It is, of course, useless to deny that a large proportion of the trades in this country are detrimental to the health of those who work at them. Some are so directly, some indirectly, but rare are the cases when it can be said that health in the simple material sense of the word is improved by a man's manual toil in a centre of manufacture. 

This being the case, it is hardly to be wondered at that custom in this matter has bred indifference. A man must work if a man would eat, and the surroundings in which he works seem usually of minor importance to those who benefit by his labour. The ranks of humanity who work to exist are serried. The falling out of one means replacement by another, and the trade itself need not suffer. 

And to no one indeed can blame be completely assigned. Altruism and Commercialism are not twin brothers. The man who employs labour to live, and the man who labours to exist are both a necessity, the natural outcome of social conditions ; and so long as there are no startling disclosures in mortality statistics, so long as the man who works receives a fair wage, according to existing standards of wage, and the man who pays it does so with the occasional panacea of a soup ticket and a flannel shirt, there appears to be no ground for interference. 

The reformer may groan and rebel at heart, but if, under such conditions, he agitates loudly, his agitation is tossed back to him by the sneers of a self-absorbed public, like a spent bullet.

These assertions, be it said, are made in relation to the normal condition of affairs existing in our manufacturing towns, but here and there the abnormal obtrudes itself and compels attention. Trades may be usually unhealthy — on occasions they are dangerous to life ; not thus actually implying death, but, by causing cessation of activity in brain and limb, bringing about the horror of death in life. 

In the category to which such threatening trades belong, the potting industry may not be omitted. Granted that a large number of those employed in the manufacture of china and earthenware suffer comparatively little, granted that the manufacturers themselves who employ labour are hampered by peculiar difficulties in the carrying out of improvements in their trade, a very fair number of men and women, a number that may be counted in hundreds, are still liable through their occupation on the pot-banks to death, or to acute suffering. It will require all the supervision which may be exercised by the State, one of whose chief functions now is to shield the worker from preventable evils in his employment, all the improvements which mechanical skill may effect, all the enthusiasm of the employers and the good sense of the employed, to minimise the evil, and, possibly, to abolish it.

Here I strike a note of hope. The revelations of past years have been startling enough to rouse at last public opinion from apathy, and to excite public interest in the individuals whose suffering is the outcome of poisoning by raw lead. Through observation even the most sceptical have been convinced that the suffering is preventable.

Those who are stricken by this ill, are not " carried in cart loads from our streets," as a master potter lately, with lack of taste, has gibingly told us is the common belief in the country — it is here and there, and among the weakest that the poison creeps ; but protection is due to the individual child of the State as well as to the crowd, and such protection shall be secured when occasion, as it is now doing, cries for it.

The author, in the earlier chapters of this book, has placed clearly before his readers the position of The Potteries, and the conditions of trade there.

It therefore merely remains for me to offer some explanation of the insanitary conditions of potting, and to explain a little more clearly why certain processes are dangerous, apart from a mere disregard of the necessity for a certain cubic air-space per individual in many factories, and of ventilation remediable by architectural or mechanical means, which means have been largely adopted during the last few years.

The potter suffers a special injury from the nature of the material with which he works. 

These injurious materials consist 

(1) of clay and flint, which give off a siliceous and very finely divided dust, with which the air was often thickly impregnated ; and 

(2) carbonate or oxide of lead, forming part of the glazing mixture with which some portion of the workers come into manual contact, or which they breathe as part of the dust-laden air where they work. 

The inhalation of the siliceous dust is the cause of an insidious pulmonary malady amongst the workers which has had for generations a name special to it in the locality, — that of " potters' rot " ; the absorption of lead into the system, though capricious in its effects on various individuals, produces that lead poisoning to which I have alluded, and of which so much lately has been heard in Parliament, and read in the Press.

There is something peculiarly pitiable about this asthma of the potter and "potters' rot," in the worker's patient acceptance of it as incidental to his employment, and his bravery in following his daily work until driven to bed, and possibly to his coffin, at an age far before the ordinary period of man's decease, to be mentioned in the mortality returns merely as a victim to bronchitis, phthisis, or general debility.

Dr Arlidge, in his standard work on " Diseases of Occupations," touches to some extent on this point, when, speaking of the generally baneful character of all dust, as such, apart from any special noxious properties it may possess, he says : 

" In one sense, indeed, it is unfortunate that it does not for the most part awaken attention by any immediate tangible consequences. Its disabling action is very slow, but it is ever progressive, and until it has already worked its baneful results upon the smaller bronchial tubes and air-cells ... it is let pass as a matter of indifference — an inconvenience of the trade."

