Only in 1867 was factory legislation at last of an approximately general character.
"Fully two-thirds of the century in which England's industrial supremacy swept to its climax was allowed to pass before even an attempt was made to regulate on sound general principles the recognised and inevitable workings of unchecked individualism in the industrial field."[111]
The Act of 1867[112] made better provision for regulating the hours during which children, young persons, and women, were to be permitted to labour in any manufacturing process conducted in an establishment where fifty or more persons are employed--the regulation being in the direction of less onerous conditions of labour.
And by another Act passed at the same time--"The Workshop Regulation Act, 1867,"[113] the protection afforded to workers in factories was extended to workers in smaller establishments, so far as regarded the regulations relating to the hours of labour to children, young persons, and women.
"Any room or place whatever (not a factory or bakehouse) in which any handicraft is carried on by any child, young person, or woman, and to which the person employing them had a right of access and control."
No child under 8 was to be employed, and none between 8 and 13 was to be employed more than six and a half hours a day--and sundry other directions. The workshops, moreover, were to be kept in a proper sanitary state, and the administration of the sanitary provisions of the Act was placed in the hands of the local authorities--the Home Office Inspectors having concurrent jurisdiction.
These Acts had a two-fold effect in the direction of sanitary evolution: the improvement of the sanitary conditions under which the people worked, and the prohibition of work entailing consequences detrimental to the physical well-being of the workers.
Their effect would have been of the greatest value in London had they been vigorously enforced. Some of the Medical Officers of Health endeavoured to enforce the Act.
Thus the Medical Officer of Health for the Strand reported to his employers (1868-9):--
"During the past year the provisions of the Workshops Regulation Act, 1867, have, so far as practicable, been enforced."
And the Medical Officer of Health for St. George, Hanover Square, wrote (1870-1):--