Health Risks in a Victorian Pottery Factory

As well as the usual urban living conditions of overcrowding, inadequate sanitation and poor diet, people living the Potteries had the constant smoky atmosphere from the coal fired bottle ovens to lower their resistance to the two main occupational killers - silicosis and plumbism.

Silicosis

Silica dust was the biggest threat to a pottery worker's health. It has particles too small to be generally seen with the naked eye which can be breathed deeply into the lungs causing silicosis, known as Potter's Rot. Silica was used in glaze and to bed ware in saggars during the biscuit firing to separate items and help to prevent warping.

Earthenware and stoneware pottery bodies have a high free silica content, so whenever clay is dry silica dust is released. Making a pot using wet clay is safe, but the clay scraps, spills on the floor, and clay drying on overall can cause dust. The pot has to be allowed to dry before firing, and cast pieces are fettled - have the clay seams scraped off - which creates dust.

After pottery is biscuit fired it is brushed (scoured) to remove loose particles which is particularly dangerous. In the twentieth century silicosis has been much reduced by good working practises. Factories are kept cleaner, floors must be mopped every day, extractor fans are used, workers must not eat at their benches and overalls are made of a material which does not absorb dust.

Plumbism

It was known that lead was dangerous but manufacturers used lead in glaze to give whiteness and a high quality sheen. It was also found in many of the pottery colours. The most visible signs of lead poisoning were seen in the workforce involved in dipping pottery into glaze.

Glaze contained lead carbonate. Raw lead is very soluble. From 1894 fritted lead (heated until it was vitrified and thus less soluble) were introduced but their use was governed by whether the company could afford them and manufacturers were reluctant to change to what they considered was an inferior product.

Dippers, because of the dangerous nature of the job were the highest paid workers in the factory. A dipper had a life expectancy of about 40 years but in many cases a particular susceptibility to lead poisoning could lead to death within 12 months of starting work.

Women and children were more susceptible than men. However, it was not until 1898 that any restriction on age was introduced into the industry. The workers were willing to work with lead because it was highly paid and perhaps thought they would be one of the lucky ones. Dippers would take Epsom salts to reduce the risk and drank milk to line the stomach.

Lead poisoning could come about through inhaling dust and fumes, or introduced through the mouth. Lead tended to be absorbed into the bones from where it affected the tendons of the lower arm. This led to the potter's "dropped wrist" and in some cases "dropped ankle."

Lead could also affect the central nervous system, in which case paralysis or epilepsy followed. In some cases the symptoms did not become evident for many years, sometimes only leading to a general feeling of being unwell. What was not known at the time was that lead also had an effect on the unborn child resulting in miscarriages, still born children, and children who suffered fits and may not live for long.

Although workers involved in handling glaze were most directly affected, plumbism also occurred in other departments. Paintresses were at risk, particularly majolica paintresses. Majolica glazes contained 40-60 % lead.

Oven men and placers

The most obvious risks to this group of people involved the effects of drastic temperature changes on the body. The transitions from hot to cold (and vice versa) disrupted the rhythmic action of the heart and gave circulatory complaints which sometimes led to death.

The practice of sending placers into still warm ovens to remove ware also led to serious ailments. In order to clear an oven speedily men worked while the saggars were still hot. After thirty minutes in this environment the nose would bleed and eyesight would blur. In the long-term blindness was a familiar consequence. Hot dust in the ovens would scorch the lungs and produce respiratory ailments later in life.

The temperature fluctuations that bottle ovens were subjected to led to the brickwork rapidly expanding and contracting. Unless regular checks and repairs were made the whole structure rapidly became unstable. There is evidence that in odd cases workmen were killed by falling brickwork.

Risk to children

Victorians did not view childhood as a fundamentally separate period of a lifetime. Children were simply looked on as little adults. Moreover, many of the most strenuous jobs in the pottery industry were given to them. They usually entered the industry at seven or eight, ten years was more common after 1870. Some however, were working at five.

There was a one in three chance that such children would be dead before the age of fifteen. This was usually due to overwork. Children worked from 6am to 6pm, but they had to be in before the potters arrived to get the workplace ready. Children were employed as mould runners to adult workers. That is the attendants who took away finished work from the maker and brought fresh moulds and supplies of clay. As the name implies they were running almost non-stop for twelve hours. Wedging, preparing clay by forcing the air out of it, arduous for a youngster, was regarded as the easiest work.

Factory acts

After 1 August 1898 no person under 14 years of age, and after 1 August 1899 no person under 15 years of age shall be employed in:

Dipping house or dippers drying room or in the processes of:

• Ware cleaning after the dipper;
• Glost placing;
• Colour dusting;
• Ground laying;
• Majolica painting;
• Glaze blowing;
• Transfer making;
• China scouring.

After 1 January 1899 exhaust fans had to be fitted in departments with the following:

• Towing of earthenware;
• China scouring;
• Ground laying;
• Colour dusting;
• Glaze blowing;
• Transfer making.

After 1 January 1899 all workshops had to be ventilated, and workplaces cleaned at the end of the day.

In 1899 it was decreed that no more than 5% standard solubility of lead would be allowed in glazes, but this was hard to enforce.

In 1949 the use of all lead glazes which were not low solubility was prohibited.

Since 1949 there have been no deaths from lead poisoning related to working in the pottery industry.