From the First World War, the government sought to promote welfare supervision. Although, the concept of ‘welfare’ developed in the late nineteenth century, it was actively promoted with the breakout of war. According to B. Seebohm Rowntree, the Director of the Welfare
Department in the Ministry of Munitions, ‘Welfare supervision is simply the creation in a factory
382 Eddie Crooks, The Factory Inspector: A Legacy of the Industrial Revolution (The History Press 2005) p61;
Henry J. Harris, ‘The Increase in Industrial Accidents’ (1912) 13 PASA 97 p1; Eddie Crooks, The Factory
Inspector: A Legacy of the Industrial Revolution (The History Press 2005) p60
383 Vivien Hart, Bound by Our Constitution: Women, Workers, and the Minimum Wage (Princeton University Press
1994) p20
384 T.K. Djang, Factory Inspection in Great Britain (George Allen & Unwin 1942)
385 Roger Shaw (ed), Safety and Reliability of Software Based Systems: Twelfth Annual CSR Workshop Bruges 12 -
15 September 1995 (Springer 1997) p53
386 Matthew Ridely, ‘The Cotton Cloth Factories Acts, 1889 and 1897’ (The London Gazette, 10 May 1898) 2897 387 T.K. Djang, Factory Inspection in Great Britain (George Allen & Unwin 1942)
388 T.K. Djang, Factory Inspection in Great Britain (George Allen & Unwin 1942); Nicholas H. Bergman (ed),
Bacillus anthracis and Anthrax (Wiley Blackwell 2011)
389 ‘Home Office’ HC vol 187 cc331-87 (28 July 1925); T.K. Djang, Factory Inspection in Great Britain (George
of those conditions which enable each individual worker to be and do his or her best’.390 More specifically, ‘Voluntary efforts on the part of employers to improve, within the existing
industrial system, the conditions of employment in their own factories’.391
The government was drawn into promoting welfare at work due to the outbreak of war in 1914 when a significant number of women took up employment in industries previously dominated by men.392 These new workers were compelled to undergo the same ‘wearying physical strain’ as their male counterparts. Their new work was often marked by ‘long hours, improper or inadequate sanitary conditions, and the extreme fatigue produced by industrial processes to which they are wholly unaccustomed to’.393 It was required of the government to maintain the health of the nation; women could not be worked to the extent that their health, morals and childbearing capacities diminished.394 Moreover, the War brought issues of productivity to the surface. Through attending to the welfare of workers, greater productivity could be achieved.395
Promoting welfare at work was exemplified by the 1916 Police Factories etc. (Miscellaneous
Provisions Act. This Act enabled the Home Office to issue orders for welfare provisions. Such
orders included an order requiring drinking water in every factory or workshop employing 25 people or more; an order for the provision of seats for female workers in munitions factories; a first aid and ambulance order which required an ambulance room in factories that employed 500 persons or more.396 There was also a bottom-up element to promoting welfare at work; the government sought to set up of welfare committees.397 The business of resolving and analysing
390 B. Seebohm Rowntree, ‘Value OF Welfare Supervision to the Employer’ (1916) 3 Monthly Review of the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics 6 p74
391 Cited in Monthly Review of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, ‘Welfare Work in Great Britain’ (1916) 3
Monthly Review of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 6 p81, p82; Oliver Sheldon, The Philosophy of Management (Sir Issac Pitman & Sons 1924) p175
392 Monthly Review of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, ‘Welfare Work in Great Britain’ (1916) 3 Monthly
Review of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 6 p81
393 Monthly Review of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, ‘Welfare Work in Great Britain’ (1916) 3 Monthly
Review of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 6 p81
394 Gail Braybon, Women Workers in the First World War (Croom Helm 1981)
395 Vicky Long, The Rise and Fall of the Healthy Factory: The Politics of Industrial Health in Britain 1914 - 60
(Palgrave Macmillan 2011)
