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W E A P O N S OF WA

T E

ACTION PHOTOGRAPHY

SPECIFICATION BOXES

• DETAILED CUTAWAYS

• FULL COLOUR ARTWORKS

CHRIS M c N A B
THE AK47
CHRIS McNAB
THE AK47
CHRIS McNAB

SPELLMOUNT
 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:
A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library

Copyright © Amber Books Ltd 2001

ISBN 1-86227-116-X

First published in the UK in 2001 by

Spellmount Ltd
The Old Rectory
Staplehurst
Kent TN12 0AZ
Tel: 01580 893730
Fax: 01580 893731
E-mail: enquiries@spellmount. com

Website: www. spellmount. com

13 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise,
•without prior permission in writing from
Spellmount Limited, Publishers.
Editorial and design: Amber Books Ltd
Bradley's Close, 74-77 White Lion Street,
London Nl 9PF

Project Editor: Charles Catton/Chris Stone

Design: Hawes Design

Printed and bound in The Slovak Republic

 CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
The Making of the AK47 6
CHAPTER 2
Design and Development 20
CHAPTER 3
Usage and Training 34
CHAPTER 4
Deployment and Battle 48
CHAPTER 5

AK Variants 68

Appendices 92

Index 95
CHAPTER 1

The Making of
the AK47
Few weapons have had a greater impact on the
history of men-at-arms, and indeed history in
general, as Kalashnikov's AK47.

Its acceptance as the standard assault rifle for Soviet forces in

1949 set in train the production of an astonishing 80 million
AK47s or immediate variants - 80 million hard-hitting medi-
um-range killing tools which were easy to operate, rarely
failed, and simple to manufacture. The AK47 became a truly
global presence in military, insurgent and civilian hands. It
was almost as much of an icon of the Soviet ideology as the
hammer and sickle. It has killed and injured in almost every
conflict since the early 1950s, and modern variations and
scattered, unaccounted stocks ensure that it will continue to
do so for many years to come. The historical consequences
of giving so much of the world such heavy personal fire-
power is still being evaluated.

THE INTERMEDIATE CARTRIDGE

The AK47 was not designed upon impulse or simple inspira-
tion. In fact, it emerged out of Soviet developments in ammu-
nition technology in the early 1940s. During this period,
changes in tactical thinking about small arms led Soviet mil-
itary authorities to commission the design of a new 'inter-
mediate' cartridge, a round somewhere between a rifle car-
tridge and a pistol cartridge in terms of power and perfor-
mance. It was to accommodate this new cartridge that the
AK was designed. Yet the story of how this intermediate
round came into being is somewhat clouded in confusion,
and needs clarification.
At the beginning of World War II, military small-arms ammu-
nition had separated into two essential formats. At the smaller
end of the scale were pistol-calibre rounds. These ranged
between about 5mm (0. 19in) and 15mm (0. 59in) and had a
case length generally between 8mm (0. 31in) and 13mm
(0. 51in). Performance varied dramatically, but muzzle velocity
tended to gather around 250-350mps (820-1148fps) and a
practical range about 20-30m (65-98ft). Pistol-calibre rounds

Left: A Russian infantryman stalks warily through the rubble of

Stalingrad carrying his PPSh41. By the early 1940s, Soviet authorities
had already begun the quest for the perfect infantry weapon.
THE AK47

were used, naturally, in handguns but also in submachine guns. The experience of trench warfare led many military author-
This latter application originated in the combat experience of ities to re-evaluate the reality of combat distances. In close
World War I. Trench warfare sat at odds with the supposed trench warfare, the distances were generally well under
advantages of the standard long-range infantry rifle. A 1000m 15. 24m (50ft) but even across open land 300m (984ft) usual-
+ range was superfluous when trench systems were often lit- ly set the visual and practical limit of effective fire. For the
tle more than 100m (328ft) apart, plus the blast of the car- most compact styles of warfare emerged the submachine gun,
tridge acted as a valuable locator signature for the enemy in weapons like the Bergmann MP18 leading the way. Short and
low-light conditions. The powerful round also made the rifle easily wielded, firing a controllable pistol-calibre cartridge,
much more difficult to handle accurately in unskilled hands, capable of full automatic modes of fire, and usually featuring a
consequently pushing up training times which were con- large magazine capacity, the submachine gun was an ideal
strained once mass conscription came into play. The advan- close-quarters weapon and went on to have a long history
tages of long-range firepower were particularly undone in which is far from over.
actions during which enemy trenches were entered. World While pistol-calibre cartridges inhabited the close-quarters
War I trench systems were kinked or even crenellated every spectrum of combat, the psychological commitment to long-
5- 10m (l6-33ft) or so, and in a confused trench battle a high- range rifle marksmanship and the ubiquitous presence of the
power rifle round would have little currency with its excessive bolt-action rifle meant that full-power cartridges were still the
penetrative power (which would endanger one's own com- dominant currency at the beginning of World War II. While
rades) and the need to manually load each cartridge by physi- actual calibre varied between about 6mm (0. 23in) and 8mm
cally working the bolt. Furthermore, the great length of most (0. 31 in), cartridge length rarely reached below 50mm
of the rifles made them incredibly difficult to wield in narrow (1. 96in). For example, the Mauser Gewehr 98 fired a 7. 92 x
trenches, some of which could be narrower than the length of 57mm cartridge which weighed 11. 52gm (0. 025lb) and
the rifles. Finally, the limits of the magazine capacity and the (when using German Ball SmE Lang cartridges) propelled the
method of reloading meant that in vigorous combat a maga- bullet at 896mps (2939fps) to a range of well over 1000m
zine could be quickly expended and difficult to replenish. (3280ft). The 1000m+ range of the Gewehr 98 was a typical
aspiration of military rifles at the time, and was felt to be vital
Below: The contrast between full power and intermediate ammunition for the soldiers command of the open battlefield. A design
is clearly shown in this representative spread of post-war ammunition corollary of this was a long barrel, necessary to give the accu-
types. From left to right: 7. 62mm M1891; 7. 62mm NATO; 7. 92mm racy for hitting targets at the limit of visual range, and thus
MR43; 7. 62mm M43. extensive overall gun dimensions and weight. Barrel length on
 THE MAKING OF THE AK47