It is in this light that it has been regarded by the operative potter for generations — even for centuries. As it was with his father before him, so with him — there seemed nothing more to be said. It was not that the evil was not recognised — in the earliest days of his industrial struggles the un-healthiness of his trade always figured in his appeals to his employers as a circumstance that was entitled to consideration in dealing with the matter of wages — but just as an axiom is stated without exciting controversy, so the statement of a fact which in 1820 had been accepted as such for over a hundred years, passed without further comment.

Probably the earliest public reference to this aspect of the potters' trade is to be found in the preamble to the Letters Patent granted by George the First on the 5th of November 1713, to Thomas Benson of Newcastle-under-Lyme, for his invention of the method of grinding flint stones by water. This is interesting enough to reproduce in full :

"Whereas, our trusty and well-beloved Thomas Benson, of Newcastle-under-Lyme in our County of Stafford, engineer, hath by his petition humbly represented to us that in Staffordshire there is a manufacture carried on of making White Pots, the chief ingredient of which is Flint Stone, and the method hitherto used in preparing whereof has been pounding or breaking it dry, and afterwards sifting it through fine launs, which has proved very destructive to mankind, insomuch that any person, ever so healthful or strong, working in that business cannot possibly survive over two years occasioned by the dust sucked into his body by the air he breathes, which, being of a ponderous nature, fixes there so closely that nothing can remove it, insomuch that it is now very difficult to find persons who will engage in the business to the great detriment and obstruction of the said trade, which would otherwise by reason of the usefulness thereof be of great benefit and advantage to our Kingdom. 

That the petitioner has with great pains and expence invented and brought to perfection an Engine or new method for the more expeditious working the said Flint Stone whereby all the said hazard and inconveniences attending the same will effectually be prevented; that he has, at his own charge, made several experiments of his said invention whereby he fully knows the same will answer the ends above purposed in every particular, to the manifest improvement and advantage of the said manufacture, and preserving the lives of many of our subjects employed therein, and proposes to perform the same in the manner hereinafter described — 

viz. : The Flint Stones are first sprinkled with water, insomuch that no dust can rise to the hurt or damage of the workmen; then crushed as small as sand by two large wheels of the bigness and shape of millstones, made of iron, to turn round upon the edges by the power of a water-wheel, and afterwards conveyed into large pans made of iron, for that purpose circular, in which there are large iron balls which, by the power of the water-wheel above named, are driven round by such a swiftness of motion that in a little time the flint stones so broken are made as fine as oil itself without the use of launs, and when so done, by turning of a cock, empties itself into casks provided for that purpose and so kept therein for the uses above-mentioned ; and having humbly prayed us to grant him our Royal Letters Patent for the invention, according to the Statute in such case made and provided; We being willing to give encouragement to all arts and inventions which may be of public use and benefit, are graciously pleased to gratify him in his request."

It is a far cry from the days of the husband of the luckless Sophia Dorothea to the Factory Act Department of the Home Office of 1900, but during all the intervening years the working potter has suffered from the same evil dust "sucked into his body by the air he breathes."

Flat-presser

Those most liable to disease by dust are those whose work is concerned with the actual shaping of the ware, and amongst these the flat-presser — the maker of plates — has the greatest liability. It may be necessary to explain to the uninitiated that it is only after the flint stones have been ground and have passed with other ingredients into a plastic state (afterwards to become dry, and be given off into the air in the form of dust), that the clay comes into the hands of the potter, to be worked by him into the shapes required.

In an obituary notice of a flat-presser who was an official of his Trades Union, The Potter of August 1 8th, 1860, says: 

"For a flat-presser he has exceeded the average age, the years of his life numbering fifty." 

This is in accord with the statement made by Dr Arlidge, from his experience as physician of the large North Staffordshire Infirmary, that the "mean age at death of male potters aged 20 and upwards was 46½ years, whilst that of non-potters stood at 54."

The Diseases of Potters

The many years' study given by the late Dr Arlidge to the Diseases of Potters — which, doubtless, led him to enlarge his field of inquiry into other occupations, and to produce the work by which he will be remembered — practically furnished all the statistical information which was available on the effects of the dusty processes of the trade. 

In his book, "The Diseases of Occupations," he prefaces his chapter on "The Manufacture of China and Earthenware" by the statement that 

"this manufacture stands foremost among those wherein the employment is distinctly chargeable with the production of disease." 

