mr. Jesse Collings 
 on June 29, 1903, that they went beyond their 
 province of seeing that the laws were obeyed by 
 doing " missionary work." This complaint seems 
 to refer to their steady endeavours to encourage 
 employers to go beyond the law in promotion of 
 welfare conditions — an aim which came into wider 
 public consideration during the Great War. 
 
 There are many passages in the Debates to show 
 that it was not only the direct work of applying 
 the Acts and Orders, but even more the faculty of 
 
 * Debates on Home Office Estimates, August 5, 1901, 
 and June 29, 1903.
 
 194 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR 
 
 acting both as an intelligence branch and as a 
 missionary arm of the Department that was valued 
 by the country in the work of the Women Inspec- 
 torate. Not only was the extension of localised 
 administration, by women for women, in great 
 centres of women's industry urged over and over 
 again from 1899 onwards; Sir Charles Dilke also 
 led many members, particularly in 1906, in em- 
 phasising the value of their special enquiries and 
 reports on such questions as employment of women 
 after childbirth; the need of after-care of young 
 persons rejected for physical unfitness in the factory 
 and thereupon employed in less regulated occupa- 
 tions and workshops; industrial disease and poison- 
 ing among women and girls; observance of special 
 regulations peculiarly affecting women and girls; 
 fines and deductions from wages; sanitary arrange- 
 ments; and other matters in which the needs of 
 women workers necessarily vary from those of men. 
 " The great organised trades," he said, " are to 
 some extent able to protect themselves, but women 
 workers depend," to a great extent, on legislation 
 and enforcement of the law, and " on the Women 
 Inspectors especially falls the duty of enforcing the 
 law," " where the inspection is most necessary." 
 
 In July, 1908, Mr. Herbert Gladstone, speaking 
 as Home Secretary, and alluding to a 40 per cent, 
 increase in numbers of the Women's Branch (which 
 brought them to eighteen), said: "The time has 
 come when the demands of the country for more 
 Lady Inspectors cannot be resisted," and he declared 
 that the " increase would be gradual in the future," 
 and that there would be " no change in the character
 
 RECOGNITION BY PARLIAMENT 195 
 
 of the excellent work " done by them. At this 
 figure, eighteen, the numbers remained for several 
 years. Then in 1911 we find Lord Henry Cavendish 
 Bentinck asking for more, and expressing disappoint- 
 ment in finding that the numbers " remain the 
 same " ; in 1912 he and Mr. Alfred Lyttelton referred 
 again to the subject, and the former pointed to the 
 valuable concentrated " experiment in the way of 
 fencing machinery " that was going on in laundries 
 in the special West London district, under a Woman 
 Inspector, with resultant decline in number of 
 accidents. He referred also appreciatively to their 
 work throughout the country under the Truck Act. 
 
 The lively interest that members took in reading 
 the published reports of the Women's Branch, 
 with their " vivid and humane representation of 
 the facts of our factory system," was emphasised 
 by Mr. Morrell and Mr. Ramsay Macdonald in 
 July, 1913, and Mr. Hills and Lord Henry Cavendish 
 Bentinck returned to the old charge, that, for the 
 sides of the work affecting women and young 
 workers, efficient administration could be secured 
 only by setting the Women Inspectorate to do it. 
 "It is quite true that it is the duty of the male 
 Insj>ectors as well as of the female Inspectors to 
 look after those women and children," but for these 
 Mr. Morrell urged " the work cannot be effectively 
 done except by women." 
 
 This, then, was the Parliamentary mirror of the 
 toils and adventures of the Women Inspectorate. 
 There is, however, a word to be said on an aspect 
 that appears to be neglected. Undoubtedly it was 
 helpful to the Women Inspectors on the one side 
 
 14
 
 196 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR 
 
 to know, during so many years of difficult and 
 heavy work, that Parliament grasped the extent 
 of their task and the nature of the work that they 
 were reaching out to achieve in response to the 
 appeal made to them by the industrial womanhood 
 of the nation. Yet, on another larger side, there 
 was much pain also in the feeling that this repeated 
 emphasis tended to obscure any general perception 
 of the highly urgent need that required strong 
 support, for Men Inspectors in dealing with pre- 
 ventable accident and injury, and far too rough and 
 unhygienic conditions for the manhood of industry, 
 in places where women were little employed or not 
 employed at all. 
 
 As far back as 1898 my own belief was that 
 effective reorganisation of staff involved not only 
 concentration of experienced Women Inspectors on 
 the main conditions affecting women workers, but, 
 even more, a lightening of the cares of Men In- 
 spectors on this side to allow of their greater 
 concentration on prevention of accidents and on 
 very dangerous trades where women may not enter 
 as workers. In 1920 accidents affecting male 
 workers numbered 124,580, of which 1,363 were 
 fatal, as compared with 14,122 affecting female 
 workers, of which 41 were fatal.* Examples of 
 the great accident producing industries are extrac- 
 tion and conversion of metals, shipbuilding, docks, 
 construction of buildings, foundries, locomotive, 
 and other large engineering works. In Parliament 
 
 * In 1910 the figures wore: Males, 118,822 (fatal 1,049); 
 females 10,728 (fatal 31). The rates of the two do not vary 
 widely.
 
 SPECIALISATION OF FUNCTION 197 
 
 the conclusion has invariably been reached that, in 
 health and safety problems for women and girl 
 workers, Women Inspectors are prima facie the 
 more competent. Is it not in the great safety 
 problems for men and boys that a field of specialisa- 
 tion lies for Men Inspectors of a nature as absorbing 
 as that which enthralled the Women Inspectorate 
 during the last twenty-five years ? The fusion of 
 the men's and women's sides of the Inspectorate, 
 while avoiding some old problems of administration, 
 raises up new ones, not less large. A solution 
 appears clearly within reach, but discussion of it is 
 outside the scope of this survey. 
 
 On neither side — men's safety problems nor 
 women's health problems — is skilled enquiry by 
 the Inspectorate or experimental development of 
 regulation finished. The difference of potential or 
 actual maternity alone (without consideration oi 
 claims on girls and women as the home-makers of 
 the nation), according to Dr. Janet Campbell in 
 her memorandum to the War Cabinet Committee 
 on Women in Industry,* absolutely prevents equal 
 competition of women with men in industry. She 
 lays stress on the need of further investigation into 
 the physical effects of employment in industry upon 
 adolescent girls as well as adult women, and this 
 view supports the considerable enquiry made in the 
 past by Women Inspectors into heavy work done 
 by girls. The persistent call of Women Inspectors 
 during many years for welfare conditions saw both 
 its justification and its fruit in the industrial war- 
 
 * Report published 1919, Cmd. 135. See especially 
 pp. 170 and 253.
 
 198 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR 
 
 work of women. The extensive employment by 
 the Ministry of Munitions of Women Dilution 
 Officers, to strengthen and promote employment 
 of women dilutees in engineering trades, ran also 
 in harmony with the idea of specialisation rather 
 than fusion of function. Dr. Josefa Joteyko, in 
 her " Science of Labour,"* deals with experiments 
 she had made showing the differing modes of 
 expenditure of energy in industry by man and 
 woman. She says: "Each represents a distinct 
 function," although each form of energy is equally 
 necessary to industry for its own purposes. While 
 her experiments established endurance as a charac- 
 teristic in the feminine sex requiring a slow and 
 gradual expenditure of energy to avoid fatigue, 
 muscular force or strength with a power to act 
 instantaneously under a stimulating impulse are 
 shown to be characteristic of the masculine sex, and 
 to be accompanied by ability to recover rapidly 
 from fatigue. "Most careful selection of working 
 women with regard to their muscular powers," she 
 considers, is necessary for successful industrial 
 labour. 
 
 Whatever the issue of these various considera- 
 tions, Parliamentary and medical, on women's work, 
 it is well for the general community to understand 
 the ways in which the Women Factory Inspectors 
 actually worked during the past quarter of a 
 century. During this period, says a writer in the 
 Women's Industrial News of January, 1915, the 
 " direct influence " of Women Inspectors on " enact- 
 
 * " Science of Labour," by Dr. Josefa Joteyko. George 
 Routledge and Sons, Ltd., 1919.
 
 INFLUENCE AND EFFECTS OF WORK 199 
 
 ments affecting women and young people is very 
 great, and they also helped to raise the standard of 
 legal regulation in the British Isles by study of 
 foreign industrial legislation."* She traced out the 
 questions in which their work had affected develop- 
 ment of the Acts and Orders from 1895 to 1907, 
 and mentioned among others the following: 
 overcrowding, insufficient or unsuitable means of 
 heating workrooms, defective and unsuitable sani- 
 tary accommodation for women, dangers from 
 locked doors in fire or panic, excessive overtime, 
 need of power to qualify certificates of fitness for 
 young workers by specification of the class of work 
 to be done, insufficient general ventilation, need 
 
 * This assertion appears to be supported by the sum- 
 maries I made for the Annual Reports for 1894,- pp. 33-4, 
 on French laws and orders, and for 1895, pp. 136-219, on 
 German and Austrian industrial codes, and in various 
 other places, before public interest in comparative labour 
 legislation had been awakened. 
 
 References by Women Inspectors, and particularly by 
 Miss Squire to law and administration in other industrial 
 countries, appear in my Annual Reports over and over 
 again, generally where our laws were inadequate to remedy 
 complaints. For instance, complaints on defective light in 
 the factory, lack of washing conveniences, on heavy weight 
 carrying and dangerous processes (see Annual Reports of 
 Chief Inspector for 1897, pp. 103-5; 1898, p. 169; 1899, 
 p. 239; 1904, p. 243). 
 
 I also visited continental countries to inspect factories 
 with the Inspectors of the country, and to study their office 
 methods (see Annual Reports, 1899, 1901, and 1902), and 
 to take part in Congresses and International Exhibitions 
 (see Annual Reports, 1903, 1911, and 1920). 
 
 I began to study fatigue prevention after conferring with 
 Dr. Josefa Joteyko in Brassels in 1903.
 
 200 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR 
 
 of inspection of institutional laundries, regulation 
 of fines and deductions, etc. " The social progress 
 of recent years," she said, " has been the result of 
 an unprecedented attention to matters of detail. 
 Investigation and administration have begun to go 
 hand in hand, and the scientific spirit which has 
 been so long in coming to its own in matters social 
 may now be said to have arrived . . . the great 
 advance which the Women Inspectors have been 
 able to bring about in factory legislation has been 
 largely due to the sympathetic insight which has 
 made them virtually representative of the people."* 
 During the whole period 1893-1921 these In- 
 spectors were, by official instructions, directed 
 especially to enquire, report, and take action in 
 behalf of women and girls; a task to which they 
 addressed themselves with hearty loyalty and 
 intense interest. f They had Inspectors' full powers 
 of action, and worked under their own women 
 officers from 1896 to 1921. It was from 1902 
 onwards that they directly instructed occupiers on 
 fencing and prevention of accidents in the clothing 
 and laundry industries, of which they had made 
 special study. Earlier in the same year full authority 
 was entrusted to me, as head of the branch, for 
 the sanctioning of their prosecutions, a power 
 hitherto exercised subject to approval by the Chief 
 
 * Women's Industrial News, January, 1915; article by 
 Dorothy Haynes, p. 313. 
 
 f In a few instances, where men and boys were jointly 
 concerned with women in contraventions — e.g., in Truck 
 es, fencing of machinery in laundries, or illegal employ- 
 ment of children — a Woman Inspector would take pro- 
 ceedings for both.
 
 POWERS AND PROCEDURE 201 
 
 Inspector. Except for slight variations in the early 
 stages, co-ordination of their special work with the 
 general work of the male District Inspectors followed 
 a steadfast prescribed course from 1898 to 1921. 
 
 The very boundaries set to the work of the 
 women officers led, as things were, to what may be 
 called their " higher education " in the nature of 
 the representative and judicial administration of 
 their country. The thorough general knowledge 
 they acquired, all over the British Isles, of condi- 
 tions in every productive or manufacturing industry 
 employing women and girls, sprang also from their 
 concentration as a branch on this aspect of industrial 
 employment. They made close acquaintance with 
 local as well as central methods of administration by 
 daily dealings with health and education authorities 
 and their officers, as well as with magistrates, 
 sheriffs, and their clerks. They had to act for 
 themselves — most fortunately, for " power to do 
 comes of doing " — in courts of summary juris- 
 diction, learning procedure and something of the 
 " law of evidence " as they went along, and gaining 
 an understanding of the details and principles of 
 the Truck Acts and Factory Acts, that could only 
 be acquired by personally testing them in the 
 courts. 
 
 Probably in nothing did we owe so much to the 
 first tentative efforts of Miss May Abraham and 
 Miss Mary Paterson as in their adventurous readi- 
 ness from the outset to try their powers in police 
 and sheriff court proceedings. I may confess that 
 my own first feelings were chiefly of consternation 
 on learning that I had, a few weeks after entering
 
 202 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR 
 
 the Department, personally to prosecute an occupier 
 for illegal emplo3 T inent of girls — never having previ- 
 ously entered a police court. I suggested to the 
 District Inspector that he might conduct the first 
 one, just " to show how it was done," but fortunately 
 and wisely he declined. It was not very long before 
 I found a new interest in methods of administration, 
 through my discovery of a clause in the Factory 
 Act under which I might ask the magistrates to 
 " make an order in addition to imposing a penalty 
 on an occupier for failure to keep his factory in 
 conformity with the Act "* — the magistrates actu- 
 ally complying with the request, on condition that 
 the terms of the order were drawn up by the local 
 medical officer of health and myself. This dis- 
 covery was indeed crowned when, in a great mill 
 employing about a thousand workers, it resulted 
 in the closing of ancient and insanitary conveniences 
 pouring effluvia into heated spinning rooms, to the 
 erection of passable temporary sanitary conveni- 
 ences, and, finally, to completed construction of 
 a modernised water-carriage system of conveniences. 
 It was not only in courts of summary jurisdiction 
 that our education was carried on. Between 1894 
 and 1916 we had sixteen appeals on points of law 
 to the High Courts of England, Scotland, and 
 Ireland issuing from cases taken by Women In- 
 spectors in the Courts of first instance. Through 
 these we learned something about interpretation 
 and the bearing of " decided cases," as well as the 
 thoroughness with which trained lawyers prepared 
 
 * Factory Act, 1878, sect. SI; later Factory Act, 1901, 
 sect. 135 (2).
 
 APPEALS TO HIGH COURTS 203 
 
 a case; we also came in contact with legal advisers, 
 law officers, Queen's and King's Counsel, Treasury 
 solicitors, Procurators Fiscal, Sessional Crown 
 solicitors, and so forth. Appeals to Quarter Sessions 
 on matters of fact occasionally gave us further 
 enlightenment, and, after a while, subpoenas served 
 on Inspectors to give evidence in civil claims of 
 workers against their employers opened up for us 
 new chapters in the law of the land. 
 
 Without warning an Inspector would find herself 
 when in a police court arguing her case not merely 
 with an experienced solicitor acting for the defen- 
 dant, but sometimes with a well known Q.C. (or 
 K.C.). Our armour on such occasions was a 
 thorough acquaintance with the facts and circum- 
 stances, and with the scope of the Acts which we 
 were trying to enforce. Much of the professional 
 point of view and technique had rapidly to be 
 caught up not only on these occasions, but also 
 during the hazards of passing cases over to the 
 Treasury, or to the Sessional Crown solicitor in 
 preparation for an appeal. The range of subjects 
 that we sent up was sufficient to introduce us to 
 not a little of the lighter and more humorous sides 
 of legal proceedings, as well as to the tedium of 
 delays. In our record year for participation in 
 appeals on points of law — the year 1901, when Miss 
 Squire was concerned in three appeals and Miss 
 Deane in one — there was some entertainment in 
 spite of more serious elements. Three of these 
 appeals seem to deserve rescue from oblivion for 
 other than purely legal reasons. In Deane v. 
 Hulbert Beach we learned that the section (of which
 
 204 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR 
 
 we had hoped much in the way of remedy for work- 
 rooms either cruelly cold or stuffy because un- 
 provided with any proper heating apparatus), 
 providing that " adequate measures shall be taken 
 for securing and maintaining a reasonable tempera- 
 ture in each room in which any person is employed," 
 secured nothing whatever but a reasonable altitude 
 of mercury in the thermometer, however improper 
 the " measures." In this instance these measures 
 were described in the Court of Appeal by counsel as 
 " stuffing the room with a number of women, 
 heating with gas jets, stuffing up chimneys, and 
 so on." He argued, first, that the " legislature 
 must have meant that it shall be reasonable having 
 regard to the object in view — namely, the health 
 of the person employed," but when asked by 
 one of the Judges, " When you say 'it,' what do 
 you mean by 'it ' ?" his reply was, "The warmth 
 or temperature." A moment or two later he 
 admitted, " It is a slip in the Act," and the Judge 
 replied, " They ought to have used the word 
 ' ventilation ' — adequate ventilation." On which 
 counsel remarked, " Yes, that is the short point. 
 It has been brought up with a view to amending 
 the Act this session."* In Fullers, Ltd. v. Squire 
 there was an appeal by a defendant employer 
 against a conviction and penalty for employing 
 young women through the night, on Saturday 
 afternoons, and on Sundays in packing and decorat- 
 ing wicker hampers and ornamental boxes, and 
 filling them with bonbons and sweetmeats in fancy 
 
 * From shorthand notes of the case quoted in Annual 
 Report of the Chief [nspector for 1901, pp. 278-9.
 
 DECIDED CASES 205 
 
 patterns, tying up with bows of ribbon and the 
 
 like. The argument for appeal was, substantially, 
 
 that the work was incidental to sale, not production, 
 
 and that the place was a shop, not a workshop. 
 
 No legal argument was verbally attempted by 
 
 counsel for the respondent (the same counsel as 
 
 in the previous case), but sample boxes, as packed 
 
 and decorated with bright ribbon bows by the 
 
 young women, were shown to the Judges and made 
 
 a fine splash of colour in court. The appeal was 
 
 dismissed, the Judges declining to interfere with the 
 
 discretion of the magistrate in deciding the individual 
 
 case on the facts before him. In Squire v. Bayer 
 
 & Co. there was, from an Inspectors' point of 
 
 view, more tragedy than entertainment in the 
 
 decision, but the whole case is a very good measure 
 
 of the distance that has been travelled in our 
 
 industrial and social standards since the year 1901. 
 
 A case had been brought before the magistrates in 
 
 order to test the legality, under the Truck Act, of 
 
 a rule posted up in the defendant's factory, that 
 
 " all workers shall observe good order and decorum 
 
 while in the factory, and shall not do anything which 
 
 may interfere with the proper and orderly conduct of 
 
 the business thereof, or of any department thereof 
 
 ... a fine of 6d. (or less at the discretion of the 
 
 manager) shall be paid by each worker who shall 
 
 be guilty of any infringement of this rule." Under 
 
 this rule numerous fines had been imposed upon 
 
 young girls for speaking, laughing, sneezing, etc., 
 
 and they could not know beforehand what " acts 
 
 or omissions " on their part would render them 
 
 liable. The intention of the Act had apparently
 
 206 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR 
 
 been to secure such knowledge to the workers 
 before they were liable to a fine. The Inspector 
 selected for her test case two girls who, among 
 others, had been fined for amusing themselves in 
 the dinner-hour by singing and dancing to a small 
 harp in the workroom where they were allowed to 
 remain, no mealroom being provided on the 
 premises. The High Court held that the case was 
 not free from difficulty, but that they could not 
 say that the justices had come to a wrong con- 
 clusion in finding that the fines were imposed under 
 a lawful contract. " It would be going too far 
 to say that the language prescribing a fine for 
 breach of good order and decorum is necessarily 
 too general." The ajDpeal was dismissed. In these 
 later days, since the War, the girls would not only 
 have a legal claim to take home their minimum 
 wage clear of all deductions, but employers very 
 often think it natural and proper to provide a mess- 
 room, and sometimes even a recreation room and 
 a piano; dancing in the dinner-hour is occasionally 
 not only encouraged, but teaching also given at 
 the employer's expense. 
 
 In the year 1900 a case was decided in the High 
 Court (Tracey v. Pretty) which brought us an 
 experience extending over nearly two years, that 
 can have fallen to but few, if any, other litigants. 
 It arose in our endeavour to test the powers of the 
 Factory Department to act in default of a sanitary 
 authority for securing conformity to some standard 
 of sufficiency and suitability in the provision of 
 sanitary conveniences. The case had been heard 
 three times, first by two Judges who differed, then
 
 A THRTCE HEARD APPEAL 207 
 
 by three Judges, one being the Lord Chief Justice, 
 Lord Russell of Killowen, who reserved judgment, 
 but died before giving the decision. It was heard 
 for the third time by his successor, Lord Alverstone, 
 and the decision defined for the first time what was 
 meant by the " proceedings " open in England and 
 Wales (outside London) to an Inspector whose duty 
 it was to act in default of the local authority. The 
 Inspector assumed all the powers of the authority, 
 acting on the advice of their surveyor, and could 
 serve a notice under the Public Health Acts on the 
 occupier of the factory, the magistrate having no 
 authority or duty except to enquire whether the 
 notice was properly served and, if so, to convict. 
 Appeal on the reasonableness of the notice could 
 be made to Quarter Sessions.* 
 
 In 1901, our interest having been thoroughly 
 aroused as to the possibility of increasing capacity 
 for the legal side of the work and of improving 
 methods in conducting prosecutions, an invitation 
 was given by the Women Inspectors, through Mrs. 
 H. J. Tennant, to Mr. R. B. Haldane, K.C., M.P., 
 since Lord Haldane, to address us on the " Conduct 
 of Cases under the Factory Acts." To this he made 
 a generous response, and both Men and Women In- 
 spectors had the great advantage of listening to a 
 distinguished advocate on the subject, at a gathering 
 at Mrs. Tennant's house on April 18, 1901. Starting 
 from the standpoint, familiar to a Factory Inspector, 
 that the Crown does not fight a case unless it 
 believes itself in the right, nor until satisfied of 
 
 * See Annual Report of the Chief Inspector for 1900, 
 pp. 360 and 363.
 
 208 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR 
 
 the truth of the matter in question, he gave new 
 meaning to some of our experience in preparing 
 and prosecuting a case, and need of readiness to 
 meet unforeseen contingencies; he also gave us new 
 points for handling evidence and witnesses. We 
 were cheered by the stress he laid on " the assurance, 
 which is a very real one, that every case you lose 
 brings with it fresh experience, perhaps more than 
 the case you gain," and that it is " only continual 
 practice and dogged perseverance that makes 
 people grow in this as in other respects." This 
 same assurance was given me personally by my 
 own early experience, but yet more by watching 
 the growth in power, in this field, of colleagues 
 working under my direction. Of one of them I 
 had the gratification of once reading the opinion of 
 a lawyer well qualified to judge, who was in court 
 at the time she was conducting a difficult Truck 
 case, that it " could not have been better done." 
 Sometimes words of praise for prosecuting In- 
 spectors would appear in a local paper. A single 
 instance may suffice; in 1905, when a presiding 
 magistrate was reported to have said of two Women 
 Inspectors, concerned in a lively case of obstruction 
 (of the Inspector) and illegal employment (of 
 women) before him, that " His Majesty was to be 
 congratulated on the possession of two Inspectors 
 who did their duty so conscientiously and well." 
 The one, he said, had " very ably and properly 
 conducted her own case"; the other (who had 
 pursued retreating workers in the factory down a 
 trap-door into a dark cellar) " seemed to have 
 behaved with great pluck and activity."
 
 WOMEN AND THE LEGAL PROFESSION 209 
 
 On this side of their work, in patience, resource- 
 fulness, and persistence, and in the high percentage 
 of success in results, the record does appear some- 
 what remarkable. Taking only the years from 
 1898 to 1914, the Women Inspectors brought 4,9G2 
 cases into court against 1,974 occupiers, and secured 
 convictions in 4,715 cases. And the average 
 penalty imposed by magistrates rose, on the whole. 
 The years of greatest activity in the courts were 
 between 1901 and 1911. Though many interesting 
 cases came in earlier and in later years, the tendency 
 increased, after 1911, to place more reliance on 
 conference with or persuasion of occupiers. The 
 nature of infringements of the law has largely 
 appeared in preceding chapters, and the proportion 
 of cases was (as in complaints) : first, illegal employ- 
 ment; secondly, defects in sanitation and infraction 
 of health regulations; thirdly, irregularity in pay- 
 ment of wages. 
 
 It seems very natural that a high proportion of 
 our younger Women Inspectors have been impelled 
 to read for the Bar in 1920-21 so soon as such a 
 step was open to them. Long after some of them 
 have been called to and are successfully practising 
 at the Bar, it may touch them to read of early 
 experiences of Women Factory Inspectors during 
 the arduous battles they fought on behalf of many 
 extremely poor and hard-driven women workers. 
 The life they led can only be given by frag- 
 ments. 
 
 Here is a little extract from a diary, the flotsam 
 of time:
 
 210 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR 
 
 " Midnight . . . December 31 ... we are at L , 
 
 cold, miserable. Came here to see . . . Sessional 
 Crown Solicitor about case to be stated re order of 
 D magistrates in the case of X . 
 
 "January 1.— We listened to the clock striking 
 the new year while making copies of draft-stated 
 case which we had drawn up ourselves and which 
 . . . Sessional Crown Solicitor had approved (we 
 are very proud of this draft). At 8.30 a.m. we 
 started in a wagonette with two horses, one of 
 which had no shoe, with snow on the ground. . . . 
 
 Arrived D 6.30 p.m., found Sessional Crown 
 
 Solicitor and two resident magistrates, had long 
 conference, read them our stated case which they 
 adopted in toto. 
 
 " January 2. — Conference all day long and attend- 
 ance in court, when J. P. signed stated case with 
 exception of . . . Sat up till 2 a.m. copying stated 
 case ready for service next day. Atmosphere very 
 damp, also cold. . . . Slept under nine thicknesses 
 of blankets and two counterpanes. 
 
 " January 3. — All day trying to get stated case 
 signed by outstanding magistrate, who flatly refused, 
 
 saying, ' I know X was in the wrong, but it's 
 
 making too much of it to take the case to Dublin.' 
 
 " January 4. — At 4 a.m. we started for our fifteen- 
 mile drive to nearest railway-station, bright starlight, 
 lovely sunrise, nearly choked with clothing and hot 
 bottles, and sat nursing our best hats on our knees." 
 
