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 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 •