Further, he says, 

"The vital statistics of the pottery business . . . tell a sad tale of disease and early death," 

and he cites Dr Ogle as showing that the mortality rates give a comparative figure 

"only exceeded in the table by the figures for costermongers" (a class in which is included many of irregular employment, some leading an almost vagrant life, and all leading lives of exposure to the weather for many hours a day), 
" Cornish miners, and inn and hotel servants. This excessive mortality is in greatest part due to the phthisis and diseases of the respiratory organs, the deaths from these two causes being represented by 1118, while the number for all males is only 402; so that the mortality under these two headings is almost three times as great in this industry as among average males." 

Dr Arlidge then gives statistics furnished by "the very extensive outpatient practice" of the North Staffordshire Infirmary, showing that of 800 patients treated, all of whom were engaged in some process of pottery manufacture, 36.57 per cent of the male potters suffered from bronchitis as against 18 per cent, amongst non-potters. 

"Whence arises the astonishing high ratio of bronchitis among male non-potters is demonstrated by the following table of registered illness of pressers — a class of workmen exposed more than any other to dust inhalation : —

MALES.— Pressers, 263.

Even more striking is this paragraph from the Report presented to the Home Secretary by the Potteries Committee of Inquiry which sat in 1893 : 

" Analysis of the mortality returns for males above 14, for the year 1890, of the parish of Stoke-on-Trent, including the county borough of Hanley, the boroughs of Longton and Stoke, and the large town of Fenton, shows that of the total mortality from all causes among potters, bronchitis accounted for 42 per cent, pneumonia and pleurisy 8 per cent, pulmonary consumption 21 per cent Grouping bronchitis with lung inflammation, the result thus stands : 

That, in the case of the potters, 50 per cent, died from chest diseases, as distinguished from pulmonary consumption, which on its part carried off 21 per cent" 

No wonder that the Report proceeded to state : 

" The inference is consequently unavoidable that potters suffer an excessive mortality in following their occupation, and that the mineral dust they inhale is largely accountable for it."

Use of lead

At this stage it may be interesting to specify the particular branches in the many divisions of the potting industry which must be tabulated as dangerous processes through the use of lead : —

• Dippers and Dippers' Assistants. — When the ware has been printed and the oily matter burnt out, or when, as in the case of some ware, without being printed at all, it is taken into the dipping-house, the dipper coats it with a layer of glaze by plunging it into a bath containing the glazing material very finely ground held in suspension in water.

• Ware-Cleaners after Dippers. — When the ware has been dipped it is the duty of the ware-cleaner to examine all the pieces to see if they are properly dipped and to remove all superfluous glaze by scraping with a knife or otherwise. When the ware is cleaned dry, this creates dust, which, of course, contains lead.

• Glost Placers. — After it has been glazed and cleaned the ware is placed in another set of "saggers" for firing. This is done by "glost placers," who also very often clean ware, thereby becoming liable to dust. Much of the mortality amongst glost placers is due, however, to disease of the circulatory system consequent upon disorganisation of the rhythmic action of the heart caused by the sudden transitions from extreme cold to extreme heat and vice versa in placing the saggers in bungs in the glost oven, and by the sudden muscular strain in lifting and carrying the saggers, which is very great.

• Majolica Paintresses and Glaze Blowers. — In some branches of the general earthenware trade, glaze is applied by painting or blowing. The percentage of lead contained in majolica is as much as 40 to 65 per cent.

• Ground-Layers and Colour-Dusters. — When the ware has been fired after glazing, much of it is decorated by applying enamel colours to the surface of the fired glaze. The colours or metals used for this purpose are mineral pigments fluxed with a large proportion of lead compounds, so that when exposed to a moderate heat the melting of the fluxes will fuse the colour into the surface of the glaze. They contain on an average 58 per cent. of lead.

• Litho-Transfer Dusters. — They dust the colour, in the form of a powder (containing a lead-flux) upon prepared sized sheets, which then become decorative transfers. Owing to the extreme fineness of the dust, this is one of the most dangerous processes.

Why is lead used?

A few words of technical explanation may here be necessary to show in what manner, and why, lead is used in pottery manufacture. 

The ware, having been shaped, undergoes a first firing — called the biscuit fire — which transforms it from soft clay to a hard, baked body, and it is then in what is called the biscuit state. 

It is porous, and this involves the process of glazing to fit it for domestic use. It is therefore dipped in a glaze consisting mainly of silica, alumina, alkalis, and lead. 