396 Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for the Year of 1918 (HMSO 1919) p31 - 33 397 Gail Braybon, Women Workers in the First World War (Croom Helm 1981); Vicky Long, The Rise and Fall of
the issues related to the welfare of workers was left in the hands of these committees.398 The most prominent being the Health of Munitions Workers′ Committee (HMWC) set up 1915 ‘to consider and advise on questions of industrial fatigue, hours of labour, and other matters affecting the personal health and physical efficiency of workers in munitions factories and workshops’.399 In its lifetime, the Committee produced 21 memoranda and two reports of which over 210,000 were sold and distributed.400 A Factory Inspector noted that many of the
Committee's publications circulated not just among employers but reached ‘a wide, general, reading and thinking public’.401 The HMWC was followed by the Home Office and the Board of Trade’s setting up of the Women’s Employment Committee to consider issues arising out of the mass entrance of women to the workplace, such as housing, transit, canteen provision and recreational arrangements.402 In addition to such committees, the government also issued a series of pamphlets offering advice on welfare arrangements for women workers.403
The most radical action taken by the government in the realm of welfare was the push for the appointment of ‘welfare supervisors’. B. Seebohn Rowntree, the Director of the Welfare Department in the Ministry of Munitions, defined the ‘welfare supervisor’ as a 'human engineer who goes into the factory to see that all the human machines are working at their highest
potential’.404 The government hoped that the appointment of supervisors would help promote the well-being, health and efficiency of the workforce. It was posited that this increase in
398 Gail Braybon, Women Workers in the First World War (Croom Helm 1981); Vicky Long, The Rise and Fall of
the Healthy Factory: The Politics of Industrial Health in Britain 1914 - 60 (Palgrave Macmillan 2011)
399 Ministry of Munitions, ‘Health of Munition Workers Committee Interim Report: Industrial Efficiency and
Fatigue’ (1917) (Archive no: MUN 5/92/346/14) TNA - Kew Gardens; Monthly Review of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, ‘Industrial Efficiency and Fatigue in British Munition Factories’ (1917) 5 Monthly Review of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 1 p14
400 Vicky Long, The Rise and Fall of the Healthy Factory: The Politics of Industrial Health in Britain 1914 - 60
(Palgrave Macmillan 2011) p20; Steven Kreis, ‘Early Experiments in British Scientific Management: The Health of Munitions Workers′ Committee, 1915-1920’ (1995) 1 JMH 2 p65
401 Vicky Long, The Rise and Fall of the Healthy Factory: The Politics of Industrial Health in Britain 1914 - 60
(Palgrave Macmillan 2011) p20
402 Vicky Long, The Rise and Fall of the Healthy Factory: The Politics of Industrial Health in Britain 1914 - 60
(Palgrave Macmillan 2011) p20
402 Vicky Long, The Rise and Fall of the Healthy Factory: The Politics of Industrial Health in Britain 1914 - 60
(Palgrave Macmillan 2011) p20
403 Vicky Long, The Rise and Fall of the Healthy Factory: The Politics of Industrial Health in Britain 1914 - 60
(Palgrave Macmillan 2011) p20
404 Tony Watson, The Personnel Managers (Routledge Revivals): A Study in the Sociology of Work and Employment
efficiency was essential to employer and employee because a progressive improvement in wages could only be achieved by the progressive improvement in methods of production.405 In 1916, the Home Office ordered all munitions factories to appoint a welfare supervisor. Private employers managed to evade the prescription, but there were no such loopholes for the
nationalised industries.406 By the winter of 1917, the Ministry of Munitions had dispatched 28 supervisors to their new posts in national shell and fuse plants across the country.407
Throughout the war years, the Home Office organised conferences to promote the appointment of welfare supervisors. One of which was a conference in 1917 in which representatives of universities and other educational authorities discussed the criteria for the training and selection of welfare workers.408 Much of the voluntary welfare – enhancing initiatives became
compulsory with the enactment of the 1937 Factories Act.409