the Russian Ml891 reached 800mm (31. 5in), this giving a gun Above: A medic of the Red Guard struggles through the snow of the
length of 1240mm (48. 82in) and an overall weight of 4. 35kg Eastern Front, 1942. On his back he carries a mix of old and new:
(9. 591b). Carbine versions of many rifles were developed as three 7. 62mm Mosin-Nagant rifles and a Tokarev automatic rifle.
attempts to control gun specifications, but even amongst
these barrel length generally stayed above the 600mm (23. 6in) operated weapons, while at the other was the gas-operated US
mark (an)' shorter and the muzzle blast from the cartridge M1 Garand which would go on to be the standard rifle of US
started to become an obstacle to efficient use). forces until the late 1950s. What unites the various models pro-
In the early decades of the Soviet Union, one rifle cartridge duced was their usage of standard rifle cartridges, despite the
was dominant - the 7. 62 x 54R Mosin-Nagant. This venerable fact that the sheer power of previously bolt-action rounds
round entered service in the aforementioned Ml891 designed placed severe burdens on the pistons, bolts and breech blocks
by Emil and Leon Nagant and Captain S. I. Mosin of the Russian of self-loading weapons. Such a situation was equally true in
Imperial Artillery. The round had a case length of 53. 60mm the Soviet Union. Automatic rifle development there began
(2. 1in) and, depending on the rifle, it could achieve a muzzle with Federov (who will be discussed later) in 1916, but by the
velocity of around 870mps (2854fps) and a range in excess of 1920s and 30s Soviet authorities were eager enough for the
1000m (3280ft). While the Ml891 round was perfectly com- new format to commission numerous competitions to design
patible with the times when it was first produced, its awkward automatic rifles.
rimmed shape and inconsistent manufacture started to cause The participants in these competitions formed a roll-call of
problems with the experimentations in self-loading rifles that some of Soviet history's most esteemed designers - Degtyarev,
gathered apace from the late 1800s. Simonov, Tokarev, Federov. Between 1930 and 1940 the domi-
By the beginning of World War II many nations had devel- nant names in self-loading design were the first three of this
oped self-loading rifles with varying degrees of success. At list. Yet their creative handling of self-loading rifles was cur-
one end of the scale was Mauser's disastrous series of recoil- tailed by the standardisation of the 7. 62 x 54R round. During
9
Other documents randomly have
different content
emancipation from social and moral bondage, and to that end insists
upon the duty of studying the economic and moral forces of society.”
The first Labour Church was founded at Manchester (England) in
October 1891 by a Unitarian minister, John Trevor. This has
disappeared, but vigorous successors have been established not only
in the neighbourhood, but in Bradford, Birmingham, Nottingham,
London, Wolverhampton and other centres of industry, about 30 in
all, with a membership of 3000. Many branches of the Independent
Labour Party and the Social Democratic Federation also hold Sunday
gatherings for adults and children, using the Labour Church hymn-
book and a similar form of service, the reading being chosen from Dr
Stanton Coit’s Message of Man. There are special forms for child-
naming, marriages and burials. The separate churches are federated
in a Labour Church Union, which holds an annual conference and
business meeting in March. At the conference of 1909, held in
Ashton-under-Lyne, the name “Labour Church” was changed to
“Socialist Church.”

LA BOURDONNAIS, BERTRAND FRANÇOIS, Count

Mahé de (1699-1753), French naval commander, was born at Saint
Malo on the 11th of February 1699. He went to sea when a boy, and
in 1718 entered the service of the French India Company as a
lieutenant. In 1724 he was promoted captain, and displayed such
bravery in the capture of Mahé of the Malabar coast that the name
of the town was added to his own. For two years he was in the
service of the Portuguese viceroy of Goa, but in 1735 he returned to
French service as governor of the Île de France and the Île de
Bourbon. His five years’ administration of the islands was vigorous
and successful. A visit to France in 1740 was interrupted by the
outbreak of hostilities with Great Britain, and La Bourdonnais was
put at the head of a fleet in Indian waters. He saved Mahé, relieved
General Dupleix at Pondicherry, defeated Lord Peyton, and in 1746
participated in the siege of Madras. He quarrelled with Dupleix over
the conduct of affairs in India, and his anger was increased on his
return to the Île de France at finding a successor to himself installed
there by his rival. He set sail on a Dutch vessel to present his case at
court, and was captured by the British, but allowed to return to
France on parole. Instead of securing a settlement of his quarrel
with Dupleix, he was arrested (1748) on a charge of gubernatorial
peculation and maladministration, and secretly imprisoned for over
two years in the Bastille. He was tried in 1751 and acquitted, but his
health was broken by the imprisonment and by chagrin at the loss of
his property. To the last he made unjust accusations against Dupleix.
He died at Paris on the 10th of November 1753. The French
government gave his widow a pension of 2400 livres.

La Bourdonnais wrote Traité de la mâture des vaisseaux (Paris

1723), and left valuable memoirs which were published by his
grandson, a celebrated chess player, Count L. C. Mahé de la
Bourdonnais (1795-1840) (latest edition, Paris, 1890). His quarrel
with Dupleix has given rise to much debate; for a long while the
fault was generally laid to the arrogance and jealousy of Dupleix, but
W. Cartwright and Colonel Malleson have pointed out that La
Bourdonnais was proud, suspicious and over-ambitious.
 See P. de Gennes, Mémoire pour le sieur de la Bourdonnais,
avec les pièces justificatives (Paris, 1750); The Case of Mde la
Bourdonnais, in a Letter to a Friend (London, 1748); Fantin des
Odoards, Révolutions de l’Inde (Paris, 1796); Collin de Bar,
Histoire de l’Inde ancienne et moderne (Paris, 1814); Barchou
de Penhoën, Histoire de la conquête et de la fondation de
l’empire anglais dans l’Inde (Paris, 1840); Margry, “Les Isles de
France et de Bourbon sous le gouvernement de La Bourdonnais,”
in La Revue maritime et coloniale (1862); W. Cartwright,
“Dupleix et l’Inde française,” in La Revue britannique (1882); G.
B. Malleson, Dupleix (Oxford, 1895); Anandaranga Pillai, Les
Français dans l’Inde, Dupleix et Labourdonnais, extraits du
journal d’Anandaran-gappoullé 1736-1748, trans. in French by
Vinsor in École spéciale des langues orientales vivantes, séries 3,
vol. xv. (Paris, 1894).

LABOUR EXCHANGE, a term very frequently applied to

registries having for their principal object the better distribution of
labour (see Unemployment). Historically the term is applied to the
system of equitable labour exchanges established in England
between 1832 and 1834 by Robert Owen and his followers. The idea
is said to have originated with Josiah Warren, who communicated it
to Owen. Warren tried an experiment in 1828 at Cincinnati, opening
an exchange under the title of a “time store.” He joined in starting
another at Tuscarawas, Ohio, and a third at Mount Vernon, Indiana,
but none were quite on the same line as the English exchanges. The
fundamental idea of the English exchanges was to establish a
currency based upon labour; Owen in The Crisis for June 1832 laid
down that all wealth proceeded from labour and knowledge; that
labour and knowledge were generally remunerated according to the
time employed, and that in the new exchanges it was proposed to
make time the standard or measure of wealth. This new currency
was represented by “labour notes,” the notes being measured in
hours, and the hour reckoned as being worth sixpence, this figure
being taken as the mean between the wage of the best and the
worst paid labour. Goods were then to be exchanged for the new
currency. The exchange was opened in extensive premises in the
Gray’s Inn Road, near King’s Cross, London, on the 3rd of September
1832. For some months the establishment met with considerable
success, and a considerable number of tradesmen agreed to take
labour notes in payment for their goods. At first, an enormous
number of deposits was made, amounting in seventeen weeks to
445,501 hours. But difficulties soon arose from the lack of sound
practical valuators, and from the inability of the promoters to
distinguish between the labour of the highly skilled and that of the
unskilled. Tradesmen, too, were quick to see that the exchange
might be worked to their advantage; they brought unsaleable stock
from their shops, exchanged it for labour notes, and then picked out
the best of the saleable articles. Consequently the labour notes
began to depreciate; trouble also arose with the proprietors of the
premises, and the experiment came to an untimely end early in
1834.

