[Report 1894] / Medical Officer of Health, County Council of the Palatine of Chester / Cheshire County Council.

  • Cheshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1894] / Medical Officer of Health, County Council of the Palatine of Chester / Cheshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/260 (page 8)
    workshop shall not knowingly allow a woman to be employed therein within four weeks after she has given birth to a child,” but there seems to be no adequate means for insuring that this short absence from work is insisted on. It is not incumbent on anyone to inform the factory occupier and it is not to his interest to seek for information in the matter. Dr. George Reid, who is an authority on this subject, is of opinion that every woman employed at a factory should have a period of three months at home after her confinement, and that this should be enforced by law. Prohibiting a mother from working in a factory for three months after bearing a live child, is probably as far as the Legislature will go, and even this measure of reform will be difficult to obtain as it can hardly be expected to commend itself to employers, and is certain to be unpopular with factory women. Remedies coming under the second head are, at least, more easily applied. It is not unusual for the owner of a factory to provide a library, a gymnasium, or a sick ward for his employes, or a school for their children ; providing a creche or day-nursery for his employes’ infants would surely be quite as useful and beneficent. It would be better if the accommodation were not offered free. When infants are left all day with a neighbour some payment is ordinarily made, and if a similar payment were demanded it would assuredly be possible for a creche at a large factory to be managed on commercial lines, without loss. Dr. George Reid’s proposal is that provision should be made by the State for the proper care and feeding of the infant at the expiry of the suggested period of compulsory absence from work on the part of the mother. District Councils could make the proposed provision, provided a short Act were passed, enabling Local Authorities to establish creches in districts where it is the common practice of mothers to work in factories. Remedies under the first two heads are directed against mortality among the infants of factory women, the remedies under the third head are against infant mortality generally. Unmarried mothers, drunken mothers, &c., may grossly neglect their infants, and yet by taking them to the local dispensary once or twice before the end, obtain a certificate as to the cause of death and register the death without difficulty. This should not be possible. The fact should be recognized that it is not natural for an infant to die at a few months old. In any case where there is the least ground for suspecting neglect there should be a thorough investigation into the cause of death, prior to registering the death. Again, infant insurance by companies or firms is open to objection for many reasons. There seems no sufficient reason for allowing poor parents or guardians to insure a child under five years of age for £6. If this were forbidden, its place might be taken by a simple form of State insurance, such as empowering the Government to enter into an agreement to inter any child free of cost on those in charge