The silica and alumina are essential components of a durable glaze, and, roughly speaking, the more of them that can be crowded in an earthenware glaze the more stable the glaze. But of themselves they do not possess the requisite glazing property of softness and fusibility, under the conditions in which they are used ; nor, it is contended, does the amount of alkaline matter admissible in a reliable glaze sufficiently soften the hardness of the silica and alumina to convert the mixture into a satisfactory glazing material. 

It is therefore necessary to import into this mineral mixture the metallic substance of lead, which, being easily fusible, fluxes the other materials, and enables the glaze to do its appointed work. It is used in glazes in varying proportions, according to the class of ware made. 

Roughly speaking, the higher the class of ware, the lower the quantity of lead used. Translucent china glazes contain about 17 per cent, opaque earthenware glazes about 22 per cent., majolica (known to the public as " art " pottery) 40 or 50 per cent, jet ai Rockingham ware (common black and brown teapot 60 per cent, and even more.

Amount of exposure to dust

Liability to lead poisoning resolves itself mainly into a question of the amount of dust to which the worker is exposed, the danger varying accordingly. 

In the operations of ware-cleaning, ground-laying, colour-dusting and litho-transfer dusting, dust is necessarily produced. This lies on the face, hair and clothing, clogs the pores of the skin, and (greatest evil of all) inhaled through mouth and nose passes through the lungs into the blood.

One must acknowledge frankly that the dangers of the trade are capricious in their attacks, that while one constitution is quickly a prey to great suffering, another may work in like circumstances with complete immunity from anything worse than " malaise " or somewhat lowered vitality. 

But to the susceptible constitution, be it of man or woman, the blood, instead of being the source of renewal and fertilisation to the working tissues, becomes a poisoned stream which carries the poison in its course and deposits it here and there in the tissues. When the blood is thus vitiated all the organs of the body soon become impaired.

"To account for such divergences," says Dr Arlidge , " it is common to appeal to constitutional peculiarity, or what is called idiosyncrasy ; and there is no denying the operation of this cause ; nevertheless, in the majority of cases, the difference is to be explained on more obvious grounds, existing in carelessness at work, indifference to cleanliness of the person and clothing, in reckless eating and drinking in the place of work, and in wearing the clothing begrimed with glaze, whereby the poison is carried to the homes. Lastly, ill-constructed, dirty, confined shops and want of free ventilation contribute an important factor."

• In ground-laying, colour-dusting, etc., the worker is constantly inhaling the fumes of lead from the colour over which she is bending, and her mouth gets so full of the sweet taste of the lead that she speedily loses her appetite and seems to live, as it were, on lead. Workers frequently say they are unable to eat, but that the lead "seems to feed them up." Dirty or careless workers sometimes actually put the colour into their mouths.

• Majolica paintresses and dippers get, in the case of the former the fingers, and in the case of the latter the whole hand and forearm, covered with glaze. This dries quickly, and unless care is taken to remove it frequently a thin coating of dry glaze gathers on the fingers and arm, whence it is continually conveyed to the lips, nostrils and face, whenever the fingers are put to mouth, nose, or eyes. 
  

• Then, again, a dipper is usually all over splashes and daubs of glaze; his hands, arms, clothes, hair and beard are covered with pulverised glaze ; dust is produced and taken in by the respiratory organs and enters the system with the inevitable results.
  There is no doubt that the dipper also absorbs a certain amount of lead through the skin. It penetrates into the glands and is there acted upon by the carbonic acid, water and oleaginous materials contained by the sweat. The question as to whether this is sufficient to account for the dropped wrist is a debatable one — though expert opinion is inclined to the negative.

• Ware-cleaning is usually carried on in the dippinghouse in close proximity to the tub, and the dipper is therefore exposed almost as much as the warecleaners to the dust which arises.
  Cleaning ware over a trough of water does not always, in the opinion of many operatives, do away with the dust, as much of it still falls about and upon the clothes of the workers. This leaves a general surrounding of dust which must blow about from time to time, and the dipper has therefore to contend with the evils of another branch of the trade as well as his own.

• Glost placers, except when they are ware-cleaners also, ought not, strictly speaking, to incur much risk. They do, however, get a good deal of lead on their hands, which of course renders them liable to plumbism.

