Dr. Reginald Farrar's report to the Local Government Board on the sanitary circumstances of the Borough of Oldham.

  • Farrar, Reginald, 1861-1921.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dr. Reginald Farrar's report to the Local Government Board on the sanitary circumstances of the Borough of Oldham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    P The topographical and meteorological circumstances of Oldham are in some respects favourable, in others unfavourable, to the general health. Its exposed situation and high rainfall (48 inches for 1907) tend to diminish the incidence of diarrheea, but may, on the other hand, lead to catarrhal disorders in those whose work necessitates alternations of exposure to weather with work in mills and factories. It is impossible to estimate the precise allowance that must be made in respect of these circumstances. The industrial circumstances of Oldham lie to some extent outside the scope of this report, but they cannot be entirely ignored when the fact of an excessive death-rate is under consideration. On this point it is to be noted that the death-rate for the county of Lancashire is 17'0, and that of the 15 Lancashire towns which are included among the 76 great towns (over 50,000 inhabitants) for which the Registrar-Oeneral supplies corrected death-rates, all but three, viz., Barrow-in-Furness, 15‘5, Warrington, 17'3, and Bury, 17*9, have death-rates exceeding 18‘0, and occur closely grouped together among the 20 towns at the bottom of the list. Most of these are towns in which practically the whole population is engaged in industrial occupations, and the high death-rate in them may not improbably be due partly to industrial rather than exclusively to sanitary circumstances. The factory system as embodied in the Oldham cotton mills involves certain influences that are favourable and others that are, perhaps, injurious to the public health. To the credit side must be placed the fact that wages are good and work plentiful in the town, which is a characteristic example of a prosperous industrial community, the population being almost wholly composed of the artizan class. An interesting feature of the place is that from the age of 13, and in many instances from the age of 12 onwards, practically all the youth are wage-earners. As “half-timers,” at the age of 12 boys earn in the cotton mills about 5s., and girls about 3s. a week. They leave school at 13, and by the time they are 16 they are earning 10s., and by the age of 19 from 19s. to 23s. a week. Men earn on an average from 28s. to £2 a week. Thus the joint earnings of an artizan family often exceed £5 or even £7 weekly. When the mills are running there appears to be very little genuine unemployment* in the town, apart ^ from that residuum (not large in Oldham) which is due to drunkenness I and moral instability. Good wages and steady employment have I obviously a favourable effect on the public health by enabling the purchase of good food, good clothing, good housing accommodation, and the minor amenities of life. On the other hand the cotton-factory system involves certain features which cannot fail to be more or less injurious to health. The half-time system,—Children in Oldham are allowed to work as “half-timers ” at the age of 12, and about 1,330 children are so employed in Oldham. These children work in alternate weeks 30 * The termination of the recent cotton lock-out occurred in the course of my inquiry in Oldham. The lock-out, of course, occasioned temporary unemploy- ment on a large scale, though Platts’ and Asa Lees’ factories continued working, but when the mills re-opened the displaced labour was reabsorbed rapidly, and careful inquiry showed the number of genuine unemployed to be inconsiderable.