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Working Conditions in Victorian Stourbridge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Eric Hopkins
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Everybody imagines he knows about working conditions in Victorian England, particularly the excessively long hours resulting from the use of machinery to which the workers became increasingly enslaved. In the famous words of James Philip Kay, “Whilst the engine runs the people must work – men, women and children are yoked together with iron and steam. The animal machine – breakable in the best case, subject to a thousand sources of suffering – is chained to the iron machine, which knows no suffering and no weariness.” It is equally well-known that the worst aspect of employment was the exploitation of women and small children in textile factories and mines. Factory conditions were causing disquiet as early as the 1780's, and the revelations of the witnesses before a succession of committees and commissions in the early part of the nineteenth century are too familiar to need repeating here. The same may be said of conditions in the mines. Who has not been moved by that description of girls at work in the mines of the West Riding – “Chained, belted, harnessed, like dogs in a go-cart, black, saturated with wet, and more than half naked […] they present an appearance indescribably disgusting and unnatural”? Yet it is also common knowledge that factory and mine workers were only a minority among the working classes at the mid-century, numbering about 1¾ millions compared with the 5½ millions employed in non-mechanised industry. Agriculture and domestic service, in fact, employed twice the number of those working in manufacture and mining at this time.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , December 1974 , pp. 401 - 425
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1974

References

page 401 note 1 Kay, James Philip, Moral and Physical Conditions of the Operatives employed in the Cotton Manufacture in Manchester (1832), p. 24.Google Scholar

page 401 note 2 See Hutchins, B. L. and Harrison, A., A History of Factory Legislation, 3rd ed. (1926)Google Scholar, for details of the early stage of concern about factory conditions, while the most sensational reports of ill-treatment of women and children are conveniently collected in a popular work, Pike, A. Royston, Human Documents of the Industrial Revolution (1966).Google Scholar

page 401 note 3 Children's Employment Commission [1842], Appendix to First Report, Mines [Parliamentary Papers, 1842, XVI], Pt II, p. 75.

page 402 note 1 Chambers, J. D., The Workshop of the World (1961), pp. 21–2Google Scholar; Mathias, Peter, The First Industrial Revolution (1969), pp. 264–7, 269–71Google Scholar; Fong, H. D., The Triumph of the Factory System in England (1930), p. 21.Google Scholar

page 402 note 2 Pollard, S., A History of Labour in Sheffield (1959)Google Scholar, remains the most impressive work in this field.

page 402 note 3 For details of turnpikes, see Scott, W., Stourbridge and its Vicinity (1832), p. 352.Google Scholar For road transport services, see British Universal Directory, 1795.

page 402 note 4 Nash, Treadway, Collections for the History of Worcestershire, 2nd ed. (1799), II, pp. 211–2.Google Scholar

page 403 note 1 Frost cogs are small metal studs fitted to horseshoes in icy weather in order to give the horse a surer footing.

page 405 note 1 Children's Employment Commission [1842], Appendix to First Report, Mines, Pt I, pp. 8–26.

page 405 note 2 Ibid.

page 405 note 3 Ibid.

page 405 note 4 Printed Census Returns, 1831.

page 405 note 5 Children's Employment Commission (1862), Third Report [PP, 1864, XXII], p. iv.

page 405 note 6 See the Appendix to Second Report [PP, 1843, XV], Pt II, qq. 81–2, of the 1842 Commission, and the Third Report of the 1862 Commission, p. 16.

page 406 note 1 Children's Employment Commission (1862), Fourth Report [PP, 1865, XX], p. 181.

page 406 note 2 Ibid., pp. 232–3.

page 406 note 3 Ibid., pp. 140–1.

page 406 note 4 Children's Employment Commission [1842], Appendix to Second Report, Pt II, evidence of Lye National School Superintendents, qq. 74–8.

page 406 note 5 Ibid.

page 407 note 1 See the Report of the Commissioners to the Enquiry into the Working of the Factory and Workshops Acts [PP, 1876, XXIX], Vol. I, pp. xii-xiv, for a useful summary of the law relating to employment in factories and workshops at that date. See also Hutchins and Harrison, op. cit., ch. VIII.

page 407 note 2 Report Factory and Workshops Acts, Vol. II, Appendix C, evidence of sub-inspector J. A. Jones.

page 407 note 3 Ibid., evidence of Packwood, W. H., Central Secretary of the Flint Glass Makers Friendly Society, and a Stourbridge glass maker, pp. 348–51.Google Scholar

page 407 note 4 Calculated from figures given in Table 3.

page 408 note 1 Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops, 1883.

page 408 note 2 Report of the Royal Commission on Labour [PP, 1892, IV], Vol. II, Group A, pp. 571–5, report by Eliza Orme on the condition of women in the nail, chain and bolt making industries of the Black Country.

page 409 note 1 See the long letter from a nailer in the Worcestershire Chronicle, 3 March 1842.

page 409 note 2 Report Factory and Workshops Acts, Vol. II, pp. 84–6 (evidence).