 For "peripatetic" Inspectors the difficulty was 
 a real one ; the fitting in of visits of special enquiry, 
 general routine visits of inspection, visits on ex- 
 tremely varied kinds of complaints, with the suc- 
 cessful prosecution of prolonged legal activities in 
 widely scattered places. Yet I know of no case 
 where action failed through omission by an Inspector
 
 OBSTACLES OVERCOME 211 
 
 to serve a notice or complete any legal formality 
 or be at the necessary spot at the prescribed time. 
 There was a flame burning within that seemed to 
 consume obstacles by the way, and rendered 
 innocuous even very adverse climatic and other 
 conditions. Long cross-country drives in Ireland 
 (undertaken at times simply to carry out a formal 
 act) would sometimes last all day in an open car 
 in pouring rain, or a day in a tiny, stuffy police 
 court might have to be preceded by a drive begin- 
 ning before daylight on a stormy winter morning 
 to fetch intimidated witnesses for the case. In 
 Lancashire a start might have to be made at 4.30 a.m. 
 from a hotel (with the aid of knocking-up by the 
 night porter), to reach a distant country mill, 
 unobserved, by a new route, in order to detect 
 time-cribbing before 6 a.m. Tussles with manager- 
 esses to obtain the luxury of clean sheets on the 
 hotel beds, and struggles to secure amendments 
 in conditions of uncleanliness (about which " Lord 
 
 X Y , here last week, had not complained "), 
 
 were much more against the grain. Yet all seemed 
 small in comparison with such conclusions as that 
 
 of the X Sentinel that the Lady Factory 
 
 Inspector had "emerged triumphant" from her 
 case; that the " Truck Act has a living force for the 
 protection of a worker as far away as Altnagapple " ; 
 and that " the publicity given to these prosecutions 
 is likely to have a beneficial effect throughout 
 the county." Or, again, the comments of the 
 
 Daily C on the prosecution of a firm employing 
 
 a number of young girls in processes scheduled as 
 " dangerous " was enlivening. A certain town 
 
 15
 
 212 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR 
 
 which was "famous for its magistrates in Shake- 
 speare's time yesterday let off notable offenders 
 lightly. For employing four young girls without 
 the certificate of the doctor which the law requires 
 a fine of 10s. in each case was enforced — this being 
 positively the first offence of the sort; and for an 
 incredibly mean breach of the Truck Act, by 
 means of which a girl had her wages stopped for 
 two whole years to pay her father's rent, the firm 
 had to pay three guineas. Grinding the faces of 
 
 the poor is cheap down in , and but for the 
 
 Woman Inspector who found out what was going 
 on it would cost nothing at all." 
 
 Consolation sometimes came swiftly to the 
 Inspector on a refusal of magistrates to convict in 
 a closely contested case for, for instance, heavy 
 deductions from the girls' small wages, or for waste 
 in production. In such a case, the firm, before 
 leaving court, offered to meet the Inspector's views 
 by lowering the scale of deductions for the future 
 to figures that, if yielded at an earlier stage, would 
 have obviated the need for prosecution. Publicity 
 in such things was ever our most potent helper. 
 Something of the " setting " of this case, in the 
 court, may be brought up from the past by means 
 of a stray leaf of a letter, come back to me from 
 the colleague to whom I wrote it in 1899: 
 
 "The firm had arranged quite a dramatic scene 
 for us— no less than three barristers, with wigs 
 
 and all. Mr. Y , Q.C., defended, with the 
 
 help of his friend, Mr. S , and another friend 
 
 of theirs who came in from the Assize Court to 
 enjoy himself. All the four partners were there, 
 and their solicitor. It would take too long to tell
 
 MEETING THE INSPECTOR'S VIEWS 213 
 
 the whole story now, but ... it was worth while 
 fighting, and we were in court until 3 p.m. I had 
 breakfasted at 6.30 a.m. in London, so you will 
 believe that I was glad when lunch- time came. 
 The stipendiary and the magistrate's clerk listened 
 with the greatest interest to Miss Squire's clear 
 exposition . . . but, alas ! our witnesses were not 
 nearly good enough. One of them was like wax 
 
 in the hands of Mr. Y , who, as one of the 
 
 sergeants of the court confided to me, ' was not 
 one of your bullying sort, but quite gentlemanly.' 
 The stipendiary could not make up his mind, 
 however, and is going to think it over and give his 
 decision on Tuesday." 
 
 His decision then was to dismiss the case on the 
 evidence before him, but not as a precedent to 
 govern other cases. The deductions had been so 
 large, in relation to the wages of the girls, that they 
 could only be levied by small weekly instalments, 
 extending over months.* 
 
 Two Inspectors in the same year had an almost 
 incredible series of experiences in Donegal (details 
 of which can be seen in the Blue books) when 
 trying to limit very long hours of employment of 
 women in " kippering " processes on an island, and 
 to secure payment in coin for outworkers on the 
 mainland engaged in knitting. A study of legal 
 procedure was involved that proved enlightening 
 to the Inspectors, while one of them most deeply 
 engaged in the latter of these cases lived for the 
 most part practically under police protection. She 
 was " much cheered by the sympathy and gratitude 
 of the peasants," on whose behalf she doggedly 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1899, p. 249.
 
 214 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR 
 
 prosecuted the case against local agents giving out 
 the work. In the " kippering " case there were 
 two hearings. At the first, there was equal division 
 of the magistrates, ending in its being " dismissed 
 without prejudice." At the second, there were 
 five magistrates, and the case was dismissed by a 
 majority of three on the ground of exemption of the 
 processes from the Act. The hearing was largely 
 " occupied by the elaborate speech of the solicitor 
 for the defence. . . . The climax of his oration 
 was reached when he appealed to the magistrates 
 not to allow " the Inspector " to hie herself back 
 to the Home Office bedecked with the plumes of 
 victory." The case which was stated for appeal 
 " never reached a hearing, owing to a failure to 
 observe a legal requirement " on the part of the 
 legal agent, to whom it was entrusted when it 
 passed out of the hands of the Inspectors.* 
 
 It would require a separate book of some size to 
 tell of many more of our memorable experiences 
 in the courts, and of the wonderful, varied play of 
 human circumstances and character there. It may 
 be, as one of the Women Inspectors once observed 
 to me, the most difficult thing in the world to tell — 
 or to secure the telling of — " the truth, the whole 
 truth, and nothing but the truth." Yet the first 
 business in a Court of Justice, however summary, 
 is to secure the presentation or unfolding of truth, 
 and truth being always near the mainspring of life, 
 this is perhaps the reason why so much entertain- 
 ment, interest, and strange attractiveness is to be 
 
 * See Annual Report of the Chief Inspector for 1899, 
 p. 247.
 
 MEMORABLE EXPERIENCES 215 
 
 found there. Possibly we had far too many cases 
 in which the size of penalty for serious contra- 
 ventions seemed not at all deterrent. And yet all 
 the time a process was going on — of which we saw 
 glimpses now and again — in the recognition by 
 employers of the thing that really mattered, their 
 moral, as distinct from their legal, responsibility 
 in matters affecting health and well-being of the 
 workers in the factories and workshops. And memory 
 lingers on a case in which deterrent penalties were 
 obtained in circumstances where every interest of the 
 locality appeared to be against an impartial hearing : 
 
 "The employment of the women from 8.30 a.m. 
 of one day until 5 a.m. on the next was on a mourn- 
 ing order for the magistrate's clerk. The magis- 
 trate, before whom the informations were brought, 
 at first refused to sign them, and only did so on the 
 recommendation of the magistrate's clerk. The 
 active partner in the business is a magistrate. 
 The Mayor (in the chair) is the other workshop 
 employer, who was cautioned for illegal employ- 
 ment of a child. At the hearing of the case a 
 strong opinion was expressed by some of the Bench 
 that the offence was merely technical, and that 
 the Factory Acts were hardly intended to apply to 
 such country towns. Under these circumstances 
 ... all concerned are to be congratulated ... on 
 the fact that sufficient penalties were imposed to 
 mark the offence as more than merely technical."* 
 
 In this chapter I have, so far, mainly considered 
 the side of the Inspectors' work that followed from 
 the need of enforcing observance of the standards 
 in the Acts, a need which was greatest in the earlier 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1901, p. 161.
 
 216 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR 
 
 years. Routine daily inspection of factories and 
 workshops at all times took a large place and in- 
 creasingly so, until it was far the largest part of the 
 life of the Woman Inspector. It was, of course, 
 vital that she should visit as many as possible of 
 the tens of thousands of places where female workers 
 were employed, to give both employers and workers 
 all that can be given and that they desired from 
 such routine inspection. It has already been seen 
 how new light was thrown on many questions of 
 health, safety, and welfare, how fresli attention 
 was aroused to the importance of many sections in 
 the various Acts, and how the Women Inspectors, 
 by special concentration of attention on these in the 
 workplace, amassed fresh material for advance in 
 legislation and administration. In an ordinary 
 year, let us take 1913, they would effectively 
 inspect between 6,000 and 7,000 factories, between 
 3,000 and 4,000 workshops, visit many outworkers, 
 factory workers at their homes, besides hospitals, 
 local authorities, and the courts. They would 
 investigate many reported cases of industrial 
 poisoning, between 600 and 700 accidents to women 
 and girls in laundries and wearing apparel industries. 
 Contravention notices to occupiers would number 
 9,000 or more; prosecutions in 1913 numbered 373 
 against 142 occupiers. It is evident that the direct 
 action of the Woman Inspector stretched far beyond 
 the investigation of specific complaints (of which 
 2,014 were received in 1913), or the following up 
 of contraventions serious enough for prosecution. 
 
 Seeing that over 10,000 workplaces could be 
 inspected by the women officers in the year, and
 
 ROUTINE INSPECTION 217 
 
 thai in each one the name and address of the local 
 Senior Lady Inspector was affixed on the abstract 
 of the Acts, a great deal was gradually done to 
 give the women workers that access to a Woman 
 Inspector that they so earnestly desire. Much 
 more than is generally realised was added by the 
 fact that these officers of the Department systemati- 
 cally seni a letter of advice, instruction, or caution — 
 as the case required — to the occupier after an 
 inspection, and that this had incomparably more 
 attention from him than a merely formal notice of 
 contravention ever had. A large part of the effect 
 of an inspection is missed when a necessary instruc- 
 tion it given on a form instead of in a written letter. 
 The Jatter not only secured, for example, better 
 fencing and better ventilation, heating, and welfare, 
 but it also stimulated reflection and aroused a new 
 sympathy for the aims and objects of the Acts which 
 bore sometimes surprising fruit. Replies of thanks 
 from the employers asking for more help came in 
 increasing numbers, and it was very pleasing during 
 the war period to be told how heads of firms some- 
 times specially appreciated visits from married 
 Women Inspectors, who were employed at that 
 time by the Department in a temporary capacity. 
 The influx, then, of many women employees, as 
 dilutees or otherwise, into many factories, which 
 had never previously employed a woman or girl 
 in process work, awakened a good many employers 
 to the special problems of supervision and welfare 
 that arise in organising joint industrial employment 
 of men and women, boys and girls. 
 
 As soon as the number of Women Inspectors
 
 218 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR 
 
 grew beyond the small figure necessary to cope vith 
 the appeals and complaints of the women wo'kers 
 themselves, my own endeavour was to allot their 
 services, as far as practicable, to the various main 
 women's industries over the whole countr/, in a 
 scale proportioned to the numbers of gHs and 
 women employed. When the statistics of those 
 employed in each trade became available, one could 
 find the necessary clue. Textiles absorbed over 
 43 per cent, of the women and girls, clothing :rades 
 over 26-5 per cent., laundries 5-4 per cent, food 
 preserving 4-6 per cent., warehouses, calendering, 
 and finishing 2-2 per cent., earthenware and china 
 works nearly 2 per cent. Other determining factors 
 of course came in, such as special risks, questions 
 of Truck or piecework wages, excessive seasonal 
 overtime employment, and so on, but where these, 
 or the women's own complaints, did not compel 
 our concentrated attention, relative allotment of 
 routine inspection was more or less governed 
 by the proportional extent of women's employ- 
 ment.* 
 
 "While we can see," I said in 1913, '"a great 
 number and variety of deplorable contraventions 
 of the actual requirements and spirit of the law 
 and . . . apparently preventible suffering and 
 overstrain and injury to life, limb, and health that 
 is grievous to dwell upon (except for action in the 
 way of removal), we can see also most clearly signs 
 of improvement and the promise of much more. 
 The promise lies in the fact that the movement 
 to secure better conditions is not confined to any 
 one class or group. The women and girls at last 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1912, pp. 142-4.
 
 A TYPICAL SPECIAL DAY 219 
 
 begin to press their claims for a better life . . . not 
 only by increasing appeals to Inspectors . . . but 
 also by criticism of the limitations of the law and 
 by fresh courage in organising and voicing their 
 needs to the employers. Employers are initiating 
 reforms not only as outstanding individuals and 
 firms, but are beginning to do so, at last, by asso- 
 ciated action and effort."* 
 
 Mrs. Drury (Miss Whitworth), formerly an In- 
 spector of Factories working under a Senior in a 
 division, sends me the following memory sketch 
 of a characteristic special day — any day that had 
 to be withdrawn from routine work in order to cope 
 with a variety of miscellaneous claims needing 
 prompt attention. It might have happened in 
 1912 or 1913: 
 
 " Many days were very full, all were interesting. 
 . . . Let me suppose I was first off to investigate 
 an accident in a laundry. With the prescribed 
 report from employer and certifying surgeon in my 
 hand, I knew that a girl of fourteen had had her 
 arm drawn in between the hot rollers of a collar 
 polishing machine. There was first the examination 
 of the machinery to see if a proper guard was 
 provided and maintained, then the examining of 
 workers to find out the usual way in which the 
 rollers were cleaned, and whether sufficient instruc- 
 tion had been given by those in authority about use 
 of this dangerous machine; in short, why the 
 accident had happened and how similar ones could 
 be prevented. If a serious breach was found it 
 was necessary to take sufficient evidence in support 
 of possible legal proceedings— a general inspection 
 of the whole laundry followed and notes would be 
 
 * Ibid., 1913, pp. 70-3, 100-1.
 
 220 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR 
 
 carefully made as one went along. Finally, one 
 would see the manager and discuss each point and 
 instruct as necessary. A visit to the patient fol- 
 lowed, probably in hospital, and her story would 
 be heard. Light was then thrown on what it is 
 difficult to realise without quietly seeing the workers 
 alone. Help as to how to set about getting com- 
 pensation was often asked for, and the worker could 
 then be referred to the Working Women's Legal 
 Advice Bureau. If there was any defect in the 
 machine, so that risk of accident in cleaning it 
 was high, a visit to the makers of the machine 
 or their agents might be made, then or later, 
 to try to persuade them to do their part — an 
 educative proceeding even if fruit was slow in 
 showing. 
 
 " It would by now be lunch- time, and one learnt 
 to sometimes take the meal in odd places: it is not 
 to be wondered at that when ' on leave ' an Inspector 
 enjoys a nice comfortable meal at home and is not 
 a lover of picnics. The meal was usually soon over, 
 and timed, perhaps, so as to be at the police court 
 at 2 p.m. to lay informations against a firm, before 
 the magistrate, a formal ceremony soon over. 
 The next thing might be a visit to a large biscuit 
 factory to investigate a complaint that a certain 
 workroom was hot and unventilated. After taking 
 the outside temperature I remember going to the 
 manager's office, handing in my official card saying 
 I was going at once to the factory. The repre- 
 sentative knew his obligation, and I went straight 
 to the block complained of. . . . Before it was 
 time to send in my report two letters reached the 
 Chief Inspector, one from the employer to say I 
 had hurried into the factory, without even waiting 
 to announce who I was, the other from a trade 
 union official to say I had been quite half an hour 
 talking to the manager in his office, so that, of course,
 
 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF WORK 221 
 
 the workroom was well ventilated by the time I 
 arrived, and my visit useless. An Inspector has all 
 eyes on her ; she may well go about her work warily 
 and keep her eye on the ball. 
 
 " After such a day's work I once found a wire 
 waiting for me at home from my Senior, 'Meet me 
 Aldgate East Station midnight for overtime inspec- 
 tion.' This was thrilling, the Junior Inspector is 
 always ready for an expedition of that kind . . . 
 and I went to the appointed spot. We then walked 
 to a tailor's house in a street full of these workshops, 
 having a borrowed lamp. ... I went to the base- 
 ment with my lamp, and my Senior went upstairs 
 to an empty dark workroom, then we met together 
 in the sitting-room, where there was a mass of 
 unfinished coats and trousers evidently thrown 
 down in a hurry; then in the bedroom we found, 
 in bed, fully dressed, a little girl of fourteen I had 
 seen before. . . . Proceedings followed, but these 
 entailed more days' work, for the employer dis- 
 appeared, and was traced with much difficulty. . . . 
 It was 2.30 a.m. before we reached home that 
 night, but what play could give more insight 
 into some of the ways of man than a good day's 
 inspection?" 
 
 Such days and nights of work of a Junior Woman 
 Inspector, working in a division as part of a well- 
 organised staff under a Senior, show the unity that 
 lived on in the branch from its earliest years. The 
 chief difference that came with the years was in 
 getting to closer, more detailed, grips with the mass 
 of work to be done. Perhaps pioneering risks 
 became less evident, but initiative in devising 
 methods remained a strong need, and variety and 
 human interest continued equally present. 
 
 The thoroughness that persisted in investigation
 
 222 THE LIFE OF THE INSPECTOR 
 
 of complaints and in special enquiries is roughly 
 but picturesquely expressed by the remark of a 
 trade union secretary to a Woman Inspector: "I 
 
 know you; you belong to the same lot as Miss . 
 
 I remember when she came down to our place, long 
 ago, like a ferret in a rat 'ole, she were." It was 
 of the same Inspector that a girl in a factory once 
 said to the deaconess of the parish, " I am glad 
 when she comes to our factory, she makes me feel 
 so safe." 
 
 To another Inspector, a Senior in her office, once 
 came seventy or more mill girls, in shawls, straight 
 from their mill, bent on redress of a complaint; 
 twelve came into her room, the rest were on the 
 stairs and extended down into the street. It was 
 not often so many arrived at once, but peace of 
 some degree in the factory generally followed on 
 deputations of this kind. 
 
 When it became known that my work was nearly 
 finished, and retirement imminent, a trade union 
 organiser came to see me at the Home Office. It 
 was to bring farewell messages from the workers, 
 and I said how very much I was touched by such 
 messages when I had personalty seen so far less 
 of them in recent years in the factories than I could 
 have wished. " They knew you from the Women 
 Inspectors whom they did see," was the instant 
 reply. 
 
 " There is nothing }^ou cannot ask and expect 
 of the British worker, man or woman — they have 
 ability for anything," an employer said to me in 
 the year following the War when I talked with 
 him about the women's wartime work during his
 
 FRIENDSHIP AND TRUST 223 
 
 convalescence from severe illness due to overwork 
 on munitions in his foundry. 
 
 Ability, loyalty, and an understanding heart — 
 what a foundation this country has, in its workers, 
 led by ' such employers, on which to build up 
 beautiful industries in the future !
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE WAR AND WOMEN SUBSTITUTES; NEW LIGHT ON 
 HOURS, LABOUR-SAVING, FATIGUE, FOOD, AND 
 
 EFFICIENCY 
 
 " Lo, strength is of the plain root virtues born: 
 Strength shall ye gain by service, prove in scorn, 
 Train by endurance, by devotion shape. 
 It is the offspring of the modest years." 
 
 Those who have had patience to go with me so 
 far, in gathering illustrations of the conditions 
 under which women worked in factories down to 
 the eve of the War, and who agree with my con- 
 clusions as to the spirit and character of the women 
 themselves, will perhaps follow on with me in apply- 
 ing the words of George Meredith to their achieve- 
 ments in the years from 1914 to the close of 1918. 
 
 Unless one turns back to the very numerous 
 documents, official and unofficial, relating to women's 
 industrial war work, it is not easy, at the close of 
 the year 1921, to recall the full measure of pride 
 expressed by the nation in what the women did 
 for it in time of need. Almost immediately after 
 the Armistice all the munition workers poured out 
 of the factories and the substitute women followed 
 gradually, as the demobilised men returned to their 
 industrial occupations. A tide of industrial activity 
 then rose and re-absorbed practically all available 
 industrial women in their own normal trades. The 
 tide turned suddenly in June, 1920, and increasing 
 
 224
 
 WOMEN'S NEW OPPORTUNITY 225 
 
 unemployment in 1921 has dimmed the memory 
 of their achievements. 
 
 Many a non-official observer, unfamiliar with the 
 great extent and variety of skilled manufacturing 
 work, or with the heaviness and roughness of much 
 of the less skilled work, done by women and girl 
 industrial workers before the War, was astounded 
 by the ability with which women turned to the new 
 kinds of work. " Not only," said one such observer, 
 " has the War provided an incentive to women's 
 work on a scale never dreamt of in times of peace, 
 it has caused women, more particularly those 
 engaged in new occupations, to realise as they 
 have never done before their own capacity."* The 
 old barriers against their employment on work 
 suited to them and valuable to the community 
 were, for the time, steadily and firmly removed one 
 after another, and with surprising rapidity when 
 guidance of State officials was applied to this 
 removal. Women in the factory realised — some 
 with astonishment — that they were entitled to high 
 praise, and to hold a new confidence in themselves 
 through the natural capacity and zeal shown by 
 them; first, in intensified production in their own 
 old industries f of unheard-of quantities of cloth, 
 
 * Article on " Women and Industrial Changes," by Sir 
 Clement Kinloch-Cooke, M.P., in the Nineteenth Century 
 and After, for December, 1915, p. 1405. 
 
 f In 1907, textiles employed 690,834 women and girls and 
 410,743 men and boys; clothing employed 487,167 women 
 and girls and 181,862 men and boys; laundries employed 
 103,635 women and girls and 11,466 men and boys; fish 
 curing and fruit preserving 29,677 women and girls and 
 11,440 men and boys.
 
 226 THE WAR AND WOMEN SUBSTITUTES 
 
 articles of equipment, rations, and so on, for the 
 Army and Navy; secondly (and later), in speeding 
 up the supply of munitions of war. The emphasis 
 on their merits as industrial war-workers was greater 
 than had ever been explicitly laid on their ordinary 
 life - preserving activities as homemakers and 
 mothers. Nevertheless a new impetus was given, 
 through this enhanced valuation of women, to 
 public health work for mothers and infants and 
 care of the child — or maternity, infant and child 
 welfare, as it became customary to call such work. 
 
 To return to women as " substitutes," a new gen- 
 eration of adolescent girls had time to come into this 
 form of industrial occupation for female workers — 
 while the scope of " munitions of war " grew until 
 they nearly engulfed ordinary peacetime kinds of 
 production. These girls had never known anything 
 but wartime manufacture. They also had what 
 very few British girls before them had had under 
 the factory system, opportunities for training by 
 intensive instruction, and they laid hold of these 
 opportunities with remarkable power. 
 
 A new version of an old couplet came into my 
 mind on thinking over an incident in a remote 
 rural district when, one evening in the fourth year 
 of the War, a friend of mine spoke to a village girl 
 on her way to a meeting at the lately founded 
 Women's Institute : 
 
 " ' Where are you going to, my pretty maid?' 
 ' To hear of substitute women,' she said." 
 
 The girl spoke as if it were a subject of lively interest 
 to herself, and one that would of course interest 
 any intelligent human being. " Women substi-
 
 WOMEN SUBSTITUTES 227 
 
 tutes !" What could anyone have made of such 
 a term before a.d. 1915? Of butter or leather 
 " substitutes " we had heard, but not of women 
 " substitutes." And yet many books were written 
 about them in the last three years of war. Books 
 that will be studied by historians of the future 
 seeking to explain the extraordinary growth during 
 a critical stage of the War — when millions of men 
 had been taken away from the possibility of pro- 
 duction — in the supply of shells and guns to the 
 waiting artillery batteries; in the inexhaustible 
 production of aeroplanes; in the fitting and re- 
 fitting of the Army with its boots, its razors, its 
 surgical dressings, its millions of tins of preserved 
 rations, its millions of smoke helmets; and in the 
 gigantic supplies of the hundreds of other kinds of 
 " munitions " all ceaselessly mounting in quantity.* 
 
 It is impracticable, and it is indeed unnecessary, 
 to re-tell in detail here the story of the growth in 
 production and in supplies, or to estimate exactly 
 the share that women and girls took in making the 
 expansion possible. Those who have not access 
 to the literature can by a visit to the National 
 War Museum put themselves in possession of the 
 principal facts. Our concern is with the health 
 conditions and the attendant circumstances of the 
 women's employment. It helps, however, to a true 
 impression to sum up shortly the main stages of their 
 entry into new forms of work. 
 
 When men first trooped in their hundreds of 
 
 * Seo Memorandum on War Office Contracts. Cd. 8447, 
 and " Labour and Capital after the War," by S. J. Chapman, 
 C.B.E.,pp. 73-6. 
 
 16
 
 228 THE WAR AND WOMEN SUBSTITUTES 
 
 thousands, voluntarily, to the colours in 1914, 
 industrial women found their outlet for the same 
 impulse to serve the nation in intensified and 
 extended work at their own more or less customary 
 callings. They found it at the sewing machine, 
 knitting machine, weaving loom, boot-upper stitch- 
 ing machine, tin-cutting power press, soldering 
 bench, at tinning of meat, fruit and vegetable 
 preserves for rations, and so on. Even with this 
 added intensity of their work and the lengthened 
 hours of employment factory women could do " a 
 bit of knitting for the soldiers and sailors " — so that 
 some of them could say, " We never seems to get 
 any rest, but if we did not do it, no one else could."* 
 They had to play an indispensable, and, in some 
 cases, a predominant part in supplying the Services 
 with textile materials, clothing, blankets, mattress 
 covers, with various kinds of bodily equipment, such 
 as haversacks, bandoliers, light leather, and mis- 
 cellaneous small metal articles, and with tents, and 
 all kinds of general equipment, some time before 
 their share in the production of " munitions of 
 war " in the form of ordnance, ammunition, air- 
 craft, chemicals, etc., was even thought of. And 
 claims for women's aid in the general service of the 
 home community, in transport, distribution, clerical 
 and commercial work, were strongly pressed before 
 the great part they were to play (chiefly by aid of 
 dilution of labour) in engineering and the larger 
 metal trades came in sight. 
 
