Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Pancras, London, Borough of]
This page requires JavaScript
88
(b) for 8pecial processes of manufacture; and
(c) in any workshop or workplace, not a domestic workshop, which is used
for work during the day and for sleeping at night.
[Note.—An Order has already been made under (c) substituting 400
cubic feet for 250 cubic feet for ordinary working hours.]
A notice is to be put up in every factory and workshop indicating the
number of workers who may be employed in each room.
Section 4 gives the Secretary of State power to direct one of the factory
inspectors to take action where any council makes, default in enforcing
the provisions of the F. & W. A. and P. H. A. with regard to workshops
and workplaces. An inspector so authorised has all the powers under
both Acts which are possessed by the council, and may recover expenses
from the council,
The London County Council under Sections 100 and 101 of the P. H. L. A.
also possess the power of acting in default.
Section 5 re-enacts the provisions directing factory inspectors to make
complaints to the district council of offences in a factory or workshop
which are remediable only under the P. H. L. A. If the council neglect
to have such offences attended to within one month from the receipt
of the complaint, the inspector may take steps to remedy the nuisance
complained of, and to recover expenses from the council.
Section 6 requires "a reasonable temperature" to be maintained in each
room of a factory or workshop, "but the measures . . . taken must not
interfere with the purity of the air of any room in which any person is
employed/' The Secretary of State may by Special Order require a
thermometer to be provided and kept in order in each room in any class
of factory or workshop.
This is intended to prevent the neglect to provide fires or other means of
warming, and the use of gas ironing stoves for this purpose.
It is not clear whether the council or the Home Office will enforce this
section in workshops. From the wording of the third subsection of this
section and of the next two sections it would appear that the latter
will do so.
Section 7 requires that adequate means of ventilation shall be provided and
used in every room of a factory or workshop, the district council being
specially directed to see that this is done in workshops. The Secretary of
State is empowered to issue a Special Order prescribing what is "sufficient
ventilation" for any class of factories, etc. Where structural alterations
are required to provide the requisite ventilation, the occupier of the factory
or workshop may make complaint to a court of summary jurisdiction, and
the court may apportion the expenses between the owner and occupier of
the pemises "as appears to the court to be just and equitable under the
circumstances of the case, regard being had to the terms of any contract
between the parties."
This section would include " workplaces" under Section 2 (1) (g) of the
P. H. L. A.