page 410 note 1 Reports of Inspectors of Factories, April 1874.

page 410 note 2 Report Factory and Workshops Acts, Vol. I, p. lxxix.

page 410 note 3 See J. Noake, The Rambler (1854), for an account of harvesters from Lye. A more general account of the movement of Black Country pit girls into the Home Counties for fruit picking is given in an anonymous article on the Black Country in the Edinburgh Review, April 1863.

page 410 note 4 In 1892 a Hoppickers Protection Society was formed at Lye to discuss the prohibition on the giving of cider by employers under the Truck Act, 1887. Stourbridge Advertiser, 30 July 1892.

page 410 note 5 Good Friday was always an unpopular holiday with employers, however, since it made working difficult on the following Saturday. It is still largely ignored in the Black Country.

page 410 note 6 For a discussion of this point, see Thompson, E. P., “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism”, in: Past & Present, No 38 (1967).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 411 note 1 Children's Employment Commission [1842], Appendix to First Report, Pt I, pp. 8ff.

page 411 note 2 Tremenheere's Report on the Mining Districts of South Staffordshire (1850), p. 19.

page 411 note 3 See the Flint Glass Makers Magazine, II (1854), p. 1.Google Scholar

page 411 note 4 Rules and Articles (undated) of John Bradley & Co, in possession of the firm.

page 411 note 5 Children's Employment Commission [1842], Appendix to Second Report, Pt II, at q. 82.

page 411 note 6 On pigeon fancying, see the article previously referred to in the Edinburgh Review, April 1863. The last bull-baiting in England is sometimes said to have occurred in Lye in 1836. Robertson, Recollections of the Lye Parish, 1866–1875 (1914).

page 412 note 1 Exact figures are not available, but the figures in Table 2 suggest there were few nailers left in 1914. Allen, G. C., The Industrial Development of Birmingham and the Black Country, 1860–1927, revised ed. (1966), p. 273Google Scholar, says that the few hundred nailers remaining by 1914 were in the Dudley and Bromsgrove areas.

page 412 note 2 Even when domestic nailing was dying fast, Monday was still a slack day for some. Mr Hoare, the local factory inspector, said in 1889 that not much work was done on Mondays, especially in nailing, see the Third Report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System [PP, 1889, XIII], p. 455. Women in particular still took Monday off when they could (Stourbridge Advertiser, 12 June 1886, quoting an article in the Fortnightly Review by Miss Ada Heather-Briggs). A lady factory inspector visiting Dudley in 1903 remarked that many of the women nailers were not at work on Mondays (Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops, 1903).

page 412 note 3 McCormick, B. and Williams, J. E., “The Miners and the Eight Hour Day, 1863–1910”, in: Economic History Review, Second Series, XII (1959).Google Scholar

page 412 note 4 Ibid.

page 413 note 1 Stourbridge Advertiser, 26 June 1909, reporting on demands by miners locally for “snap” time, which was not provided for by the 1908 Act. The reporter says that the eight hour day really came in the Black Country in 1872, but that the miners remained below somewhat longer to allow for snap time.

page 413 note 2 Flint Glass Makers Magazine, 1851, No 5, and also quarter ending 31 October 1897.

page 413 note 3 The aim of most of the evidence given by employer and workman alike before the Enquiry into the Working of the Factory and Workshops Acts, 1875–6, was to keep the age of entry to thirteen, and to oppose the proposal to raise it to fourteen.

page 413 note 4 Report Factory and Workshops Acts, Vol. II, pp. 348–51.

page 413 note 5 Flint Glass Makers Magazine, quarter ending November 1882.

page 413 note 6 See Hopkins, Eric, “An Anatomy of Strikes in the Stourbridge Glass Industry, 1850–1914” in: Midland History, II (1973).Google Scholar

page 414 note 1 Report of the Royal Commission on Labour, Vol. II, Group A, p. 353.

page 414 note 2 Stourbridge Advertiser, 22 August 1891.

page 414 note 3 Ibid., 1 March 1913.

page 414 note 4 Oral evidence of oldest workman employed by firm in 1969.

page 414 note 5 See Wages Book of Jones & Attwood, 4 January 1884 to 11 June 1887.

page 414 note 6 Stourbridge Advertiser, 8 January 1898.

page 414 note 7 Reports of Lady Inspectors contained in Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops, 1901 and 1902.

page 415 note 1 Even in 1919, the day ended in sheet metal works on Mondays at 2 o'clock. Evidence of Mr Brettell, secretary of Lye Branch of the Sheet Metal Workers Union, who began work in 1919.

page 415 note 2 E. P. Thompson, loc. cit., gives examples. Pollard, , A History of Labour in Sheffield (1959), p. 211Google Scholar, quotes a manufacturer who said that it was Wednesday, but five men in one department had not turned up yet. Another employer said that he lay awake at night trying to think of ways of circumventing men who would not start on Mondays. St Monday was still very much a feature of the Sheffield trades outside the great works in the period just before the Great War.

page 415 note 3 See G. C. Allen, op. cit., Pt IV, ch. IV.