 A second phase in the industrial wartime em- 
 ployment of women came with the first thoughts of 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1914, p. 45.
 
 RELEASING MEN 229 
 
 the " substitution " of women to release men for 
 military service in the less essential manufacturing 
 industries, next in industries essential for national 
 needs, and in those where important export trade 
 could (it was then believed) be developed or 
 maintained. 
 
 At the request of the Army Council, the Home 
 Office and Board of Trade began a series of con- 
 ferences with associations of employers and workers 
 to consider what reorganisation of work might be 
 necessary to free as many men as possible. This 
 work, requiring some diplomacy, was largely under 
 the guidance of Factory Inspectors, men and women, 
 and it was necessary to negotiate temporary sus- 
 pensions of recognised trade union rules, at the 
 same time providing safe and suitable conditions 
 for the women employed in processes that were new 
 to them, and heretofore arranged to suit men's 
 different ways of working. Agreements were 
 secured in a number of trades, including hosiery 
 and other textiles, boot and shoe manufacture, 
 leather tanning, woodworking, baking, earthenware 
 and china manufacture, printing, and glove making.* 
 These agreements aimed both at preventing mis- 
 understandings and dislocations at a critical time, 
 and at getting security for future maintenance of 
 the established standard of the life of industrial 
 workers. 
 
 * See Annual Reports of Chief Inspector for 1915, 1916, 
 and 1917; collection of Pamphlets on "Substitution of 
 Women in Industry," 1917, and Home Office Memoran- 
 dum on Substitution of Women in non-Munition Factories, 
 1919.
 
 230 THE WAR AND WOMEN SUBSTITUTES 
 
 Orders, known as "Emergency Orders,"* were 
 made by the Home Office, allowing relaxations of the 
 law relating to hours and times of work of women 
 and young persons, both in munitions and non-muni- 
 tions industries, to meet the exceptional circum- 
 stances of the time. Certain fresh safeguards for 
 health or safety were embodied in these Orders, 
 of which foremost was an obligation laid on the 
 employer to provide means for preparing and taking 
 meals at the works, and next supervision by com- 
 petent women to maintain good conditions. 
 
 There were certain large and heavy trades where 
 no agreements between employers and workers 
 could be arranged owing to lack of organisation on 
 one side or the other, either of employers or of 
 workers, and here the Inspectors closely guided the 
 course of replacement of men and substitution of 
 women — e.g., in flour milling, rubber manufacture, 
 oil and seed crushing, soap making, sugar refining, 
 paper making, cement making, and in gasworks. 
 In all these " non-munition " industries — which 
 tended more and more to provide material of war, 
 and thus to become technically " munitions " as 
 the War progressed — they advised employers on 
 the necessary modification and reorganisation of 
 processes, as well as on good conditions for produc- 
 tion. In the factories, where women had not before 
 been employed in process work, a noticeable solici- 
 tude was frequently shown by the employers and 
 managers for protection of the health and safety 
 of the women, and all paid tribute to their adapta- 
 
 * These were made under Section 150 of the Act of 1901, 
 providing for public emergency.
 
 QUICK ADAPTABILITY 231 
 
 bility and natural quickness, as well as to their fine 
 spirit. 
 
 It was in a large shell factory, early in 1915, 
 before the immense development of the Ministry of 
 Munitions, that a foreman said to me as we stood 
 watching the then novel and arresting sight of 
 numerous women and girls intent upon their work 
 at lathes, " There is more in this than people think; 
 women have been too much kept back." Several 
 Inspectors said that the cotton workers, set free 
 by unemployment in their own great trade, par- 
 ticularly enjoyed their new work in shell making, 
 and found it less heavy, and conditions better, 
 than in the textile factories. Munition factories in 
 Birmingham profited early in 1915 by a temporary 
 depression in the Staffordshire Potteries, receiving 
 contingents of intelligent women from gilding and 
 painting shops — high-grade labour — for the new 
 work. In Lancashire one heard of young women 
 proud to have learnt how to grind tools and set 
 machines. In wire-drawing and engineering trades 
 an Inspector said it was remarkable, considering the 
 half-heartedness of the initial experiment of employ- 
 ing women, how general was the satisfaction over 
 its success. It was an everyday occurrence to be 
 told frankly by foremen that " the women are doing 
 very well indeed, much better than I ever thought 
 they could." 
 
 Then came the third and, technically, the greatest 
 experiment in women's employment during the 
 War, under the organisation of the Ministry of 
 Munitions — their concentration on engineering and 
 munitions supplies with much dilution and with
 
 232 THE WAR AND WOMEN SUBSTITUTES 
 
 highly specialised training in processes. It was 
 this stage that led not only to the immense addi- 
 tional power in repetitive production, but also to 
 the discovery in engineering, by enthusiastic 
 "dilution" officers, of certain processes requiring 
 manual dexterity and delicacy of touch, in which 
 women could do better than men, and some even 
 which women alone could do.* This phase can 
 only be fairly studied in published documents, 
 catalogues, and illustrations issued by the Ministry 
 of Munitions, and at the National War Museum. 
 It was under the Ministry of Munitions that the 
 first systematic attempt was made to superimpose 
 personal conditions of welfare — an essential for 
 good output — on the general hygiene of environ- 
 ment in the factory already required by the Factory 
 Act. And one of the earliest 'steps taken by Mr. 
 Seebohm Rowntree, the Director of Welfare, ap- 
 pointed in the close of 1915 for " controlled " muni- 
 tion factories, was to obtain through me from my 
 staff of Women Inspectors a detailed survey of 
 conditions actually obtaining in each large " con- 
 trolled " and national factory, with our recom- 
 mendations on the arrangements desirable for the 
 welfare of the women and girls. | This work was 
 carried out in 1916 and 1917, and it is touched on 
 in my next and last chapter. 
 
 The fourth and final new experience for industrial 
 
 * See " Labour and Capital after the War," by S. J. 
 Chapman, C.B.E., 1919; "Worn six's War Work," issued by 
 the War Office, Chiswiek Press; and Various Reports on 
 Dilution issued by the Ministry of Munitions. 
 
 | See Annual Reports of the Chief Inspector for 1916, 
 p. 9, and for 1913, p. 31.
 
 HEAVY MANUAL LABOUR 233 
 
 women, during the War, came with the urgent need 
 in 1917 and 1918 of trying to substitute them for 
 men, not only in process work that was likely to 
 be suitable for them, but also in many processes 
 and manual work heavier than had yet been at- 
 tempted — for example, in the forging of bullet-proof 
 plates, in driving overhead cranes, in certain heavy 
 foundry processes, in a few operations in ship- 
 building yards, in retort-house work, in internal 
 scaling of boilers, in ferro-concrete pile making, and 
 in new varieties of heavy labouring work. None 
 of these (surviving the experimental stages),* 
 except possibly scaling of boilers, appear to be 
 heavier or more laborious, however, than work 
 done long years before by women in tin-plate works, 
 in fireproof brick works, in timber yards, or gal- 
 vanising works; and certainly none surpassed in 
 dirt or disagreeableness the old work of women in 
 such processes as gut scraping, rag sorting, or 
 " breeze sifting." 
 
 It was chiefly in these last two years of the War 
 that development of women's employment took place 
 in chemical works, heavy metal works, and in gas- 
 works. Some really interesting developments took 
 place. In forge work — for example, in one factory 
 making heavy tank parts — the whole of the process 
 work was done by women, numbering 300; men, 
 numbering six, being employed solely in keeping 
 
 * " Rightly unsuccessful are some experiments in 
 unsuitable directions ... in operating the tilting furnaces 
 in brass casting ... it was too exhausting even for short 
 spells, and very few men coming fresh to the work can stand 
 it for long at a time." — Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 
 19] 7, p. 12.
 
 234 THE WAR AND WOMEN SUBSTITUTES 
 
 machines in running order. " The women work the 
 furnaces, moulding presses, and do the grinding, 
 besides trolleying, stacking, loading on to wagons, 
 and women 'chemists' also take the temperatures."* 
 Here close investigation (made by one of the " first- 
 aid " Inspectors) showed that there were no signs 
 of serious injury amongst the women. The same 
 conclusion was reached by her as regards women 
 drivers of large overhead cranes — a dangerous 
 occupation, however, in which some women met 
 with fatal accidents. A cement works in Scotland 
 was run almost entirely by women's labour, and 
 their employment in this heavy work had been made 
 successful by the aid of mechanical appliances, the 
 only men being rotary kiln men — doing very heavy 
 and hot work, needing considerable training — 
 besides foremen and engineers. At a large steel 
 works in Yorkshire, where the managers were of 
 opinion in 1916 that women would be useless to 
 them, there were, in 1917, 300 employed to their 
 satisfaction in yard work, painting, labelling, and 
 crane driving. " Loading and unloading of ore is 
 heavy, and can only be done by the women without 
 injury if they take the work slowly and quietly. "f 
 Inspectors found that some women, either from the 
 natural but dangerous desire to show their strength 
 or to get through their work quickly, lifted weights 
 far too heavy for them. A foreman, however, in 
 charge of construction work at a blast furnace who 
 had trained women under him, " spoke exceedingly 
 highly of them, and said he would be willing to 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1917, p. 12. 
 t Ibid., 1917, p. 13.
 
 METAL, GAS, AND CHEMICAL WORKS 235 
 
 undertake any ferroconcrete work with women 
 only." They had made over 1,000 piles 31 feet in 
 length; they were bending and preparing all the 
 steelwork used in the construction of the wharf, 
 bridges, etc.; they worked the stone-crushing 
 machines and concrete mixer, stacked the piles 
 when made, and discharged stone, iron, etc., from 
 railway trucks. Managers of gasworks expressed 
 surprise at the good class of women found willing to 
 undertake this hot, heavy, and rather dirty work. 
 In the severe winter of 1916-17, when women were 
 first being tried in heavy processes in gasworks, a 
 manager, praising their grit and pluck, said, " If they 
 stick this, they will stick anything." 
 
 In such places good protective clothing and 
 specially adapted implements, such as light barrows 
 and shovels, automatic weight-lifting appliances, 
 and other labour and fatigue-saving plant and 
 machinery, played an immensely important part 
 in enabling the women to do the work. Inspectors 
 unanimously held that at no time had legislative 
 protection for women, and competent inspection, 
 been more needed than in these final years of the 
 War, when women were eagerly pressing into pro- 
 cesses and heavy labour of a kind new to them. 
 There was generally an ample supply of women avail- 
 able, and the only places where one heard of shortage 
 were in some of their old factory occupations, where 
 conditions often remained at a lower level than in 
 the new occupations, and where wages did not rise 
 until later to meet the increased cost of living. 
 
 In 1917 and 1918 also, some marked development 
 of women's employment took place in relatively
 
 236 THE WAR AND WOMEN SUBSTITUTES 
 
 light processes, both skilled and semi-skilled, in 
 certain non-munition industries, which were per- 
 fectly suited to their physical ability, and for which 
 some intensive training was open to them in technical 
 colleges. The most interesting examples, I think, 
 were scientific instrument making, in which industry, 
 by March, 1918, substitution of women had become 
 general in some processes and frequent in others; 
 and in leather-case making and fancy leather work. 
 Especially in the former of these industries new 
 openings appeared for women as works' chemists 
 or in laboratory research at the factory, as well as 
 in the manufacture of glass prisms, lenses, thermo- 
 meters, and many metal processes. As regards the 
 future, the Home Office Memorandum on Sub- 
 stitution of Women declared in 1919 that there 
 were " good prospects for women in this industry."* 
 Early in 1920, however, " the steady withdrawal of 
 women from employment in men's industries that 
 began after the Armistice was almost completed." 
 And I was obliged to conclude at the end of the 
 year that there was " as yet no fulfilment of the 
 expectations that after the War a body of industries 
 and operations offering a hopeful field of fresh 
 employment would be open to women where their 
 War experience could be turned to account. On 
 the contrary, an automatically operating force has 
 closed all these expected new avenues. "f 
 
 As the number of Men Inspectors decreased during 
 
 * Homo Office Memorandum on Substitution of Women, 
 1919, pp. 7 and 48. 
 
 ■]• Annual lloport of Chief Inspector, 1920, p. 16, and the 
 R (oration of Pre- War Practice in Industry Act, 1919.
 
 SUITABLE PROCESSES, CONFERENCES 237 
 
 the early part of the War, through claims of military 
 duty and other national service where their techni- 
 cal knowledge and experience was invaluable, the 
 number of Women Inspectors gradually increased, 
 but only to a total of thirty. Much of the almost 
 incredible amount of work they managed to get 
 through was done by conference with, and informa- 
 tion and advice to, other bodies of workers — the 
 Women Welfare Officers and Dilution Officers of 
 the Ministry of Munitions, the Superintendents of 
 Women's Labour in munition works, and the Local 
 Advisory Committees (under the Ministry of 
 Labour), concerned with the welfare outside the 
 factories of the immense aggregations of workers 
 who were drawn away from their homes into great 
 centres for production of munitions of war. Some 
 of them served also on various Central Committees, 
 of which the two foremost were the Health of 
 Munition Workers Committee and the Women's 
 Employment Committee under the Ministry of 
 Reconstruction. When the Ministry of National 
 Service was set up, the main lines of the great task 
 of fitting substitute women into men's industrial 
 work were already planned, and much of the sub- 
 stitution was already carried into effect under the 
 guidance of the whole Factory Inspectorate in 
 co-operation with the Employment Department, 
 Ministry of Labour; and when several of the 
 Men Inspectors were " seconded " to the Ministry 
 of National Service the work continued by co- 
 operation between the Departments. 
 
 Much had to be done in bringing factories, and 
 whole industries, up to the same standard in making
 
 238 THE WAR AND WOMEN SUBSTITUTES 
 
 the necessary substitution. In some factories the 
 advance was more rapid than in others — far more 
 reliance being shown in putting women into posi- 
 tions of real responsibility. For example, in only 
 one malting house was it found that a forewoman 
 was in complete charge of the women's work, with 
 technical responsibility for regulating the tempera- 
 ture of the kiln and judging the right time for 
 "turning" the floors. And in an exceptional 
 fruit-preserving factory output was doubled and 
 engineers' repairs reduced by half for the season, 
 when a forewoman was put in complete control, 
 a control which included not only the jam-making 
 department, but also the maintenance in good 
 working order of machinery, boiler, and engine.* 
 
 Inspectors sometimes expressed disappointment 
 at the limited confidence shown by employers in 
 substituting women in the higher posts of industry, 
 but enough was done to " suggest a fair promise 
 of future development of women's natural aptitude 
 for organising." The difficulty lay even more in 
 that direction than in process work, through lack 
 of sufficient opportunity for women to obtain broad 
 and sound technical training in the short time 
 available. In large munition works, however, in 
 two ways useful examples were given of technical 
 control by women; women " charge-hands," having 
 gone through intensive training in processes, con- 
 trolled the operations of small groups of workers, 
 sometimes men and boys as well as women and 
 girls; and in the work of Women Welfare Superin- 
 tendents there was a tendency to develop their 
 * Annual Report of Chid [inspector, 1917, pp. 11 and 14.
 
 FROM HOME TO FACTORY 239 
 
 responsibility in the direction of carrying out some 
 of the functions of a manager.* 
 
 Although a large number of women came for the 
 first time, from domestic work and from home life, 
 into industry during the years of strongest demand 
 for substitutes and munition workers,! a con- 
 siderable proportion of the increase in these two 
 classes came from the return to the factories of 
 former industrial workers, and by their transfer 
 from the less essential trades. The highest pro- 
 portion of those entering from domestic work or 
 home life was usually found in factories situated in 
 localities where other industries were not present. 
 For example, in two chemical works in the country 
 it was found that half the women came from home 
 life, one-quarter from domestic service, and the 
 remainder from other factories. In a Manchester 
 flour mill one-third came from home life, a few 
 from domestic service, and many from miscellaneous 
 factories. 
 
 It was in such places as these, where the sub- 
 stitute women were unfamiliar with factory life 
 and with the safeguards provided by Factory Acts 
 and Orders, that protection by a trained Inspec- 
 torate was found to be most needed. Two points 
 of considerable interest came out in the complaints 
 from women themselves. In the years 1914-15, 
 when long and exceptional hours (whether entirely 
 illegal or else sanctioned by Emergency Orders) 
 were at their highest point, the women worked 
 
 * Ibid., pp. 9 and 13. 
 
 f Who increased until they numbered 900,000 women 
 and girls.
 
 240 THE WAR AND WOMEN SUBSTITUTES 
 
 willingly; and they complained only rarely and in 
 extreme cases. On the whole, there was a great 
 proportionate rise, on the other hand, in the com- 
 plaints relating to matters of sanitation and safety, 
 63-1 per cent, of the whole in 1917, as compared 
 with 47-3 per cent, in 1913. 
 
 The working of excessive and irregular hours, a 
 natural outcome of the confused haste for enormous 
 production at the beginning of the War, seemed to 
 bring new light to many employers on the useless- 
 ness of long hours and long, unbroken spells for 
 continued large output, however great the generally 
 prevalent willingness of the workers to help to their 
 utmost. Already before the War, as we have seen 
 in Chapter II., it was a commonplace in Inspectors' 
 reports that the strain of the legal twelve-hours' 
 day of absence from home* was too great, having 
 regard to the home duties of most women, who had 
 frequently also a long distance to travel to and from 
 work. In the first year of the War the Inspectors 
 showed that the main resistance to excessive over- 
 time came more from the employers' side (in spite 
 of exceptions among them) than from the workers. 
 In a Crown factory the experience was " that any 
 lengthening of the day, beyond 6 p.m. and a total 
 of eight and a half hours' work daily, exhausts the 
 workers, and is of no advantage in increasing out- 
 put. ... A well-known wholesale clothier em- 
 ploying a thousand women on Government contracts 
 gave it as his well-considered opinion that the full 
 period allowed under the Factory Act ... is 
 
 * Ten and a half hours net and sixty hours weekly 
 maximum.
 
 LONG HOURS FOUND UNPROFITABLE 241 
 
 sufficient, and any work beyond this is useless: it 
 exhausts the workers and does not pay. . . . The 
 manager of a powder-bag factory . . . found, after 
 some weeks' experience, that the pieceworkers were 
 making less during overtime than during the normal 
 period of employment. ... A cardboard box 
 manufacturer told me he had put his workers on 
 shorter hours only to find that their output and 
 earnings were equal to those on the full factory 
 day."* The interesting and very valuable researches 
 made by scientific investigators for the Health of 
 Munition Workers Committee and for the Home 
 Office regarding fatigue, did but amplify and give 
 scientific confirmation to the commonsense reasonings 
 and conclusions of many manufacturers about hours 
 of work. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the war- 
 time pressure, it was clear that some deviation from 
 the fixed Factory Act limits was necessary to 
 counterbalance delays in getting out contracts, dis- 
 locations in movement of supplies of materials, and 
 other interferences with a continuous run of work in 
 making up articles. The Emergency Orders granted 
 to numerous individual firms at the beginning were 
 unquestionably necessary. Later, as experience 
 grew, it was possible to standardise these for whole 
 industries and groups of industries, greatly to reduce 
 night work and overtime, nearly to abolish Sunday 
 work, and ultimately to prohibit the night work 
 for young girls under sixteen and for boys under 
 fourteen years, that had been temporarily permitted 
 at the outset of the national emergency. The new 
 evidence gathered by scientific investigators gave 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1914, pp. 40-41.
 
 242 THE WAR AND WOMEN SUBSTITUTES 
 
 increased strength to older humanitarian arguments, 
 as well as fresh point to the conclusions of certain 
 practical managers that excessive hours without 
 regular intervals defeat their purpose of speeding 
 up production. The experiments that were made, 
 under Home Office orders in various shift systems,* 
 showed how increased output might, in times of 
 pressure, be obtained from limited plant and 
 machines without exceeding the working powers 
 of the delicate " human machine." The finding 
 of the Health of Munition Workers Committee in 
 1915, that the strain of long hours had not, so far, 
 " caused any serious breakdown among workers, 
 though many statements indicative of fatigue had 
 been received," was confirmed by reports of Factory 
 Inspectors coming from all parts of the country. 
 No marked increase in sickness rates could be 
 found, yet among foremen and managers, who were 
 less able than workers to take time off, and among 
 individual older men and women, there were cases 
 where health certainly suffered from the strain. 
 After the War was over an experienced Welfare 
 Superintendent told me of great lassitude amongst 
 girls under her care, and she said that it had been 
 necessary to send a high proportion of them to 
 holiday homes before they quite recovered their 
 natural elasticity and capacity for a full ordinary 
 day's work. 
 
 Women's weekly and daily totals in the stress 
 
 * Such as two daily 8-hour shifts, three 8-hour shifts in 
 the twenty-four hours, and two 10 or 10 J -hour shifts in 
 the twenty-four hours. See Annual Report of the Chief 
 Inspector for 1915, p. 9; for 1917, p. 7; and 1918, pp. 2-12.
 
 FATIGUE AND ITS PREVENTION 243 
 
 of the earlier years of War, long and fatiguing as they 
 were, rarely rose (apart from special aberrations 
 which successful prosecutions did much to check) 
 to the extremes too commonly reached by men 
 munition workers. Forewomen and women super- 
 intendents were more often employed in the later 
 than the earlier years, and thus were spared some of 
 the excessive overstrain that at first fell on foremen 
 and managers. In factories where the long double 
 twelve-hour shift system with alternate weeks of 
 night and day work for each shift obtained, evidence 
 of absenteeism and poor timekeeping made it highly 
 probable that accumulating fatigue and overstrain 
 had been partly averted by the natural tendency 
 of the workers to take an occasional day or half- 
 day off. It was truly fortunate, however, for the 
 ultimate health of the people that as strictness of 
 discipline, in controlled factories, in enforcing regular 
 attendance of the worker under penalty grew, some 
 reasonable standardisation of shift systems and 
 considerable development of canteens and other 
 welfare arrangements had been secured. 
 
 By the end of 1917 it was evident that for what- 
 ever reason, probably through better wages, pro- 
 viding much better food than formerly, and through 
 increased personal care of the workers in the fac- 
 tories, sickness among the women was not increasing, 
 but rather diminishing.* The evidence given before 
 
 * In 1915 a woman working daily in a munition factory 
 from 7 a.m. to 8.30 p.m., on Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 
 8.45 p.m., and Sundays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., besides 
 spending two hours daily in transit to and from her work, 
 informed an Inspector that she was able to work these 
 
 17
 
 244 THE WAR AND WOMEN SUBSTITUTES 
 
 the Health of Munition Workers Committee was 
 that sickness benefit was lessening, and I learned 
 by special enquiry that an almoner's records in a 
 large general hospital in a great munition area 
 showed that as few as thirty women and girl muni- 
 tion workers had attended as out-patients in six 
 months. 
 
 Even though much detail as regards the best 
 daily and weekly period and spells of hours remains 
 to be worked out by practical experimentation for 
 different types of factory work with differing kinds 
 and degrees of effort and strain involved, the large- 
 scale demonstrations regarding conditions and out- 
 put in wartime have both added to our knowledge 
 and also popularly spread that knowledge. It may 
 be doubted whether the full potential strength of 
 the social motive in industry — the sentiment of 
 national service — has been at all fairly grasped in 
 its bearing on true success in industrial production. 
 Yet the leaven is there, its workings can be seen, 
 and it is the one unalloyed gain that came from the 
 stupendous and terrible effort of production for 
 " munitions of war." The new lights that this 
 effort brought on the dependence of good output 
 and efficiency on right adjustment of hours, labour- 
 saving appliances, fatigue prevention, food, have 
 
 long hours chiefly because of the good food she was able 
 to obtain as the result of increased wages. She had an 
 invalid husband and six children under twelve years to 
 support. Although she paid a woman 8s. a week to mind 
 her children and spent 2s. 6d. on tram fares weekly, still 
 her wages allowed her to feed better than she had ever done 
 before.
 
 FUTURE STATUS OF WOMEN 245 
 
 but a limited value for the commonwealth if the 
 aims of industry continue to be " merely material 
 production of wealth and things unrelated to 
 spiritual values " or social ends.* Women's ex- 
 tended entry into industry from 1915 to 1918 did 
 indeed bring social considerations into the condi- 
 tions of work, and some of these things remain. 
 Yet they can hardly last if they do not lead to 
 " the ordering, the comforting, and the beautiful 
 adornment of the State " in its organised industrial 
 capacity. 
 
 During the time of the greatest zeal for intro- 
 duction of women as " substitutes " into men's 
 industries, and well on into 1919, it seemed almost 
 at times to be forgotten how essentially non- 
 economic and temporary both basis and framework 
 of the introduction were. Except as regards some 
 extensions within women's own traditional indus- 
 tries, women were in reality in these new places 
 simply as " substitutes," and, in nearly all, under 
 a solemn covenant that it was solely for the duration 
 of the War. An entirely new peacetime departure 
 is needed for application of women's freshly proven 
 powers to new industrial developments. In the 
 future women will surely attain their better indus- 
 trial status not as " substitutes," not as secondary 
 men, but in their own fields (with aid of better 
 training), and also in other carefully chosen fields, 
 as joint labourers with men. The War emphasised 
 a very true and natural interchangeability of men 
 and women for many emergencies. The new 
 
 * See " Labour and Capital after the War," already 
 cited, p. 85.
 
 246 THE WAR AND WOMEN SUBSTITUTES 
 
 " Science of Labour " has perhaps come at the 
 very time of most need, with insistence on the 
 essential complementariness of the industrial apti- 
 tudes of men and women.* There at least — in 
 industrial labour — their complete fusion would mean 
 an economic and social loss. 
 
 While the hopeful expansion in industry follow- 
 ing very soon after the War lasted, there was a 
 remarkable, though temporary, re-absorption of 
 women into their own former occupations. Thej' 
 took with them certain great gains from their recent 
 experiences. They brought into their old industrial 
 environment new ideas of fellowship as well as 
 knowledge of fresh processes and of better rates of 
 pay; they brought strengthened capacity for trade 
 union organisation as well as new ideas of the value 
 of intensive training. Not least, they brought a 
 new demand for better means at the works of 
 preparing and taking sufficient food, which is the 
 material foundation of all efficient labour. 
 
 We may here sum up the possible permanent 
 gains to industry as well as to women themselves, 
 brought from their wartime experiences in factories, 
 ready for the time when expansion of trade again 
 begins. 
 