• Ware-cleaners and glost placers inhale the dust in the form of the silicate and carbonate : groundlayers, majolica paintresses and litho-transfer printers inhale the dust formed by the colour compounds. 
  Any operative in a lead process who fails in the slightest detail to carry out the rules with regard to food, takes the lead direct into the stomach with whatever food he or she is foolish enough to consume under such conditions. 
  In " placing " ware it is the dry glaze which the glost placer gets on his fingers. The ware is allowed to dry after dipping, and when the placer grasps it to place it in the sagger the glaze dust adheres to his fingers : it is probable also that a good deal must fall from the pieces of ware on to his clothing. 
  When a glost placer also cleans his own ware he does not use a knife, as the women ware-cleaners do, but rubs the edges of two pieces of ware against each other ; he then dusts these off on his clothes or apron, thereby actually covering himself over with dust, which, of course, gets shaken about with his every movement

• It is a peculiar thing, too, that women warecleaners clean the ware towards instead of front them, which must increase their liability to inhale dust. For this there does not appear to be any reason except habit.

Measures towards improvement

Having stated the case at its worst, it is good to turn to the best, and to give full measure of praise to those efforts, however imperfect some may think them, which have been made since 1891 to deal with an evil such as I have described.

From the first establishment of the potting industry in Staffordshire down to the year 1891, no attempt whatever had been made to alter the conditions which produced these lamentable results in the trade. The potters themselves only vaguely realised the state of affairs when the publication of statistics showed them the extent of the evil with which they had grown so familiar.

The various Factory Acts had only affected the pottery industry to the same degree as they had affected other industries, and practically concerned themselves only with the hours of labour of women and young children, and the whitewashing of the workshops, laying no sacrilegious hands on the conditions of adult labour.

the Factory and Workshop Bill of 1891

But in 1891 the Factory and Workshop Bill was introduced into the House of Commons, and this measure, when amended, contained provisions empowering the Secretary of State to make Special Rules at his discretion for trades declared by him to be dangerous to health. 
The whole virtue of the Bill, however, lay in the manner in which it was amended. Originally designed as applicable mainly to the textile trades, and not of very great moment even for that restricted purpose, it became a measure of prime importance, carrying the principle of Governmental supervision of trades to a point of very wide application. The working potters of Staffordshire were largely responsible for this.

The sanitary aspect of the potter's trade had just come into something like organised local prominence, and was being talked of — not so much as a fact, as an evil. The potters saw in the Bill introduced by the Home Secretary an opportunity to secure some protection against the conditions of their trade, and their leaders proceeded to London to indulge in the pastime known as " lobbying." 

They gained the ear of several prominent members of the House — and particularly of the late Mr A. J. Mundella and Sir Henry, now Lord, James — and gave these members a liberal education in the darker side of the potter's trade. They collected statistics, and drew up a statement which they sent broadcast among the members of the House of Commons, and so prepared the ground. The result was that an amendment was moved extending the provisions of the Bill to the manufacture of china and earthenware as well as to wool and cotton, giving protection to workers in "dusty processes."

From this amendment, amendments grew. It began to be asked whether the china and earthenware trade alone involved "dusty processes," and next whether danger to health in employment arose only through dust. The Bill was sent to the Standing Committee, and emerged very different to the original idea of its promoter, for it left the beaten track of general factory supervision, and gave the Home Secretary the right to investigate the conditions of labour in special industries, to declare them dangerous where the conditions warranted the declaration, and to make special rules applicable to them. 
Thus white-lead processes, lucifer-match making, paint and colour making, and the industry of enamelling iron plates were brought, with the manufacture of pottery, under the object-glass of the Factory Act Department, and the measure marked a new era in factory inspection. By the potters it was spoken of as their "charter of health," and this was no hyperbolical phrase, for from the Act of 1891 sprang all the remedial efforts which followed.

processes " dangerous to health,"

The Home Office almost immediately declared the potting industry to involve processes " dangerous to health," and a set of Special Rules was framed by the Factory Act Department for the consideration of the Home Secretary, and this step was followed by the appointment of the Committee to which reference has been made. 

It consisted of local medical men (the late Dr J. F. Arlidge and Mr W. D. Spanton), Professor Laurie, and superintendent and local Inspectors of Factories. They were instructed by the Home Secretary to 

"make inquiry into the conditions under which the manufacture of pottery is carried on, with the object of diminishing any proved ill-effects in the health of the workpeople engaged therein."

The Committee sat for eight days, taking evidence from masters and men, and visiting many manufactories in the district. They recommended the adoption, with trifling amendments, of the Special Rules which had been provisionally issued as being likely to diminish the effects of the dust ; but in regard to lead -poisoning their investigations into the use of glazes free from lead, or into the treatment of lead by fusion — " fritting " lead — so as to render it comparatively harmless, as had been suggested for a remedy, and in some cases had been adopted — did not go very far. 