page 415 note 4 Local supplies of both coal and ironstone were becoming exhausted, and transport costs were heavy compared with those of other areas using more modern furnaces and sea-borne transport. See Evans, D. B., “The Iron and Steel Industry of South Staffordshire from 1760 to 1950” (unpublished Birmingham M.A. thesis, 1951).Google Scholar

page 415 note 5 The first formal wages boards were set up in the iron industry in 1876, and in mining in 1883.

page 417 note 1 For a description in detail of the nailers' working conditions and mode of work, see Davies, E. I., “The Hand-made Nail Trade of Birmingham and District” (unpublished Birmingham M.A. thesis, 1933)Google Scholar, and also Moseley, A. F., “The Nailmakers”, in: West Midlands Regional Studies, II (1968).Google Scholar

page 417 note 2 Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops, 1903.

page 417 note 3 Reports of the Inspectors of Factories, April 1875.

page 417 note 4 Third Report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System, p. 436.

page 418 note 1 A logger bought nails from the nailer, often when trade was slack, and the demand limited. He paid lower rates than the nailmasters, the difference being his profit when he in turn sold to them when trade revived. Foggers were notorious for exploitation, e.g. by payment in kind, or using false weights, or by intimidation, especially of women, at the Saturday weigh-in.

page 418 note 2 There were 189 deaths on the South Staffordshire and East Worcestershire coalfield in 1851, the first year of inspection. Reports of the Inspectors of Coalmines, 1851.

page 418 note 3 These rules had to be made for each mine under the Coal Mines Inspection Act, 1855.

page 418 note 4 Midlands Mining Commission, First Report [PP, 1843, XIII], p. 70.

page 419 note 1 The detailed terms are set out in the Mines Acts of 1850, 1855, 1860, 1862, 1872, 1887, and 1911. The 1911 Act provided new General Regulations to replace the Special Rules for Districts under the 1887 Act.

page 419 note 2 See MacDonagh, O. O. G. M., “Coal Mines Regulation: the First Decade, 1842–1852”, in: Ideas and Institutions of Victorian Britain, ed. by Robson, Robert (1967).Google Scholar

page 419 note 3 Report of the Royal Commission on Labour, 1892, evidence of Col. Cochrane. See also Fox, A., “Industrial Relations in Birmingham and the Black Country, 1860–1914” (unpublished Oxford B.Litt. thesis, 1952)Google Scholar, Section I, ch. XVIII, and Taylor, A. J., “The Sub-contract System in the British Coal Industry”, in: Studies in the Industrial Revolution, ed. by Pressnell, L. S. (1960), esp. p. 230.Google Scholar

page 419 note 4 Reports of Inspectors of Mines, 1913.

page 419 note 5 Calculated from the lists of fatal accidents in the inspectors' reports for the years concerned.

page 419 note 6 Children's Employment Commission (1862), Third Report, pp. iv and 2–4.

page 420 note 1 Ibid.

page 420 note 2 See a copy of the rules in the possession of the firm in Stourbridge, and also Journal No 24, which gives payments in respect of rents and pensions.

page 420 note 3 Children's Employment Commission [1842], Appendix to Second Report, Pt II, at q. 87.

page 420 note 4 See the Wages Book referred to previously.

page 421 note 1 Reports of Lady Inspectors, see above, p. 414, note 7.

page 421 note 2 The Black Country and Its Industries, published by the County Express, 1903.

page 421 note 3 Children's Employment Commission [1842], Appendix to Second Report, Pt II, q. 90.

page 421 note 4 Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops, 1898.

page 421 note 5 The lehr is the annealing oven through which the finished glass passes on a slow-moving belt.

page 422 note 1 Flint Glass Makers Magazine, quarter ending August 1888.

page 422 note 2 Royal Commission on Trade Unions, 1867–9, Tenth Report [PP, 1868, XXXII], p. 32.

page 423 note 1 All the leading proprietors – the Hills, Rhodes, Evesons, and Rounds – had begun as iron plate workers. Inevitably this affected relationships within the works, though not always for the better. For discussion of industrial relationships of this kind, see Fox, A., “Industrial Relations in 19th Century Birmingham”, in: Oxford Economic Papers, VII (1955).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 424 note 1 Many complaints were voiced on the Staffordshire and East Worcestershire coalfield about, for example, the failure to cover pit shafts, about the lack of official meal times, and about pay, which was sometimes paid late, or in kind, or for only half a day on Saturday when they worked seven out of the full eleven hours on that day. In spite of all this, and of the high mortality rates on the coalfield, the miners managed to enjoy themselves from time to time. Cf. Tremenheere's shocked remarks about their “sensuality and extravagence”: “Poultry, especially geese and ducks; the earliest and choicest vegetables [hellip;]; occasionally port wine, drunk out of tumblers and basins; beer and spirits in great quantities; meat in abundance, extra vagently cooked; excursions in carts and cars are the well-known objects on which their money is squandered”, op. cit., pp. 33 and 9–10.