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Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health,—1894. 45
The Factory and Workshop Act, 1891.
This Act, which came into operation on the 1st of Jaauary, 1892, has imposed
on Sanitary Authorities and their officers new and important duties, for which previous
to this date the factory inspectors were alone responsible.
Occupiers are obliged to register their workshops within one month of occupancy.
It then becomes the duty of the inspector under the Act to give notice forthwith to
your Authority of all such occupied workshops.
During 1893, I have caused 121 workshops to be entered in the register-book
kept for the purpose. In several instances cleanliness and efficient ventilation have
been enforced, overcrowding and other nuisances have been abated, and separate
w.c. accommodation has been provided for the two sexes.
By order of the Home Secretary, Section 27—(1.) of the Factory and Workshop
Act, 1891, took effect for the first time, on the 20th of November, 1892. By this
Section, which aims at the suppression of the evils of " sweating," occupiers and
contractors, in certain trades, are bound henceforth to keep lists of outworkers
according to a prescribed form.
The lists of those employed in the manufacture of articles of wearing apparel,
upholstery and furniture making (also file-making and electro-plating, which trades
are in a few instances only followed in this palish) have to be kept accessible for the
inspection of the officers of your Sanitary Authority. In a Special Report, I pointed
out that the order, as it stood, could only be partial in its effect, since the larger
portion (4-5ths) of the outworkers employed in St. George's lived in other metropolitan
districts, or outside London altogether. For instance, of the outworkers
employed by the large firms, the majority in the tailoring trade live in Whitechapel,
and many in the boot business so far afield as Northampton.
In my Annual Report for 1892, with a view to making the order workable, I
suggested "the organisation, under the Home Secretary, of a staff of inspectors, whose
duty it should be to inspect all the lists of outworkers, and, after extracting from
them all requisite details, to forward them to the several medical officers of health."
This suggestion has been adopted by Mr. Asquith, the Secretary of State for the
Home Department, so that now Mr. Lakeman, the energetic Chief Inspector of
Metropolitan Workshops, co-operates with the medical officers, and furnishes each
with the addresses of those working in our particular district and appearing in lists
prepared in other districts.
To carry the order out thoroughly a special inspector will be required for your
district.
Customs and Inland Revenue Acts, 1890, S. 26 (2),
and 1891, S. 4.
Tenement property, occupied by about 515 persons, has been examined during
1893, at the request of the respective owners, with a view of the latter obtaining the
certificate of the Medical Officer of Health, by which exemption from inhabited
house duty can be claimed under the provisions of the above-mentioned sections.
Much time was taken up in the inspection of these dwellings before certificates
could be either given or refused.
The Act of 1890 states that "before exemption from duty can be claimed the house
must be so constructed as to afford suitable accommodation for each of the families
or persons inhabiting it, and that due provision be made for their sanitary requirements."
The Act of 1891 stipulates that the annual value of each separate dwelling within
the house " shall not amount to £20."