ON women's labouh. 291 



ll. — The West Ridinr/ of Yorkshire. Report hj Mr. A. L. Bowlky. 



The following report is based chiefly on the results of a visit to the 

 chief towns and districts of the West Riding in the summer of 1001 

 together with some study of reports, pamphlets, and newspapers relating 

 to the textile industries of Yorkshire. Information was obtained from 

 employers in Bradford, Huddersfield, Batley, Leeds, and elsewhere, from 

 the principal trade-unionists connected with the textile industries, from 

 medical otiicers of health, workpeople, and others. Besides the textile 

 manufacture, the Leeds clothing trade, and the boot trade of the Leeds 

 district were the subject of inquiry. 



There have been very few alterations in the laws since 1874 which 

 affect the woollen and worsted industries. The present generation has 

 grown up under the Act of 1874, and it was very seldom possible to get 

 any definite information as to the changes that took place at or before 

 that date. The most profitable plan appeared to be to find out at what 

 points the laws as they now stand are visibly restrictive, and hence to 

 deduce the effects they have had in moulding customs and conditions. 



The preliminary question however was, Are the laws carried out "J 

 The general impression is that the whole lives of the workpeople are rer^u- 

 lated on the basis of the legal hours of labour. There was some hearsay 

 evidence that in one village illegal hours were recently worked with the 

 connivance of the inhabitants ; that small workshops in Leeds in some 

 cases escaped inspection, and that work was done beyond legal hours both 

 in the Jewish workshops and in the case of girls in the wholesale tailorino' 

 who are given home-work after being employed in the factory. Minor 

 breaches, on the other hand, appear to be not uncommon. Inspection is 

 rendeied more difficult by the thirty days' legalised overtime. In most 

 numbers of the ' Yorkshire Factory Times ' there are complaints that in 

 one mill or another time is being cribbed. Working in meal hours is not 

 unknown ; though the engine is not running, women are apt, unless pre- 

 vented, to do odds and ends which will prevent loss of time afterwards. 

 Thei-e are also constant and specific complaints that cleaning in motion is 

 necessary to satisfy the overlooker's demands, especially in the cardin"-- 

 room. In Batley cleaning in motion is said to be ' customary, and no one 

 troubles.' The ' particulars 'clause seems to fall easily out of effective use 

 in the clothing trade, but it is said to be useful. In the main, however 

 the laws as to hours are carried out, and the Acts have become more and 

 more effective in workshops, while laundries are now being rapidly brou^^ht 

 under supervision. 



A special object of inquiry was to find at what points women actually 

 competed with men, and in what cases women worked SG.V hours, while 

 men in the same factory worked a longer or a shorter time." 



In the Bradford dyeing trade men worked from 6.0 a.m. to 7.0 p.m. on 

 a full day, the engine running all the time. The few women employed 

 worked ten hours a day and 56.! hours a week with the same engine. 

 When night-work is necessary young men work on the women's machine. 



Combing has in comparati^•ely recent times become a women's trade 

 in the day- time. In Bradford the women work 06]; hours, while men at 

 night on the same machines work sixty- one to sixty -"three houi-s, the two 

 groups meeting morning^ and night. Where, however, as at Keighley, 

 master spinners do their own combing, it is customary to run ovei-time 