See F. Podmore’s Robert Owen, ii. c. xvii. (1906); B. Jones,

Co-operative Production, c. viii. (1894); G. J. Holyoake, History
 of Co-operation, c. viii. (1906).

LABOUR LEGISLATION. Regulation of labour,1 in some

form or another, whether by custom, royal authority, ecclesiastical
rules or by formal legislation in the interests of a community, is no
doubt as old as the most ancient forms of civilization. And older than
all civilization is the necessity for the greater part of mankind to
labour for maintenance, whether freely or in bonds, whether for
themselves and their families or for the requirements or superfluities
of others. Even while it is clear, however, that manual labour, or the
application of the bodily forces—with or without mechanical aid—to
personal maintenance and the production of goods, remains the
common lot of the majority of citizens of the most developed
modern communities, still there is much risk of confusion if modern
technical terms such as “labour,” “employer,” “labour legislation” are
freely applied to conditions in bygone civilizations with wholly
different industrial organization and social relationships. In recent
times in England there has been a notable disappearance from
current use of correlative terms implying a social relationship which
is greatly changed, for example, in the rapid passage from the
Master and Servant Act 1867 to the Employer and Workman Act
1875. In the 18th century the term “manufacturer” passed from its
application to a working craftsman to its modern connotation of at
least some command of capital, the employer being no longer a
small working master. An even more significant later change is seen
in the steady development of a labour legislation, which arose in a
clamant social need for the care of specially helpless “protected”
persons in factories and mines, into a wider legislation for the
promotion of general industrial health, safety and freedom for the
worker from fraud in making or carrying out wage contracts.

If, then, we can discern these signs of important changes within

so short a period, great caution is needed in rapidly reviewing long
periods of time prior to that industrial revolution which is traced
mainly to the application of mechanical power to machinery in aid of
manual labour, practically begun and completed within the second
half of the 18th century. “In 1740 save for the fly-shuttle the loom
was as it had been since weaving had begun ... and the law of the
land was” (under the Act of Apprentices of 1503) “that wages in
each district should be assessed by Justices of the Peace.”2 Turning
back to still earlier times, legislation—whatever its source or
authority—must clearly be devoted to aims very different from
modern aims in regulating labour, when it arose before the labourer,
as a man dependent on an “employer” for the means of doing work,
had appeared, and when migratory labour was almost unknown
through the serfdom of part of the population and the special status
secured in towns to the artisan.

In the great civilizations of antiquity there were great aggregations

of labour which was not solely, though frequently it was
predominantly, slave labour; and some of the features of
manufacture and mining on a great scale arose, producing the same
sort of evils and industrial maladies known and regulated in our own
times. Some of the maladies were described by Pliny and classed as
“diseases of slaves.” And he gave descriptions of processes, for
example in the metal trades, as belonging entirely to his own day,
which modern archaeological discoveries trace back through the
earliest known Aryan civilizations to a prehistoric origin in the East,
and which have never died out in western Europe, but can be traced
in a concentrated manufacture with almost unchanged methods,
now in France, now in Germany, now in England.

Little would be gained in such a sketch as this by an endeavour to

piece together the scattered and scanty materials for a comparative
history of the varying conditions and methods of labour regulation
over so enormous a range. While our knowledge continually
increases of the remains of ancient craft, skill and massed labour,
much has yet to be discovered that may throw light on methods of
organization of the labourers. While much, and in some civilizations
most, of the labour was compulsory or forced, it is clear that too
much has been sometimes assumed, and it is by no means certain
that even the pyramids of Egypt, much less the beautiful earliest
Egyptian products in metal work, weaving and other skilled craft
work, were typical products of slave labour. Even in Rome it was only
at times that the proportion of slaves valued as property was greater
than that of hired workers, or, apart from capture in war or self-
surrender in discharge of a debt, that purchase of slaves by the
trader, manufacturer or agriculturist was generally considered the
cheapest means of securing labour. As in early England the various
stages of village industrial life, medieval town manufacture, and
organization in craft gilds, and the beginnings of the mercantile
system, were parallel with a greater or less prevalence of serfdom
and even with the presence in part of slavery, so in other ages and
civilizations the various methods of organization of labour are found
to some extent together. The Germans in their primitive settlements
were accustomed to the notion of slavery, and in the decline of the
Roman Empire Roman captives from among the most useful
craftsmen were carried away by their northern conquerors.

The history and present details of the labour laws of various

countries are dealt with below in successive sections: (1) history of
legislation in the United Kingdom; (2) the results as shown by the
law in force in 1909, with the corresponding facts for (3) Continental
Europe and (4) the United States. Under other headings (Trade-
Unions, Strikes and Lock-Outs, Arbitration and Conciliation, &c., &c.) are
many details on cognate subjects.

