Factory Acts. The development of the textile industries in Great Britain towards the end of the 18th century led to the employment of a great many children, sent by the poor-law authorities from the southern agricultural counties to the water-abounding districts of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Lancashire. These children were so ill looked after, and the mills generally so overcrowded, that a Board of Health appointed in 1796 attributed the prevalence of epidemic fevers about Manchester to this cause. The subject was taken up by the elder Sir Robert Peel, who in 1802 passed the Morals and Health Act. The introduction of steam led to the Cotton Mills Act of 1819, which fixed the working age of children at nine, and the working week for them at 72 hours. The Saturday half-holiday did not come until Sir John Hobhouse's Act of 1825. Richard Oastler, the 'Factory King,' was now spreading through the woollen districts of Yorkshire the agitation for the Ten Hours Bill. The Cotton Industry Act of 1831 may be called the first Factory Act; but it was carried out very imperfectly, the men being often compelled to support a fund out of which the employers' fines were paid. Tom Sadler's Ten Hours Bill of 1832 was lost through the opposition of the manufacturers; and Lord Ashley's Bill, which restricted the working hours of adults, was met by the appointment, under Whig auspices, of a Royal Commission. The report of this Commission (1833-34) took the view of the capitalists, that such a restriction would so diminish production as to put them at the mercy of foreign competition. On its recommendations was based Lord Althorp's Act of 1834, which first made the distinction between children and young persons, and began the system of working children in relays, so as to permit of daily education. The alternate day system (with an extension of the hours for schooling) was further developed in the important Factory Act of 1844. A uniform working day from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M., with a fixed hour for meals, was at last established for all protected persons by the Act of 1850. Manual work had been diminishing in many trades; and in 1861 several restrictions were placed on lace-factories and on bakehouses. The Report of Lord Shaftesbury's Commission of Inquiry was in 1861 well received by the employers, who were now more alive to the advantages connected with sound sanitary conditions for labour. The pottery trade was first dealt with in 1864. The Commission also made thorough inquiry into the question of small shops and workrooms used in connection with larger establishments. The legislation which resulted from the Commission's labours took the double form of a Factory Act Extension Act, 1867, and a Workshops Regulation Act, 1867, which for the first time declared that all work done for wages by young persons and women should be placed under supervision and be subject to distinct regulations. Further provisions were made in 1870 and 1874, but the local authorities did not properly enforce the law.
Hence the necessity arose in 1876 for the Royal Commission on Factory and Workshop Acts, which reported that previous legislation had been to a large extent successful, and that, while some occupations were still undoubtedly unhealthy in spite of the sanitary regulations of these acts, the cases in which young children were employed in labour unfitted for their years, or in which young persons and women suffered physically from overwork, had become uncommon. The Commissioners, however, proposed large changes in the law, and in particular they proposed the consolidation of the law, which was accomplished by the Factory and Workshop Act, 1878. This great statute deals with five classes of works: (1) Textile factories, such as cotton-mills; (2) non-textile factories, including an immense variety of trades, of which iron-works, paper-mills, and print-works are examples; (3) workshops generally, in which mechanical power is not used, and where the employer has the right of access and control; (4) workshops in which none but women above the age of eighteen are employed; (5) domestic workshops, in which the work is carried on in a private house, room, or place in which the only persons employed are members of the same family dwelling there. In some cases—e.g. bakehouses, shipyards, hat-works, &c., the place is regarded as a factory or a workshop according to the use, or not, of mechanical power. In class 1, where power is used, and the large majority of workers are women and children, the highest degree of regulation is reached. In class 2, where the labour is not so hard, or the strain of attendance on the moving power not so heavy, the statutory hours of work are somewhat relaxed, but education and sanitary provisions are still compulsory. In class 3 registers of children and young persons, and certificates of age and fitness, are, except in special circumstances, dispensed with. In class 4 the hours for work and meals may be changed, and the sanitary authority is responsible for the sanitary state of the shop. In class 5 there is still greater elasticity as regards hours for work and meals; the Medical Officer of Health inspects the sanitary condition, but the employment of women is entirely unrestricted. Straw-plaiting, pillow lace-making, glove-making, and some other handicrafts of a light character may be carried on by a family in a private house or room, without fixing on the premises the legal liability of a workshop. Again, if the manual labour is exercised only at irregular intervals, and does not furnish the principal means of living to the family, the house will not become a workshop.
Under the Act of 1878 a 'factory' means a place in which machinery is moved by the aid of steam, water, or other mechanical power; a 'child' means a person under the age of fourteen years; a 'young person' means a person between fourteen and eighteen years of age; a 'woman' means a woman of eighteen years and upwards; 'parent' includes the person having the custody or control of any child; 'night' means the period between 9 P.M. and 6 A.M. The general sanitary provision applicable to all factories and workshops is that they shall be clean, free from effluvia, not overcrowded, and ventilated so as to render harmless, so far as practicable, the gases, vapours, dust, &c. which are generated in the process and are injurious to health. Where anything is wrong, the factory inspector gives notice to the sanitary (local) authority. Every factory is to be lime-washed once in 14 months, unless painted in oil once in 7 years, when it must be washed once in 14 months. The inspector may order fans to be used where dust is generated by grinding, glazing, or polishing on a wheel. The machinery in a factory, and certain other sources of danger, must be fenced. Children must not be set to clean any part of the machinery while in motion. No work is to be done between the fixed and traversing parts of a self-acting machine while moved by mechanical power. The general hours for the employment of young persons and women in textile factories are 6 A.M. to 6 P.M., or 7 A.M. to 7 P.M., except on Saturdays, and on Saturdays 6 A.M. to 12.30 or 1 P.M. (according to the time allowed for meals), or 7 A.M. to 1.30 P.M. Two hours (one of them before 3 P.M.) must be allowed for meals on every day except Saturday, on which half an hour is sufficient. The employment is not to be continuous for more than hours without an interval of half an hour for meals. The variations on these rules for young persons and women in a non-textile factory, and for young persons in a workshop, are that the minimum time for meals is reduced to hour, and the period of continuous employment is extended to 5 hours. As regards children in textile factories, they must be employed on the system of morning and afternoon sets, or on that of alternate days. Their morning set ends at 1 P.M., or at dinner-time, if that is earlier; the afternoon set begins at 1 P.M., or after dinner, if that is later. The Saturday hours for children are the same as for others. Neither set is to be continued more than seven days, and no child may be employed on two successive Saturdays. Under the alternate day system, the hours for employment and meals are the same as for young persons.