 It has been seen that in many ways women have 
 far greater powers of endurance, activity, and enter- 
 prise — quite apart from new forms of skill — than was 
 formerly admitted or expected of them. We know 
 that they gain in health by fresh kinds of outdoor 
 and labouring work not previously customary for 
 
 * See above, p. 198, and "Science of Labour/' by Dr. 
 Josefa Jotoyko, 1919 (G. Routlcdge and Sons, Ltd.).
 
 GAIN FROM WAR EXPERIENCES 247 
 
 them. We have seen conclusive evidence of their 
 capacity to quickly become proficient at engineering 
 tasks — with the aid of semi-automatic machinery 
 that is often intricate — and of their powers of 
 sustained interest in such work under great pressure 
 for output. 
 
 The enquiries and valuable memoranda of the 
 Health of Munition Workers Committee* brought 
 out, more completely than any previous official 
 reports had done, the practical importance of 
 selective care in setting women and young workers 
 on to work, as well as the need for the improved 
 personal conditions and skilled supervision by 
 women, that are considered in the next chapter. 
 
 In addition to the gain of a higher standard in 
 women's own expectation as regards their conditions, 
 there is a new atmosphere in the factories, traceable 
 to the women's increased self-reliance engendered 
 by the appreciation that has been expressed for 
 their work and capacity. No one can realise this 
 more thoroughly than Women Factory Inspectors, 
 meeting it as they do on the spot, and there com- 
 paring past and present. In a factory where 
 formerly a woman worker would not have disclosed 
 the fact that she belonged to a trade union, there 
 is a woman shop steward ready to come forward 
 and show the Inspector round, the manager expect- 
 ing her to do so.f 
 
 * Appointed in the summer of 1915 "to consider and 
 advise on questions of industrial fatigue, hours of labour, 
 and other matters affecting the permanent health and 
 physical efficiency of workers in munition factories." 
 
 | Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1919, p. 10.
 
 248 THE WAR AND WOMEN SUBSTITUTES 
 
 There is a new outlook on the possibility of 
 applying science as well as humanitarian motives 
 to use and care of labour. To no workers is this 
 more important than to women, with the dual 
 claims on them of home cares and bread winning. 
 The studies of the Industrial Fatigue Research 
 Board have a special significance in their application 
 to women in industry. 
 
 Another gain from War experiences peculiarly 
 affecting women — although it has also a much 
 wider bearing — is the very considerable testing 
 of the practical value of well-designed appliances, 
 adapted machinery and lifting tackle, for saving 
 human labour, quite apart from its power to lessen 
 cost of production. The aim of lessening human 
 toil for its own sake, not merely for commercial 
 reasons, has a new interest. 
 
 Before the War there was for women and girls 
 in industry, outside one or two ancient skilled 
 occupations (such as weaving, high-class dress- 
 making), so little arrangement for training that it 
 was negligible. During the War, by special organi- 
 sation of training for women substitutes and dilutees 
 in technical schools and colleges and in instructional 
 factories, women's technical and personal capacity 
 was publicly measured. And for the first time 
 national resources were applied, under the kind of 
 direction that suited women, to adaptation of the 
 means of technical training in process work to the 
 results best obtainable from them. At last, there 
 was a demonstration on a scale sufficiently large to 
 make the truth incontrovertible, that women workers 
 are not necessarily the less valuable for production
 
 A NEW OUTLOOK 249 
 
 to meet the nation's daily need because their pace 
 and natural ways of working differ from those 
 suited to men. 
 
 And with all these new lights came also the 
 political enfranchisement of women, which enables 
 them to survey with new eyes the too passive and 
 subordinate position that they have in the main 
 hitherto held in industry. Though from time to 
 time a set-back may occur, they are surely summoned 
 to take their full share in the building up of a better 
 industrial life for the people — as fellow-producers 
 with men, but with their " other " point of view as 
 guardians of the home.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 FACTORY WELFARE AND ITS RECOGNITION BY PARLIA- 
 MENT ; WORKS' COMMITTEES AND WELFARE 
 MANAGEMENT 
 
 " The sweat of industry would dry and dye but for the 
 end it workes too." 
 
 " The sweat of industry !" It was in a factory 
 where excessively hot, heavy, and humid work, in 
 which women bore their share, was carried on that a 
 foreman once said to a Woman Factory Inspector: 
 " We are told that man should earn his bread in the 
 sweat of his brow, but here we earn it in the sweat of 
 the whole body." The saying implied a sense of 
 the need of a new standard of control. It is with 
 a new social way of control that this final chapter is 
 concerned, and we were only at the beginning of 
 seeing what it might achieve when the period 
 covered by this book closes. 
 
 Labour of a sustained kind, bodily or mental, is, 
 as it always has been, the lot of the greater part of 
 civilised mankind, and on the wealth it produces 
 depends the possibility of any means of ordinary 
 welfare for the community. Since the dawn of 
 history energy, and the sustained capacity for the 
 essentially human function of work,* have been the 
 test of racial quality, and the power of a people to 
 
 * The word " work " appears to be the root in the 
 diverse words " energy," " liturgy." 
 
 250
 
 SOCIAL FUNCTION OF HUMAN LABOUR 251 
 
 survive and develop has depended on power in some 
 measure to socialise the use of that function. And 
 yet, until the idea lately arose of analysing the 
 psychological and physiological capacity of the 
 human agent in industry, and of studying the 
 rhythm of fatigue and rest, custom and instinct 
 were the main, and sometimes the only, safeguards 
 of the natural pleasure of exercising this function. 
 Among the great majority of consumers of articles 
 produced by the factory system there was, even 
 more fixedly than among employers, a blind accep- 
 tance of the fact that : 
 
 "... for them many a weary hand did swelt, 
 In torched mines and noisy factories. ..." 
 
 They had little means of knowing definitely, however, 
 what it all involved, and it was a great encourage- 
 ment to the Inspectors to see, as the facts came 
 out gradually, through the publication of Annual 
 Reports of the Chief Inspector and of police court 
 proceedings, the growth of various societies for the 
 help of the workers. 
 
 The overstrain, the overloading, and occasionally 
 the misuse of the delicate human motor that has 
 persistently characterised much of our factory 
 production even by young workers, can, in some 
 measure, be gathered from facts touched on in 
 Chapter IV. The frequent lack of simple conditions 
 and appliances conducive to energy and preventive 
 of unnecessary onset of fatigue has been seen in 
 Chapter II. And yet, in spite of all, the marvellous 
 capacity for much contentment, sometimes even joy, 
 in work never perished. "Weaving is a wonderful
 
 252 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 art, you are never done learning," was a saying, 
 expressing the enlightening power of thought, by a 
 Yorkshire textile trade unionist, but the pride with 
 winch a woman weaver will inform you that she has 
 been reckoned " a champion weaver " tells the same 
 tale of the power that the exercise of skill in the old 
 trades had over workers' minds (and thus over their 
 bodies). And the spirit appears in far humbler 
 workers, sometimes on apparently monotonous 
 work; even more strikingly did it appear in the new 
 processes opened up for women in the War. 
 
 That " created man is made to create, from the 
 poet to the potter "* is an idea that in some degree, 
 however inadequately, has always been implicitly 
 accepted for men with their special aptitudes in 
 exercise of energy. As for women with their dual 
 service in social life, in the home as well as in pro- 
 ductive work, realisation of the essential part that 
 they played in industry was slow in coming, even 
 after the development in the early part of the 
 nineteenth century of textile industries on a great 
 scale by aid of women and children. It needed the 
 second great " industrial revolution," referred to in 
 the last chapter, to make it plain to the whole 
 community that a great deal of women's pre- War 
 industrial work was either more skilled or heavier 
 than had yet been generally admitted, and that, 
 whether skilled or heavy, it was indispensable to 
 the success and welfare of the trades into which it 
 entered. During that testing time the share that 
 women workers held in the racial reserve endow- 
 
 * See the Sayings of the Vicar of Morwenstowe ia the 
 first number of the Beacon.
 
 A SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 253 
 
 merits of endurance, adaptability, and capacity for 
 labour also came out clearly. 
 
 While it was the unprecedented part played by 
 massed factory production in the Great War that 
 brought the essentially social service rendered by 
 industrial labour into public recognition, it was the 
 prominence of women's share in it that finally made 
 legal provision for " welfare " possible. 
 
 The injurious manner and extent of employment 
 of children in the beginning of the factory system 
 had, as we have seen,* first made possible any 
 effective Parliamentary intervention to secure ele- 
 mentary conditions of health and safety in factories 
 and workshops. The experience and its lessons 
 were not forgotten, and it was almost common 
 ground between employers and the State in 1916 
 that rapidly extended employment of women and 
 girls must be accompanied with measures for their 
 welfare and safety to prevent injurious consequences 
 for society. 
 
 Voluntary welfare, with here and there a little 
 co-operation from science, had grown up into a 
 conscious " movement " in industrial life in our 
 country during the twenty years preceding the 
 War. In its principles it differed little from those 
 of which Robert Owen reminded his fellow- manu- 
 facturers in 1813 when he showed them that, just 
 as power-driven machinery was improved by being 
 carefully tended, kept clean, and well lubricated, 
 so the far more delicate living human motor could 
 be benefited if carefully studied and well cared for. 
 Yet the only possible basis on which the niove- 
 * See Chapter IV., p. 94.
 
 254 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 ment could grow vigorously in such a factory 
 system as that of the nineteenth centur}' was first 
 laid when State administration began effectually to 
 enforce on all employers alike national standards 
 in hours, health, safety, defence against industrial 
 diseases, and finally against sweated wages. 
 
 Those reformers and administrators who wrought 
 ceaselessly between 1892 and 1914 to give effect to 
 new safeguards of health in the factory surroundings 
 of the worker were laying foundations, better than 
 they knew, for social aims in factory administration. 
 The Women Inspectors, indeed, as we have seen, 
 had persistently invited employers to pass on from 
 hygiene in the factory to better care of the welfare 
 of the workers, but they never doubted that com- 
 pletion of the former was the indispensable ground- 
 work of voluntary welfare. 
 
 A new stage and a new opportunity for the factory 
 system in Great Britain began when, in 1916, 
 Parliament first made provision for " securing the 
 welfare of the workers,"* and when (almost at the 
 same moment) statesmen and administrators called 
 for the aid, in many ways, of joint industrial councils 
 of employers and workers who could follow up 
 welfare provisions and help to make them corre- 
 spond to the needs of the workers. The legal pro- 
 vision by itself could carry " welfare " only a little 
 way: development of the means of co-operation 
 between workers and employers, and between both 
 of them and the Factory Inspectors and scientific 
 investigators, was an indispensable adjunct in this 
 
 * Police Factories, etc., (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 
 191G, sect. 7 (1).
 
 VOLUNTARY AND LEGAL WELFARE 255 
 
 new enterprise. The very unrest and suspicion 
 that met some of the first systematic attempts of 
 managers at welfare supervision, in controlled 
 munition factories lacking representative works' 
 committees, made that plain. 
 
 The legal provisions in the Act of 1916 were 
 framed, of course, for the welfare of both men and 
 women workers, but it was the large-scale introduc- 
 tion of women substitutes and dilutees into men's 
 trades, and their migration by tens of thousands 
 to centres of munitions production, that, in fact, 
 had made the starting-point for the new socialising 
 measure. And so, at last, in factory production 
 we had come full circle, and ' ' the guiding ideas of 
 women in regard to conditions essential for a good 
 industrial life of both men and women " could 
 begin to influence industrial life, openly and un- 
 officially, as well as through Inspectors and a few 
 enlightened employers. Scientific aid from many 
 investigators could also be brought to bear effectively 
 on the task of civilising working conditions when a true 
 social structure in factory production had once begun. 
 
 In England, work of a scientific kind for the reform 
 of the factory system had been hitherto occupied 
 chiefly in the directions shown in the chapter on 
 dangerous processes. From the Continent of 
 Europe* came the earliest direct researches of 
 physiologists and psychologists into causes and 
 prevention of industrial fatigue and into the possi- 
 
 * From France, Belgium, Italy, and Germany; see 
 Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1903. In 1913 the 
 Home Office appointed Professor Stanley Kent to make 
 physiological investigation into fatigue in industry.
 
 256 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 bilities of vocational selection of workers; while 
 from America came " motion study " and the work 
 of the efficiency expert. True to the humanitarian 
 bent as a whole of her factory legislation, it was 
 Great Britain that first planned a statutory basis 
 for promoting the welfare of industrial workers. 
 It is open to one to wonder whether this factor was 
 not decisive in leading to the great place given in the 
 Peace Treaty to constructive work by the League 
 of Nations for the social welfare of labour. 
 
 Before attempting to sketch the legal and adminis- 
 trative position in promotion of the welfare of the 
 factory worker in Great Britain between 1916 and 
 1921, the completing of the outline of the story told 
 in this book requires a backward glance at some of 
 the experiences of the Inspectors while voluntary 
 welfare grew up. Without the pioneer work of 
 employers by works' welfare committees and other 
 agencies encouraged by the sympathy and advice 
 of the Inspectors, and without the long succession 
 of Inspectors' Reports recording that work, the 
 legislative step would have been difficult if not 
 impracticable. 
 
 We can neither here treat the subject of factory 
 welfare systematically, nor attempt to cover ground 
 now being gradually covered by textbooks and 
 pamphlets. We are concerned simply with the 
 voluntary growth of attention to the matter before 
 1916 in an economic system that was built up on 
 a theory adverse to its implications, and with the 
 immediate outcome of the new legal experiment.* 
 
 * For textbooks and pamphlets it may suffice to refer 
 readers to the " Health of the Munition Worker," a hand-
 
 PIONEER WORK OF EMPLOYERS 257 
 
 When the great pressure came for munitions and all 
 the indispensable commodities in the field of war, the 
 voluntary movement had gained so much experience 
 that it was possible to make strikingly rapid appli- 
 cation of measures and means for canteens, first- 
 aid and ambulance work, cloakrooms and washing 
 conveniences, suitable protective clothing for very 
 varied processes, rest-rooms, recreation for the large 
 new aggregations of workers in crowded centres, 
 some trained welfare supervision — in fact, for all 
 the specific subjects that were included in Section 7 
 of the Act of 1916 as prima, facie necessary to 
 the health and welfare of the workers. Selection 
 of workers for particular types of operations and 
 some increased care for prevention of unnecessary 
 fatigue naturally followed. The scattered efforts 
 and examples, all over the country and in every 
 kind of industry, were rapidly wrought up into an 
 officially guided movement by the combined efforts 
 of Departments concerned, under the Home Office, 
 the Ministry of Munitions, the Ministry of Labour, 
 and last, but not least, by the Canteen Committee 
 of the Board of Control (Liquor Traffic), and by 
 the non-executive Committee above-mentioned, the 
 Health of Munitions Workers Committee, with all 
 its important published memoranda. 
 
 Before all else in the welfare movement it was 
 the work for canteens, for access by the hard-pressed 
 munition workers to something like adequate food 
 decently cooked and conveniently served, that was 
 
 book prepared by the Health of Munition Workers Com- 
 mittee, published in 1917, and to the " Welfare " pamphlet 
 series issued by the Home Office, 1917-21.
 
 258 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 the decisive factor in enabling them to sustain 
 their intense fatigue. The great need in many 
 places for tolerable means of preparing and taking 
 food at or near the works had been the earliest and 
 most strongly expressed of all the demands of the 
 woman worker for elementary means of welfare. 
 For years the most frequent of the complaints I 
 had to classify in my annual reports as " outside 
 the Acts " was that messrooms (or food and drinking 
 water) were not accessible or not well maintained; 
 and many workers found it hard to understand or 
 believe that the law did not intervene in this matter 
 except where dangerous processes came under 
 special regulations or where poisonous materials 
 were handled. 
 
 The success of the movement for canteens in those 
 years of war strain has effected a completely changed 
 outlook on the question in the factories themselves, 
 that makes the past conditions remembered by 
 the Factory Inspectors — especially between the 
 years from 1893 to 1903 — seem now wellnigh 
 incredible. For no workers was this change more 
 greatly needed than for the poorly fed women and 
 girl workers. The first time, however, that I 
 specifically used the word " welfare " in an annual 
 report in connection with lack of means for the 
 personal well-being of the workers was, not as 
 regards either food or rest, but as regards the 
 incomprehensible general failure to supply means 
 of maintaining personal cleanliness, which came 
 especially to the front in 1899 in the early pressure 
 of preparing soldiers' rations in another war. The 
 failure to include the matter in the English Factory
 
 WOMEN'S OWN CLAIMS 259 
 
 Acts was the more difficult to understand when one 
 saw how carefully access to washing conveniences 
 was provided for in French and German codes. 
 "Employers," I said, "who have sufficient . . . 
 interest in such matters to make the experiment, 
 quickly find their profit in provision for the welfare 
 of their work-women, in particular those which 
 tend to raise the whole standard of self-respect 
 among them." And again: " The need for washing 
 appliances, increasingly felt among the women and 
 girls, has a moral and social value as well as a strictly 
 hygienic aspect. It is a matter for surprise how 
 frequently the effort is made in the most unlikely 
 and difficult circumstances by working women to 
 turn homeward with a neat and cleanly appearance."* 
 On the moral and social side, the right and claim 
 of the woman worker to have her conditions of 
 work supervised by competent women appeared 
 to the Woman Inspector, from the outset, the only 
 effective remedy for many kinds of complaints that, 
 like the lack of canteens, were " outside the Acts." 
 And trained women's superintendence was also 
 conceded during the Great War, not only in the 
 controlled and national factories, but in the fac- 
 tories where the Home Office granted exceptional 
 hours under an Emergency Order or urged the sub- 
 stitution of women to secure the release of men. 
 It was contended by a workers' delegate, in 1917, 
 at an inter-city conference in Sheffield of local 
 advisory committees, that " welfare " is an ethical 
 and spiritual matter more than it is a material one; 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1899, p. 258, and 
 for 1904, p. 243. 
 
 18
 
 260 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 she was sure that working women would always 
 press for the former elements. However strongly 
 one sees that both material and spiritual or ethical 
 elements are inherent in the very meaning of 
 " welfare,"* one must pay tribute to the prominence 
 of the latter element in the complaints from factory 
 womanhood. 
 
 In 1900 I was able to quote, from the Inspectors, 
 testimony to the growth of instances of welfare 
 supervision in factories, where women of intelli- 
 gence, refinement, and kindliness are placed as 
 superintendents or forewomen and exercise a won- 
 derful influence for good over the workers whom 
 they control. f At the same time instances were 
 shown of very great need for such control, and in 
 various subsequent years it appeared that it was 
 frequently from such places that serious complaints 
 came. In great food-producing, sugar, confec- 
 tionery, and other factories, the names of manu- 
 facturers of world-fame are well known as pioneers 
 in this movement, but in the older and greater 
 textile industries employers were slower in taking 
 a definite share in it. When, in 1907, some striking 
 examples were given of introduction into large 
 textile mills of trained women superintendents 
 (the first note of a professional stamp in such 
 appointments), the aim was specifically given as 
 " an experiment ... to bring about a higher 
 standard of civilisation." The manager explained 
 that he was of the opinion that " a woman's in- 
 
 * As may be seen in the literary use of the word by 
 Chaucer and in the Authorized Version. 
 
 | Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1900, p. 356.
 
 TRAINED SUPERVISION 261 
 
 fluence was needed in his mill and that he proposed 
 to appoint a woman whose duty it would be to 
 supervise health conditions . . . ventilation, tem- 
 perature, humidity, cleanliness, the registration of 
 all Home Office requirements, the passing of the 
 children by the certifying surgeon, the supervision 
 of dining-room and catering arrangements, and 
 occasional visiting of cases of distress." A doctor 
 was also appointed, arrangements were made for 
 special access of the children to public baths, for 
 good meals for the half-timers; and various other 
 amenities followed.* It was frequently the motive 
 of improving the standard of health that caused 
 thoughtful employers to embark on these schemes, 
 and always in such cases efforts were made to 
 provide access to wholesome food at prices within 
 the reach of the workers. The other side of the 
 picture may be seen in the following words from 
 Miss Whitworth in the same year: 
 
 " Young girls of fourteen frequently go to work 
 with only three-halfpence or twopence with which 
 to provide their dinner in Poplar and Hackney; 
 this kind of worker is greatly in need of some place 
 like the ' Welcome Institute ' (Isle of Dogs), where 
 she can get a proper meal for that price. Although 
 some employers have dining-rooms provided with 
 ovens and women employed to cater for the workers, 
 there are places where the girls have not even seats 
 that they can use in the meal-time, and they take 
 their food sitting on the floor, in paper-sorting 
 works, in laundries, in rope works, and others; 
 cloakrooms are almost unknown. One finds hats 
 and coats bundled together in passages, under 
 
 * Ibid., 1907, p. 188.
 
 262 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 tables, and along the walls of workrooms and any- 
 where except in properly warmed cloakrooms. 
 When girls come a long way to work they do need 
 to have somewhere to dry their clothes and boots 
 on wet mornings."* 
 
 For years, and perhaps most pressingly from 
 1906 to 1913, the Inspectors had emphasised the 
 importance of these and allied matters, and the 
 urgent need for reform. Their communications, 
 as far back as 1902, aroused outside sympathies as 
 well as the attention of employers: the Christian 
 Social Union Research Committee made independent 
 enquiry into it, and this stimulated among various 
 social workers a movement for opening simple 
 dining-rooms in localities where there were many 
 workgirls employed in factories or workshops far 
 from their homes, and in these some of the help and 
 comfort of a club was provided. The evils of lack 
 of any care, supervision, or comfort at mealtime 
 pauses was strikingly obvious where workers were 
 legally bound to be excluded from workrooms 
 during mealtimes because of the presence of dust, 
 acid, or other matter in the manufacture, making 
 the place unsuited for the consumption of food. 
 
 It would take too long to quote from records of 
 our earlier work in this connection. The evil was 
 sufficiently brought out through the enquiry in 
 1911 (already referred to) by Miss Whitlock, M.B., 
 into dusty processes in the Midlands. She said then : 
 
 " Absence of a messroom or of proper washing 
 accommodation was the rule in the Sheffield buffing 
 shops, and quite common in the Birmingham ones. 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1907, p. 161.
 
 NEED OF GOOD DINING-ROOMS 263 
 
 The rule forbidding the taking of meals in these 
 shops was absolutely neglected, and the conditions 
 under which the women ate their meals were some- 
 times appalling. In combined asbestos and rubber 
 works, where the dust of some rooms and the 
 naphtha fumes in others might certainly suggest 
 the desirability of a messroom, this was not infre- 
 quentty wanting. It is, of course, quite common 
 to find wet spinning rooms with numbers of workers 
 sitting on cloths on the wet floor to take their 
 dinner — and upturned tins in carding rooms — because 
 seats or tables for the occasion, even where a mess- 
 room is provided, cleanliness, proper heating, and 
 a cheerful appearance, are by no means common. 
 At one factory the messroom was known amongst 
 the girls as the ' dead house,' and certainly the 
 resemblance to a mortuary was not imaginary. 
 At another I found shortly before the dinner a 
 temperature of 40° F., and was informed that the 
 heating apparatus had been out of order for some 
 time."* 
 
 The formation of two dinner clubs by an associa- 
 tion of factory girls in Sheffield followed on the 
 Inspector's systematic instructions to occupiers 
 that the section enjoining exclusion from dusty 
 workrooms during mealtimes must be obeyed. 
 Similar results followed the same kind of concen- 
 trated work in other towns. Employers gave some 
 help to the movement, and it developed into greater 
 local activity during the great production of muni- 
 tions. 
 
 Many interesting examples reported in the years 
 1908 to 1912, both of good and careful provision, 
 and its total absence, drove home the importance 
 
 * Ibid., 1911, pp. 138-9.
 
 264 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 of direct endeavour by manufacturers to promote 
 conditions of ordinary human welfare in their 
 factories for the workers who spend so many hours 
 in them. One Inspector would comment on the 
 " pathetic gratitude " of rag- sorters for a decent 
 mealroom in districts where any provision at all 
 was rare: 
 
 " The subject is one of the utmost importance 
 for workers, who often leave home at 5.30 a.m., or 
 earlier, and have nearly an hour's walk. They have 
 to take their food with them, and the only means of 
 warming it is the steam -heated sink in the yard. . . . 
 I counted nine confectioners' and fried-fish shops 
 in three-quarters of a mile in a main road all be- 
 sieged by workers during the dinner hour." 
 
 Another Inspector would urge that nothing could 
 exceed the discomfort in which meals were often 
 taken, the food on the edge of a workbench covered 
 with work that must not suffer from contact; the 
 worker seated on the most unrestful kind of stool.* 
 In 1909 and 1910 Miss Escreet repeated the special 
 requests of cardboard- box makers for seats to 
 obviate (as they said) the necessity for sitting either 
 on the table or the floor at mealtimes — their work 
 being mostly done standing, and messrooms and 
 cloakrooms being then almost unknown luxuries 
 in that industry. " In the large places gas-cooking 
 stoves are provided and a woman is kept who serves 
 the workers in various ways, warming their meals, 
 heating their glue, etc., but for these benefits the 
 workers generally pay at least in part." 
 
 Just as the question of proper canteens and mess- 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1908, p. 134.
 
 PROTECTIVE CLOTHING, SEATS, ETC 265 
 
 room arrangements was bound up with organisation 
 and good welfare superintendence, so also did other 
 items appear to be associated with it in the Inspec- 
 tor's reports — e.g., suitable protective clothing for 
 those engaged in dusty or dirty processes, in ex- 
 cessively wet or excessively hot processes, in use of 
 acid or caustic liquids, or in working about dan- 
 gerous machines. Cloakroom arrangements and 
 their care were specially closely bound up with the 
 possibility of securing responsible supervision — ■ 
 and for years in many places the difficulty of 
 getting any adequate attention to seating arrange- 
 ments proved on the whole one of the most intract- 
 able problems that the Inspector had to deal with, 
 so long as seats remained a matter " outside the 
 Acts." Complaints continued year after year of 
 the strain of standing occupations, of disciplinary 
 refusal by foremen to allow workers to sit down 
 at all during spells of work, of vibration jarring 
 the nervous system through ordinary chairs or 
 while standing. Seats remained in this category 
 down to 1916, and great must have been the loss to 
 industry as well as to individual workers through 
 the long years when conservation of strength by 
 reasonably good seating arrangements was widely 
 neglected and sometimes ignorantly opposed by 
 managers. 
 