I. History in the United Kingdom

1. Until the Close of the 15th Century.—Of the main conditions of

industrial labour in early Anglo-Saxon England details are scanty.
Monastic industrial communities were added in Christian times to
village industrial communities. While generally husbandry was the
first object of toil, and developed under elaborate regulation in the
manorial system, still a considerable variety of industries grew up,
the aim being expressly to make each social group self-sufficing, and
to protect and regulate village artisans in the interest of village
resources. This protective system, resting on a communal or co-
operative view of labour and social life, has been compared as
analogous to the much later and wider system under which the main
purpose was to keep England as a whole self-sufficing.3 It has also
been shown how greatly a fresh spirit of enterprise in industry and
trade was stimulated first by the Danish and next by the Norman
invasion; the former brought in a vigour shown in growth of villages,
increase in number of freemen, and formation of trading towns; the
latter especially opened up new communications with the most
civilized continental people, and was followed by a considerable
immigration of artisans, particularly of Flemings. In Saxon England
slavery in the strictest sense existed, as is shown in the earliest
English laws, but it seems that the true slave class as distinct from
the serf class was comparatively small, and it may well be that the
labour of an ordinary serf was not practically more severe, and the
remuneration in maintenance and kind not much less than that of
agricultural labourers in recent times. In spite of the steady protest
of the Church, slavery (as the exception, not the general rule) did
not die out for many centuries, and was apt to be revived as a
punishment for criminals, e.g. in the fierce provisions of the statute
of Edward VI. against beggars, not repealed until 1597. At no time,
however, was it general, and as the larger village and city
populations grew the ratio of serfs and slaves to the freemen in the
whole population rapidly diminished, for the city populations “had
not the habit and use of slavery,” and while serfs might sometimes
find a refuge in the cities from exceptionally severe taskmasters,
“there is no doubt that freemen gradually united with them under
the lord’s protection, that strangers engaged in trade sojourned
among them, and that a race of artisans gradually grew up in which
original class feelings were greatly modified.” From these conditions
grew two parallel tendencies in regulation of labour. On the one
hand there was, under royal charters, the burgh or municipal
organization and control of artisan and craft labour, passing later into
the more specialized organization in craft gilds; on the other hand,
there was a necessity, sometimes acute, to prevent undue
diminution in the numbers available for husbandry or agricultural
labour. To the latter cause must be traced a provision appearing in a
succession of statutes (see especially an act of Richard II., 1388),
that a child under twelve years once employed in agriculture might
never be transferred to apprenticeship in a craft. The steady
development of England, first as a wool-growing, later as a cloth-
producing country, would accentuate this difficulty. During the 13th
century, side by side with development of trading companies for the
export of wool from England, may be noted many agreements on
the part of monasteries to sell their wool to Florentines, and during
the same century absorption of alien artisans into the municipal
system was practically completed. Charters of Henry I. provided for
naturalization of these aliens. From the time of Edward I. to Edward
III. a gradual transference of burgh customs, so far as recognized
for the common good, to statute law was in progress, together with
an assertion of the rights of the crown against ecclesiastical orders.
“The statutes of Edward I.,” says Dr. Cunningham, “mark the first
attempt to deal with Industry and Trade as a public matter which
concerns the whole state, not as the particular affair of leading men
in each separate locality.” The first direct legislation for labour by
statute, however, is not earlier than the twenty-third year of the
reign of Edward III., and it arose in an attempt to control the decay
and ruin, both in rural and urban districts, which followed the
Hundred Years’ War, and the pestilence known as the Black Death.
This first “Statute of Labourers” was designed for the benefit of the
community, not for the protection of labour or prevention of
oppression, and the policy of enforcing customary wages and
compelling the able-bodied labourer, whether free or bond, not living
in merchandise or exercising any craft, to work for hire at recognized
rates of pay, must be reviewed in the circumstances and ideals of
the time. Regulation generally in the middle ages aimed at
preventing any individual or section of the community from making
what was considered an exceptional profit through the necessity of
others.4 The scarcity of labour by the reduction of the population
through pestilence was not admitted as a justification for the
demands for increased pay, and while the unemployed labourer was
liable to be committed to gaol if he refused service at current rates,
the lords of the towns or manors who promised or paid more to their
servants were liable to be sued treble the sum in question. Similar
restrictions were made applicable to artificers and workmen. By
another statute, two years later, labourers or artificers who left their
work and went into another county were liable to be arrested by the
sheriff and brought back. These and similar provisions with similar
aims were confirmed by statutes of 1360, 1368 and 1388, but the
act of 1360, while prohibiting “all alliances and covins of masons,
carpenters, congregations, chapters, ordinances and oaths betwixt
them made,” allowed “every lord to bargain or covenant for their
works in gross with such labourers and artificers when it pleaseth
them, so that they perform such works well and lawfully according
to the bargain and covenant with them thereof made.” Powers were
given by the acts of 1368 and 1388 to justices to determine matters
under these statutes and to fix wages. Records show that workmen
of various descriptions were pressed by writs addressed to sheriffs to
work for their king at wages regardless of their will as to terms and
place of work. These proceedings were founded on notions of royal
prerogative, of which impressment of seamen survived as an
example to a far later date. By an act of 1388 no servant or labourer,
man or woman, however, could depart out of the hundred to serve
elsewhere unless bearing a letter patent under the king’s seal stating
the cause of going and time of return. Such provisions would appear
to have widely failed in their purpose, for an act of 1414 declares
that the servants and labourers fled from county to county, and
justices were empowered to send writs to the sheriffs for fugitive
labourers as for felons, and to examine labourers, servants and their
masters, as well as artificers, and to punish them on confession. An
act of 1405, while putting a property qualification on apprenticeship
and requiring parents under heavy penalties to put their children to
such labour as their estates required, made a reservation giving
freedom to any person “to send their children to school to learn
literature.” Up to the end of the 15th century a monotonous
succession of statutes strengthening, modifying, amending the
various attempts (since the first Statute of Labourers) to limit free
movement of labour, or demands by labourers for increased wages,
may be seen in the acts of 1411, 1427, 1444, 1495. It was clearly
found extremely difficult, if not impracticable, to carry out the
minute control of wages considered desirable, and exceptions in
favour of certain occupations were in some of the statutes
themselves. In 1512 the penalties for giving wages contrary to law
were repealed so far as related to masters, but it also appears that
London workmen would not endure the prevalent restrictions as to
wages, and that they secured in practice a greater freedom to
arrange rates when working within the city. Several of these
statutes, and especially one of 1514, fixed the hours of labour when
limiting wages. During March to September the limits were 5 a.m. to
7 or 8 p.m., with half an hour off for breakfast and an hour and a half
off for mid-day dinner. In winter the outside limits were fixed by the
length of daylight.

