The White Lead Trade1 Dickens and Tressell White Lead Was the Popular Name for Lead Carbonate, a White Powder Used, Among Other

3 The White Lead Trade 1 Dickens and Tressell White lead was the popular name for lead carbonate, a white powder used, among other things, as a basic ingredient of paint (along with linseed oil and turpentine). 2 Although most white lead was used in paint manufacture, it was also widely employed in pottery glazes and, to a lesser extent, by plumbers, as a sealant. The dangers of white lead derived from its toxicity combined with the facility with which the body could absorb it. 3 In the nineteenth century most white lead was manufactured by the ‘Old Dutch’ method (the alternative being the chamber process). In this, thin perforated sheets of the purest possible metallic lead were placed in a corroding house, otherwise known as ‘stacks’ or blue beds. The floor of the house was covered with a 2-3 inch layer of tan upon which, in earthenware pots, stood dilute acetic acid. The lead sheets were placed over the pots and covered with boards. Tan, pots, lead and boards made up the first layer of the stack upon which further layers, usually between 12 and 15, were placed. The average dimension of a completed stack was some 20 feet (in height), by 16 feet, by 13 feet. Once the stack was constructed the door of the corroding house was closed for a period of 10 to 15 weeks. During this time the tan would warm up and give off carbonic acid. The chemical reaction between the lead, the carbonic and acetic acids converted the metallic lead into a carbonate. When the process was believed to be complete the stack was opened and the thick white incrustation stripped from what was left of the lead strips. This was then rolled, crushed, washed, dried and packed. It was in the dismantling of stacks and these subsequent processes that workers, many of whom were casual women workers from the poorest classes, were placed at most risk as the lead dust covered them and was absorbed in various ways. 4 Thomas Oliver, writing at the beginning of the twentieth century, stated that ‘No industry, unless, perhaps it be that of pottery manufacture, has caused so much plumbism [lead poisoning] as the manufacture of white lead’. 5 In The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Robert Tressell, a housepainter himself, vividly depicted the dangers of handling white lead: 81 P. W. J. Bartrip One of the worst jobs that he [Bert, the apprentice painter] had to do was when a new stock of white lead came in. This stuff came in wooden barrels containing two hundredweight and he used to have to dig it out of these barrels with a trowel and put it into a metal tank, where it was kept covered with water and the empty barrels were returned to the makers. When he was doing this work he usually managed to get himself smeared all over with the white lead and this circumstance and the fact that he was always handling paint or some poisonous material or other was doubtless the cause of the terrible pains [presumably colic] that sometimes caused him to throw himself down and roll on the ground in agony. 6 In 1869 the problem of poisoning in white lead works was discussed in an article published in Charles Dickens’ All the Year Round,7 and in 1875 the question came to the attention of the factory inspectorate, at least partly, it would seem, because of the Dickens connection. Alexander Redgrave, then one of the joint chief inspectors of factories, requested his metropolitan sub-inspectors ‘to make special inquiries into the subject, so that we might if possible arrive at some definite conclusions as to the actual prevalence of danger and surest means of averting it’. 8 On the basis of their reports Redgrave included a substantial section on the white lead trade in his next half-yearly report to the secretary of state. In this he suggested that while progress had been made in tackling the causes of occupational ill health, ‘much suffering’ and ‘considerable danger’ remained. Redgrave, rather uncharacteristically, distanced himself from the extreme laissez-faire views that were often to be heard when the subject of regulating the conditions of adult labour was discussed: I do not think it is sufficient for an employer to say that the operatives who come to him accept the work with its consequences. Is he justified in placing men and women in jeopardy without providing and insisting upon the adoption of some sufficient precautions? The people employed in these works are all adults; the women especially are of the very poorest class and loss of employment through sickness means deprivation of sustenance to a whole family, which has then to be supplied by the relieving officer. 9 In order to effect further improvement Redgrave proposed the introduction of five rules. In essence these involved the provision of respirators and protective clothing, an obligation on workers to wash and change their clothes before leaving their places of work and 82.

Load more