 In 1907, for example, repeated complaints were 
 received of lack of seats, and some could not be 
 remedied through unwillingness of employers to 
 accept advice on the subject. In a factory where 
 in the previous year the injury to health to girls 
 had been shown and advice tendered, it was found
 
 266 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 in 1907 that stools had been provided for only thirty- 
 seven out of three hundred little girls, most of them 
 being between thirteen and fifteen years of age. 
 
 "Many looked delicate and weary, and said 
 they got very tired before the end of the morning 
 and afternoon spells of work, standing as they did 
 for five hours at a time . . . some seemed to be 
 suffering from swollen legs and feet or from debility. 
 . . . Reference was made to the certifying surgeon, 
 who suspended one from employment and urged 
 the employer to provide seats for the others. After 
 much persuasion the employer undertook to increase 
 the seating accommodation, yet when the surgeon 
 attempted to qualify his certificate with the proviso 
 that the girl must be provided with a seat this 
 employer said that any girl whose certificate was 
 so qualified should be discharged." In such ways 
 did the need for simple direct regulation of these 
 matters become abundantly evident. In a spinning 
 factory where seats had been provided for the pre- 
 parers, one woman told the Inspector that she had 
 left a factory where she was earning sixpence a 
 week more in order to work at this factory where 
 she would have a seat, and " now she was ready 
 for another day's work every evening."* 
 
 " The custom of employing half-time children 
 on their feet ' buttoning ' at shirt factories in Lan- 
 cashire, on the alternate day system, so that they 
 stood for ten hours on the alternate days, was found 
 by the Women Inspectors to be most unsatisfactory. 
 In a few factories seats were provided at their 
 request by the occupiers, but in some places per- 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1907, p. 173.
 
 FATIGUE PREVENTION 267 
 
 suasion failed: the children worked rapidly, and it 
 was said they could not get through the same 
 amount if they sat at tables."* 
 
 One felt how closely all this was allied to the over- 
 strain touched on above in Chapter IV. in weight 
 lifting and carrying, and through overpressure in 
 various ways. In its many manifestations over- 
 strain of young workers seemed elusive of direct 
 prohibition, and more amenable to control by well- 
 developed welfare superintendence in touch with 
 a department thoroughly versed in prevention of 
 industrial fatigue. Constructive work starting from 
 a rational basis apparently becomes inevitable for 
 administration after the first stage of prevention 
 of gross abuse has been passed. 
 
 First - aid and ambulance work in the factory 
 system was clearly a foremost point in welfare work, 
 and has already been touched on in the chapter on 
 dangerous processes and accidents. Development 
 of Workmen's Compensation Acts greatly streng- 
 thened the argument for it among enlightened 
 managers, and in many large Midland factories a 
 well-equipped ambulance room, with a fully trained 
 nurse, had afforded considerable experience before 
 the War came, bringing new developments of this 
 safeguard of health and life as well as of limbs. 
 Even in 1911 a Factory Inspector wrote: 
 
 " On visiting a large factory recently I was 
 interested to find a rest room in which there were 
 four couches. Two of them were occupied by girls 
 who were sleeping soundly. I was informed that 
 this room was often used by girls not feeling well 
 
 * Ibid., 1909, p. 148.
 
 268 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 or tired, and that the renewed vigour with which 
 the workers returned to work after a few hours' 
 rest soon made up for the loss of time."* 
 
 In 1912 a large factory in Coventry, where 
 hundreds of young girls were employed, was reported 
 on by Miss Whitlock. A nurse was employed by 
 the firm whose sole duty was to look after the 
 health of the workers, and she had a small surgery 
 at which she attended to any slight injuries — of 
 which there were forty-nine on the day of this 
 inspection. A doctor called daily and could be 
 consulted by the workers without charge. Mess- 
 rooms, where dinners could be cheaply obtained, 
 and an open-air swimming bath were provided. 
 In a large surgical-dressings factory the plan was 
 adopted of having a social welfare secretary to care 
 for the health and welfare of the two to three hundred 
 girls, and here a rest room was part of the equip- 
 ment. The cleanliness of the workrooms was itself 
 a lesson in hygiene. In the same year there were 
 again examples given by the Women Inspectors, 
 showing the boundless room for growth of general 
 welfare work and of the more pressing safeguard 
 of supervision of girls' labour by trained women 
 superintendents. In a large printing works in a 
 small provincial town, where 120 women worked 
 among 600 men, an Inspector found no foreman and 
 no women in charge. There had been a complaint 
 of behaviour to the Inspector, and she found the 
 manager anxious about the tone of his factory and 
 
 * " Hygiene and Industrial Employment," by Hilda 
 Martindale. Address read at the Congress of the Royal 
 Sanitary Institute in Belfast, January, 1911.
 
 WELFARE SUPERVISORS 269 
 
 ready to welcome her visit. She urged the appoint- 
 ment of women overseers, and this was promised.* 
 
 In the year 1909 a step of some consequence to 
 the movement was taken in the convening at Bourn- 
 ville, Birmingham, by Mr. Cadbury, of the first 
 general conference of social secretaries, welfare 
 superintendents, and manageresses, to consider the 
 aims and results of their work.f At this conference 
 some very practical and helpful papers were read. 
 By invitation I spoke on the basis existing in the 
 national standards laid down in the Factory Acts, 
 for the working out in individual factories of the 
 personal health and welfare of the workers, and I 
 asked them to look into and consider fatigue and 
 its prevention. Discussion arose on the means, 
 legal and voluntary, for improving both the con- 
 ditions in factories and the physical and industrial 
 fitness of the workers. There was a marked gain 
 in such meetings and discussions, leading as they 
 did to the clearing up of ideas, that at that stage 
 were bound to be a little vague, on the main objects 
 of welfare superintendence and their relationship to 
 the production of wealth. The majority of welfare 
 supervisors present at the conference in 1909 would 
 have been surprised if they could have heard the 
 high estimate of their calling to be expressed in 1918 
 by Professor Urwick. "This is a skilled job," he 
 said, " so skilled that it is beyond the scope of any- 
 one who has not made a careful study of the con- 
 ditions of it ... it requires essentially detachment 
 as well as knowledge." However high the estimate 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1912, pp. 150-1. 
 t Ibid., 1909, p. 122.
 
 270 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 was to be, there was certainly room throughout for 
 ancillary welfare workers as well, and these early 
 conferences strengthened the professional spirit in 
 the calling. Partly from them and also from the 
 interest shown by leading employers came a new 
 movement in the provincial Universities — following 
 an older one within the London University * — to 
 provide some training for such social workers by 
 hygiene and social welfare courses and diplomas. 
 This growth led again, in 1917 and also in 1920, 
 through the war conditions of industry to confer- 
 ences on training, officially convened at the Home 
 Office, between representatives of Universities, 
 employers, leading welfare managers, and the 
 Factory Department. 
 
 Perusal of the pages, concerned with the increase 
 of welfare work in the experience of the Women 
 Inspectors in the Annual Report for 1913, j published 
 but a few months before the great industrial up- 
 heaval of the War, gives a strong impression of 
 growth in the employers' interest in welfare, and of 
 the vitality of a desire among an increasing number 
 of them to secure for employees much better con- 
 ditions of work than can be laid down in an Act 
 of Parliament. The value of this growth lay not 
 only in the details of work done by the social secre- 
 tary or superintendent in organising medical, dental, 
 or nursing facilities for care of the health of the 
 workers, methods of cleansing workrooms, organis- 
 ing messing arrangements, bathing and washing 
 
 * At Bedford College for Womon and the London School 
 of Economies. 
 
 f Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1913, p. 100.
 
 FACTORY WELFARE IN 1913 271 
 
 conveniences, suitable protective clothing, restful 
 seating arrangements. Behind and above it all was 
 the possibility of making the " social helper most 
 important to the workers and a real help to the 
 carrying out of the spirit of the Factory and Work- 
 shop Act. An Inspector may remind an occupier 
 that his factory must be kept in a cleanly state, 
 but unless there is some woman permanently on 
 the premises who will organise and look into the 
 details of the cleansing, and suggest contrivances 
 for the purpose, it is seldom properly done. Four 
 firms visited in 1913 had arranged classes for their 
 work-people and . . . for technical training . . . 
 most social workers had the initiation of social clubs 
 in their charge . . . clubs for sports as well as 
 gardening."* 
 
 In 1914 we passed from peaceful promotion of 
 welfare to warfare, and a new note had to be struck 
 immediately. "How greatly," said Miss Squire, 
 '' the army of industrial workers need a commis- 
 sariat department to cater for them during their 
 days of active service will perhaps be better realised 
 now that the public attention has been ravetted on 
 the victualling of our soldiers in camp and on the 
 front. If ' an army fights on its stomach ' is it 
 not also true that a factory works on it ?" The 
 answer came promptly to this and to similar ques- 
 tions that had long been asked, apparently vainly, 
 by the Inspectors about the needs of industrial 
 workers. In an East End social restaurant, where 
 the midday meal was served daily to a hundred 
 workers from a neighbouring factory, the superin- 
 
 * Ibid., 1913, p. 101.
 
 272 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 tendent and her helpers had for years deplored the 
 insufficiency of the dinner purchased by the young 
 girls under sixteen, and they could scarcely refrain 
 from supplying more than was paid for. " One 
 day soon after the War broke out there was such 
 a run on meat-and-vegetable dinners that the supply 
 was not equal to the demand . . . the wages had 
 that day been raised voluntarily by the occupier to 
 the proposed Trade Board rate; the effect was 
 immediate and continued ... a striking answer 
 to those who cling to the theory that an increase 
 in wages is of no substantial value to a girl."* 
 
 By the close of 1915 an entirely new position and 
 outlook had been opened for girls and women in 
 industry. In demand for their labour, in wages, 
 in conditions, and in the possibilities of their output, 
 the situation had led to a " systematic introduction 
 of hygienic safeguards that Factory Inspectors 
 had advocated for many years . . . supervision of 
 women by women, provision of means of personal 
 cleanliness, proper meal and rest rooms and qualified 
 nurses " in the factories. There was a " new 
 general awakening to the dependance of sufficient 
 output on the welfare of the human agent. "| 
 
 This awakening was strikingly expressed in the 
 formation of the Welfare Department by the 
 Minister of Munitions, for promoting the means of 
 such welfare in controlled and national factories. 
 This department had as its first Director an em- 
 ployer experienced in the successful promotion of 
 industrial welfare experiments in his own factories, 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1914, p. 52. 
 f Ibid., 1915, p. 15.
 
 STIMULUS BY PRODUCTION FOR WAR 273 
 
 Mr. Seebohm Rowntree. At his wish I supplied 
 him with detailed surveys of the munition factories, 
 made by the Women Inspectors. Before the end 
 of 1916 he was supplied with 1,396 surveys relating 
 to the welfare conditions of nearly 200,000 women 
 and girls, classified according to the degree of urgency 
 for his attention: 31 per cent, of the factories 
 were in the first and best class, 49 per cent, in the 
 second, and 20 per cent, in the third class. In 
 the second and third classes were placed factories 
 lacking in varying degrees and combinations, 
 means for preparing and taking food, cloakrooms 
 and washing conveniences, first-aid or rest rooms, 
 seats, and suitable supervision. One must re- 
 member that in many instances the workers travelled 
 daily long distances with only defective means of 
 transport, and most were working twelve-hour 
 (day and night) shifts. Great progress was made 
 during the year in so transforming the conditions 
 in many of the factories as to qualify them for 
 advance to a higher class. A great stimulus was 
 given to supply of welfare superintendents by the 
 forming of a panel of likely persons and by giving 
 them access to intensive training. While mistakes 
 were unavoidably made in the rush to supply the 
 need, employers being free to make their own 
 choice, a remarkable proportion of capable and 
 a few highly distinguished welfare administrators 
 were put up by the movement. Medical women, 
 moreover, had, and made good use of, a new and 
 important channel for experience as medical officers 
 of great national factories. 
 The supply of surveys and reports from the
 
 274 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 Factory Department to the Welfare Department, 
 Ministry of Munitions, continued, while co-operation 
 with dilution officers also developed until well on 
 into 1917. One of the Medical Inspectors of Fac- 
 tories, Dr. Collis, then succeeded Mr. Rowntree 
 in charge of the Welfare Department, and early in 
 1918 Miss Squire, Deputy Principal Lady Inspector 
 of Factories, passed into charge of the Women's 
 Welfare in that Department. Thus a kind of fusion 
 of the emergency wartime department with the 
 peacetime department for industrial welfare pre- 
 ceded the end of the War and the rapid closing 
 of the munition factories that followed. The making 
 of Welfare Orders by the Secretary of State had, 
 however, begun in October, 1917, under the powers 
 given by the Act of 1916. 
 
 In " The School Child " that Act was pleasantly 
 described as a" little Police Act," by which " the 
 Home Secretary obtained large powers to compel 
 the provisions of many measures for the welfare of 
 the workers in factories and workshops." It was 
 there also truly designated as "in fact, a large 
 extension of the Factory Acts," dependent in some 
 degree on the reception given to it by the workers. 
 The prompt issue of a summary of the operative 
 clause of the Act, in " School Child Leaflet No. 14," 
 is one of the many straws then floating about that 
 one can gather up now, showing that a new wind 
 of the spirit was blowing in the industrial affairs 
 of the nation. As I said, however, at the Birming- 
 ham Congress of the Royal Sanitary Institute in 
 1920:
 
 THE LITTLE POLICE ACT, 1916 275 
 
 " Only after the Great War was it generally 
 realised how largely the personal welfare and health 
 of manual labourers rest on their own co-operation 
 in . . . demand for, and use of all the new means 
 placed by development of science and advancing 
 humanitarian and Christian ideals at the disposal 
 of industry, and how important it is to have trained 
 technical assistance in developing the full use of all 
 these means in each workplace." 
 
 A skilled workman in a large factory, president of 
 his union (a craft union), and taking a leading part 
 both on the works' committee and the district 
 committee of the joint industrial council of his 
 trade, said to me in the summer of 1920 that he 
 believed that the workers had it in their power (if 
 they could only see it), in co-operation with the 
 employers, to do no less than recreate their work 
 and surroundings. 
 
 At the time of the passing of the " little Police 
 Act,"* in 1916, there was some apprehension 
 amongst the few workers' leaders who took any 
 notice of it that it might mean no more (at the 
 worst) than some new kind of efficiency engineering 
 or possibly (less objectionably) a mere revival 
 of philanthropy by employers. Employers them- 
 selves appeared to be too busy to take notice of the 
 Act before it was passed, and it quickly and quietly 
 became law, the only amendments being such as to 
 strengthen the provision for initiative by the workers 
 in working out details. 
 
 The Act provided that, " where it appears to the 
 Secretary of State that the conditions and circum- 
 stances of employment or the nature of the pro- 
 
 * 6 & 7 Geo. V., c. 31, a.d. 1016. 
 
 1J
 
 276 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 cesses carried on in any factory or workshop are 
 such as to require special provision to be made at 
 the factory or workshop for securing the welfare of 
 the workers or any class of workers employed therein 
 in relation to the matters to which this section 
 applies, he may by order require the occupier to 
 make such reasonable provision therefor as may 
 be specified in the order, and if the occupier fails 
 to comply with the requirements of the order or 
 any of them, the factory or workshop shall be 
 deemed not to be kept in conformity with the 
 Factory Act, 1901." Meals, drinking water, pro- 
 tective clothing, ambulance and first aid, seats, 
 facilities for washing, accommodation for clothing, 
 and supervision were the subjects particularly 
 specified as covered by the section, but power was 
 given to the Secretary of State to extend it to other 
 matters, and rest rooms have since been added.* 
 
 " Orders may be made for a particular factory or 
 workshop, or for factories or workshops of any class 
 or group or description." The first order, dated 
 October 5, 1917, provided for simple welfare arrange- 
 ments for workers in tinplate factories, with their 
 rough and heavy processes in which women have 
 been employed for many years. f The second order 
 
 * And have with great benefit to the workers been made 
 compulsory in the fish-curing industry in Yarmouth and 
 Lowestoft. 
 
 t The provisions were for suitable protective clothing, 
 accommodation for clothing of women and girls under 
 charge of a responsible person, a suitable messroom separate 
 from the cloakroom, furnished with sufficient tables and 
 seats with back rests, adequate means of warming food 
 and boiling water and washing facilities, and the messroom
 
 WELFARE ORDERS 277 
 
 of the same date provided for a wholesome supply 
 of drinking water at convenient points with suitable 
 drinking vessels in all factories and workshops in 
 which twenty-five or more persons are employed. 
 The third order, dated October 12, 1917, was of 
 great significance, providing in detail for first-aid 
 and ambulance arrangements in large groups of 
 metal factories, where the greatest number of 
 accidents, fatal and non-fatal, are reported (including 
 blast furnaces, copper mills, iron mills, foundries, 
 and metal works). The same provisions were 
 applied, in an order of November 8, 1918, to saw- 
 mills and factories in which articles of wood are 
 manufactured, the next greatest accident-producing 
 group of works. First aid was, however, also re- 
 quired in various other classes of works, for which 
 general welfare orders were made; for example, 
 works in which bichromate of potassium is used in 
 dyeing, March 22, 1918; oilcake mills, July 21, 1919; 
 laundries, April 23, 1920; gut scraping, July 28, 
 1920; gutting, salting, and packing herring in 
 Norfolk and Suffolk, September 9, 1920. By the 
 beginning of March, 1921, fifteen orders had been 
 made, of which ten made various requirements for 
 particular industries. The interesting progress made 
 in development of these general welfare orders may 
 be followed in the chapters on welfare in the Annual 
 Reports of the Chief Inspector from 1918 onwards.* 
 
 has to be sufficiently warmed for use during meals and to 
 be placed under the charge of a responsible person and be 
 kept clean. 
 
 * Since August, 1921, an order has been made regarding 
 welfare conditions in an individual factory.
 
 278 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 The Act further provided that " orders may be 
 made contingent in respect of particular require- 
 ments upon application being made by a specified 
 number or proportion of the workers concerned, and 
 may prescribe the manner in which the views of 
 the workers are to be ascertained," and may " pro- 
 vide for the workers concerned being associated in the 
 management of the arrangements, accommodation, 
 or other facilities for which provision is made where 
 a proportion of the cost is contributed by the 
 workers; but no contribution shall be required from 
 the workers in any factory or workshop, except for 
 the purpose of providing additional or special 
 benefits which, in the opinion of the Secretary of 
 State, could not reasonably be required to be pro- 
 vided by the employer alone, and unless two-thirds 
 at least of the workers affected in that factory or 
 workshop, on their views being obtained in the 
 prescribed manner, assent." 
 
 Under these latter provisions no order had been 
 made before the close of 1921, but the way is clearly 
 open for a new initiative by the workers, and in 
 many factories a share in management of welfare 
 arrangements by workers through works' welfare 
 committees had indeed begun before the War. 
 This share was further developed during the War 
 and has blossomed out in many new ways since 
 1918. In 1916, in a large national factory, I 
 found a workers' welfare committee, elected on 
 their own initiative, fully developed with an income 
 of £50 a week. The committee members were nearly 
 equally men and women, representing every branch 
 of work, one member representing the management.
 
 WORKS' WELFARE COMMITTEES 279 
 
 The funds were raised by agreed deductions 
 from wages, no other collections being allowed in 
 the factory. Regular subscriptions were made to 
 local hospitals, dispensaries, and to prisoner-of- 
 war funds. Newspapers were provided daily in 
 the canteen and concerts arranged twice weekly. 
 " Whatever we want we can have," said a member 
 of the committee to me in describing the activities 
 of his committee.* In a printing works in 1918 a 
 shop committee, consisting of eleven members, two 
 representing the employers and nine the workers 
 (four the women and five the men), looked after all 
 the welfare arrangements, including management 
 of the canteen, alterations in hours, and wages 
 questions. When the Factory Inspector found the 
 five hours' spell being exceeded, the alterations 
 necessary in arrangements of work were made by 
 the shop committee. In a northern tailoring 
 factory employing many women there was, in 1917, 
 and still flourishing in 1921, a " Workers' Trustees 
 Council " on which workers of over ten years' 
 standing in the factory served. Their special 
 function was to consider and report to the firm 
 suggestions made by the workers, and some of the 
 most fundamental, with regard to hours, have been 
 carried into effect. In a large stationery factory — 
 where a Whitley Works Council dealt with employ- 
 ment, wages, and staff questions — a specially elected 
 
 * Annual Report of Chief Inspector for 1916, p. 10- 
 The following and many more examples can be seen in 
 subsequent Annual Reports, and in an account of works' 
 committees issued by the Ministry of Labour, and in the 
 organ of the Welfare Workers' Institute.
 
 280 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 committee dealt with the canteen and sports ques- 
 tions, and special education and health officers with 
 continuation classes and sanitation and health 
 questions; the whole welfare organisation was 
 known as the " Personal Service Department." 
 In a woollen factory with representative committees 
 and with well- developed canteen, rest, and recrea- 
 tion rooms and other provisions for health and 
 welfare, the works' welfare magazine took the 
 name Service, and its first editorial, May, 1919, 
 said: " We want to prove to the world that the 
 primary function of industry is service." 
 
 Examples could be multiplied from the experience 
 of the Inspectorate of various types of works' 
 committees with practical co-operation of workers 
 and management. These committees, building on 
 a basis of fairness in wages and other fundamentals, 
 showed that a very good cement had been found 
 in joint work for welfare, for the building up of 
 peaceful industrial relationships, even before the 
 formal development of joint councils of the Whitley 
 type had begun. It has been one of the great satis- 
 factions for the Inspectorate, when preparing by 
 systematic enquiry for welfare orders or for the 
 making of welfare pamphlets, to come upon long, 
 modest, almost unnoticed, histories of welfare 
 institutions in old-fashioned mills and factories. 
 There is, as Prince Kropotkin pointed out in his 
 " Fields, Factories, and Workshops," a survival 
 all over England of smaller factories and industries 
 helping to keep alive an older social atmosphere 
 than that of the "factory system." Something 
 has certainly lived on in our country that partly
 
 WORKERS AND MANAGERS 281 
 
 accounts for the definite experience, that represen- 
 tative works' committees can revive or replace 
 the more personal relationships formerly existing 
 between management and workers in manufactures. 
 
 Returning for a moment to the legal and official 
 provision for the workers' share in welfare activities, 
 the sudden falling away of employment in the 
 summer of 1920 limited the developments in this 
 direction, so far as individual factories are con- 
 cerned, for the remainder of the period with which 
 this book deals. In the larger matter of consultation 
 with joint councils for trades, when draft orders 
 were considered for welfare and for regulation of 
 dangerous processes or other matters, great progress 
 has been made — e.g., in the furniture, laundry, 
 pottery, building, and silk trades. The Home Office 
 steadily proceeded with the making of welfare orders, 
 which were generally received with enthusiasm by 
 workers and by many employers as instalments of 
 reforms long overdue; also with the helpful series 
 of welfare pamphlets* designed to spread a requisite 
 knowledge of successful experiments on which 
 good hygienic and welfare arrangements can be 
 built up in factories and workshops. 
 
 At the onset of the almost catastrophic degree of 
 unemployment in 1920 — at the moment when 
 industry appeared to be in full flow of life and 
 energy— the interest of the community swung 
 
 * Published by H.M. Stationery Office: (1) Protective 
 Clothing; (2) Messrooms and Canteens; (3) Welfare Super- 
 vision; (4) First-Aid and Ambulance; (5) Ventilation; (6) 
 Seats for Workers; (7) Lighting in Factories and Work- 
 shops ; (8) Cloakrooms, Washing Facilities, Drinking Water, 
 and Sanitary Accommodation.
 
 282 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 round inevitably from the evolution of a better 
 order within industry to the primary problem of 
 restoration of that ebbing life and energy. Never 
 could the mutual interdependence of aims for suc- 
 cessful application of material and labour in industry 
 and for health and welfare of the human agent in 
 production be more conclusively shown. Nor 
 could the social and economic value of institutions 
 making for harmonious co-operation between 
 organisers of industry and the manual workers, in 
 constructive self-government within the factory 
 system, be more dramatically demonstrated. 
 
 It had been a splendid and cheering experience 
 at the brief time of activity, when the women and 
 girl munitioners and substitutes for men were being 
 re-absorbed in their old occupations, in 1919 to 
 1920, to learn from the Inspectors who were re- 
 visiting textile and clothing factories, laundries, 
 potteries, ropeworks, and other peacetime industries 
 of women, of the new demands for improved con- 
 ditions that the women were making and with good 
 effect. It was the more cheering because the women 
 had behaved very well in the unselfish spirit in 
 which they had gone out from their interesting 
 temporary occupations. They left new welfare 
 behind them for the returning men. and they spoke 
 to the Inspectors with pride and dignity of the new 
 amenities growing up in their own old workplaces. 
 Large numbers of women munition workers had 
 been recruited from the old-time industries with 
 unreformed conditions of personal hygiene, and they 
 rightly showed a marked reluctance to accept the 
 old bad standards. Alert young managers, back
 
 AMENITIES IN OLD WORKPLACES 283 
 
 from the field of war, quickly took the hint and 
 moved their old directors into the new and right 
 direction. " We have seen the impossible under- 
 taken and accomplished, and we want to carry on 
 here too," was the keynote struck by some of them. 
 New standards had, of course, been tried and their 
 value proven in production for the nation; yet there 
 was something greater than the realisation by 
 employers of the possibility of more harmonious 
 relations and the higher efficiency to be gained by 
 better conditions of work. There was a widened 
 outlook and a new spirit of comradeship for the 
 workers in many young employers lately returned 
 from the War, and a readiness to put responsibility 
 on to workers' representatives. Managers would 
 " speak with enthusiasm of the general interest 
 and communal responsibility that has resulted " 
 from the activities of representative works' com- 
 mittees, and would praise the " eminently practical " 
 nature of their proposals.* In socially backward, 
 rough industries, where even elementary require- ■ 
 ments of the Factory Act had still to be forced on 
 the attention of occupiers, the Inspectors hoped for 
 an awakening through the application to them of 
 the new stimulus of a welfare order. In the 
 trades that were little organised from the workers' 
 side enquiries began to come from individual 
 workers — a hopeful sign — as to when an order 
 might be expected in their particular trade. 
 
 The effect in some factories with old-established 
 
 * See Annual Report of the Chief Inspector, 1919, 
 chapter viii., and Annual Report of Chief Inspector, 1920, 
 chapter vi.
 