Throughout the 15th century the rapidly increasing manufacture

of cloth was subject to a regulation which aimed at maintaining the
standard of production and prevention of bad workmanship, and the
noteworthy statute 4 Edward IV. c. 1, while giving power to royal
officers to supervise size of cloths, modes of sealing, &c., also
repressed payment to workers in “pins, girdles and unprofitable
wares,” and ordained payment in true and lawful money. This statute
(the first against “Truck”) gives an interesting picture of the way in
which clothiers—or, as we should call them, wholesale merchants
and manufacturers—delivered wool to spinners, carders, &c., by
weight, and paid for the work when brought back finished. It
appears that the work was carried on in rural as well as town
districts. While this industry was growing and thriving other trades
remained backward, and agriculture was in a depressed condition.
Craft gilds had primarily the same purpose as the Edwardian
statutes, that is, of securing that the public should be well served
with good wares, and that the trade and manufacture itself should
be on a sound basis as to quality of products and should flourish.
Incidentally there was considerable regulation by the gilds of the
conditions of labour, but not primarily in the interests of the labourer.
Thus night work was prohibited because it tended to secrecy and so
to bad execution of work; working on holidays was prohibited to
secure fair play between craftsmen and so on. The position of
apprentices was made clear through indentures, but the position of
journeymen was less certain. Signs are not wanting of a struggle
between journeymen and masters, and towards the end of the 15th
century masters themselves, in at least the great wool trade, tended
to develop from craftsmen into something more like the modern
capitalist employer; from an act of 1555 touching weavers it is quite
clear that this development had greatly advanced and that cloth-
making was carried on largely by employers with large capitals.
Before this, however, while a struggle went on between the town
authorities and the craft gilds, journeymen began to form companies
of their own, and the result of the various conflicts may be seen in
an act of Henry VI., providing that in future new ordinances of gilds
shall be submitted to justices of the peace—a measure which was
strengthened in 1503.
 2. From Tudor Days until the Close of the 18th Century.—A
detailed history of labour regulation in the 16th century would
include some account of the Tudor laws against vagrancy and
methods of dealing with the increase of pauperism, attributable, at
least in part, to the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII.,
and to the confiscation of craft gild funds, which proceeded under
Somerset and Edward VI. It is sufficient here to point to the general
recognition of the public right to compel labourers to work and thus
secure control of unemployed as well as employed. The statutes of
Henry VIII. and Edward VI. against vagrancy differed rather in
degree of severity than in principle from legislation for similar
purposes in previous and subsequent reigns. The Statute of
Labourers, passed in the fifth year of Elizabeth’s reign (1562), as
well as the poor law of the same year, was to a considerable extent
both a consolidating and an amending code of law, and was so
securely based on public opinion and deeply rooted custom that it
was maintained in force for two centuries. It avowedly approves of
principles and aims in earlier acts, regulating wages, punishing
refusal to work, and preventing free migration of labour. It makes,
however, a great advance in its express aim of protecting the poor
labourer against insufficient wages, and of devising a machinery, by
frequent meeting of justices, which might yield “unto the hired
person both in time of scarcity and in time of plenty a convenient
proportion of wages.” Minute regulations were made governing the
contract between master and servant, and their mutual rights and
obligations on parallel lines for (a) artificers, (b) labourers in
husbandry. Hiring was to be by the year, and any unemployed
person qualified in either calling was bound to accept service on pain
of imprisonment, if required, unless possessed of property of a
specified amount or engaged in art, science or letters, or being a
“gentleman.” Persons leaving a service were bound to obtain a
testimonial, and might not be taken into fresh employment without
producing such testimonial, or, if in a new district, until after showing
it to the authorities of the place. A master might be fined £5, and a
labourer imprisoned, and if contumacious, whipped, for breach of
this rule. The carefully devised scheme for technical training of
apprentices embodied to a considerable extent the methods and
experiences of the craft gilds. Hours of labour were as follows: “All
artificers and labourers being hired for wages by the day or week
shall, betwixt the midst of the months of March and September, be
and continue at their work at or before 5 o’clock in the morning and
continue at work and not depart until betwixt 7 and 8 o’clock at
night, except it be in the time of breakfast, dinner or drinking, the
which time at the most shall not exceed two hours and a half in a
day, that is to say, at every drinking half an hour, for his dinner one
hour and for his sleep when he is allowed to sleep, the which is from
the midst of May to the midst of August, half an hour; and all the
said artificers and labourers betwixt the midst of September and the
midst of March shall be and continue at their work from the spring of
the day in the morning until the night of the same day, except it be
in time afore appointed for breakfast and dinner, upon pain to lose
and forfeit one penny for every hour’s absence, to be deducted and
defaulked out of his wages that shall so offend.” Although the
standpoint of the Factory Act and Truck Act in force at the beginning
of the 20th century as regards hours of labour or regulation of fines
deducted from wages is completely reversed, yet the difference is
not great between the average length of hours of labour permissible
under the present law for women and those hours imposed upon the
adult labourer in Elizabeth’s statute. Apart from the standpoint of
compulsory imposition of fines, one advantage in the definiteness of
amount deductable from wages would appear to lie on the side of
the earlier statute.

Three points remain to be touched on in connexion with the

Elizabethan poor law. In addition to (a) consolidation of measures
for setting vagrants to work, we find the first compulsory
contributions from the well-to-do towards poor relief there provided
for, (b) at least a theoretical recognition of a right as well as an
obligation on the part of the labourer to be hired, (c) careful
provision for the apprenticing of destitute children and orphans to a
trade.

One provision of considerable interest arose in Scotland, which

was nearly a century later in organizing provisions for fixing
conditions of hire and wages of workmen, labourers and servants,
similar to those consolidated in the Elizabethan Statute of Labourers.
In 1617 it was provided (and reaffirmed in 1661) that power should
be given to the sheriffs to compel payment of wages, “that servants
may be the more willing to obey the ordinance.” The difficulties in
regulation of compulsory labour in Scotland must, however, have
been great, for in 1672 houses of correction were erected for
disobedient servants, and masters of these houses were empowered
to force them to work and to correct them according to their
demerits. While servants in manufacture were compelled to work at
reasonable rates they might not enter on a new hire without their
previous master’s consent.

Such legislation continued, at least theoretically, in force until the

awakening effected by the beginning of the industrial revolution—
that is, until the combined effects of steady concentration of capital
in the hands of employers and expansion of trade, followed closely
by an unexampled development of invention in machinery and
application of power to its use. completely altered the face of
industrial England. From time to time, in respect of particular trades,
provisions against truck and for payment of wages in current coin,
similar to the act of Edward IV. in the woollen industry, were found
necessary, and this branch of labour legislation developed through
the reigns of Anne and the four Georges until consolidation and
amendment were effected, after the completion of the industrial
revolution, in the Truck Act of 1831. From the close of the 17th
century and during the 18th century the legislature is no longer
mainly engaged in devising means for compelling labourers and
artisans to enter into involuntary service, but rather in regulating the
summary powers of justices of the peace in the matter of dispute
between masters and servants in relation to contracts and
agreements, express or implied, presumed to have been entered
into voluntarily on both sides. While the movement to refer labour
questions to the jurisdiction of the justices thus gradually developed,
the main subject matter for their exercise of jurisdiction in regard to
labour also changed, even when theoretically for a time the two sets
of powers—such as (a) moderation of craft gild ordinances and
punishment of workers refusing hire, or (b) fixing scales of wages
and enforcement of labour contracts—might be concurrently
exercised. Even in an act of George II. (1746) for settlement of
disputes and differences as to wages or other conditions under a
contract of labour, power was retained for the justices, on complaint
of the masters of misdemeanour or ill-behaviour on the part of the
servant, to discharge the latter from service or to send him to a
house of correction “there to be corrected,” that is, to be held to
hard labour for a term not exceeding a month or to be corrected by
whipping. In an act with similar aims of George IV. (1823), with a
rather wider scope, the power to order corporal punishment, and in
1867 to hard labour, for breach of labour contracts had disappeared,
and soon after the middle of the 19th century the right to enforce
contracts of labour also disappeared. Then breach of such labour
contracts became simply a question of recovery of damages, unless
both parties agreed that security for performance of the contract
shall be given instead of damages.

While the endeavour to enforce labour apart from a contract died

out in the latter end of the 18th century, sentiment for some time
had strongly grown in favour of developing early industrial training
of children. It appears to have been a special object of charitable
and philanthropic endeavour in the 17th century, as well as the 18th,
to found houses of industry, in which little children, even under five
years of age, might be trained for apprenticeship with employers.
Connected as this development was with poor relief, one of its chief
aims was to prevent future unemployment and vagrancy by training
in habits and knowledge of industry, but not unavowed was another
motive: “from children thus trained up to constant labour we may
venture to hope the lowering of its price.”5 The evils and excesses
which lay enfolded within such a movement gave the first impulse to
the new ventures in labour legislation which are specially the work of
the 19th century. Evident as it is “that before the Industrial
Revolution very young children were largely employed both in their
own homes and as apprentices under the Poor Law,” and that “long
before Peel’s time there were misgivings about the apprenticeship
system,” still it needed the concentration and prominence of
suffering and injury to child life in the factory system to lead to
parliamentary intervention.

