Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
The annual report on the health, sanitary condition, &c., &c., of the Parish of St. Mary Abbotts, Kensington for the year 1895
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The proposed additions were not made ; but the section makes
the occupier of a laundry, also, liable to the fine, not exceeding
ten pounds, for infringement of the provision, obedience to
which, moreover, is obligatory on the part of any contractor
employed by the occupier of the workshop. Liability to the
fine, however, is not incurred if the suppositious offender
proves that he was not aware of the existence of the illness in
the dwelling house, and could not reasonably have been expected
to become aware of it." Clause 19 in the Bill, which contained
provisions with respect to laundries, has been restricted in the
Act (sec. 22), so far as regards sanitary provisions, &c., to
laundries in which steam, water, or other mechanical power
is used in aid of the laundry process. The temperature clause,
30 (sec. 32 in the Act) has been modified, and requires that in
every workshop " adequate measures shall be taken for securing
and maintaining a reasonable temperature in room
in which any person is employed:" the restriction of the
clause to places " in which the business of making wearing
apparel is carried on," does not appear in the Act. Your
Vestry recommended that the use of gas burners intended for
lighting purposes only, should be prohibited as a means of
obtaining warmth. The Act simply provides that a workshop
" not reasonably warmed " shall be deemed to be " not
kept in conformity with the principal Act." Your Vestry
further recommended, with reference to the lists of outworkers
which are to be sent twice a year to the factory
inspector for the district, that they should also be sent to the
Sanitary Authority ; but the clause was passed without alteration,
and, indeed, without debate, for the reason above
stated. I may here mention that, when referring, in my
twelfth report for 1892, to the Order made by the Home
Secretary, which entailed on the Sanitary Authority and their
officers the duty of inspecting the places at which outworkers
carry on their employment, I pointed out that the Order must
necessarily be a dead letter unless the employers were required
to forward to that authority, periodically, a list of the names