BIRMINGHAM BRASSFOUNDERS PLUS THE EVILS OF EMPLOYING CHILDREN AND MARRIED WOMEN IN FACTORIES
by W.C.Aitken
Birmingham and the Midland Hardware District (1866)
The workmen in connection with the brassfoundry trade, as a body, in sobriety are not inferior to any other class of workmen engaged in other industries. They are prudent and careful, many of them possess houses of their own through land and building societies, and not a few have, by saving, accumulated money. Their dwellings have frequently trim gardens attached, and offer a favourable contrast to the squalid poverty observable in workmen's dwellings engaged in other departments of industry; while Factory Clubs and Sick Societies encourage habits of prudence. Where workmen are irregular - such irregularity arising from intemperate habits - the writer is of opinion that there is often a lack of proper supervision on the part of those in authority; an experience gathered by connection with upwards of 1,200 workmen leads him to this conclusion.
There is, however, another side to this picture, and we now turn to it for consideration and examination, as shown
in: -DISEASES OF THE WORKPEOPLE ENGAGED IN THE BRASS MANUFACTURE; FEMALE LABOUR, ETC., ITS EFFECTS, PRESENT AND FUTURE.
The diseases common to the brassfoundry trade are chiefly of a pulmonary nature, and arise, in the case of finishers, from the dust evolved in filing the brass; and in casters, from the dust which rises during moulding; and the condensed fumes of the volatised zinc from the melted brass in the operation of pouring. (Dr. Percy mentions an "evergreen" practical brass maker seventy years of age, who for sixty years had been engaged in the trade, did not get a continuous night's rest out of five nights every week during that period, yet he appeared vigorous, and by no means unhappy. Exceptions don't form the rule. Experience is against Dr. Percy. Brass casters are almost unanimously said to be short-lived; and the writer of this, from practical experience, founded on observation, concurs in the verdict. On this head, it should be remarked, that the liability to the diseases named may be largely checked by a more efficient system of ventilation in finishing shops, and the position of casting shops. The latter especially should not be under work shops, but entirely apart, with nothing built over them, and should be high roofed, with sky lights to open to allow of the speedy escape of the fumes of the molten metal. The state of the weather often determines the succession of attacks, which are more frequent in foggy or heavy weather, when the fumes escape more slowly. There is also the consideration, that in many of the recently erected brassfoundry works, while the castings' shops have been built separately, they have been built in the centre of a square or yard, but being lower in elevation, they stand as in a well - the fumes escape but slowly - and then penetrate into the workshops surrounding, invariably with sashes open for ventilation, or through broken panes of glass. The chimneys of the casting shops, though high, do not operate in carrying off the fumes; these, by their specific gravity, taint and vitiate the air in the square of the manufactory. On this subject, Dr. Greenhow remarks, "few of the casters past middle life are entirely free from difficulty of breathing, attended by more or less cough and expectoration;" though it should be stated, that in all probability "the large quantity of beer consumed may materially aid the development of the asthma-like form of the disease." C. Turner Thackrah, who wrote in 1832, also clearly describes the form of disease under which brass casters suffer - and says, "it affects the respiration, and less directly also the digestive organs; it is attended with difficulty of breathing, cough, pain at the stomach, and sometimes, morning vomiting. In Leeds, we did not find one brassfounder forty years of age." Thackrah, however, admits that later investigation resulted in finding two - one of sixty, and the other seventy years of age.
As a general rule, in Birmingham the Brass Finishers do not appear to be a long-lived race; but exceptional cases will be found of workmen at work at the age of sixty. Brassfoundry operatives employed in finishing do not seem to suffer directly, if the ordinary laws of health are observed. In one department of the operations in brassfoundry - that of Acid Finish or Dipping - it may be confidently asserted that there are not any dippers reaching the age of sixty years who have practised the operation from early youth. In such cases also the respiratory organs and stomach suffer. The popular remedy among dippers for obviating the effects of the acid is copious draughts of milk. Here also, as in casting, the effect of the acid is more apparent in cloudy weather, when the fumes are dissipated with difficulty, and in summer, when the acid is affected by the heat, evolving the fumes more copiously.