3. From 1800 to the Codes of 1872 and 1878.—A serious outbreak

of fever in 1784 in cotton mills near Manchester appears to have first
drawn widespread and influential public opinion to the overwork of
children, under terribly dangerous and insanitary conditions, on
which the factory system was then largely being carried on. A local
inquiry, chiefly by a group of medical men presided over by Dr
Percival, was instituted by the justices of the peace for Lancashire,
and in the forefront of the resulting report stood a recommendation
for limitation and control of the working hours of the children. A
resolution by the county justices followed, in which they declared
their intention in future to refuse “indentures of parish Apprentices
whereby they shall be bound to Owners of Cotton Mills and other
works in which children are obliged to work in the night or more
than ten hours in the day.” In 1795 the Manchester Board of Health
was formed, which, with fuller information, more definitely advised
legislation for the regulation of the hours and conditions of labour in
factories. In 1802 the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act was
passed, which in effect formed the first step towards prevention of
injury to and protection of labour in factories. It was directly aimed
only at evils of the apprentice system, under which large numbers of
pauper children were worked in cotton and woollen mills without
education, for excessive hours, under wretched conditions. It did not
apply to places employing fewer than twenty persons or three
apprentices, and it applied the principle of limitation of hours (to
twelve a day) and abolition of night work, as well as educational
requirements, only to apprentices. Religious teaching and suitable
sleeping accommodation and clothing were provided for in the act,
also as regards apprentices. Lime-washing and ventilation provisions
applied to all cotton and woollen factories employing more than
twenty persons. “Visitors” were to be appointed by county justices
for repression of contraventions, and were empowered to “direct the
adoption of such sanitary regulations as they might on advice think
proper.” The mills were to be registered by the clerk of the peace,
and justices had power to inflict fines of from £2 to £5 for
contraventions. Although enforcement of the very limited provisions
of the act was in many cases poor or non-existent, in some districts
excellent work was done by justices, and in 1803 the West Riding of
Yorkshire justices passed a resolution substituting the ten hours’ limit
for the twelve hours’ limit of the act, as a condition of permission for
indenturing of apprentices in mills.

Rapid development of the application of steam power to

manufacture led to growth of employment of children in populous
centres, otherwise than on the apprenticeship system, and before
long the evils attendant on this change brought the general question
of regulation and protection of child labour in textile factories to the
front. The act of 1819, limited as it was, was a noteworthy step
forward, in that it dealt with this wider scope of employment of
children in cotton factories, and it is satisfactory to record that it was
the outcome of the efforts and practical experiments of a great
manufacturer, Robert Owen. Its provisions fell on every point lower
than the aims he put forward on his own experience as practicable,
and notably in its application only to cotton mills instead of all textile
factories. Prohibition of child labour under nine years of age and
limitation of the working day to twelve in the twenty-four (without
specifying the precise hour of beginning and closing) were the main
provisions of this act. No provision was made for enforcement of the
law beyond such as was attempted in the act of 1802. Slight
amendments were attempted in the acts of 1825 and 1831, but the
first really important factory act was in 1833 applying to textile
factories generally, limiting employment of young persons under
eighteen years of age, as well as children, prohibiting night work
between 8.30 p.m. and 5.30 a.m., and first providing for “inspectors”
to enforce the law. This is the act which was based on the devoted
efforts of Michael Sadler, with whose name in this connexion that of
Lord Ashley, afterwards earl of Shaftesbury, was from 1832
associated. The importance of this act lay in its provision for skilled
inspection and thus for enforcement of the law by an independent
body of men unconnected with the locality in which the
manufactures lay, whose specialization in their work enabled them to
acquire information needed for further development of legislation for
protection of labour. Their powers were to a certain extent judicial,
being assimilated to those possessed by justices; they could
administer oaths and make such “rules, regulations and orders” as
were necessary for execution of the act, and could hear complaints
and impose penalties under the act. In 1844 a textile factory act
modified these extensive inspectoral powers, organizing the service
on lines resembling those of our own time, and added provision for
certifying surgeons to examine workers under sixteen years of age
as to physical fitness for employment and to grant certificates of age
and ordinary strength. Hours of labour, by the act of 1833, were
limited for children under eleven to 9 a day or 48 in the week, and
for young persons under eighteen to 12 a day or 69 in the week.
Between 1833 and 1844 the movement in favour of a ten hours’ day,
which had long been in progress, reached its height in a time of
great commercial and industrial distress, but could not be carried
into effect until 1847. By the act of 1844 the hours of adult women
were first regulated, and were limited (as were already those of
“young persons”) to 12 a day; children were permitted either to
work the same hours on alternate days or “half-time,” with
compulsory school attendance as a condition of their employment.
The aim in thus adjusting the hours of the three classes of workers
was to provide for a practical standard working-day. For the first
time detailed provisions for health and safety began to make their
appearance in the law. Penal compensation for preventible injuries
due to unfenced machinery was also provided, and appears to have
been the outcome of a discussion by witnesses before the Royal
Commission on Labour of Young Persons in Mines and Manufactures
in 1841.

