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London County Council
Public Health Department,
Spring Gardens, S.W.
1st February, 1894.
Report of the Medical Officer on the Sanitary Condition
of Bakehouses.
(Printed by order of the Public Health and Housing Committee.)
In the development of legislation with regard to factories and workshops, the bakehouse has been
usually regarded as a thing apart and dealt with on special lines.
An enquiry into the condition of bakehouses and into the manner in which the bread-making
industry was conducted, instituted by the Home Office in 1862, resulted in the passing in the following
year of the Bakehouse Regulation Act of 1863. This Act dealt with two matters, the sanitary condition
of the bakehouse and the regulation of the employment therein of persons under 18 years of age. The
duty of enforcing both classes of provision was vested in the local sanitary authorities.
The bakehouse was thus cut adrift from the legislation dealing with factories and workshops and
on the passing of further acts in 1864, 1867 and 1871 amending this legislation it still remained
excluded from the scope of the general law.
The Royal Commission appointed in 1875 to enquire into the working of the Factory and
Workshop Acts, reported that it was " only here and there that any active steps had been taken by the
local authorities to carry out the provisions of the Bakehouse Act." The Commissioners go on to state
" we by no means recommend that the local authorities should be relieved of their general duties in
respect of the sanitary supervision of bakehouses, which, on the contrary, we trust, will in future be
more effectually administered."
On the passing of the Factory and Workshop Act of 1878, however, the Bakehouse Regulation
Act was repealed, and the duty of regulating the sanitary condition of bakehouses was transferred from
the local authority to the inspectors of factories.
It soon became apparent that whatever the defects of the old system might have been, the new
one was unworkable. It was a physical impossibility that the limited staff of Home Office inspectors
should be able to deal in an adequate manner with the large number of retail bakehouses existing
throughout the country. It was, of course, still more impossible for that staff" to institute any thorough
inspection of workshops.
In the case of the bakehouse a fresh departure was made by the passing of the Factory and
Workshops Act of 1883. This Act extended the power of regulating the sanitary condition of bakehouses
and provided that " the medical officer of health of the local authority shall have and exercise all such
powers of entry, inspection, taking legal proceedings and otherwise, as a factory inspector under the
Factory and Workshop Act, 1878.
The medical officer of health of the local authority thus became directly responsible for the
sanitary condition of bakehouses in 1883. Section 26 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, however,
repeals this enactment and makes it the duty of the sanitary authority to enforce the provisions of
the Factory and Workshop Acts of 1878 and 1883. The Factory and Workshop Act of 1891 makes
the local authority responsible for the sanitary condition of workshops generally. It thus appears that
bakehouses have for ten years derived the advantage of being under local supervision, which is now
being extended in larger degree to ordinary workshops. It is only to be anticipated that as far as the
provisions of the existing law are concerned the bakehouse should be at the present time in a more
satisfactory condition than the ordinary workshop.
A reference to the annual reports of London medical officers of health for the years 1890 and 1891
bears out this anticipation. In the case of 35 districts, special mention is made of bakehouses, the usual
comments being that they have been systematically inspected and found to be in a fairly satisfactory
condition. In one instance, that of Fulham, the medical officer of health expresses great dissatisfaction,
and intimates that a number of instances of non-compliance with existing requirements were discovered.
The necessary steps to enforce the provisions of the law were taken. The medical officer of health of
St. George's, Hanover-square, states it to be his opinion that legislation is necessary to compel the closing
of all bakehouses that are situated in underground rooms. In the case of five districts no mention is
made of bakehouses in the annual reports for 1890 and 1891.
The medical officer of health of St. George-the-Martyr, Southwark, presented to his authority in
April of last year a special report on bakehouses in his district, in which he called attention to the
undesirability of underground rooms being used as bakehouses. He said " efficient ventilation is
impossible in these cellars," and he alluded to certain underground bakehouses in his district in which
flooding had occurred during times of heavy rain. He concluded that a clause should be inserted in the
Factory and Workshop Act, forbidding the use in the future after a certain fixed date of all underground
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