Legislation and accident prevention: a historical review.

SINCE 1844 there has been legislation in Great Britain to prevent accidents in premises subject to the Factories Act. This legislation was the first of its kind, was continously adapted in the light of experience and has been a pattern for legislation to prevent accidents in many countries. The first factory legislation such as Sir Robert Peel's 'Health and Morals of Apprentices Act' was concerned with hours of work, cleanliness and education. Enforcement depended on visitors who were magistrates or church ministers and these Acts applied only to apprentices in the cotton trade. The Factory Act of 1833, though equally limited to the cotton trade (about 3,000 factories), dealing only with age of employment, hours of work, education and cleanliness, was vitally different in that Inspectors were appointed with the power to enforce the Act. The Commissioners, on whose report the provisions of this Act was based, had considered the problem of accidents and by 1840 the Inspectors were paying special heed to this great problem. They were asked to report to the Secretary of State and one Inspector wrote, 'Within the last few months, I have had eleven accidents reported to me. Among them are four cases of death, a man, a boy of seventeen years, a boy of fifteen years and a child of eight years. The first and third case were caused by carelessness in respect to straps, the second case by a lad's arm being caught by the workers of a tenter willey which might have been protected and the last case, bringing his father's breakfast, by being caught on an unguarded upright shaft'. Dr. Robert Baker, a Factory Inspector in Leeds, attempted to survey the incidence of accidents. He found that in one hospital, from mill accidents alone, there were thirty-three in-patients of whom nineteen were below the age of fifteen and 228 outpatients ofwhom seventy-six were below the age of fifteen. He commented 'how much greater the actual amount is cannot be ascertained for it must be remembered that this is a return from only one public institution, where there are several open for the reception of like accidents, independently of the private houses to which many apply.' As a result of these enquiries an Act was passed in 1844 with specific provisions against accidents. The Act prohibited women and young persons cleaning transmission