From this date, 1841, begin the first attempts at protective

legislation for labour in mining. The first Mines Act of 1842 following
the terrible revelations of the Royal Commission referred to excluded
women and girls from underground working, and limited the
employment of boys, excluding from underground working those
under ten years, but it was not until 1850 that systematic reporting
of fatal accidents and until 1855 that other safeguards for health, life
and limb in mines were seriously provided by law. With the
exception of regulations against truck there was no protection for
the miner before 1842; before 1814 it was not customary to hold
inquests on miners killed by accidents in mines. From 1842 onwards
considerable interaction in the development of the two sets of acts
(mines and factories), as regards special protection against industrial
injury to health and limb, took place, both in parliament and in the
department (Home Office) administering them. Another strong
influence tending towards ultimate development of scientific
protection of health and life in industry began in the work and
reports of the series of sanitary commissions and Board of Health
reports from 1843 onwards. In 1844 the mines inspector made his
first report, but two years later women were still employed to some
extent underground. Organized inspection began in 1850, and in
1854 the Select Committee on Accidents adopted a suggestion of the
inspectors for legislative extension of the practice of several colliery
owners in framing special safety rules for working in mines. The act
of 1855 provided seven general rules, relating to ventilation, fencing
of disused shafts, proper means for signalling, proper gauges and
valve for steam-boiler, indicator and brake for machine lowering and
raising; also it provided that detailed special rules submitted by
mine-owners to the secretary of state, might, on his approval, have
the force of law and be enforceable by penalty. The Mines Act of
1860, besides extending the law to ironstone mines, following as it
did on a series of disastrous accidents and explosions, strengthened
some of the provisions for safety. At several inquests strong
evidence was given of incompetent management and neglect of
rules, and a demand was made for enforcing employment only of
certificated managers of coal mines. This was not met until the act
of 1872, but in 1860 certain sections relating to wages and
education were introduced. Steady development of the coal industry,
increasing association among miners, and increased scientific
knowledge of means of ventilation and of other methods for
securing safety, all paved the way to the Coal Mines Act of 1872, and
in the same year health and safety in metalliferous mines received
their first legislative treatment in a code of similar scope and
character to that of the Coal Mines Act. This act was amended in
1886, and repealed and recodified in 1887; its principal provisions
are still in force, with certain revised special rules and modifications
as regards reporting of accidents (1906) and employment of children
(1903). It was based on the recommendations of a Royal
Commission, which had reported in 1864, and which had shown the
grave excess of mortality and sickness among metalliferous miners,
attributed to the inhalation of gritty particles, imperfect ventilation,
great changes of temperature, excessive physical exertion, exposure
to wet, and other causes. The prohibition of employment of women
and of boys under ten years underground in this class of mines, as
well as in coal mines, had been effected by the act of 1842, and
inspection had been provided for in the act of 1860; these were in
amended form included in the code of 1872, the age of employment
of boys underground being raised to twelve. In the Coal Mines Act of
1872 we see the first important effort to provide a complete code of
regulation for the special dangers to health, life and limb in coal
mines apart from other mines; it applied to “mines of coal, mines of
stratified ironstone, mines of shale and mines of fire-clay.” Unlike the
companion act—applying to all other mines—it maintained the age
limit of entering underground employment for boys at ten years, but
for those between ten and twelve it provided for a system of
working analogous to the half-time system in factories, including
compulsory school attendance. The limits of employment for boys
from twelve to sixteen were 10 hours in any one day and 54 in
anyone week. The chief characteristics of the act lay in extension of
the “general” safety rules, improvement of the method of
formulating “special” safety rules, provision for certificated and
competent management, and increased inspection. Several
important matters were transferred from the special to the general
rules, such as compulsory use of safety lamps where needed,
regulation of use of explosives, and securing of roofs and sides.
Special rules, before being submitted to the secretary of state for
approval, must be posted in the mine for two weeks, with a notice
that objections might be sent by any person employed to the district
inspector. Wilful neglect of safety provisions became punishable in
the case of employers as well as miners by imprisonment with hard
labour. But the most important new step lay in the sections relating
to daily control and supervision of every mine by a manager holding
a certificate of competency from the secretary of state, after
examination by a board of examiners appointed by the secretary of
state, power being retained for him to cause later inquiry into
competency of the holder of the certificate, and to cancel or suspend
the certificate in case of proved unfitness.

Returning to the development of factory and workshop law from

the year 1844, the main line of effort—after the act of 1847 had
restricted hours of women and young persons to 10 a day and fixed
the daily limits between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. (Saturday 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.)—
lay in bringing trade after trade in some degree under the scope of
this branch of law, which had hitherto only regulated conditions in
textile factories. Bleaching and dyeing works were included by the
acts of 1860 and 1862; lace factories by that of 1861; calendering
and finishing by acts of 1863 and 1864; bakehouses became
partially regulated by an act of 1863, with special reference to local
authorities for administration of its clauses. The report of the third
Children’s Employment Commission brought together in accessible
form the miserable facts relating to child labour in a number of
unregulated industries in the year 1862, and the act of 1864 brought
some of (these earthenware-making, lucifer match-making,
percussion cap and cartridge making, paper-staining, and fustian
cutting) partly under the scope of the various textile factory acts in
force. A larger addition of trades was made three years later, but the
act of 1864 is particularly interesting in that it first embodied some
of the results of inquiries of expert medical and sanitary
commissioners, by requiring ventilation to be applied to the removal
of injurious gases, dust, and other impurities generated in
manufacture, and made a first attempt to engraft part of the special
rules system from the mines acts. The provisions for framing such
rules disappeared in the Consolidating Act of 1878, to be revived in a
better form later. The Sanitary Act of 1866, administered by local
authorities, provided for general sanitation in any factories and
workshops not under existing factory acts, and the Workshops
Regulation Act of 1867, similarly to be administered by local
authorities, amended in 1870, practically completed the application
of the main principle of the factory acts to all places in which manual
labour was exercised for gain in the making or finishing of articles or
parts of articles for sale. A few specially dangerous or injurious
trades brought under regulation in 1864 and 1867 (e.g. earthenware
and lucifer match making, glass-making) ranked as “factories,”
although not using mechanical power, and for a time employment of
less than fifty persons relegated certain workplaces to the category
of “workshops,” but broadly the presence or absence of such motor
power in aid of process was made and has remained the distinction
between factories and workshops. The Factory Act of 1874, the last
of the series before the great Consolidating Act of 1878, raised the
minimum age of employment for children to ten years in textile
factories. In most of the great inquiries into conditions of child
labour the fact has come clearly to light, in regard to textile and
non-textile trades alike, that parents as much as any employers have
been responsible for too early employment and excessive hours of
employment of children, and from early times until to-day in factory
legislation it has been recognized that they must to some extent be
held responsible for due observation of the limits imposed. For
example, in 1831 it was found necessary to protect occupiers against
parental responsibility for false certificates of age, and in 1833
parents of a child or “any Person having any benefit from the wages
of such child” were made to share responsibility for employment of
children without school attendance or beyond legal hours.

During the discussions on the bill which became law in 1874, it

had become apparent that revision and consolidation of the
multiplicity of statutes then regulating manufacturing industry had
become pressingly necessary; modifications and exceptions for
exceptional conditions in separate industries needed reconsideration
and systematization on clear principles, and the main requirements
of the law could with great advantage be applied more generally to
all the industries. In particular, the daily limits as to period of
employment, pauses for meals, and holidays, needed to be unified
for non-textile factories and workshops, so as to bring about a
standard working-day, and thus prevent the tendency in “the larger
establishments to farm out work among the smaller, where it is done
under less favourable conditions both sanitary and educational.”6 In
these main directions, and that of simplifying definitions,
summarizing special sanitary provisions that had been gradually
introduced for various trades, and centralizing and improving the
organization of the inspectorate, the Commission of 1876 on the
Factory Acts made its recommendations, and the Factory Act of 1878
took effect. In the fixed working-day, provisions for pauses, holidays,
general and special exceptions, distinctions between systems of
employment for children, young persons and women, education of
children and certificates of fitness for children and young persons,
limited regulation of domestic workshops, general principles of
administration and definitions, the law of 1878 was made practically
the same as that embodied in the later principal act of 1901. More or
less completely revised are: (a) the sections in the 1878 act relating
to mode of controlling sanitary conditions in workshops (since 1891
primarily enforced by the local sanitary authority); (b) provision for
reporting accidents and for enforcing safety (other than fencing of
mill gearing and dangerous machinery); (c) detailed regulation of
injurious and dangerous process and trades; (d) powers of certifying
surgeons; (e) amount of overtime permissible (greatly reduced in
amount and now confined to adults); (f) age for permissible
employment of a child has been raised from ten years to twelve
years. Entirely new since the act of 1878 are the provisions: (a) for
control of outwork; (b) for supplying particulars of work and wages
to piece-workers, enabling them to compute the total amount of
wages payable to them; (e) extension of the act to laundries; (f) a
tentative effort to limit the too early employment of mothers after
childbirth.

