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Certainly, there were employers whose demands were tempered with justice, if not compassion, but their attitudes were nonetheless coloured by contemporary thinking: effecting change and improvement usually required the force of law.
The first of a series of Factory Acts was passed in 1819, and applied only to cotton mills. Primarily, it prohibited the employment of children under nine years of age. Further Acts dealt with working hours and in 1867 the Workshop Regulation Act introduced the inspection of all workshops by local authorities. Compulsory in every district under section 131 of the Act, this afforded the opportunity to ensure employers' compliance with their obligations to employees.
The two Acts of 1874 and 1891 further restricted the working hours of women and young people, and the Factory Act of 1901, consolidating Act, raised the minimum working age to twelve. Additionally, this spelled out a list of employment requirements of increased stringency. Major headings were sanitation and medical examination, and we shall explore these in this article.
Occupiers of workshops were required to provide means of ventilation of premises sufficient for the purpose, especially where air space of less than 500 cubic feet per worker was available. It was not sufficient to rely upon windows and other openings where these might be closed by the workers. Inspectors were instructed to pay special attention to this.
Periodical medical examination of employees, desirable particularly for boys engaged in such trying employment as work at night upon the hot rolls in tin-plate works, ensured detection of earlier stages of poisoning, enabling the employer to transfer susceptible workers to other duties. In this context, 'boy' was not defined in the Regulations, but he may have been as young as twelve years old.
Premises were required to be kept clean and free from effluvia. All inside walls of rooms, ceilings, etc., were required either to be lime-washed every 14 months, or to be painted or varnished every 7 years, with a soap and hot water wash every 14 months. In bakehouses, the greater demand was for a lime-wash every six months, or, again, to be painted every 7 years but washed every 6 months. Particulars were required to be recorded in a Register.
Overcrowding was not permitted and sufficient and sanitary conveniences were to be provided, separate for each sex.
Examination of a surviving Register of Workshops, a record of inspections of premises carried out between December 1904 and May 1905, in the area of the lower Arrow Valley covered by the Alcester and District Local History Society, is very revealing.
During this period, the Register shows that 150 premises were visited, and the details were entered into columns, under the headings: Number in Register, Date of Entry, Name and Situation of Workshop, Name and Address of Occupier and Owner, Nature of Employment, Number Employed, Remarks and References. Some of the columns contain no entry, and some of the entries are in the wrong column, but the meaning is usually clear. More often than not, the total volume of the workshop is recorded, some-times to the nearest one quarter cubic foot in a total of 2000!
All premises covered by the Act were required to display an Abstract of the Regulations, affixed in a place where it could easily be read, and the record shows which premises were in breach of this. All columns save one, required factual entries. The exception was the Remarks and References column, and here we can read the observations of the Inspector, often revealing even if subjective. Window and other openings are described, with their number, size and location - the workshop of a whitesmith in Alcester High Street was ventilated only through the rooftiles, while a Studley needlemaker occupied premises of similar size, with five windows measuring two-and-a-half feet by three-and-a-half feet, and five openings of one foot by one-and-a-half.
The number of entries in the Register is not a reliable guide to the number of 'factories' in the area. For example, the needle manufacturer, William Vale, of Alcester Road, Studley, was an employer with 36 workers who, between them, occupied four workrooms, two workshops, a warehouse and a hardening shop, all on the same site but each having its own entry in the Register. The hardening shop was described as 'not clean', the warehouse as 'fair’, and the workshops and workrooms attracted no comments. Similarly, the needlemaker George Field, of Wapping, in Studley, operated five workshops, each with its own entry, all described as 'clean'. We see that Vale owned the premises he occupied, while Field occupied premises rented from Messrs Neasome and Whitee Luckily, the location of each of these examples is recorded in the Register, but often we are given no hint as to where premises were to be found.
John Burden, Alcester's ironworker, had 'clean' premises in Swan Street, but few now know the location of Studley's cycle repairer, Robert Gee, with his 'fair' workshop but overflowing privy vaults: the Register does not always satisfy our curiosity.
Bakers, needlemakers, shoemakers, blacksmiths are the more numerous of the entries; whitesmith, ironworker and ropemaker represent the fewer number.
There are many bakeries whose premises were described by the inspector as 'clean'. Among these are Alcester's George Fryer of The Moors, Mathew Cook'of Bleachfield Street and James Fourt in Meeting Lane. In Studley, T.R.Allen and Son, of Alcester Road, J.Hemming and Son of. Fleece Hill and C.Franklin. In Wixford, Frederick Partington. Bakeries described as 'fair' were to be found in Dunnington, Crabbs Cross, Bidford, Aston Cantlow and Wilmcote. But there were many others which fell short of requirements. Comments such as, 'dirty, no drain', 'needs whitewashing, open privy 4 ft from window', 'dilapidated', 'premises fair, privys foul', 'requires lime-washing, dirty stable adjoining' were numerous.
To be fair, some other trades attracted similar remarks, and where these were manufacturers, such as needlemakers, blacksmiths and makers of fish-hooks, overdue lime-washing was perhaps understandable. But a dressmaker,. working in the~ front room of a house in Malt Mill Lane could hardly be forgiven for her dilapidated closet and defective drains. Thankfully, she employed no staff.
Carpenters, painters and decorators, milliners, wheelwrights, shoemakers (13 of them in 'our' area), tailors, butchers saddlers, a stonemason, even, all are listed and described by the inspector. The majority of them were clean, or fair, but some of them, who we think of as household names, were in need of refurbishment and described as filthy.
The 1905 Register of Workshops is a snapshot in time. Earlier and later inspections would have recorded different scenes, improving with the passing years, and today, we should not expect to see such excesses as were borne by previous generations of workpeople.
We are provided with names, status, trades, locations, numbers employed, standards attained; in short, yet another illuminating glimpse into our past.
Footnote: In his unpublished writings of 1906, 'Reminiscences and Genealogical Notes1, Fr.John Alphonsus Morrell, OSB, of Studley, listed extracts from the Register of 1905 for the Parish of Studley. He wrote no comment, passed no remark. Much nearer to the event than are we, he may not have felt it to be necessary. At this distance of time, we, perhaps, know better.