The Special Rules made it incumbent upon manufacturers to provide suitable over-alls and head coverings for those workpeople employed in processes in which lead was used, to sweep and keep clean the workshops, to provide washing appliances, to forbid the taking of meals in the workshops in which lead was used, and — most important of all — to provide efficient means for the removal of all avoidable dust in all dusty processes. And upon the workpeople were imposed correlative obligations — that they should wear the over-alls provided, wash their hands before leaving the works, not take their meals in the forbidden parts, and the like.

The Committee concluded its report by saying: " The results of our inquiry appear to us, sir, to justify your action in having declared processes in the manufacture of pottery to be dangerous and injurious to health. If it should be decided to adopt and enforce the Special Rules we have recommended, we hope that manufacturers and workpeople will accept them and cheerfully obey them, with a view of taking away from one of the most beautiful, interesting, and useful of our manufactures the reproach of being also one of the most unhealthy."

Opposition by the manufacturers

Some of the Special Rules were opposed by the manufacturers ; and with the view of obviating cumbrous arbitration proceedings, as provided by the Act, Mr G. W. E. Russell, Under - Secretary of State for the Home Department, presided, in April 1894, over a Conference of employers and workmen with the object of endeavouring to arrive at a mutually satisfactory code of rules. The Conference was a good example of the advantage of the conciliation method over that of arbitration.

Mr Russell plunged into the mass of bewildering technicalities and contradictions, to which he had come as a stranger, as though they were his daily element ; and the perusal of his report cannot fail to be of the greatest interest. His skill and imperturbable good temper evidently extracted the maximum amount of concession from each side.

But the employers struggled somewhat against many of the Rules, debated at great length at one stage of the proceedings as to what was " avoidable " and " unavoidable " dust, particularly concentrating their opposition on the point of the erection of fans in some of the old and dilapidated manufactories, declaring this would be "impracticable " and " impossible," and would involve the closing of many. 

Mr Russell's ironic remark, 

" I must honestly confess that it seems to me, so far as I am competent to judge, that this objection of impracticability is only a more solemn way of saying it is expensive, and that everything is impracticable which is expensive," 

was accepted by the manufacturers in all seriousness. " Yes, a thing to be practicable must come within a man's means," said one of the chief employers.

This little scene of eight years ago rings a strangely familiar note at the present time.

The Rules agreed to at this Conference were accepted by some 470 manufacturers, but about 100 carried the matter to arbitration. These were mainly Longton china manufacturers, and though they succeeded in obtaining slight verbal advantages over the Rules accepted by the 470 manufacturers who had been represented at the Conference, the result of the working of this second set of Rules is that not a single factory in Longton is now without fans worked by mechanical power for the removal of dust, although it was in the hope that " other means " would be held to be " efficient " that they went to arbitration.

I believe that in spite of " mechanical means " having been duly insisted upon by the Factory Inspectors of that time, not a single manufactory stopped work for a day on account of the revolution.

The evils of lead-poisoning untouched 

These Special Rules, however, although promising to be highly effective in dealing with the evils of dust, practically left untouched the evils of lead-poisoning, and in May 1898 the Home Office took steps to discover how far lead-poisoning was a necessary incident of the manufacture of pottery. 
The Home Secretary instructed Professor T. E. Thorpe, the eminent Director of the Government Laboratory, and Dr Oliver, an expert on lead-poisoning, to make a detailed investigation into all the circumstances attending the use of lead compounds in the manufacture of pottery ; but primarily to investigate 

" How far the danger may be diminished or removed by substituting for the carbonate of lead ordinarily used either (a) one or other less soluble compound of lead — e.g. a silicate (of lead) ; (b) leadless glaze."

It must be said that the justification for the use of lead, from a practical point of view, is that it is very effective and reliable in its work, and that no substitute, used directly under the same conditions, has been found to do its work as well. But that is not to say that a glaze, without lead, may not be so combined as to do its work and still fulfil all practical essentials.

The form of lead used is either carbonate or oxide, and it is used in the raw state. In this state it is readily soluble in the digestive juices of the body — hence lead-poisoning. Its pathological effect is thus described by Dr Arlidge in his brochure, " The Pottery Manufacture in its Sanitary Aspects " :

"The other dust noted — viz. that of lead — exhibits injurious results exceeding those of all other kinds of dust in seventy, by reason of its highly poisonous properties. 