II. Law of United Kingdom, 1910

Factories and Workshops.—The act of 1878 remained until 1901,

although much had been meanwhile superimposed, a monument to
the efforts of the great factory reformers of the first half of the 19th
century, and the general groundwork of safety for workers in
factories and workshops in the main divisions of sanitation, security
against accidents, physical fitness of workers, general limitation of
hours and times of employment for young workers and women. The
act of 1901, which came into force 1st January 1902 (and became
the principal act), was an amending as well as a consolidating act.
Comparison of the two acts shows, however, that, in spite of the
advantages of further consolidation and helpful changes in
arrangement of sections and important additions which tend towards
a specialized hygiene for factory life, the fundamental features of the
law as fought out in the 19th century remain undisturbed. So far as
the law has altered in character, it has done so chiefly by gradual
development of certain sanitary features, originally subordinate, and
by strengthening provision for security against accidents and not by
retreat from its earlier aims. At the same time a basis for possible
new developments can be seen in the protection of “outworkers” as
well as factory workers against fraudulent or defective particulars of
piece-work rates of wages.

Later acts directly and indirectly affecting the law are certain acts
of 1903, 1906, 1907, to be touched on presently.

The act of 1878, in a series of acts from 1883 to 1895, received

striking additions, based (1) on the experience gained in other
branches of protective legislation, e.g. development of the method
of regulation of dangerous trades by “special
Additions to act rules” and administrative inquiry into accidents
of 1878. under Coal Mines Acts; (2) on the findings of
royal commissions and parliamentary inquiries,
e.g. increased control of “outwork” and domestic workshops, and
limitation of “overtime”; (3) on the development of administrative
machinery for enforcing the more modern law relating to public
health, e.g. transference of administration of sanitary provisions in
workshops to the local sanitary authorities; (4) on the trade-union
demand for means for securing trustworthy records of wage-
contracts between employer and workman, e.g. the section requiring
particulars of work and wages for piece-workers. The first additions
to the act of 1878 were, however, almost purely attempts to deal
more adequately than had been attempted in the code of 1878 with
certain striking instances of trades injurious to health. Thus the
Factory and Workshop Act of 1883 provided that white-lead factories
should not be carried on without a certificate of conformity with
certain conditions, and also made provision for special rules, on lines
later superseded by those laid down in the act of 1891, applicable to
any employment in a factory or workshop certified as dangerous or
injurious by the secretary of state. The act of 1883 also dealt with
sanitary conditions in bakehouses. Certain definitions and
explanations of previous enactments touching overtime and
employment of a child in any factory or workshop were also included
in the act. A class of factories in which excessive heat and humidity
seriously affected the health of operatives was next dealt with in the
Cotton Cloth Factories Act 1889. This provided for special notice to
the chief inspector from all occupiers of cotton cloth factories (i.e.
any room, shed, or workshop or part thereof in which weaving of
cotton cloth is carried on) who intend to produce humidity by
artificial means; regulated both temperature of workrooms and
amount of moisture in the atmosphere, and provided for tests and
records of the same; and fixed a standard minimum volume of fresh
air (600 cub. ft.) to be admitted in every hour for every person
employed in the factory. Power was retained for the secretary of
state to modify by order the standard for the maximum limit of
humidity of the atmosphere at any given temperature. A short act in
1870 extended this power to other measures for the protection of
health.

The special measures from 1878 to 1889 gave valuable precedents

for further developments of special hygiene in factory life, but the
next advance in the Factory and Workshop Act 1891, following the
House of Lords Committee on the sweating system and the Berlin
International Labour Conference, extended over much wider ground.
Its principal objects were: (a) to render administration of the law
relating to workshops more efficient, particularly as regards
sanitation; with this end in view it made the primary controlling
authority for sanitary matters in workshops the local sanitary
authority (now the district council), acting by their officers, and
giving them the powers of the less numerous body of factory
inspectors, while at the same time the provisions of the Public
Health Acts replaced in workshops the very similar sanitary
provisions of the Factory Acts; (b) to provide for greater security
against accidents and more efficient fencing of machinery in
factories; (c) to extend the method of regulation of unhealthy or
dangerous occupations by application of special rules and
requirements to any incident of employment (other than in a
domestic workshop) certified by the secretary of state to be
dangerous or injurious to health or dangerous to life or limb; (d) to
raise the age of employment of children and restrict the employment
of women immediately after childbirth; (e) to require particulars of
rate of wages to be given with work to piece-workers in certain
branches of the textile industries; (f) to amend the act of 1878 in
various subsidiary ways, with the view of improving the
administration of its principles, e.g. by increasing the means of
checking the amount of overtime worked, empowering inspectors to
enter workplaces used as dwellings without a justice’s warrant, and
the imposition of minimum penalties in certain cases. On this act
followed four years of greatly accelerated administrative activity. No
fewer than sixteen trades were scheduled by the secretary of state
as dangerous to health. The manner of preparing and establishing
suitable rules was greatly modified by the act of 1901 and will be
dealt with in that connexion.

The Factory and Workshop Act 1895 followed thus on a period of

exercise of new powers of administrative regulation (the period
being also that during which the Royal Commission on Labour made
its wide survey of industrial conditions), and after two successive
annual reports of the chief inspector of factories had embodied
reports and recommendations from the women inspectors, who in
1893 were first added to the inspectorate. Again, the chief features
of an even wider legislative effort than that of 1891 were the
increased stringency and definiteness of the measures for securing
hygienic and safe conditions of work. Some of these measures,
however, involved new principles, as in the provision for the
prohibition of the use of a dangerous machine or structure by the
order of a magistrate’s court, and the power to include in the special
rules drawn up in pursuance of section 8 of the act of 1891, the
prohibition of the employment of any class of persons, or the
limitation of the period of employment of any class of persons in any
process scheduled by order of the secretary of state. These last two
powers have both been exercised, and with the exercise of the latter
passed away, without opposition, the absolute freedom of the
employer of the adult male labourer to carry on his manufacture
without legislative limitation of the hours of labour. Second only in
significance to these new developments was the addition, for the
first time since 1867, of new classes of workplaces not covered by
the general definitions in section 93 of the Consolidating Act of
1878, viz.: (a) laundries (with special conditions as to hours, &c.);
(b) docks, wharves, quays, warehouses and premises on which
machinery worked by power is temporarily used for the purpose of
the construction of a building or any structural work in connexion
with the building (for the purpose only of obtaining security against
accidents). Other entirely new provisions in the act of 1895, later
strengthened by the act of 1901, were the requirement of a
reasonable temperature in workrooms, the requirement of lavatories
for the use of persons employed in any department where poisonous
substances are used, the obligation on occupiers and medical
practitioners to report cases of industrial poisoning; and the
penalties imposed on an employer wilfully allowing wearing apparel
to be made, cleaned or repaired in a dwelling-house where an
inmate is suffering from infectious disease. Another provision
empowered the secretary of state to specify classes of outwork and
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