Report addressed to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department, relative to the grievances complained of by the journeymen bakers : with appendix of evidence / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty.

Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report addressed to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department, relative to the grievances complained of by the journeymen bakers : with appendix of evidence / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    of 2,200 (for those between 15 and 18) the increase for 10 years at the ordinary rate, an allowance for the increase of bakers’ shops within that time, and a small one for youths employed between the ages of 14 and 15. This will bring the estimate very near to 2,000. And of these a con- siderable proportion are employed at night with the men.* It needs no argument to prove that the loss of the usual hours of sleep, and the hard and continuous work for many hours in such a temperature as that of bakehouses in general, must have a great effect in undermining the constitutions of the young, and laying the foundation of that liability to various diseases by which the average duration of life of a journeyman baker is reduced to the age of 42. (164, 265, 354, 366, 381, 413, 521, 704.) The unanimity with which the masters in the trade agree that it would be desirable that the employment of youths under 18 at night-work should be forbidden by the legislature, is remarkable and creditable to them. That the exclusion from night-work would also be for the real and ultimate benefit of the youths themselves is sufficiently obvious. It might, indeed, oblige them to continue for two or three years more than at present at the work more particularly connected with the shop, and therefore at a rate of wages lower by a few shillings than what they now earn; but their working powers would, when they attained the age of manhood, be less impaired, and their prospect of health and life materially improved. It is alleged also, with apparently good reason, that this inversion of the usual hours of work leads to a mode of life which has a very bad effect upon their morals, and places great obstacles in the way of their intellectual improvement. (86, 206, 207.) The question will naturally occur, How would such a provision be enforced ? The answer is, that it would be enforced by the adult journeymen in the trade, with, in all probability, considerable vigilance. * According to tlie census of 1851 there were in the whole of Great Britain.— Bakers Between 15 and 20 Confectioners Between 15 and 20 - 43,372 - 12,291 - 6,988 - 2,059 50,360 of whom 14,550 were be- tween 15 and 20. Of whom it may be estimated that 9,000 (tl:ree fifths) were between 15 and 18.