The group of maladies provoked by it go by the useful general name of Plumbism ; a condition represented by colic, paralysis, severe brain phenomena, and general deterioration of the blood and nutrition of the body. The poison finds its way gradually into the whole mass of the circulating blood, and exerts its effects mainly on the nervous system, paralysing nerve force, and with it muscular power. 

Its victims become of a sallow, waxy hue ; the functions of the stomach and bowels are deranged, appetite fails, and painful colic supervenes. 

The loss of power is generally shown first in the fingers, hands and wrists, and the condition known as ' wrist-drop ' soon follows, rendering the victim useless for the work. The palsy will extend to the shoulders, and after no long time to the legs also. Other organs frequently involved are the kidneys, the tissue of which becomes permanently damaged, whilst the sight is weakened or even lost."

The recital of statistics and the narration of peculiarly horrible individual cases would serve no useful purpose. The general truth of the evil of lead-poisoning in the pottery trade has in times past been challenged by some manufacturers, and deplored by most, but now is admitted by all ; and admitted, moreover, as justifying entirely the action of the Home Office in seeking for a remedy.

The investigation made by Professor Thorpe and Dr Oliver was very exhaustive. They visited many manufactories in The Potteries, and witnessed all the processes in which lead is used, and extended their investigations to the pottery manufactories on the Continent. Their report in 1899 stated that 

" beyond what might have been effected by the Special Rules issued by the Home Office in 1894, there had been little or no improvement during this period of five years."

Factory Inspector report

The returns of Mr J. H. Walmsley, H.M. Inspector for the District, showed that the number of persons " working in the lead " in The Potteries was 4703. 

The number of cases certified as suffering from lead-poisoning in the three years, 1896-7-8, was 1085, of whom 607 were females, and 478 males. 

Fritted lead and leadless glazes

There was therefore ample justification for their inquiry, which was pursued in two directions. Fritted lead had been introduced in the trade before 1894, but was only in very restricted use. 
Glazes without lead had been made and offered to the trade for even a longer period, but were not in regular use in a single instance, and were declared by the manufacturers to be wholly impracticable. 

The same objection was made to a less degree in regard to fritted lead, but upon this point the objection was not so positive and absolute as in the case of leadless glazes. Still, it was said that if fritted lead were compulsory, factories would have to be closed, a prediction which had been made in regard to most efforts at similar reforms.

But the practical evidence on the point of the perfect adaptability of fritted lead was too strong for the contention of impracticability to have any weight with the Home Office experts in 1898, and upon this point they limited their inquiries to the question of the comparative solubility and safety, as revealed by chemical treatment, of various forms of fritted lead, showing conclusively that the lead could be so fritted as to be rendered practically harmless. 

On the question of leadless glazes, however, they were very positive as to their possibility, though they were not able to point to the same body of actual evidence of use as in the case of fritted lead. Still, they committed themselves to the deliberate and italicised statement in their report to the Home Secretary : 

" We have no doubt whatever that leadless glazes of sufficient brilliancy, covering power and durability, and adapted to all kinds of table, domestic, and sanitary ware are now within the reach of the manufacturers," 

and the conclusions at which they arrived 

" from their inquiries at home and abroad, and from the observations and experiments they had made," extending over nine months, were: 

(1) "That by far the greater amount of earthenware of the class already specified " (forming seven-tenths of the whole produced) " could be glazed without lead in any form. It has been demonstrated without the slightest doubt that the ware so made is in no respect inferior to that coated with lead glaze. 
There seemed no reason, therefore, why the operatives should still continue to be exposed to the evils which the use of lead glazes entailed." 

(2) " That there were certain branches of the industry in which it would be more difficult to dispense with lead, but that there was no reason why the lead used in these cases should not be fritted so as to be rendered comparatively harmless, and so greatly diminish the evil of lead-poisoning in those branches " ; 

(3) " That the use of raw lead should be absolutely prohibited " ; and 

(4) " That young persons and women should not only be medically examined every month, but be prohibited from working in lead, and male workers should be subject to systematic medical inspection.

Outcry amongst the manufacturers

This report certainly raised a great outcry amongst the manufacturers. The prevailing tone was one of remonstrance against being taught their business by outsiders, and the optimistic statements of the experts in regard to the practical stage which leadless glazes had reached were vehemently assailed by spokesmen on the part of the manufacturers. 
The fear was felt that the Home Office might precipitately adopt the views of the experts in regard to leadless glazes, and decree their compulsory use, but even those whose faith in leadless glazes was strongest would have shrunk from this as an immediate measure.