The prevalence of diseases of the nervous system and of the organs of respiration as affecting in-patients in the General Hospital, amounting to, from June 30, 1864, to July 1, 1865, 261; and as out patients to 1,542 cases, leads to the conclusion that the diseases of the respiratory organs might be diminished by a greater attention to proper ventilation, and that those of the nervous system might also be diminished by a less amount of female labour. At first sight there seems no connection between female labour and nervous disease; but not only single women are employed in the brass trade, but mothers of families too. Birmingham operatives marry early; the girl-wife becomes a mother, but, from early associations, she likes the manufactory better than her home - likes the company of the workers, and her earnings "help to keep the house." As soon as she can go to the manufactory after her confinement she goes (the absence on these occasions rarely exceeds one month), and the infant is left the greater part of the day to be fed on artificial food, and is usually attended to by a child not more than six or seven years of age. The food is generally indigestible - illness is the natural consequence of this unnatural mode of feeding infants. Children, healthy at birth, dwindle rapidly under this system, fall into bad health, become uneasy, restless, and fractious; opiates are administered to produce sleep and allay these symptoms; the result is, the seeds of nervous disease are sown, and, in the majority of cases, early death ensues. An operative of the better class stated "that he collects money for the expenses attendant on deaths of children - 150 females are employed in the factory he is connected with - and he believed that ten out of every twelve children borne by the married women in that factory die within a few months after birth." In the united parishes of Birmingham and Aston the death-rate of children was as for the ten years, i.e., 1851 to 1861: -
In Birmingham, at less than One Year of Age
14,121
In Aston, at less than One Year of Age
5,175
In Birmingham, between One and Five Years
11,469
In Aston, between One and Five Years
3,752
Total
34,517
Deaths arising from phthisis are excluded from the causes of death given. The mortality is traceable to infantile diseases, entirely attributable to the want of the tender care of the mother in feeding and attending to her offspring. Medical statisticians are quite aware than under ordinary circumstances infantile complaints are by no means so fatal. The diseases from which these children died are stated to have been diarrhoea (no doubt attributable to improper diet); injured respiratory organs, (arising from cold and inattention); nervous disease, (encouraged by the use of opiates); small pox, scarlatina, measles, and whooping cough, (the fatality doubtless occurring from the want of necessary care in nursing, owing to the absence of the mother at the manufactory.) The population of Birmingham, including Aston, at the census of 1861, amounted to 290,076, and the infantile deaths within the ten years between 1851 and 1861 amounted to 34,517!! or nearly one-ninth of its population, strangled it may be said at the portals of existence. Is there not here grave food for reflection? Does it not demonstrate the baneful effects of the employment of married females in manufactories? Thus children, imperfectly fed, with constitutions feeble at first, and partly enfeebled by the use of opiates, uncared for in infancy, uneducated in childhood, at six or seven years find their way into factories, and become the male and female helps. They in turn, at an early age, become the feeble parents of a feebler offspring, and the grand type of the English workman is lost, or rapidly disappearing; and being replaced by a physically inferior race, with less muscle, of lower stature, with the nervous system exalted, and the powers of endurance diminished. While the writer of this desires in the future no Utopia or fabled Atlantis, yet there are certain principles impressed originally on all created things; laws, which to obey is life, to neglect is death. These laws operate unceasingly, regardless alike of man's cupidity, or ignorance. Experience shows that imperfectly developed parents produce and enfeebled offspring, physically weak, and prone to disease; that the best nurse for a child is its mother; that at certain periods the frame of woman requires rest and immunity from labour; that the tender years of youth should not be passed within the walls of a factory, or the frame subjected to labour during its growth; that youth is the season when the elements of education are best imparted; but all these several important considerations are ignored by the present system of factory labour. Dr. Greenhow's able report on Public Health, in 1861, remains unchallenged as regards the death-rate of children and the employment of women; and Mr. E. White's report in references to the employment of children in the hardware manufactures has been questioned only as to the truth of some of the statements. All these, however, cannot be errors. At the bottom, no doubt, lies a solid substratum of facts, by no means flattering to our vanity.
While female labour and the employment of juvenile assistants are, in all probability, less common in the brass trade than in others, still, as an integral part of the great factory system, it is not blameless. (There are 2,119 females, being one-fourth of the labour employed in the brass trade.) While admitting that in certain operations in the brass trade, such as lacquering and wrapping-up, women may be employed with advantage to themselves, unmarried females should alone be employed. Married women should be excluded from any such work, as also from the use of the press in cutting-out and piercing, and other operations which they now undertake, and for which they are physically unfitted. The "piece" system of payment favours the employment of juvenile labour, as the manufacturer pays for the work brought in, and seldom exercises any control over the "helps" of the workmen who undertake it. In the same manner numbers of girls are employed by forewomen who undertake to do work by the piece. Here also no restraint is exercised. Thus the system of female labour and juvenile employment, fostered by ignorance and competition, has grown and is increasing, resulting in the neglect of the preparation for household duties and the attractions of a home. "Many of the children die, the mothers become familiarised with the fact, and speak of the deaths of their children with a degree of nonchalance rarely met with among women who devote themselves mainly to the care of their offspring;" and these are the mothers who deliver over the child of six or seven years of age to the foreman or other operative for a paltry sum of 1s. 6d. or 2s. per week - the price of childhood neglected and natural affection lost. Liberty not unfrequently means license, and Legislative interference is frequently uncalled for; but in the wholesale employment of female and juvenile labour, it is surely justifiable to place some limits on such degrading work. Legislation has borne good fruit as regards other industries, and though less abused in the hardware trades than others, still a little wholesome interference would be productive of much good - in all probability less with reference to the present than in the future; but as all legislation should deal with the future, a present check would be beneficial. With advanced views in education, it appears preposterous to send children to work uneducated; and females intended by nature for the helpmates (not the competitors) of man, in the discharge of domestic duties; to convert these two elements into manufactory helps may for the present assist the competitive contest, but what of the future? Nemesis lives in the abuse of the natural laws- if persisted in the mechanics of England will become an undomesticated race, ale-houses will take the place of household hearths, and their children become gamins in the truest sense of the word. It needs no Government enquiry to tell us "that in Birmingham the proportion of married women who work in factories, away from home, is undoubtedly increasing," and, as a natural result, preparation for domestic duties is being ignored, home are uncared for, and juvenile life is recklessly sacrificed.