Scriven Report on Child Labour * Conditions of the factories*

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Scriven categorised the works into three classes dependant upon their condition:

1) I have the honour to lay before you the evidence that I have collected relating to the physical and moral condition of the children labouring in the important district of the Staffordshire Potteries, which comprise the parishes and townships of Stoke-upon-Trent, Longton, Fenton, Lane Delph, Hanley, Shelton, Corbridge, Burslem, Longport, and Tunstall, extending from north to south, a distance of nine miles, of unequal breadth or from one to three miles, and having a: population of 70,000 souls, chiefly of the working classes.

2) When first I began my inspection of the several works, it was my intention report on each separately, but I found there was so great a similarity in their character, that it would have occupied my time uselessly, and been attended with no advantage. I determined, therefore, to divide the whole into three distinct classes, not according to their magnitude or extent, but to their merits as to drainage, ventilation, and convenience.

3) In the places enumerated I have visited and thoroughly examined no less than 173 of them, which be in at Golden Hill, north of Tunstall, and terminate at Longton.

4) On a reference to a history of the Potteries, written by Mr. Ward, the chief constable of Burslem, I find that its origin as a manufacturing district dates from a very remote period, consequently many of its buildings and hovels are of almost equal antiquity: the sites of the several townships appear to have been selected with a due regard for the health of their inhabitants, as each is considerably elevated, and surrounded by a salubrious atmosphere, intersected by the fertile and beautiful vale of Trent, as well as by canals and ricers of wholesome and constantly flowing waters, having neither stagnant pools, bogs, nor ditches, except those which may have been artificially created.

5) I am disposed to think, however, that in the early ages of earthenware manufacture the effects of sudden transitions from heat to cold, and vice versa, were never contemplated, or, if so, these considerations were as nothing in the balance; as compared to the advantages derived from the near approximation to the coal, stone, and marl pits, with which the localities abound, their abundant produce being so essential to the trade: certain it is that the temperature of Staffordshire, as a county, is indisputably low; and the exposed situations of many of the factories render the people who labour in them extremely susceptible of asthma and consumption.

6) Perhaps no time or period of the year could have been more unfortunate than that in which I have been engaged; first because the monied and commercial interests of America, a country on which the welfare of this district so much depends, has been such as to create fearful anticipations and an extraordinary depression of the trade, by which thousands have been thrown out of employ. In the second place, manufacturers availing themselves of this (it is to be hoped temporary evil) have allowed workpeople to absent themselves during the Christmas season, by which they have been enabled to nurse their orders for a future day. Thirdly, the intensity of the frosts was such as to obstruct the navigation of the canals by which they receive and transmit their materials and goods, thereby compelling them to suspend every operation of potting.

MANUFACTURERS

7) The manufacturers are a highly influential, wealthy, and intelligent class of men: they evince a warm-hearted sympathy for those about them in difficulty or distress, contribute as much as possible to their happiness, and are never known to inflict punishments on the children, or to allow others to do so. It, would be invidious to particularise individuals, but I should do them injustice as a body if I did not acknowledge their liberality in allowing me unrestrained admission to every department of their works, as well as the desire they have shown to render me every assistance and co-operation, with the view of carrying out the objects of the Commission.

LIST OF MANUFACTURERS

LIST OF EARTHENWARE, PORCELAIN, AND FIGURE MANUFACTURERS.

8) In the first class, I have inserted all those manufactories of most recent structure; many of them are built upon scales of great magnitude, in some instances of beauty; among these may be mentioned the Messrs. Minton and Boyles, Alcocks, and John Ridgeways; they contain large, well ventilated, light, airy, commodious rooms, in all respects adapted to the nature of the processes carried on in them.

9) The second class form by far the most numerous, and are of greater or less extent, having from 50 to 800 hands engaged; most of them have been erected many years, and as the trade has increased, so the rooms appear to have increased m a corresponding ratio. Some here and there, upon, around, and about the first premises, so that there is neither order; regularity, nor proportion; the consequence of this is, that men, women, and children are to be seen passing in and out, to and fro, to their respective departments all hours of the say, no matter what the weather, warm, cold, wet, or dry; the rooms, with very few exceptions. are either low, damp, close, small, dark, hot, dirty, ill ventilated, or unwholesome, or have all these disadvantages.

10) The third class, which include the Egyptian-ware and figure manufactories are even still worse; but the children to be found in them are very few, and in many of them there are none. In eight cases out of ten of the whole, the places of convenience for the sexes are indecently and disgustingly exposed and filthy. It has throughout appeared to me most strange that masters should have paid so little regard to this offence against decorum and morality; in some places the women and girls are compelled to pass through the hovels where men and boys of the lowest character work, to relieve the calls of nature; others sit under the same shed slightly partitioned off, exposed to the vulgar gaze of half the men on the premises, to avoid which the better disposed either wait their return home, perhaps, at some considerable distance, or run to some opposite, next door neighbour for relief; independent of the immoral and debasing tendency to which this neglect gives rise, their impurities and unwholesomeness are evident. In many cases I have observed under and outside these houses pits for the reception of the excrementitions matter filled to overflowing exhaling its subtle and noxious malaria to the sacrifice of the health of all who breathe the within its influence. This I may be told is a sweeping charge, but I would answer, not more sweeping than the evil justifies.

11) The operatives are in their general character a quiet, orderly people, possessing not only the necessaries, but in most instances the comforts and luxuries of life; their habitations are respectable, cleanly, and well furnished. Before the "strike" of 1836-7, many of them were tenanted by their owners; but that unfortunate and mistaken attempt to coerce their masters, provoked by some few itinerant demagogues that visited the neighbourhood under the pretence of improving the condition of their occupants, occasioned most of them to change hands, and contributed to reduce those who were in a previous state of prosperity and happiness, to one of dependence, humiliation, and poverty, from they have never recovered.