 284 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 welfare institutions of the introduction of repre- 
 sentative works' committees has been remarkable 
 in the advance of the workers in self-reliance and 
 interest in their work, and in initiative in developing 
 better conditions. Most striking in their activities 
 are some of the works' committees in industries 
 where the constitution of the committee has been 
 approved by the Joint Council for the trade. In 
 one such factory the accomplished welfare super- 
 intendent has been enrolled a member of the trade 
 union. She is secretary of the works' committee, 
 and the elections of the committee are carried out 
 under the care of the trade union secretary. Here 
 the careful supervision of the health and safety 
 sub-committee of the works' committee is evident 
 in the excellence of the fire drill and other arrange- 
 ments and the good, coloured " safety first "notices 
 at the machines. The note of authority that is 
 apparent in the rules drawn up by the committee 
 reflects the representative basis of the government 
 of daily life in the factory. x4n extensive, well- 
 chosen library is an outstanding feature of the 
 social arrangements. 
 
 The immense advantage for future control of 
 many risks and inconveniences, as well as promo- 
 tion of constructive welfare work in industry, that 
 may be reaped from the vigilance of workers, 
 practised in methods of self-government, is so obvious 
 after seeing some of their earlier achievements that 
 one can only marvel that it has taken so long for the 
 " captains of industry " to begin to make the dis- 
 covery. The position of influence over the minds 
 of workers held in the old-time craft industries by
 
 COMMITTEES AND ORGANISERS 285 
 
 the " master " craftsman can, it appears, in a new 
 way, be regained in modern factories with their 
 specialised production. The whole organisation of 
 great industry is necessarily so intricate and com- 
 plicated that with the added machinery of internal 
 factory government, by committees, a " master 
 organiser " is certainly necessary to the success of 
 the undertaking. This will become increasingly 
 clear to all workers capable of entering into the 
 meaning of their surroundings, when their share 
 in self-government grows and their contact with 
 the organiser becomes closer. Already eloquent 
 tributes may be heard from individual workers to 
 the " wonderful " organising gifts of the employer 
 or manager where the boon of representation has 
 been conceded to them. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the wonderful discoveries 
 and inventions multiplying power to increase wealth 
 that could have been turned to the social welfare and 
 happiness of the worker, the factory system of the 
 nineteenth century failed portentously on this 
 social side. It failed through its blind and too 
 often barbarous neglect of the really great part that 
 can be played both in workmanship and in organisa- 
 tion by the spiritually endowed human agent of 
 production. Man, woman, young worker, or child, 
 with their varying needs and capacities, they were 
 all alike " hands." Their moral claims to a secure 
 share in the good things — the wealth and the wel- 
 fare — that their labour helped to buy for the whole 
 people were not the only things denied to them. 
 They have only won through to the possibilities 
 of the new position that lies ahead (when industry
 
 286 FACTORY WELFARE 
 
 can be revived), through sufferings and trials that are 
 difficult now to imagine, but of the story of which 
 no responsible thinker or leader in the nation's 
 affairs should ever be allowed to remain ignorant. 
 
 " In the struggle for life to which industrial under- 
 takings are subject," said the Belgian Vandevelde 
 many years ago, " the final victory is reserved for 
 those who know how to meet their rivals not only 
 with the most perfect machinery, but yet more with 
 the best human material, the most solid array of 
 moral and intellectual forces." 
 
 That was a warning that need not have fallen 
 on deaf ears, even in an advowedly competitive 
 society, and that might have been understood by 
 the factory organisers of the nineteenth century. 
 It is a new world that has to be faced now, and 
 although we should riot forget that saying, we 
 may better dwell on the thought that harmony in 
 industrial relationships promises to be the natural 
 outcome of associated human effort for the sound, 
 plentiful production that mankind so greatly needs 
 and that may minister to a reviving desire for 
 fitness and beauty in the world.
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 DANGEROUS AND UNHEALTHY INDUSTRIES 
 
 Regulations made by the Secretary of State for Processes 
 
 Certified as Dangerous under Section 79, 
 
 Factory and Workshop Act, 1901.
 
 288 
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 1. 
 
 Date of 
 
 2. 
 Class of 21 a n ufacture, 
 Machinery. Plant, 
 Process or Descrip- 
 tion of Manual 
 Labour. 
 
 3. 
 
 Kind of Risks. 
 
 4. 
 
 Nature of Injuries 
 
 to be Prevented. 
 
 Certifi- 
 cate. 
 
 Regula- 
 tions. 
 
 1. Feb. 24, 
 1921. 
 
 Dec. 19, 
 1921. 
 
 1. Aerated Water. — 
 Manufacture of, 
 and processes in- 
 cidental thereto. 
 
 Accidents 
 
 from bursting 
 bottles. 
 Exposure to 
 wet. 
 
 Injury to life and 
 limb from frag- 
 ments of bursting 
 bottles. 
 
 Injury to health 
 from wet. 
 
 2. May 9, 
 
 1892. 
 
 
 2. Arsenic. — Extrac- 
 tion and use of. 
 
 Poisonous 
 dust. 
 
 Eczematous erup- 
 tions. 
 
 Gastro - intestinal 
 symptoms. 
 
 3. Aug. 26, 
 1907. 
 
 Dec. 30, 
 1908. 
 
 *3. Benzine. — Manu- 
 facture of nitro 
 and amido deri- 
 vatives of and of 
 explosives with 
 dinitrobenzol or 
 dinitrotoluol . 
 
 Poisonous 
 fumes and 
 dust. 
 
 Profound changes 
 in the condition 
 of the blood. 
 
 Muscular and 
 nerve affections; 
 eye affections. 
 
 4. June 6, 
 1907. 
 
 June 26, 
 1908. 
 
 4. Brass. — Casting 
 of, or any alloy 
 of, copper with 
 zinc. 
 
 injurious 
 fumes. 
 
 Brass casters' ague 
 or fever. 
 
 5. Oct. 29, 
 1910. 
 
 
 5. Briquette s. — 
 
 Manufacture of 
 patent fuel with 
 addition of 
 pitch. 
 
 injurious dust. 
 
 Ulceration of 
 
 skin. 
 Epitheliomatous 
 
 cancer. 
 Eye troubles. 
 
 6. March 7, 
 1911. 
 
 April 16 
 1912. 
 
 1 • , , 
 6. Bronzing with drj 
 
 metallic powders 
 
 in letterpress 
 
 printing, litho 
 
 graphic printing 
 
 and ooating 
 
 metal shoots. 
 
 Injurious dust 
 
 Respiratory irrita- 
 tion. 
 
 Gastric disturb- 
 ance. 
 
 See footnote to p. 290.
 
 DANGEROUS AND UNHEALTHY INDUSTRIES 289 
 
 Chief Preventive Measures Imposed 
 by the Regulations. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 {a) Machines to be so constructed, placed, and fenced 
 as to prevent accident from bursting bottles. 
 
 (6) Face and eye guards, band and arm guards, to be 
 supplied to the workers and worn by them. 
 
 (c) Waterproof aprons, boots, and clogs to be supplied. 
 
 First certified Sept., 
 1896. 
 
 Special rules dated 
 Aug., 1897, were 
 superseded by these 
 Regulations, 1921. 
 
 Note. — There are no regulations at present, but under 
 Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, Sects. 74 and 75, 
 mechanical ventilation must be provided to prevent 
 inhalation of injurious dust, vapour, etc., and wash 
 ing conveniences must be provided; and persons are 
 excluded from workroom where arsenic gives rise to 
 dust, and provision for meals must be made elsewhere 
 
 formerly included 
 in Special Rules for 
 Paints and Colours, 
 which were revised 
 in 1907 for Lead 
 risks only. (See 
 No. 30.) 
 
 (a) Removal or prevention of fumes or dust. 
 (6) Effective ventilation. 
 
 (c) Overalls, gloves, clogs, supplied to workers. 
 
 (d) Lavatories, baths, and prohibition of meals 
 
 workrooms. 
 
 (e) Medical examination and power of suspension. 
 
 Special Rules, 1908, 
 rendered obsolete 
 by Chemicals, 
 No. 9. 
 
 (a) Exclusion of female workers from casting shop. 
 
 (b) Exhaust ventilation for removal of fumes at points 
 
 of origin. 
 
 (c) Washing accommodation. 
 
 First certified July 
 10, 1896. Special 
 Rules, dated 1896, 
 w ere rendered obso- 
 lete by these Regu- 
 lations, 1908. 
 
 Note. — Precautions voluntarily adopted by employers. 
 i.e. — 
 
 (a) Prevention of escape of dust by boxing - in 
 
 elevators. 
 
 (b) Exhaust ventilation for removal of dust. 
 
 (c) Protective clothing; goggles. 
 
 (d) Cloakroom. 
 
 Draft Regulations 
 withdrawn, 1913, 
 after Public En- 
 quiry and on the 
 voluntary adop- 
 tion by occupiers 
 of precautions in 
 Column 5. 
 
 (a) Exhaust ventilation and appliances to prevent 
 
 escape of dust into the air of the room. 
 
 (b) Protective clothing supplied to workers. 
 
 (c) Washing accommodation and place for outdoor 
 
 clothing.
 
 290 
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 l. 
 
 ( '• rtifi- 
 cate. 
 
 7. Oct. 6, 
 1921. 
 
 8. April 24, 
 1914. 
 
 9. 
 
 Dec. 14, 
 1920. 
 
 10. 
 
 June 27, 
 1913. 
 
 
 Nov. 28, 
 1921. 
 
 Aug. 15, 
 1913. 
 
 Dec. 21 
 1911. 
 
 Class oj Mn n afact » re, 
 
 Mach iru ry, Plant, 
 Process or Descrip- 
 tion nj Manual 
 Labour. 
 
 7. Buildings in courst 
 of construction, 
 alteration, re 
 pair, or demoli- 
 tion. 
 
 8 •/ Risks, 
 
 Accidents fn he 
 
 falls or fall- 
 < >dies or 
 from machin- 
 ery. 
 P 1 u m b i s m 
 (painters and 
 plumbers). 
 
 Celluloid. — Manu 
 facture, manipu- 
 lation, and stor- 
 age of. 
 
 *9. Chemical s.— 
 
 Manufacture and 
 processes inci- 
 dental thereto 
 carried on in 
 "Chemical 
 Works " (a de 
 lined in the 
 Schedule). 
 
 *10. Chromate and 
 Bichromate of 
 Potassium, 
 Sodium, manu 
 facture of. 
 
 11. Cotton Cloth 
 Weaving. 
 
 Nature of Injuru i 
 
 to be Prevented. 
 
 Injury to life oi 
 limb. 
 
 Plumbism. 
 
 Fire (highly in- 
 f 1 a m m a b 1 e 
 
 material). 
 
 Injury to life oi 
 health from fire. 
 
 i !austic liquids Burns, etc., by fall- 
 in vats. etc. ing into vats. 
 Poisono u s etc., of acid. 
 
 gases. " Gassing." 
 
 Injurious dusl Respiratory affec- 
 Explosions and tions from irri- 
 iirc. tant dust. 
 
 Inflammation of 
 - and other 
 eye injuries. 
 
 ■ to ex- 
 plosions. 
 
 Injurious dust Peculiar 
 and fumes. erosion 
 
 Humidity. 
 High tempera- 
 tures. 
 
 Le dons 
 
 of sep- 
 tum of the 
 and chronic ul- 
 ceration of the 
 
 skin. 
 
 Ill health and dis 
 comfort. 
 
 * These Chemical Regulations were confirmed on July 11 , 19 2, and in con
 
 DANGEROUS AND UNHEALTHY INDUSTRIES 291 
 
 5. 
 
 Chief Preventive Measures Imposed 
 by the Regulations. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 (a) Provision and maintenance of suitable scaffolding of In draft June, 1922. 
 
 sound material. 
 
 (b) Efficient lighting of working places and approaches. 
 
 (c) Special safeguards for working on roofs. 
 
 (d) Safeguards for use of hoisting appliances, cranes, etc. 
 
 (e) Fencing of machinery and safety provisions for 
 
 boilers. 
 (/) Provision for painters and plumbers of washing 
 facilities; prohibition of taking meals and of 
 depositing clothing in workshop ; moist method to 
 be adopted for rubbing down or scraping painted 
 surfaces containing lead. 
 
 (a) Limitation of the amount of material or of finished 
 
 articles allowed in workrooms or on the premises 
 
 (b) Method of storage prescribed. 
 
 (c) Precautions respecting lights, stoves, smoking, use 
 
 of sealing wax. 
 
 (d) Means of escape and of extinguishing fire. 
 
 (e) Competent person to supervise and enforce the 
 
 regulations. 
 
 (a) Fencing of vats and gangways, etc. 
 
 (b) Adequate lighting. 
 
 (c) Breathing apparatus, oxygen, etc., for rescue in 
 
 case of " gassing." 
 
 (d) Protective clothing supplied to workers, 
 (c) Exhaust ventilation and prevention of escape of 
 
 dust from certain machines. 
 
 (a) Exclusion of persons under 18. 
 
 (6) Removal or prevention of steam and dust. 
 
 (r) Lighting and fencing of vats, etc. 
 
 {d) Protective clothing and respirators supplied. 
 
 (c) Cloakroom, lavatory, baths, provided. 
 
 (/) Medical examination and power of suspension. 
 
 (a) First aid for treatment of small ulcers. 
 
 (h) Daily cleaning floors, stairs, etc. 
 
 (a) Hygrometrical control. 
 
 (b) Humidity tables and temperature limit. 
 
 (c) Chemical and volume standard of ventilation. 
 
 (d) Purification of water for steam. 
 
 Tn draft June, 1922. 
 First certified April 
 
 24, 1892. 
 Special Rules to be 
 
 superseded by th ese 
 
 Regulations. 
 
 Special Rules. 1900, 
 were superseded by 
 these Regulations, 
 191.3, and these 
 to be revoked by 
 Chemical Regula- 
 tions. 
 
 (See No. 9.) 
 
 These Regulations 
 were made under 
 the Cotton Cloth 
 Factories Act. 1911. 
 
 sequence the Benzine (No. 3) and Chromate (No. 10) Regulations were revoked. 
 
 20
 
 292 
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 1. 
 
 Date of 
 
 o 
 
 Cla 88 of Ma n "fact u re. 
 Mack ln» ry, Plant, 
 
 Process or Descrip- 
 tion <>j Mi 
 Labour. 
 
 3. 
 Kind of Risks 
 
 4. 
 
 C( r 
 cale. 
 
 /,'. / /</- 
 
 \ ature of Injuries 
 
 to be Prevented. 
 
 12. Sept, 30. 
 1902. 
 
 Oct. 28, 
 
 1904. 
 
 12. Docks, Wharves, 
 and Quays, 
 loading and un- 
 loading at, and 
 loading, un- 
 loading or coal- 
 ing any ships in 
 any dock, har- 
 bour, or canal. 
 
 Risksto life and 
 limb from dan- 
 gerous mach- 
 inery and ap- 
 pliances, and 
 ladders and 
 corners, and 
 lack of fenc- 
 ing for dan- 
 gerous hatch- 
 ways, etc. 
 
 Injun* to life and 
 limb by accident 
 from machinery, 
 etc. 
 
 Drowning, falls, 
 etc. 
 
 13. _ 
 
 
 13. Earthenware and 
 China. 
 (See under Pot- 
 teries, No. 32.) 
 
 
 
 14. Aug. 3, 
 1903. 
 
 Nov. 24, 
 L9D3. 
 
 14. Electric Accumu- 
 lators, manu- 
 facture of. 
 
 Poisonous dust 
 and fumes 
 (lead). 
 
 Plumbism. 
 
 15. Aug. 9, 
 1907. 
 
 Jan. 1, 
 1909. 
 
 15. Electricity. — 
 
 (feneration, 
 transformation, 
 distribution, 
 and use of. 
 
 Danger to 
 health or to 
 life and limb 
 from shock, 
 
 or burns, or 
 
 lire. 
 
 Deep and inflamed 
 burns and de- 
 struction of tissue 
 from continuous 
 currents. 
 
 Sudden arrests of 
 hearts action or 
 of respiration, vio- 
 lent muscular eon- 
 traction chiefly 
 from alternating 
 currents. 
 
 16. Sept. 21, 
 1908. 
 
 Dec. 22, 
 1908. 
 
 16. Enamelling, 
 vitreous, of 
 metals or glass. 
 
 Poisonous 
 dust. 
 
 Plumbism.
 
 DANGEROUS AND UNHEALTHY INDUSTRIES 293 
 
 Chief Preventive Measures Imposed 
 by the Regulations. 
 
 (a) Exclusion of boys under 16 under certain conditions. 
 (6) Fencing of dangerous parts, of footways, gearing, 
 
 motors, etc., and prohibition of interferences by 
 
 unauthorised persons. 
 
 (c) Lighting of dangerous places at night. 
 
 (d) Provision of gangways: slippery stages to be sanded. 
 
 (e) Testing of chains, gear, etc. 
 
 (/) Provision for rescue from drowning. 
 
 (a) Exclusion of young persons under 18 and women 
 
 from manipulation of dry compounds of lead and 
 from pasting. 
 
 (b) Medical examination and suspension. 
 
 (c) Prevention, or removal by exhaust ventilation, of 
 
 dust and fumes. 
 
 (d) General ventilation and ample cubic space. 
 
 (e) Protective clothing and cloakroom. 
 (/) Washing facilities. 
 
 (a) Highly technical safeguards for construction, 
 
 installation, protection and working of apparatus, 
 conductors, motors, switches, etc. 
 
 (b) Provision for earthing, insulating stands, adequate 
 
 space. 
 
 (c) Technical qualifications for operators, avoidance of 
 
 solitary working. 
 
 (d) Instructions for treatment of the injured to be 
 
 affixed. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 (a) Exclusion of young persons under 16 years of age. I 
 
 (b) Periodic medical examination with power of 
 
 (c) Ample cubic space. [suspension. 
 
 (d) Efficient lighting. | 
 
 (e) Good condition of floors and cleaning of same. 
 
 (/) Prevention of or removal by exhaust ventilation of 
 (?) Washing facilities. [dust, spray, or fumes.
 
 294 
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 l. 
 
 ( '( rtifi- 
 
 cote. 
 
 17. June (>, 
 1902. 
 
 18. Sept. 22, 
 
 1902. 
 
 Regula- 
 tions. 
 
 Aug. 10. 
 L902. 
 
 June 2.'5, 
 1903. 
 
 Class of Manufacture. 
 
 Machinery, Plant, 
 Process, or Descrip- 
 tion of Manual 
 Lab\ 
 
 17. Felt Hats, manu- 
 facture of, 
 where inflam- 
 mable solvent 
 is used. 
 
 18. File Cutting by 
 
 hand . 
 
 Kind of Bisks. 
 
 Nature of Injuries 
 to be Prevented. 
 
 Fire and ex- Burns and shock, 
 plosions. 
 
 Metallic 
 dust. 
 
 lead 
 
 I'lumbism. 
 
 19. 
 
 May II. 
 1905. 
 
 Feb. 26, 
 1900. 
 
 20. Oct. 14, 
 L908. 
 
 Oct. 15, 
 1909. 
 
 19. Flax and 
 spinning 
 
 Tow, Irritant dust, 
 
 and artificial hu- 
 
 midification 
 
 and high tern 
 
 peratures. 
 
 20. Grinding of Irritant 
 Metals and Racing (silica 
 of Grindstones. 
 
 dust 
 and 
 gritty parti- 
 i -i) steel 
 and iron pow- 
 der). 
 Accidents. 
 Moisture. 
 
 Phthisis with 
 
 dyspnoea and 
 other respiratory 
 trouble. 
 
 Circulatory and 
 cardiac oppres- 
 sion from moist 
 heat. 
 
 Skin troubles, ec- 
 zema, and folli- 
 culitis. 
 
 Fibroid phthisis, 
 asthma, and 
 other respir 
 troubles (exces 
 sive mortality 
 among grinders) 
 
 Later stages, fre- 
 quently tuber 
 cular. 
 
 Eye injuries from 
 Hying motes and 
 sometimes fur 
 ther accidents 
 from dimmed
 
 DANGEROUS AND UNHEALTHY INDUSTRIES 295 
 
 5. 
 
 Chief Preventive Measures Imposed 
 by the Regulations. 
 
 6. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 (a) Ventilation of proofing, and stove and drying rooms. 
 
 (b) Restriction on the number of wet spirit-proofed 
 
 hats per cubic feet of air space in workroom. 
 
 (c) Spirit-proofed hats to be opened out singly and 
 
 exposed before placing in stoves. 
 
 
 (a) Cubic space and floor space prescribed per " stock." 
 (6) Flooring to be substantial, washable, and in good 
 repair. 
 
 (c) Good general ventilation. 
 
 (d) Washing facilities. 
 
 (e) Protective clothing to be worn. 
 
 
 (a) Maintenance of prescribed standard of purity of 
 
 the air. 
 
 (b) Exhaust ventilation for removal of dust. 
 
 (c) Hygrometrical control of humidity and tempera- 
 
 ture. 
 
 (d) Purity of water for humidifying. 
 
 (e) Efficient splash-boards in wet spinning. 
 
 (/) Protective clothing and respirators to be provided. 
 (g) Sound condition of floors and drainage. 
 (h) Cloakroom accommodation. 
 
 First certified Jan. 3, 
 1894. A Depart- 
 mental Committee 
 which was appoint- 
 ed, 1911, to con- 
 sider the amend- 
 ment to these Re- 
 gulations reported 
 1914, and their 
 recommenda- 
 tions were issued as 
 an informal draft of 
 amended Regula- 
 tion. Further steps 
 have not yet been 
 taken. 
 
 (a) Removal of dust by exhaust ventilation, etc. 
 
 (b) Separation of " racing " from other processes. 
 
 (c) Respirators to be worn while " racing." 
 
 (d) Special cleansing of floors, belt races, and walls, 
 
 ceilings, and windows. 

 
 296 
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 1. 
 
 Date of 
 
 ( 'i rlifi- 
 
 cale. 
 
 Regula- 
 tion*. 
 
 2. 
 Class of Manufacture, 
 Machinery, Plant, 
 Process or Descrip- 
 tion of Manual 
 Labour. 
 
 Kind of Risks. 
 
 Nature of 1 
 to be Prevented. 
 
 21. 
 
 Jan. 29, 
 1907. 
 
 Aug. 28, 
 1907. 
 
 21. Hemp and Jute Vegetable dust R e s p i r a t o r y 
 spinning and Liability to te-i troubles. 
 
 weaving. 
 
 tanus in casejTetanus likely to 
 
 of lesions of follow. 
 
 the skin. Accidents from 
 
 High tempera- machinery. 
 
 ture in spin- Rheumatism com- 
 
 ning and hu- in on. 
 
 midity. 
 Cold and 
 
 draughts in 
 
 preparatory 
 
 process. 
 
 22. Oct. 15, 
 
 1920. 
 
 Dec. 29, 
 1921. 
 
 22. Hides and Skins.* 
 — Dry or dry- 
 salted, imported 
 from Africa (in- 
 cluding Mada- 
 gascar) or Asia 
 (including Ja 
 pan and Malay 
 Archipelago) 
 handling of. 
 
 Anthrax spores 
 in the mater 
 ial. 
 
 Anthrax infection 
 through abrasion 
 of the skin or by 
 inhalation of in 
 fected dust. 
 
 23. May 2:}, 
 1907. 
 
 Dec. 20. 
 1907. 
 
 23. Horsehair from 
 China, Siberia, 
 and Russia, use 
 of. 
 
 Anthrax spores 
 
 in the mater- 
 ial. 
 
 Anthrax. 
 
 * Under the Anthrax Prevention Act, 1919, provision has been made 
 and of all wool and animal hair from Egypt. (See also Nos. 37 and 38.)
 
 DANGEROUS AND UNHEALTHY INDUSTRIES 297 
 
 Chief Preventive Measures Imposed 
 by the Regulations. 
 
 (a) Maintenance of prescribed standard of purity of the 
 
 air. 
 
 (b) Exhaust ventilation for removal of dust. 
 
 (c) Minimum temperature in certain rooms. 
 
 (d) Hygrometrical control of humidity and high tem- 
 
 perature in other rooms. 
 
 (e) Respirators to be provided in certain processes. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 (a) First-aid equipment. 
 
 (b) Cautionary notice respecting anthrax to be affixed. 
 
 (c) Washing facilities. 
 
 (d) Cloakroom and mess-room accommodation. 
 
 (e) Provision for disinfection or destruction of wrappers 
 
 in which hides and skins have been packed (in 
 tanneries only). 
 Note. — The Regulations (a) and (e) above apply to 
 docks, warehouses, and quays, as well as factories. 
 
 First certified June, 
 1903. The Special 
 Rules, 1902, were 
 converted into Re- 
 gulations, 1921. 
 
 (a) Exclusion of persons under 18 from employment on 
 
 material not disinfected. 
 
 (b) Register of prescribed particulars of disinfection. 
 
 (c) Material not disinfected to be stored separately, and 
 
 opened and sorted separately, and in connection 
 with exhaust ventilation. 
 
 (d) All manipulation subsequent to opening and sorting 
 
 prohibited until material has been disinfected. 
 
 (e) Willowing and dust-extracting machines to be pro- 
 
 vided with exhaust ventilation. 
 (/) All dust to be intercepted and burnt. 
 (g) Protective clothing to be provided and respirators. 
 (A) Cloakroom, meal rooms, and washing facilities. 
 (i) First-aid requisites. 
 (j) Prohibition of work on material not disinfected if 
 
 having open cut or sore. 
 (k) Cautionary notice respecting anthrax to be affixed 
 
 for the disinfection, on arrival in Great Britain, of goat hair from India,
 
 298 
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 24. 
 
 25. 
 
 26. 
 
 1. 
 
 Date of 
 
 2. 
 
 faeture, 
 Machiru ry, Plant, 
 
 Process, or Descrip- 
 tion of Manual 
 Labour. 
 
 3. 
 Kind of Risks. 
 
 4. 
 
 Nature of Injuries 
 to be Prevented. 
 
 Certifi- 
 cate. 
 
 Regula- 
 tion*. 
 
 Dec. 21, 
 1920. 
 
 Mar. 31. 
 1922. 
 
 21 . India - rubber. — 
 Certain pro- 
 cesses inciden- 
 tal to the manu- 
 facture of, 
 and of articles 
 and goods made 
 wholly or par- 
 tially of india- 
 rubber. 
 
