AUTHOR’S PREFACE

The writing of the following story of what Women Inspectors did for women and girl workers under the Factory Acts and Truck Acts was undertaken in response to the wish of friends and colleagues that it should be told, while memory was fresh, by one who had seen the largest part of the conditions and immediate effects of the work—a work carried on under aims and organisation that are now undergoing change.

The aims and the starting-point of the past organisation are shown in the Introduction, and the outcome, down to 1921, is unfolded in the following chapters.

The material available in official reports for those who wish to study the facts more closely is so full of incident that, with the best will to be brief, it has been difficult to tell the tale shortly. Keeping entirely to published official records the whole could be told over again with fresh illustrations. And yet much that was significant and enlightening can only be seen in innumerable notices in the daily and weekly press and monthly reviews of the period; a fairly full collection of these exists, but they could only be quoted occasionally in these xpages. Their correspondence in general tendency with the outlook shown in Parliamentary Debates—of which an account is given in Chapter VI.—is noteworthy.

Next to the breadth of the field of action of the Women Inspectorate, and the variety of their contacts with local administration and the courts, as well as with industry, the smallness of their numbers from 1893 to 1914 strikes the mind. The strength of the impulse that sustained and carried them through their years of labour may be traced to conditions summed up in words spoken to one of them by a woman toiling at a heavy task, “Is it right that I should have to do this work and only have eight shillings a week for it?”

There was a dominating impulse towards relieving the hardships and sufferings of working women that drew all the women who entered the Factory Department into a real unity of endeavour—whatever their social or political outlook before entering.

It is in the same spirit that they have lent me indispensable help in the completing of this little book. I wish gratefully to acknowledge the time and thought freely given to it by those who have long worked with me. Miss Martindale has critically read through all the typed manuscript, Miss Squire the chapter on Wages and the Truck Acts. Miss Squire has also most kindly revised the Appendix I. on Special Regulations for Dangerous Trades, written in 1913, and brought the details xiup to the present time. Miss Escreet supplied me with most helpful summaries from the mass of material in Annual Reports on child labour, heavy weights, and religious and charitable institutions. Miss Maura Brooke-Gwynne has devoted much time and skill to a literary criticism of the text. Miss Paterson and Mrs. Drury have kindly written special contributions, the former on mothers and child labour—subjects of special appeal to Women Inspectors—the latter on a stirring day in the life of a Factory Inspector. Finally, I wish to thank Mr. Gerald Bellhouse for some figures in the Introduction, and Dr. Legge for kindly reading through the chapter on Dangerous Trades, for his helpful comments, and for the tabulation of reported cases of industrial poisoning. They are in no way responsible, however, for my facts or opinions.

A. M. A.

University Women’s Club,

2, Audley Square, W.

April 2, 1922.

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