The Manufacturers' Association memorialised the Home Secretary, declaring their willingness to adopt fritted lead, but praying for a reasonable time to effect the change, and protesting against the idea of there being any possibility of the abolition of lead. 

Gradually the panic subsided. 

It was seen that the Home Office did not contemplate taking any rash step, and as a matter of fact nothing was done until December 1899, when a notification was issued from Whitehall to the effect that within six months of that date manufacturers would be expected to have discontinued the use of raw lead entirely. 

It was also proposed that those who used leadless glazes should be freed from the operation of certain special rules ; and an indication was given that within another two years the Government might require that the lead should be so fritted as to produce in the dipping-tub an amount of soluble lead not exceeding 2 per cent, of the total mixture. 

No restriction was placed, as had been feared, on the amount of lead to be used, but a manufacturer would be free to use as much lead as he liked provided that it was fritted, and ultimately it was hoped to so frit it as to decrease its solubility to the degree named. 

The Government has thus done nothing "to drive the trade out of the country." Manufacturers have within the last twelve months been gradually and patiently adopting fritted lead, and though it may be necessary to extend the time beyond the limit foreshadowed in December 1899, — postponed afterwards for another six months, until January 1901, — there is no doubt that a period will be reached when raw lead will have entirely disappeared from pottery glazes.

Acceptance of the new Home Office Rule

The Manufacturers' Association has practically accepted the new Home Office Rule, issued in the summer of 1900, with the exception of a few unimportant and apparently reasonable recommendations made by them in regard to certain minor operations in which a very limited use of raw lead may be found still necessary.

The prejudice against universally adopting leadless glaze has certainly some raison d'etre. Manufacturers are naturally reluctant to take any precipitate step in changing their method of glazing, inasmuch as the glazing of the ware is the last process to which it is ordinarily subjected, and the risk of disaster therefore becomes a serious one. 

Some enlightened manufacturers have already adopted leadless glaze partially, and have recognised the possibility that, after all, the resources of civilisation may not fall exhausted and powerless before one particular substance among the countless products of nature, but that a respectful treatment of leadless glazes will receive by renewed experiment practical justification. It is a pity that so many others prefer an attitude of downright denunciation, rather than one of knowledge, open-mindedness and inquiry.

Undoubtedly the various precautions due to outside pressure and command during the last year or two have sensibly diminished the number in the returns of those suffering from lead-poisoning ; the periodical medical examinations of females, involving the rejection of those physically unfit for further employment, being perhaps from one point of view the most effectual of all innovations. 

The opposition of the manufacturers to outside pressure as it affected their position — while encouraging all restrictions on their workpeople — has been salutary in precisely the same sense and in the same measure as the distrust of conservatism is useful in checking any hastiness in political or social reform, and, by making the reform difficult, causing its desirability to be demonstrated. 

One hesitates to believe in the words of a contemporary journal that there may be yet 

"a high mountain of mediocre ability, routine methods, and self-satisfied complacency to be overcome." 

Rather with another writer one acknowledges that 

" Economic and industrial problems are now so complicated, and the interests involved are so many, that organic changes become continually more difficult to imagine and to accomplish." 

But there can be no two opinions that the point has been reached when the right road stretches most surely before those who care for the welfare of the workers of The Potteries. Some, on the one hand, who care not at all, may hold aloof; some there are, on the other hand, who, disappointed in the attainment of greater things, can find no content in the lesser, expecting too quickly the fulfilment of their hopes. These forget that " time is not measured by the years we live," and that of all the processes of evolution through which this strange hoary world of ours has passed, and is passing, no process moves more slowly than that of the moral and intellectual enlightenment of the ignorant and the indifferent.

Let, however, the via media be taken unquestioningly by the master and the workman of good intention ; let them in mutual trust and confidence, even if stronger trade combinations are a necessity of the position, accept the inevitable and mould the inevitable to mutual profit and advancement. 
The Government has done much, the manufacturers may do more — not only in the letter of reform, but in the spirit thereof — by passing from the pettiness of recrimination and continual antagonism to reform, to a higher altitude where every advantage may be taken of scientific discovery and enlightened education, and where, infused with a new energy and enthusiasm, they may make their trade not only one of the most beautiful, but in organisation one of the most perfect in the world.

MILLICENT SUTHERLAND.

 

previous: Epilogue
next: Appendix 1 - Wages and Hirings  in Olden Times