 Poisonous dust 
 (lead). 
 
 1 n jury t o 
 health from 
 volatile va- 
 pour. 
 
 Accident from 
 inflammable 
 vapour. 
 
 Phimbism. 
 
 Peripheral neuritis, 
 or inflammatory) 
 condition of 
 nerves due to 
 effects of bisul- 
 phide of carbon. 
 
 Sept. 3, 
 1920. 
 
 Aug. 23, 
 1921. 
 
 25. Lead,* com- 
 pounds of, in- 
 cluding carbon- 
 ate, sulphate, 
 nitrate, and 
 acetate of lead, 
 manufacture of. 
 
 Poisonous dust 
 and fumes 
 (lead com- 
 pounds). 
 
 Plumbism. 
 
 Dec. 13, 
 L910. 
 
 Am;. VI, 
 1911. 
 
 26. Lead.* — Smelt- 
 ignof materials 
 containing 
 manufacture of 
 red or orange 
 lead and of 
 flaked litharge. 
 
 Poisonous dust 
 and fumes 
 (lead com- 
 pounds). 
 
 Phimbism. 
 
 * The Women and Young Persons (Employment in Lead Processes) 
 nected with lead manufacture and in any process involving the use of lead 
 be splashed with a lead compound, subject to medical examination, provision 
 room and cloakroom, and cleanliness of tools, apparatus, and workrooms.
 
 DANGEROUS AND UNHEALTHY INDUSTRIES 299 
 
 5. 
 
 Chief Prevt ntive Measures Imposed 
 by (he Regulations. 
 
 (a) Exclusion of all young persons under 18 and girls 
 
 under 18 from any lead process, and of all young 
 persons and women from mixing or incorporating 
 dry compound of lead with rubber. 
 
 (b) Exclusion of young persons under 18 from fume 
 
 process, and those under 16 from a room where 
 such process is carried on. 
 
 (c) Limitation of employment in fume process of any 
 
 person for more than 5 hours a day and mo re than 2 \ 
 hours at a time without at least 1 hour's interval". 
 
 (d) Removal of dust and fumes by exhaust ventilation, 
 
 and prevention of escape of fumes from vulcanis- 
 ing machines and troughs. 
 
 (e) Protective clothing to be provided and worn. 
 (/) Cloakroom and mess-room accommodation. 
 
 (g) Washing facilities. [pension. 
 
 (It) Periodic medical examination and power of sus- 
 
 6. 
 Remarks. 
 
 First certified Dec, 
 
 1896. Special rules 
 for vulcanising 
 india-rubber by 
 means of bisul- 
 phide of carbon, 
 
 1897, converted 
 into these Regu- 
 lations for India- 
 rubber, 1922. 
 
 (a) Methods of controlling lead dust prescribed by 
 
 damping, by ventilation, by careful handling of 
 the materials. 
 
 (b) Exhaust ventilation for removing fumes or means of 
 
 preventing their escape into workroom. 
 
 (c) Periodic medical examination and power of sus- 
 
 pension. 
 
 (d) Protective clotliing provided and arrangements for 
 
 (e) Respirators to be supplied. [washing same. 
 (/) Cloakroom, mess-room, washing facilities. 
 
 First certified as 
 dangerous, May 9, 
 1892. These Re- 
 gulations super- 
 sede the Sj>ecial 
 Rules for White 
 Lead dated June, 
 1899. 
 
 (a) Exclusion of young persons under 16 and women 
 
 from any lead process. 
 
 (b) Suppression or removal of dust or fumes by exhaust 
 
 ventilation, damping, etc. 
 
 (c) Provision of protective clothing and respirators in 
 
 certain processes. [pension. 
 
 (d) Periodic medical examination with power of sus- 
 
 (e) Exclusion of persons from furnaces until ventilated. 
 (/) Restriction of duration of work to 3 hours in dry 
 
 flues or condensing chambers. 
 (g) Provision of mealroom, clothing, and overall 
 accommodation, washing facilities, and baths. 
 
 Act, 1920, prohibits altogether their employment in certain processes con- 
 compounds and causing dust and fumes, or in which the workers are liable to 
 ot exhaust ventilation to remove dust or fumes, protective clothing mess-
 
 300 
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 1. 
 
 Dale of 
 
 2. 
 
 Classoj Manufacture, 
 
 Machim ry, Plant, 
 
 Process, or Descrip- 
 tion oj Manual 
 Labour. 
 
 3. 
 
 Kind of Bisks. 
 
 4. 
 
 Nature of Injuries 
 to be Prevented. 
 
 Certifi- 
 cate. 
 
 Regula- 
 tions. 
 
 27. Aug. 24, 
 190G. 
 
 May 2, 
 L905. 
 
 27. Locomotives and 
 Waggons, use 
 of, on lines and 
 sidings in or 
 used in connec- 
 tion with pre- 
 mises under the 
 Factory Acts. 
 
 Accidents from 
 locomotives, 
 etc.,inmotiun 
 by mechani- 
 cal power. 
 
 Injuries to life and 
 limb. 
 
 28. June 2, 
 1892. 
 
 
 28. Lucifer Matches, 
 manufacture of. 
 
 Phosphorus 
 necrosis. 
 
 
 29. Oct. 17, 
 
 1905. 
 
 Nov. 7, 
 1904. 
 
 29. Mules, Sell-Act- 
 ing, spinning 
 by means of. 
 
 Accidents. 
 
 Injuries to life and 
 limb from ma- 
 chines in motion. 
 
 30. Dec. 1, 
 1906. 
 
 Jan. 25. 
 1907. 
 
 30. Paints and 
 Colours, manu- 
 facture of. 
 
 Poisonous dust 
 (lead). 
 
 Plumbism. 
 
 31. Oct. 29. 
 1910. 
 
 
 31. Paten t Fuel, 
 
 manufacture of 
 (See u n d e i 
 Bri quettes 
 
 No. 5.) 
 
 
 
 32. Aug. 25. 
 1911. 
 
 Jan. 2, 
 L913. 
 
 32. Pottery. — Manu 
 facture or dec 
 oration of, oi 
 any process in 
 oidental there 
 
 Poisonous dust 
 (lead). 
 
 Silica and othei 
 dust, heat 
 and humidity 
 
 Plumbism. 
 
 Phthisis or other 
 respiratory dis- 
 ease or injury 
 to health from
 
 DANGEROUS AND UNHEALTHY INDUSTRIES 301 
 
 5. 
 
 Chief Preventive Measures Imposed 
 by the Regulations. 
 
 G. 
 Remarks. 
 
 (a) Technical provisions as to position, and use of point 
 
 rods, signal wires, condition and use of rails, 
 supply of coupling poles, etc. 
 
 (b) Provisions respecting movements of persons and of 
 
 locomotives and waggons. 
 
 (c) Efficient lighting after dark. 
 
 (d) Exclusion of young persons under 18 from employ- 
 
 ment on certain capstans and as locomotive 
 drivers, or as a shunter. 
 
 (e) Protection of water gauges on boilers whether on 
 
 locomotives or stationary. 
 
 
 Note.— The White Phosphorus Prohibition Act, 1908, 
 forbids the use of white phosphorus in the manu- 
 facture of matches and also the sale of matches 
 made with the same. 
 
 Speoial Rules, 
 March 31, 1900, now 
 obsolete, as white 
 phosphorus is no 
 longer allowed in 
 the manufacture. 
 
 (a) Special fencing of machines and accessory gearing. 
 
 (b) Duty laid on "minder" to ensure that no child 
 
 cleans any part of the mule in motion; that no 
 woman, young person, or child works between 
 the fixed and traversing parts of the mule; and 
 that no person is between those parts unless the 
 moving part is stopped on the outward run. 
 
 (c) " Minder" responsible for the starting of the mule. 
 
 
 (a) Exclusion of young persons and women. 
 
 (b) Periodic medical examination, with power of sus- 
 
 pension. 
 
 (c) Exhaust ventilation to remove dust. 
 
 (d) Protective clothing supplied. 
 
 (e) Cloakroom, mess-room, washing facilities. 
 
 First certified 1892. 
 
 Special Rules, 1894, 
 superseded by 
 these Regulations. 
 
 
 
 (a) Exclusion of women, young persons, and children 
 from certain processes in the preparation of lead 
 glaze, etc., and from cleaning in dipping house, 
 and as regards a young person and child from 
 employment as a dipper. 
 
 Earthenware and 
 china manufactur- 
 ing. First certi- 
 fied Dec. 24, 1892. 
 
 (Continued oh p. 302.)
 
 302 
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 l. 
 
 Date of 
 
 t ', rtifi- 
 cute. 
 
 32. Aug. 25, 
 1911. 
 
 Regula- 
 tions. 
 
 Jan. 2, 
 1013. 
 
 Class of Manufact are, 
 Machinery, Plant, 
 Process or Descrip- 
 tion of Manual 
 Labour. 
 
 32. Pottery (contd.) 
 — to. and the 
 making of 
 
 lithographic 
 transfers, frits, 
 or glazes for use 
 in such manu- 
 facture or dec- 
 orations or pro- 
 cesses'. 
 
 Kind <if Risks. 
 
 Heavy 
 
 Nature of Injur: 
 
 to be. ]'/< <; ;,/, i/. 
 
 33. 
 
 Mar. 22, 
 1918. 
 
 April 26, 
 1919 
 
 34. A.U ! 
 
 1913. 
 
 April 1, 
 1914. 
 
 inhalation of 
 
 silica or other 
 
 dust. 
 Injury to health 
 
 from excessive 
 
 heat or humid- 
 
 ity. 
 Strain from lifting 
 
 and carrying 
 
 weights. 
 
 33. Refractory Mater- 
 ials. — Crushing 
 giinding, s:eA m ;, 
 and other pro- 
 
 (•esse-: involving 
 
 i he manipulation 
 ofauch materials. 
 
 34. Ships, Construc- 
 tion and Repair 
 of, in shipbuild 
 ing yards. 
 
 Silica dust. 
 
 Accidents. 
 
 Injury to lungs 
 from the inhala- 
 tion of silica 
 dust. 
 
 Tuberculosis. 
 
 Silicosis. 
 
 Injury to life and 
 limb from falls 
 and falling 
 bodies.
 
 DANGEROUS AND UNHEALTHY INDUSTRIES 303 
 
 5. 
 
 Chief Preventive Measures Imposed 
 by (he Regulations. 
 
 6. 
 Remarks. 
 
 (b) Exclusion of women, young persons and children 
 
 from certain heavy work and work involving 
 strain without a certificate of "permission to 
 work" j and total exclusion of young persons and 
 children from employment in wedging of clay, 
 and of females from carrying saggars full of ware. 
 
 (c) Periodic medical examination with power of 
 
 suspension. 
 
 (d) Protective clothing to be supplied, washed, repaired, 
 
 and kept in proper custody. Respirators to be 
 supplied hi certain processes. [provided. 
 
 (e) Washing facilities, cloakroom, and meal-room to be 
 (/j Milk or cocoa to be provided for all women and young 
 
 persons if working before 9a.m. in certain processes. 
 
 ((j) Exhaust ventilation for all processes giving rise to 
 dust (lead or Hint, etc.), and ventilation of all 
 rooms and of drying stoves. 
 
 (h) Means for preventing excessive heat and humidity 
 in workrooms and in ovens. 
 
 (i) Special means for cleaning floors, benches, boards, 
 etc., where lead glaze is used. 
 
 (/) Special precautions as regards lead dust and splash- 
 ing of lead glaze in majolica painting, aerograph- 
 ing, and lithographic transfers. 
 
 (k) Limitation of hours of men as well as women in dipping 
 
 and some other lead processes to 48 hours per week. 
 
 Intervals prescribed in certain lead processes of 
 
 \ hour every 4 hours or 4| hours for every person. 
 
 (1) Power given to inspector to take samples of any 
 material for analysis. [tions. 
 
 (m) Works Inspector to supervise observance of regula- 
 
 Special Rules were 
 established, 1894, 
 amended in 1898, 
 and again in 1903; 
 after arbitration 
 these Rules were 
 in turn superseded 
 by the present 
 Regulations, 1913. 
 
 (a) Prescribed methods of controlling and removing 
 
 dust by exhaust ventilation, damping, etc., and 
 by prohibition of certain methods of work. 
 
 (b) Provision of respirators. 
 
 
 (a) Sufficient supply of good materials for stages. 
 ( A) Construction of stages to be of sound material, 
 secure, and erected by competent persons. 
 
 (c) Gangways to be fenced, also openings in decks to be 
 
 provided with covers. 
 
 (d) Adequate lighting while work is in progress. 
 
 (e) Ambulance and lirst-aid provision. 
 
 (/) Competent person to supervise and enforce ob- 
 servance of regulations. 

 
 304 
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 1. 
 
 Date of 
 
 35. 
 
 cate. 
 
 Sept. 25, 
 190S. 
 
 Regula- 
 tions. 
 
 June 30, 
 1909. 
 
 30. 
 
 37> June 17, 
 1905. 
 
 Dec. 18. 
 1908. 
 
 Class of Ma n ufactu re. 
 
 Machinery, Plant. 
 
 Process or J 1 ' 
 
 tion of Manned 
 
 Labour. 
 
 35. Tinning of Metal 
 Hoi 1 o w- w are, 
 Iron Drums, and 
 
 harness furniture. 
 (Coating of metal 
 articles with a 
 mixture of lead 
 and tin and lead 
 alone.) 
 
 36. White Lead. (See 
 
 Kind of Risks, 
 
 Poisonous 
 fumes (lead). 
 
 Nature of Injuries 
 to be Prevented. 
 
 Plumbism. 
 
 under Lead Co'mpounds, No. 25.) 
 
 37. Wool, East| Anthrax spores' Anthrax. 
 Indian, use of.* in th^ mater- 
 ial. 
 
 38 - June 17, 
 1905. 
 
 Dec. 12, 
 1905. 
 
 38. Wool - Sorting, 
 w i 1 I e y i n g , 
 
 washing, comb 
 ing, and card- 
 ing, and of goat 
 hair, camel 
 hair, and pro- 
 cesses inciden 
 tal thereto.* 
 
 Anthraxspores i Anthrax, 
 in the mater- 
 ial. 
 
 39 - Aug. 10. 
 1920. 
 
 39. Woodworking 
 Machinery, use 
 
 of. 
 
 Accidents from 
 (1 a a serous 
 machinery. 
 
 Injurious dust. 
 
 Injury to life and 
 
 limb. 
 Injury to health 
 
 — respiratory 
 
 troubles. 
 
 40. 
 
 June 1. 
 1907. 
 
 Aug. 6, 
 
 !'.t')7. 
 
 40. Yarn, heading of 
 dyed, by means 
 of a lead com- 
 pound. 
 
 Poisonous dust Plumbism. 
 (lead). 
 
 See footnote, p. 296.
 
 DANGEROUS AND UNHEALTHY INDUSTRIES 305 
 
 Chief Preventive Measures Imposed 
 by the Regulations. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 (a) Exclusion of persons under 16 from tinning. 
 
 (6) Exhaust ventilation for removal of dust and fumes 
 over dipping and wiping, and over skimmings 
 until their removal in a covered receptacle. 
 
 (c) Removal of dust and refuse from workrooms. 
 
 (d) Protective clothing and cloakroom for women. 
 
 (e) Meal-room and washing accommodation. 
 
 (/) Periodic medical examination with power of 
 suspension. 
 
 iFirst certified Jan. 
 1894. Special 
 Rules superseded 
 hy these Regu- 
 lations, 1909. 
 
 (a) Dust-extracting machines to be covered over and cover | 
 
 connected with exhaust fan so as to discharge dust 
 into a furnace or intercepting chamber. 
 
 (b) Protective clothing and respirators to be supplied 
 
 for persons who collect and remove the dust. 
 
 (a) Scheduled wool or hair to be opened by skilled men 
 
 only, and to be steeped in water or alternatively 
 opened over a screen with an exhaust according 
 to the Schedule. 
 
 (b) Sorting boards must be as prescribed and also 
 
 willowing machines. [willeying room. 
 
 (c) Storage of wool or hair prohibited in sorting and 
 
 (d) Provision for collection and removal of dust and 
 
 (e) Floors to be sprinkled and swept daily. [refuse. 
 (/) Protective clothing supplied and not removed 
 
 unless disinfected or boiled. 
 (g) Washing and meal -room accommodation. 
 (h) First-aid requisites duty laid on workers to report 
 
 any open sore or cut. 
 (i) Power of inspectors to take samples of material. 
 
 x a) Provision of efficient stopping and starting gear 
 on every woodworking machine. 
 
 (b) Special fencing of machinery, particularly circular 
 
 saws and planing machines. 
 
 (c) Spacing of machines, and maintenance of surrounding 
 
 floors in good condition and free from obstruction. 
 
 (d) Adequate lighting, both daylight and artificial light. 
 
 (e) Artificial warming of workrooms in cold weather. 
 
 In draft June, 1922. 
 
 (a) Exclusion of young persons under 16. 
 
 (b) Exhaust ventilation for removal of dust draught to 
 
 be tested and recorded quarterly. 
 
 (c) Periodic medical examination with power of 
 
 (d) Protective clothing supplied. [suspension. 
 
 (e) Cloakroom and meal-room, if required in writing by 
 (/) Washing accommodation. [chief Inspector.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 APPE] 
 
 TABLE OF REPORTED CASES OF INDUSTRIAL POISON IN 
 
 
 (Small figures at right-hand comer oj 
 
 
 
 1921 
 
 1920 
 
 1919 
 
 ! 1] - 
 
 
 M. 
 
 F. 
 
 M. 
 
 F. 
 
 M. 
 
 187 
 
 F. 
 
 20 
 
 M. 
 
 11 
 
 124 
 
 r. 
 
 Lead Poisoning*.. 
 
 
 21 
 
 36 2 
 
 222 
 
 21 3 
 
 Tinning of metal. s 
 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 
 2 
 
 — 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 White lead 
 
 
 1.3 1 
 
 — 
 
 » 
 
 — 
 
 10 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 
 China and earthenware 
 
 
 
 i:-.' 
 
 11 
 1(> 
 
 •> 
 8" 
 
 13* 
 
 8 
 
 i 
 
 G 
 
 Litho -transfers 
 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Vitreous enamelling 
 
 
 7 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 — — 
 
 Coach paintingf 
 
 
 14 1 
 
 fi 
 
 12 
 
 1 
 
 io 3 
 
 1 
 
 
 — 
 
 Paints used in other indust 
 
 rics 
 
 12 
 
 — 
 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 12 
 
 3 
 
 Other industries 
 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 10J 
 
 32* 
 
 — 
 
 24' 
 
 1 
 
 .,' 
 
 4 
 
 Mercury Poisoning 
 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 
 1 
 
 Phosphorus Poisoning . . 
 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 3 
 
 — 
 
 cc Poisoning 
 
 
 i 
 
 — 
 
 3 
 
 — 
 
 4 
 
 
 3 1 
 
 
 
 Anthrax .. 
 
 
 i 
 
 4 1 
 
 10 
 
 6 1 
 
 V 
 
 u 3 
 
 46 5 
 
 26 ! 
 
 Toxic J w sdice 
 
 .. 
 
 .' 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 2 
 
 I 1 
 
 7 2 
 
 27 8 
 
 
 * Total cases in factory and workshop. 
 
 
 •f- All the female eases in coach painting were dm 
 
 
 % All due to heading of yarn. 
 
 
 § Of these cases four were due to heading of yari 
 
 
 || In 1913 eighteen cases among women were due 
 
 
 1 In 1908 
 
 sever 
 
 i cas 
 
 es an 
 
 long 
 
 worn 
 
 sn w< 
 
 ;re d 
 
 le tc
 
 D1X II 
 
 AND ANTHRAX (SECTION 73 OF THE FACTORY ACT, 1901). 
 figures indicate fatal cases, included in totals). 
 
 1917 
 
 1916 
 
 1915 
 
 1 
 
 . e A vc ragt 
 I 1912-14 1909-11 
 
 1906-08 
 
 1903-05 
 
 1900 
 
 if. 
 
 F. 
 
 -VI- 
 
 F. 
 
 M. 
 
 F. 
 
 M. 
 
 F. M. 
 
 F. 
 
 M. 
 
 F. 
 
 M. 
 
 F. 
 
 :,i. 
 
 F. 
 
 
 1 
 
 " 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 272* 
 
 2 
 
 45 
 
 318 
 
 30 1 
 
 35| ] 
 
 25 
 
 
 55 3 
 
 --,3- 
 •312 
 
 03 3 
 
 *2S 
 
 524 
 
 95 2 
 
 „ 2. 
 
 501 
 
 100 1 
 
 
 5 
 
 174 
 
 — 
 
 2 
 
 - 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 13 
 
 4 
 
 10 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 
 3 
 
 15 
 
 2 
 
 [16 1 
 
 2 
 
 36 
 
 4 
 
 24 1 
 
 3 34 1 
 
 
 
 s;. :; 
 
 3 
 
 100 1 
 
 5 325 
 
 53" 
 
 8 5 
 
 2 
 
 7 
 
 
 8 1 
 
 13 5 
 
 13 
 
 10 
 
 S3 
 
 23 ; 38 
 
 38 3 
 
 52 6 
 
 
 
 57" 
 
 39 3 
 
 56 
 
 1 
 95 
 
 4 
 
 105 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 ' — 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 7 3 
 
 1 
 
 _ 
 
 5 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 8 
 
 — 
 
 12 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 8 3 
 
 9 
 
 20" 
 
 1 
 
 33 
 
 — 
 
 39 S 
 
 — 
 
 70 4 
 
 1 
 
 
 — 
 
 4 
 
 74 
 
 1 
 
 60 d 
 
 
 
 TO 5 
 
 
 
 17 1 
 
 3 
 
 18 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 16 
 
 — 
 
 i2 2 
 
 4 
 
 .:.,' 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 
 4 
 
 - 
 
 57 4 
 
 
 5u" 
 
 11 
 
 47 1 
 
 7 
 
 
 14|| 
 
 
 8 
 
 ■ 
 
 ion 
 
 
 12 
 
 
 18 
 
 6 
 
 11 , 
 
 11 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 1 
 
 13 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 — 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 — 
 
 2 
 
 — 
 
 3 1 
 
 
 - j 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 1 
 
 I 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 30 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 3 
 
 — 
 
 4 
 
 — 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 11 ] 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 15 3 
 
 7 
 
 71 U 
 
 22 3 
 
 77" 
 
 21 
 28 
 
 45 7 
 
 5 
 
 
 7 
 
 4S 9 
 
 ■1 
 
 M 
 
 13* 
 
 43 U 
 
 
 9" 
 
 28 5 
 
 9 2 
 
 2 
 
 45 
 
 42 
 145 
 
 ^ 23 
 
 84 
 
 34 
 122 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 ~ 
 
 
 
 
 -! 
 
 
 to painting perambulators, except the one in 191 1. 
 
 and twelve to bullet and shrapnel making. 
 to heading of yarn. 
 heading of yarn. 
 
