View report page

104
E.—FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.
The Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, came into force at the
beginning of 1902, and placed upon the Local Authority
a number of additional duties. Section 132 of the Act
requires that the Medical Officer of Health of every District
Council shall report specifically every year on the administration
of the Act in workshops and workplaces in the district under his
supervision, and transmit a copy to the Secretary of State for
the Home Department. This portion of the Annual Report on
the Health of Finsbury is devoted to this subject, and within its
pages will be found reference to everything which has concerned
the Public Health Department in 1907 in relation to workshops
or workplaces. The only exceptions arc restaurants, sweet-shops, and
milk-shops, which come more suitably in the section of the Report
dealing with the Protection of Food Supply.
It is well known that the population of the Borough of Finsbury
is largely industrial. Out of the total census population of
101,463 there were 23,086 persons under 10 years of age. These
may be set of one side as far as concerns factories and workshops.
The number of persons over 10 years of age was therefore 78,377.
Out of this number, 58,669 were "retired" or unoccupied, leaving a
total of 49,708 workers, or nearly one-half of the entire population.
Subtracting 9,708 as approximately the total number of those
occupied in Government service, defence of the country, professional
and commercial occupations, and employers of labour, we
get a rough estimate of 40,000 persons, resident in Finsbury,
employed in factories, workshops or workplaces. Doubtless many
more than 40,000 persons also come into Finsbury daily for work.
I have abstracted from the Census Report for 1901 a table giving
the returns of persons resident in Finsbury, under each of the 23
headings of the Census Report, except "Fishing," which occupies no
persons in Finsbury. Hence we have 22 classes of workers. The
chief industries of Finsbury come under domestic and hotel service,
conveyance of men and goods, metals and machinery, jewellery and
watchmaking, builders, carpenters and plumbers, furniture and
decorations, skin and feather work, paper and printers, and dress
and textile fabrics.