View report page

The registers therefore, show an increased number of workshops dealt with in 1907, compared
with antecedent years, an increase in the numbers of inspections as compared with the numbers in 1906,
and an increase in the numbers of "defects" found, this last increase as well as the increase in
the number of cases of want of cleanliness have been manifested throughout the whole period. On
the other hand there has been some decrease in the cases of want of ventilation, and also in the
number of instances of overcrowding, and further, whilst insufficiency of sanitary accommodation
has decreased, there has been increase in the number of cases in which the sanitary conveniences were
found to be unsuitable or defective or in which separate accommodation was not provided for the two
sexes. It is, of course, difficult to state to what extent the differences in these figures are due to
variations in the character and amount of inspection carried out by the authorities in the years under
consideration.
The difficulty of dealing with basement rooms which are occupied as workshops, is discussed in
the annual report of Dr. Parkes, the medical officer of health of Chelsea, who writes: "Considerable
difficulty has been experienced with regard to the ventilation of these rooms more especially during the
winter months when artificial lighting is Continually being used. Basement workrooms are generally
large, but the means of ventilation and lighting are not in satisfactory proportion to the cubic space.
It often happens, therefore, that more workers are allowed by law to be accommodated than is desirable."
He mentions, moreover, that there are twenty-two basement workrooms in Chelsea occupied
by milliners and dressmakers with accommodation for about 180 workers. The Public Health law
prescribes the conditions with which underground rooms must comply for the purpose of being separately
occupied as dwellings, and there is need for regulations governing the use of such rooms as
workshops.
There is increasing employment by sanitary authorities, for the purposes of inspection under
this Act, of special inspectors as distinct from "district inspectors " upon whom devolve all the
usual duties under the Public Health Act. Such special inspectors are now employed in more than
one-third of the districts. Women inspectors are employed for the inspection of workshops where the
workers are females in the large majority of districts, indeed the only authorities not providing such
officers are the Borough Councils of Stoke Newington, Hammersmith, Shoreditch, Stepney, Bermondsey,
Deptford, and Greenwich. In the annual reports relating to the City of London and St. Marylebone
the statement is made that the staff of inspectors is inadequate for the purposes of the duties which
have to be performed in connection with this branch of work.
The Secretary of State made a further Order in 1907 under the provisions of sections 107, 108 and
110 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901. This Order, which was a consolidating Order, applied
Section 107 relating to lists of outworkers, and Section 108 relating to employment in unwholesome
premises to the following trades in addition to those subject to the Order of the 15th August, 1905,
which was repealed, viz., the making of artificial flowers, nets (other than wire), tents, sacks, boxes of
cardboard, chip, etc. and baskets, the covering of racquet and tennis balls, pea picking, feather sorting,
and the carding of buttons, hooks and eyes, pins and hair-pins.
In November, endeavour was made by the Home Office through a conference with medical
officers of health to arrange for observations on uniform lines to obtain information as to the physical,
social, and economic effects of the industrial employment of women before and after childbirth in
connection with the suggested extension of Section 61 providing for absence from work of women for
at least a month after childbirth. In this way in a number of localities the effect of such employment
upon the birth-rate and infant mortality will be studied
The Factory and Workshop Act, 1907, repeals, as regard laundries, section 103 of the Act of 1901,
constituting them non-textile factories or workshops according as power is used or not, and withdraws
the exemption of laundries attached to charitable institutions and of those in which in addition to the
members of the family, only two non-resident persons are employed. The Act makes special provision
as regards the hours of employment in laundries, other than laundries ancillary to a business carried
on in any premises which apart from the provisions of the Act, are a factory or workshop, and further
provides that in every laundry (a) If mechanical power is used, a fan or other efficient means shall be
provided, maintained, and used for regulating the temperature in every ironing room, and for carrying
away the steam in every washhouse ; (b) all stoves for heating irons, must be sufficiently separated from
any ironing room or ironing table, and gas irons emitting any noxious fumes must not be used ; and