In workshops in which neither children nor young persons are employed the hours for women are 6 A.M. to 9 P.M., with hours for meals and absence; and on Saturdays 6 A.M. to 4 P.M., with hours for these purposes. As regards domestic workshops, the actual times for work and meals are not fixed, but overtime is prohibited, and the shops remain under the sanitary supervision of the local authority. The two points fixed by statute with reference to meals in factories and workshops generally are: That the three classes of children, young persons, and women must have their meals at the same hour; that during that hour none of them is allowed to remain in a room where the manufacturing process is being carried on. In every factory and workshop the period of employment, prohibitions, meal hours, and system of children's labour must all be published in a notice put up within the premises. Employment of children under ten, and of any of the protected classes on Sunday, is prohibited. The occupier is also bound to give eight half-holidays in every year besides (in Scotland) the sacramental fasts or substituted holidays. In trades connected with the retail business the Home Secretary may authorise the giving of separate holidays to different classes of workers; and in other cases (e.g. in provincial towns where Saturday is the market-day) he may substitute another week-day for the Saturday half-holiday. A child employed on the morning and afternoon set must give one school attendance on each work day, and, if employed on the alternate day system, two attendances on each non-working day. The penalty is that the child cannot be employed in the following week before the deficiency in attendances has been made up. It is the duty of the employer to get every week from the teacher a certificate of attendance. He may also be obliged to pay to the school-manager a sum not exceeding 3d. a week, or one-twelfth part of the child's weekly wages. A child of thirteen, however, on obtaining a certificate of proficiency, will be treated as a young person. No child or young person under the age of sixteen is to be employed in a factory for more than seven days without a certificate of age and physical fitness granted after personal examination by the medical officer or certifying surgeon of the district. When an accident occurs in a factory or workshop which causes loss of life, or prevents the person injured resuming work within 48 hours, notice must be given to the inspector and the medical officer or certifying surgeon, the latter of whom must go at once to the premises and report to the inspector on the nature and cause of the death or injury.
It is impossible to mention all the special restrictions which the act imposes. For instance, no children or young persons are allowed to work at silvering mirrors by the mercurial process, making white lead, melting or annealing glass. Children must not be employed in dipping lucifer matches, or dry-grinding in the metal trade. Girls must not be employed in making or finishing bricks or salt. In glass and earthenware works and others, certain parts of the works must not be used for taking meals. The Home Secretary has power to extend such restrictions to other unwholesome occupations. Again, where the customs and exigences of a trade require it, the Home Secretary may alter the hours of labour to 8 A.M. and 8 P.M., or even 9 A.M. and 9 P.M. Of the first class, lithographic printing, envelope-making, biscuit-making, and bookbinding are examples; of the second, the straw-hat making at Luton, and warehouses in London and elsewhere. The existing state of factory regulation therefore depends largely on a series of orders in council outwith the statute.
The administration of the act is carried on by inspectors appointed and paid by government. They have large powers of entering factories, workshops, and schools, of asking for documents, of examining persons on oath. A special warrant is required to enter a dwelling-house. The certifying surgeons appointed by the inspectors are entitled to charge for their statutory duties certain fees, which are paid by the employer, but which he may deduct from wages.
It must be borne in mind that the success of the statutory supervision of labour depends greatly on the energy and wisdom of the inspectors, and that much of the good done in Great Britain is due to such men as Messrs Redgrave and Baker. The appointment of inspectors of artisan training, and in certain cases of women, is regarded as important.
Legislation of this kind has been much more fully developed in Great Britain than in the United States or on the Continent. In the United States there is no corresponding system of national legislation as to the conditions of factory labour, though a certain number of the states have passed laws fixing the hours of labour, &c. in certain industries. An International Labour Conference of delegates appointed by various governments was held at Berlin in 1890.
See the Parliamentary Reports of 1841-42, 1862-66, 1875, and, for the factory regulations in the United States, Austria, Belgium, &c., those of 1882. Authorities are Taylor, Introduction to a History of the Factory System (1886), and The Modern Factory System (1891); Jeans, Factory Act Legislation (1891); Von Plener, Die Englische Fabrikgesetzgebung (Eng. trans. 1873); Engels, Lage der arbeitenden Klassen in England; Marx, Das Kapital; Faucher, Études sur l'Angleterre;
Alfred's History of the Factory Movement; Fielden's Curse of the Factory System; Sadler's Factory System. Reference may also be made to the report of a Select Committee on the Shop Hours Regulation Act of 1886 (with which the name of Lubbock is associated), and to the valuable reports from the United States and Europe as to hours and regulations of labour, obtained by the Foreign Office in 1882. The chief inspector makes an annual report (embodying special reports) to the Home Office. In the Local Government Acts of 1888 and 1889 power is taken to transfer the responsibility in these matters from the Home Office to the new County Councils.