 307 
 
 .1
 
 INDEX 
 
 Aberdaee, Lord, Home Secre- 
 tary, 6 
 
 Abraham, Miss May. Inspector of 
 Factories, vii, 9, 40, 201 
 secretary to Lady Dilke, 9 
 retirement, 13; marriage, 13 
 member of the Dangerous 
 Trades Committee, 100. See 
 Tennant 
 
 Accidents in factories, 13U, 140; 
 in laundries, 141-146: treat- 
 ment, 147; number, 196 
 
 Aerated water, 288 
 
 Aeroplanes, varnishing the wings, 
 129 
 
 Akers-Douglas, Rt. Hon. (Lord 
 Chilston), Home Secretary, 
 192 ; on Women Inspectors, 193 
 
 Alverstone, Lord, 207 
 
 America, " motion study," 250 
 
 Anderson, Adelaide Mary, In- 
 spector of Factories, 9 
 
 Anthrax, cases of, 95, 98, 115, 
 126, 306 
 
 Anti-Sweating Movement, 60 
 
 Antrim, 177 
 
 Ardara, 80 
 
 Arsenic, 95, 98, 288, 306 
 
 Asbestos industry, 96. 106 
 
 Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H., on 
 Factory Laws, 10; on Women 
 Inspectors, 191, 192 
 
 Baden, Grand Duchy of, silk 
 
 mills, 139 
 Bag- woman or carrier system, 
 
 90 
 Beacon, the, 252 note 
 
 Bedford College for Women, 270 
 note 
 
 Belfast, textile mill, case of 
 half-timers, 55; procession of 
 workers, 75; conference in, 
 109; Congress of the Royal 
 Sanitary Institute, 162, 268 
 note; Health Commission, 175 
 
 Belgium, reformatory institu- 
 tions, 182; prevention of in- 
 dustrial fatigue, 255 
 
 Bentinck, Lord Henry Caven- 
 dish, on the work of Women 
 Inspectors, 195 
 
 Benzine, 288 
 
 Berlin, conference in, 10, 150 
 
 Bichromate of potassium, result 
 of, 127, 290 
 
 Birmingham, prosecutions, 179; 
 munition factories, 231; Con- 
 gress of the Roval Sanitary 
 Institute, 274 
 
 Birtwistle, Mr., Inspector of 
 Textile Particulars, 85 
 
 Black Country factories, 43 
 
 Blackburn, 155 
 
 Board of Trade Wage Census, 63 
 
 Bonus system, 76 
 
 Bournville. conference at, 269 
 
 Branford, Victor, Inter pre! at ions 
 and Forecasts, 149 
 
 Brass, 288 
 
 Bricks, glazing of, 120 
 
 Brickworks, 134 
 
 Briquettes, 288 
 
 Bristol, 89; Women Workers, 
 meeting, 9 
 
 Bronzing, dust from, 111, 288 
 
 308
 
 INDEX 
 
 309 
 
 Brooke-Gwynne, Maura, xi 
 Buffing of plated articles, 109 
 Burnley, 135. 155 
 Burns, Bt. Hon. John, on the 
 work of Women Inspectors, 192 
 
 Cadbury, Mr., conference at 
 BournvilJe. 269 
 
 Campbell, Dr. Janet, on Health 
 of Women in Industry, 123 
 note; War Cabinet Com- 
 mittee on Women in Indus- 
 try, 197 
 
 Canteens, result of, 257 
 
 Carbonic oxide poisoning, 127 
 
 Carotting, process of, 126 
 
 Celluloid, 290 
 
 Cement , works, in Scotland, 
 employment of women. 234 
 
 Chalmers, >ir Mackenzie, 11 
 
 Chapman. S. J., Labour and 
 Capital after the War, 64 note, 
 221 note, 232 note 
 
 Chemical works, employment of 
 women, 233 
 
 Chemicals, 290 
 
 Children, employment in fac- 
 tories, 131, 163-179; result of 
 lifting heavy weights, 131- 
 135, 171; examinations. 166, 
 168-174;half-time system, 165, 
 177; cases of rejection, 167; 
 in Ireland, 174-177; number 
 of, 177, 180 
 
 China scourers, 96; mortality, 
 103-105 
 
 Christian Social Union Research 
 Committee, 262 
 
 Chromate, lead, 120, 121, 290 
 
 Chrome holes, 127 
 
 Cleanliness of workshops, 45, 47, 
 48, 258 
 
 Clothing factories, wages, 67; 
 accidents, 146; employment of 
 mothers. 154; number em- 
 ployed, 218, 225 note 
 
 Cohen, Miss H. F., 158 
 
 Colchester, clothing factories, 89; 
 rate of wages, 67 
 
 Collett, Miss Clara, Assistant 
 Commissioner on Labour, 9 
 
 Collings, Bt. Hon. Jesse, criti- 
 cism on the work of Women 
 Inspectors. 193 
 
 Collis, Dr. E. L., 96, 110; Director 
 of the Welfare Department. 274 
 
 Commonwealth, the, 18 
 
 Consumption, compulsory noti- 
 fication, 110 
 
 Cooke-Taylor, Whateley, 164; 
 Th e Modern Factory System, 57 
 
 Cornwall, 78, 83 
 
 Cotton Cloth Factories Act of 
 1889, 99 
 
 Cotton mills, driving system, 8; 
 fines, 73 
 
 Coventry, factories in, 179, 268, 
 
 Dangerous Trades Committee 
 
 100, 111, 137 
 Deane, Miss Lucy, Inspector of 
 
 Factories, 9, 80, 81, 87, 103, 
 
 116, 117, 181, 185 
 Deane v. Hulbert Beach, 203; 
 
 v. Wilson, 76, 77 
 Dermatitis or inflammation of 
 
 the skin, case of, 127, 128 
 Dickie, Mrs., Inspector, 176 
 Digby, Sir Kenelm, 11 
 Dilke, Bt. Hon. Sir Charles, on 
 
 the work of Women Inspectors, 
 
 192, 194 
 Dilke. Lady, 9, 11 
 Dilution Officers of Munitions, 237 
 Donegal, experiences of In- 
 spectors in. 213 
 Donegal Vindicator, 81 note 
 Dope poisoning, 129 
 Down, 177 
 Drage, Mr. Geoffrey, Secretary of 
 
 the Labour Commission, 9 
 Drinking water, supply of, 46 
 Driving system, in cotton mills, 8 
 Drury, Mrs., Inspector, xi, 67; 
 
 sketch of a day's work, 219- 
 
 221. See Whitworth 
 Duckering, G. Elmhirst, In- 
 spector of Factories, 101 
 Dundee, 155, 178 
 Dungloe, 81 
 Dust, dangers of, 102-112, 
 
 288
 
 310 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Edward IV., King, statute of, 5S | 
 
 note 
 Eight Hours Bill, 8 
 Electric accumulator industry, 
 
 115, 292 
 Electro-plate works, Sheffield, 109 
 Elementary Education Act, 166 
 
 Emergency Orders, 230, 239, 241 
 Employment of Children, Royal 
 
 Commission of 1841, 103; 
 
 Act, 135, 136; Committee on, 
 
 in 1901, 168 
 " Employment of Mothers, lob 
 telling of metals, 100, 101,292 
 Escioet, Miss, Inspector of 
 
 Factories, xi, 92, 264 
 
 Fabian Society, 8 
 
 Factories, Women Inspectors, 
 vii, ix, 1, 5, 7, 9; number of, 
 15; their work, 19; evils of 
 the system, 24-27; hours 
 of work, 27-34, 39, 239- 
 244; evils of overtime, 35-39; 
 defective sanitation, 39-44 ; 
 supply of drinking water, 46: 
 Lting, 46-50; system of 
 fines, 68-72 ; practice of raffling, 
 72; bonus system, 76; dan- 
 gerous processes, 94; special 
 rules, 95-98, 113; mechanic?' 
 ventilation, 100; records, 112; 
 Women Medical Inspectors, 
 122; accidents in, 139; regis- 
 ter of, 140; employment of 
 mothers, 150-163; number of, 
 161, 180, 225 note; employ- 
 ment of children, 163-179; 
 number of, 177; half-time 
 system, 165, 177: daily visits 
 of inspection, 216; substitu- 
 tion of women, 233-239, 245; 
 welfare movement, 253 '272' 
 women superintendents, 260, 
 268; provision for meals, 261- 
 264, 271; neglect of seats, 
 265-267; weight lifting, 267; 
 first-aid and ambulance work, 
 267; hygienic safeguards, 272; 
 surveys, 273; orders for wel- 
 
 fare condition, 276-278; com- 
 mittees, 278-281, 284; series 
 of welfare pamphlets, 2S1 ; im- 
 proved conditions, 282-285 
 Factories and Miscellaneous Pro- 
 visions Act of 1916, 46 
 Factory Act of 1802, 150; of 
 1878, 6, 7, 28 note, 49 note, 
 202; of 1891, 10, 13, 97, 150, 
 166 note; of 1895, 13, 31, 32, 
 49 85, 191 ; of 1901, 29, 30 note, 
 31, 33, 45, 49, 92, 94, 97, 127 
 note, 131, 166 note, 171, 182. 
 202, 230 7^e/ of 1907, 33, 186 
 
 Factory system, 4; a workers' 
 welfare committee in a 
 national factory, 278 
 
 Faithful, Miss Emily, letter to 
 The Times, 6 
 
 Fencing of machinery, the term, 
 12 ; accidents from, 139, 144 
 
 Fines, system of, 68-72 
 
 Fish- curing industry, 31, 128, 
 276 note ; number employed, 
 ■221 note 
 
 Flax preparation and carding, 
 mortality, 102, 294 
 
 Flax scutch mills, 109 
 
 Ford, Miss I. 0., 8 
 
 Foxioi'd Convent, May 
 
 France, reformatory institutions, 
 182, 183; industrial legislation, 
 199 note, 255 
 
 Fruit industry, 32; number 
 employed, 225 note 
 
 Fuller*, Ltd. v. Squire, 204 
 
 Fustian clothing factories, 89 
 
 Gas stoves, unhooded, 49 
 Gasworks, employment of wo- 
 men, 235 
 George I., King, statute of, 5b 
 
 Germany, reformatory institu- 
 tions, 182, 183; industrial 
 legislation, 199 note, 255 
 
 Gladstone, Viscount, Depart- 
 mental Committee, 105, 118 
 ,• on the increase of Women 
 Inspectors, 194 
 
 Glasgow Trade Union Congress, 7
 
 INDEX 
 
 311 
 
 Glass factories of Sunderland. 135 
 
 Goadby, Dr. Kenneth W., Lead 
 Poisoning and Lead Absorp- 
 tion, 99, 112 note, 114 
 
 Goods, payment in, evils of, 59, 
 62, 78, 80-85 
 
 Grimsby, 31 
 
 Haldane, Viscount, address to 
 
 Factory Inspectors, 207 
 Half-time system, 1G5, 177 
 Hanley. 155 
 Hatch. Sir Ernest, Departmental 
 
 Committee, 106, 118 
 Haynes, Miss Dorothy, 200 note 
 Heading yarn dyed in lead chro- 
 
 mate. cases of poisoning, 120, 
 
 121, 304 
 Health Commission, in Belfast, 
 
 Report of the, 175 
 Health Insurance, National, 121, 
 
 158, 162 
 Health, Ministry of, 152 
 Health of Munition Workers 
 
 Committee, 237, 241, 242, 244, 
 
 247, 256 note, 257 note 
 Hewitt, Dr. E. M., 96 
 Hill, Dr. Leonard, 99 
 Hills, Mr.. 195 
 Holland, Canon Scott, on the 
 
 work of Factory Inspectors, 18 
 Home Office Memorandum on 
 
 Substitution of Women, 229 
 
 note, 236 
 Homework, Select Committee 
 
 on, 60 
 Hood, Thomas, Song of the 
 
 Shirt, 8 
 Hosiery factories, teazle brush- 
 ing, 108 
 Hours of work, 27-34, 39, 239- 
 
 244; reduction, 52 
 Hygiene and Industrial Employ- 
 ment, address on, 162 
 
 Illumination in Factories, 46 
 India-rubber works, 125, 298 
 Industrial Fatigue Research 
 
 Board. 248 
 Industrial Law Indemnity I 
 
 Fund, 22 
 
 Industries, dangerous and un- 
 healthy, 94, 287; preventive 
 measures. 289-305 
 
 Infant mortality, high rate of, 
 154 
 
 Institutions, reformatory or 
 charitable, method of adminis- 
 tration, 151, 182-189 
 
 Ireland, letters of thanks to 
 Inspectors, 55: wages of dress- 
 makers, 80; payment in goods, 
 80-83; prosecutions. 82; em- 
 ployment of children, 174- 
 177; convent industries, 181; 
 institutional laundries, 184 
 
 Italy, prevention of industrial 
 fatigue, 255 
 
 Jotevko, Dr. Josef a, Science of 
 Labour, 19S, 246 
 
 Kent, Prof. Stanley, 255 note 
 Kid-glove makers, payment of, 
 
 84 
 Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement, 
 Women and Industrial Changes, 
 225 note 
 Kippering industry case, 213 
 Kropotkin, Prince, Fields, Fac- 
 tories and Workshops, 280 
 
 Labels, injurious practice of 
 licking. 137-139 
 
 Labour and Capital after the 
 War. 245 note 
 
 Labour Convention of 1919, 10 
 
 Labour, International Confer- 
 ence, at Berlin, 10 
 
 Labour, Ministry of, 237 
 
 Labour, Royal Commission on, 
 3, 9, 42 
 
 Lace-tinting industry, 110 
 
 Lakeman, Mr., on the evils of 
 working overtime, 35 
 
 Lancashire. Limited Liability 
 Company, case against, 42; 
 employment of mothers. 159 
 
 Laundries, hours of work, 32- 
 34; seaside, 38; carbonic oxide 
 poisoning, 127; accidents in, 
 141-146; remedies against,
 
 312 
 
 INDEX 
 
 142; number, 143; prosecu- 
 tions, 145; employment of 
 mothers, 151-154; institu- 
 tional, 151, 184-188; women 
 employed, ISO. 218, 225 note 
 
 Lead chromate, 120, 121, 290 
 
 Lead poisoning, 96, 100, 298, 
 304, 306 
 
 Leeds, factories, 89; practice of 
 raffling goods, 72 
 
 Legge, Dr. T. M., Senior Medical 
 Inspector, xi, 96, 97, 107, 12!) ; 
 Occupational Diseases, 99 note ; 
 Lead Poisoning and Lead Ab- 
 sorption, 99 note, 112 note, 114 
 
 Lighting of factories and work- 
 shops, 46-50; Committee on, 47 
 
 Linen-weaving factory, system 
 of fines, 71 
 
 London, factories, 89; School of 
 Economics, 270 note 
 
 Longton, 104, 155 
 
 Lovibond, Miss, 112, 135. See 
 Moorcroft 
 
 Lowestoft, fishing industry, 31, 
 276 note 
 
 Lucifer match factory, case of, 79 
 
 Lushington, Sir Godfrey, 11 
 
 Lye, bucket industry, 154 
 
 Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred, 195 
 
 Mac Arthur, Miss Mary, 37 
 Macdonald, Mr. Ramsay, 195 
 Machinery, fencing of, 12; acci- 
 dents from, 139 
 Manchester, practice of rafiling 
 goods, 72; "' making-up" ware- 
 houses, 136 
 Manufacturers, Association of, 
 
 71, 75 
 Martindalc, Miss Hilda, x, 23, 
 55, 56, 71, 80, 83, 109, 116, 
 119, 134, 156, 174, 176, 179, 
 185; Hyjiene and Industrial 
 Employment, 162, 268 note 
 Mary, H.M. Queen, Fund, 188 
 Match-making industry, 124 
 Matthews, Rt. Hon. Henry, 
 
 Home Secretary, 7 
 McKenna, Rt. Hon. R., on the 
 work of Women Inspectors, 193 
 
 Meals, provision for, in factories, 
 
 261-2G4. 271 
 Medical Inspectors, 20, 95 
 Men, number employed in 
 
 factories, 15, 16; Inspectors, 
 
 work of the, 20, 196; number, 
 
 15 
 Mercerised cotton yarn dust, 108 
 Mercurial poisoning, cases of, 
 
 124-126, 306 
 Meredith, George, 224 
 Messrooms, 258, 262 
 Metals, enamelling and tinning 
 
 of, 100, 101 note, 292, 304 
 Mill gearing, 12 note 
 Mill girls, deputation of, 222 
 Mines Acts, 97 
 
 Moorcroft, Mrs., 112. See Lovi- 
 bond 
 Morrell, Mr., 195 
 Mothers, employment of, 150- 
 
 163; maternity fund, 157; 
 
 cases of, 15S-162; number. 161 
 Mulhouse, maternity fund, 157 
 Munition workers, number of, 
 
 228, 239; long hours, 239-244 
 
 National Liberal Federation, 
 
 meeting, 10 
 National Service, Ministry of, 237 
 Necrosis, cases of, 125 
 Needle-puncturing accidents, 146 
 Nicotine poisoning, 127 
 Niven. Dr., on the cleanliness of 
 
 workshops, 48 
 
 Oastler. Richard, 3 
 
 Oram, Mr. R. E. Sprague, H.M. 
 Chief Inspector, 13, 19; retire- 
 ment, 13, 19 
 
 Osborn, Mr. E. H., H.M. Super- 
 intending Inspector of Fac- 
 tories, 99, 102 
 
 Outwork, evil of, 30 
 
 Overtime, working, 2S; evils of, 
 35-39 
 
 Owen, Robert, 3, 253 
 
 Papworth, Miss Wyatt, secretary 
 of the Women's Industrial 
 Council, 36
 
 INDEX 
 
 313 
 
 Paterson, Mrs. Emma Ann, 
 founds the Women's Protec- 
 tive League, 6 
 
 Paterson, Miss Mary, Inspector 
 of Factories, vii, xi, 9, 56, 72, 
 103, 115, 156, 160, 161, 166, 
 167, 171, 173, 185, 201; on 
 insanitary conditions, 41 ; case 
 of overcrowding. 44 
 
 Paterson, Mr. Thomas, 6 
 
 Peace Treaty of 1919, 10 
 
 Peel, Sir R., 3 
 
 Pendock, Mr. C. R., Inspector of 
 Factories, 99, 101; Observa- 
 tions on Ventilation of Potteries 
 and Removal of Dust, 102 note 
 
 Pen-making trade, 88, 92; sys- 
 tem of " cards," 93 
 
 Peripatetic Inspectors, 210 
 
 Perry, Miss, 145 
 
 Phosphorus necrosis, 124, 306 
 
 Physical Deterioration, Com- 
 mittee on, 155 
 
 Piecework, payment of, S5-93 
 
 Plumbism, cases of, 116, 290 
 
 Poisoning, cases of, 98, 306 
 
 Police Act, the little, 274-278 
 
 Police, Factories, etc., Act, 254 
 note 
 
 Potteries, records, 112; Fund, 
 118 
 
 Pottery Code of Regulations, 117 
 
 Poivtr Laundry, The, 33 
 
 Pratt, Mr. Hodgson, 6 
 
 Presbyterian Church, General 
 Assembly of the, on child 
 labour, 177 
 
 Preston, 155 
 
 Public Health Acts, 45, 207 
 
 Purdon, Dr., 102 
 
 Rabbit skins, dust from, 126, 
 170 note 
 
 Raffling, practice of, 72 
 
 Reconstruction, Ministry of, 237 
 
 Redgrave v. Kelly, case of, 75 
 
 Reformatory institutions, ad- 
 ministration, 151, 182-189 
 
 Religious institutions, workers, 
 181 
 
 Rent, deductions for, 79 
 
 ! Ridley, Rt. Hon. Sir Matthew 
 White, Home Secretary, 10; 
 on Women Factory Inspectors , 
 191 
 
 Rowntree, Mr. Seebohm, Direc- 
 tor of the Welfare Department, 
 232, 273 
 
 Royal Sanitary Institute, Con- 
 gress at Belfast, 162 
 
 Rubber articles, 124, 125 
 
 Rubber tvre factorv, system of 
 fines, 69 
 
 Russell, Lord, of Killowen, 207 
 
 Sadler, Michael, 3 
 
 Sadler, Miss, Inspector of Fac- 
 tories, 114 note, 122 
 
 Safety-pin factory, system of 
 deductions. 6iJ 
 
 Sanitation, defective, in fac- 
 tories and workshops, 39-44 
 
 Schofield v. Schv/nk, 146 
 
 School Child Leaflet, 274 
 
 Scientific instrument making, 
 236 
 
 Scotland, cement works, em- 
 ployment of women, 234 
 
 Seats, lack of, in factories, 265- 
 267 
 
 Service Magazine, 280 
 
 Shaftesbury, Earl of. 3, 7, 164 
 
 Sheffield, electro-plate works, 
 109; conference in, 259; 
 dinner clubs, 263 
 
 Shell factory, 251 
 
 Shetland, 78 
 
 Shift systems, 242 
 
 Silk waste carding and spinning, 
 107 
 
 Simon, Sir John, 104 
 
 Slocock, Miss, Inspector of Fac- 
 tories, 85, 178 
 
 Smith, Adam, 62 
 
 Smith, Sydney, 99 
 
 Somerset, 78, 83 
 
 Squire, Miss R. E., Inspector of 
 Factories, x. 10, 60, 72, 73, 81, 
 82, 87, 88, 107, 108, 113, 120, 
 132, 136, 148, 152, 155, 156, 
 169, 178, 181, 199 note, 203, 
 271 ; member of a Committee
 
 314 
 
 INDEX 
 
 on Lighting in Factories, 47; 
 cases, 53, 54; on the wages of 
 girls, 65; in charge of the 
 Women's Welfare Depart- 
 ment, 274 
 
 Squire v. B y^r c f- Co., 205; v. 
 Midland Lace Company, 85; 
 v. Sweeney, 83, 85 
 
 Staffordshire Potteries, 43. 116, 
 131, 133, 136, 155 
 
 Star, the, 37 
 
 Steel works in Yorkshire, em- 
 ployment of women, 234 
 
 Stoke-on-Trent, 104 
 
 Stourbridge, brick-making. 154 
 
 Stuart, Prof. William, Economic 
 Annals of the Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury, 164 note; Substitution of 
 Women in Industry, 229 note 
 
 Substitutes, women as. See 
 Women Workers 
 
 Sunderland, glass factories, 135 
 
 Sweated Industries, Exhibition 
 of 1906, 60 
 
 Sweating system, 8 
 
 Tailoring trade, 89 
 
 Tawney, Mr. R. H., Minimum 
 Rates in the Tailoring Trade, 67 
 
 Ta}dor, Mr. Stevenson, Inspector 
 of Factories, 99 
 
 Taylor, Mr. Theodore, tribute to 
 the work of Women Inspectors, 
 192 
 
 Teazle - brushing machines, 
 guards for, 108, 148 
 
 Temperature of workrooms, 44, 
 50 
 
 Tennant. Mrs. H. J.. 9, 192, 207; 
 Chairman of the Industrial 
 Law Indemnity Fund, 22. See 
 Abraham 
 
 Textile factories, number em- 
 ployed, 218, 225 note 
 
 Theatrical costume industry, 37; 
 cases of overtime, 3S 
 
 Time-cribbing, suppression of, 38 
 
 Tinning of metals, 100, 101, 304 
 
 Tinplate works, loads, 132, 133 
 
 Tobacco works, cases of poison- 
 ing. 127 
 
 Toxic jaundice, cases of, 129, 
 306 
 
 Tracey, Miss A., Inspector of 
 Factories, 9, 23. 121. 143, 148, 
 185 
 
 Tracey v. Pretty, 206 
 
 Trade Boards Act of 1909. 60 
 
 Trade Union Congress, Bristol, 
 7; Glasgow, 7; organisation for 
 women, 3 
 I Troup, Sir Edward, 11 
 
 Truck, meaning of the word, 58 ; 
 committee on. 60, 69, 76 
 
 Truck Acts, 27, 78; of 1831, 58, 
 73, 75, 85; of 1887, 58, 75, S5; 
 of 1896, 58, 70, 73, 75 
 
 Tuckwell, Miss Gertrude. Hon. 
 Sec. of the Women's Trade 
 Union League, 56; The Jeo- 
 pardy of a Department, 57 note 
 
 Unemployment, 281 
 Urwick, Prof., 269 
 
 Vandevelde, Mr., the Belgian, 
 
 286 
 Varley, Miss Julia, article in the 
 
 Yorkshire Factory Times, 25 
 
 note 
 Ventilation of workrooms, 40, 44, 
 
 47, 100 
 Vines, Miss, Inspector of 
 
 tones. 116, 134 note, 145, 
 
 178, 179 
 
 Wage Census of 18S6 and 1906, 
 63 
 
 Wages of women, 59, 63-6S; 
 payment in goods, 59, 62. 78, 
 30-85; deductions, 64-66, 68- 
 72; system of fines, 6S-72 
 
 War, the Great, 14, 16, 27, 85, 
 113, 128, 178, 188, 253; 
 women's work in the, 224, 
 226-236; tributes to, 231 
 
 War. munitions of, production, 
 228 
 
 War Museum, National, 227, 232 
 
 Weaving, art of, 251 
 
 Weights, heavy, lifting, 130-136, 
 267, 302
 
 INDEX 
 
 315 
 
 Welfare Department, 272 ; move- 
 ment in factories, 253-272; 
 trained women superinten- 
 dents. 260, 26S 
 
 Werner, Mr. E. A. R., Inspector 
 of Factories, 100 
 
 Whitaker, Dr., 102 
 
 White lead industry, cases of 
 poisoning, 114-117, 120-122, 
 149, 298, 304; regulations, 
 118: preventive measures, 120 
 
 Whitelegge, Sir Arthur, M.D., 
 Chief Inspector of Factories, 
 13, 19, 97 
 
 Whitley Report. 123 
 
 Whitlock. Miss, M.B., 106, 109, 
 110, 138, 147, 262, 268; reports 
 on lead cases, 112, 119, 121; 
 transferred to the Industrial 
 Schools Department, 113 
 
 Whitworth, Miss, 67, 261. See 
 Drury 
 
 Williams, Mr., Superintending 
 Inspector, 99 
 
 Wilson, Mr. D. R., Illumination 
 in Factories, 46 
 
 Women Assistant Commissioners 
 on Labour, 9 
 
 Women Dilution Officers, em- 
 ployment of, 198 
 
 Women Inspectors, vii, ix, 1, 5; 
 appointment, 7, 9; official 
 status, 11; work, 11-14, 78, 
 124, 191, 198-223, 270; num- 
 ber, 14, 192, 218, 237; testi- 
 mony to, 18 ; detection of cases 
 of overtime, 35-39; value of 
 their visits, 52; relations with 
 the workers, 53-55; letters of 
 thanks, 55; evidence on the 
 result of low wages, 59, 63 
 cases, 80-82, 202, 209; reports 
 on payment of piecework, 87 
 inquiries into dangerous pro 
 cesses, 95; taking of records 
 112; tributes to their work 
 191-195, 222; study of foreign 
 industrial legislation, 199 
 higher education, 201; prose 
 cutions, 202-210; address 
 from Lord Haldane, 207 
 
 reading for the Bar, 209 ; peri- 
 patetic, 210; experiences in 
 the courts, 214; daily visits of 
 inspection, 216; inspection of 
 munitions factories, 235, 239; 
 reports on the result of long 
 hours of work, 240-244 
 Women Medical Inspectors, 122 
 Women superintendents in fac- 
 tories, 260, 268 
 Women Welfare Officers, 237 
 Women Workers, National 
 Council of, meeting at Bristol, 
 9; number employed in fac- 
 tories, 15, 16, 225 note; charac- 
 teristics. 22; courage, 22-24; 
 evils of the system, 24-27; 
 hours of work, 27-34, 39; 
 relations with the Inspectors, 
 53; complaints against mana- 
 gers, 53-55; wages, 59, 63-68; 
 dangerous processes, 94; rules 
 for safeguarding, 95-98, 113; 
 injuries from lead processes on 
 maternity, 116, 149; result of 
 lifting heavy weights, 132-136, 
 267; number employed in 
 laundries, 180; work in the 
 War, 224, 226-236; substi- 
 tutes, 227, 233-239, 245; 
 tributes to, 231 ; in engineering, 
 chemical and gasworks, 231, 
 233-235; result of their war- 
 time experiences, 246-249 
 Women and Young Persons Act , 
 
 1920, 115 
 Women's Employment Com- 
 mittee, Report, 4, 18, 150, 158, 
 237 
 Women's Industrial Council, 36 
 Women's Industrial News, 198, 
 
 200 
 Women's Institute, founded, 226 
 Women's Liberal Association, 8 
 Women's Protective and Provi- 
 dent League, founded, 6 
 Women's Trade Union League, 
 
 6, 56 
 Women's Union Journal, ex- 
 tract from, 7 
 Women s War Work, 232 note
 
 316 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Worishoncr, Dr., 183 
 
 Work, function of, 250 
 
 Workers' Trustees Council, 279 
 
 Workers' Welfare Committee, 
 278 
 
 Working men appointed In- 
 spectors, 7, 8 
 
 Workshops, number of, 15; 
 defective sanitation, 39-44 ; 
 ventilation, 40, 44, 47; lack 
 of heating, 40; overcrowding, 
 44; temperature, 44, 50, 99; 
 
 drainage, 45; cleanliness, 45, 
 47; supply of drinking water, 
 46; lighting, 46-50 
 
 Yarmouth, fish- curing industry, 
 
 32, 276 
 Yarn, heading, dyed in lead 
 
 chromate, 120, 121, 304 
 Yeovil, 84 
 
 Yorkshire factories, 43, 234 
 Yorkshire Factory Times, 25 
 
 note

 
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