Chapter LVII: Iron and Steel Industries

_Exposure to High Temperatures, and Severe Muscular Strain._

In iron works the _blast furnacemen_ are exposed to very high temperatures. Passing rapidly from great heat to cold, they are prone to suffer from bronchial and pulmonary affections and from rheumatism. They run the risk of burns, also on a windy day of getting particles of dust or sand into their eyes.[164] Blast furnacemen’s work is hard. When young the men are, as a class, physically strong. Their wages are good; they live well, but at an early age they begin to drink freely. Under the combined influence of their arduous labour, exposure to all kinds of weather, and their intemperate habits, they break down readily and become prematurely old.

The men who work at the _puddling_ furnaces are exposed to excessive heat and to severe muscular strain. Owing to the heat and excessive perspiration, they often work with the upper half of their body uncovered. They imbibe many kinds of liquids, so as to replace what is lost by perspiration. Puddling, which is briefly speaking the rolling about by means of a rabble the huge balls of molten iron in the furnaces, is such very hard work that many of the men develop heart affections, particularly disease of the aortic valves, or aneurismal dilatation of the aorta, owing to the excessive muscular strain and intemperate habits. Puddling is justly regarded as one of the most degrading occupations a man can follow. Fortunately for the workmen it is now very much on the decrease. Steel is rapidly taking the place of iron, consequently puddling is not so much required.

Blast furnacemen are occasionally poisoned by the escape of carbonic oxide from the waste gases used for heating the air of the furnace.

_Blacksmiths and Forgemen._

Beyond the extremely arduous nature of this employment, and which necessitates the work being undertaken by men of good physique, whose muscular system develops in proportion to the strain that is imposed upon it, especially in the early years of manhood, and freedom from alcoholic excess, the work of the blacksmith and forgeman is healthy. Formerly a good deal of the heavy work was done by men wielding large hammers. This threw a strain upon the heart and large blood-vessels, and was a frequent cause of valvular disease of the heart, dilatation of the aorta, and possibly too of hernia. Since much of the hard work previously done by hammermen is now done by machinery, we see less of aortic disease among forgemen than two decades ago. The workmen are exposed to heats and colds, to injuries to the eyes, and to burns from flying scales during hammering. Blacksmiths seem to lead a charmed life so far as these risks are concerned, for considering their exposure the percentage of injuries is small. As a consequence of handling the rough iron tools the skin of the hand becomes thick and hard, and the men run the risk of catching bronchial and pulmonary catarrhs on emerging from their heated workshops into the open air. Years ago in Sheffield, when sledge-hammers were more in use than now, there was observed a form of paralysis of the muscles of the arms due to overstrain, and known by the name of hammermen’s paralysis. A considerable percentage of blacksmiths die from phthisis and diseases of the respiratory organs. Out of 872 deaths of blacksmiths Dr Ogle found 194 due to consumption, and 183 caused by other forms of lung disease; while following these came diseases of the heart and circulation, 108; and, lastly, from diseases of the nervous system, 85.

_Use of Converters in Steel Works._

This is the proper place to allude to a matter which formed the subject of a special inquiry by, and report[165] from, the Dangerous Trades Committee of the Home Office, on account of a fatal accident to four men in a large iron works in which the Bessemer process of steel manufacture is in use. The Bessemer converter is a pear-shaped metal vessel, about nineteen feet long by seven or eight across at its widest part, into which pig-iron and other ingredients for the manufacture of steel are run in a liquid condition. In the bottom of the converter are openings called “tuyere holes,” through which a powerful blast of air is driven into the molten pig-iron, the object being to burn out such impurities as carbon, silicon, phosphorus, etc., the means employed to do this being sufficient to develop at the same time a degree of heat capable of keeping the purified metal in a liquid state. Before the blast is turned on, the converter occupies almost an upright position. The roar that follows the entrance of the blast of air is succeeded by volumes of coloured smoke and flame, and by myriads of sparks of molten metal. When the flame has become finally white, the blast is withdrawn, spiegel iron is added to the seething mass to restore the proper amount of manganese and carbon required, the converter is lowered and gently turned over so as to allow of the pouring of the liquid steel into a ladle, which distributes it into moulds. It is in the moving of the converter and the ladle into their respective positions, an act usually accomplished by the aid of hydraulic or steam power, that accidents have arisen owing to faulty machinery. The moulds are standing upright in what is called the pit, where there are usually two or three men employed. Should by chance either the converter or the ladle spill its contents a fatal accident is almost sure to occur. It is desirable, therefore, that only experienced men should work the machinery connected with the lowering and turning over of the converter and ladle, and that during the act of distributing the steel into the moulds no men should be present in the pit at all. The Dangerous Trades Committee, in addition to the above, recommended that where an automatic safety apparatus has been introduced into the machinery, the spindle in the valve should be changed every three months, and the valves examined regularly by a competent engineer. Owing to the fact that when molten metal falls into water there is an explosion, it was also recommended that the pits should not be, as they too often are, open to the sky and exposed to all kinds of weather.

_Nail and Chain Making._

The small iron industries are located in districts where coal is plentiful, iron close at hand, and labour cheap. It is thus that chain-making has come to be associated with such places as Cradley Heath and Dudley, and has grown up to be a family industry, carried on in these localities by husband, wife, and children in small tenemented properties and outbuildings under the worst hygienic conditions possible. A similar remark applies to nail-making at Bromsgrove. In these trades, as carried on in the Midlands, female labour, assisted by that of children, prevails, a circumstance that tends to pull down wages and to render the conditions of life hard.

As an illustration of how the minor iron industries come to be located in small places, I would mention the manufacture of nails, locks, and angle iron that has been carried on for many years in Winlaton, a few miles from Newcastle-on-Tyne. Here also the work has partly assumed the family type already mentioned. For generations the industry has been handed on from father to sons. It cannot be said that in Winlaton the conditions of labour have been, from a financial point of view, unsatisfactory to the workers or deleterious in its effects upon their health, as is stated to be the case in the “Black Country,” where labour has been ill-requited, recourse had to female and child labour on account of cheapness, the hours of toil long, and the hygienic conditions under which the work is carried on bad. Dr Arlidge, drawing his experience from Staffordshire, was of opinion that for the worker in these trades to earn a living wage, a great amount of physical labour had to be expended in the forging and hammering of the nails on the anvil. To put the head on to a nail a suspended hammer has to be intermittently brought down by pressure of the foot upon a chain. For spike nails the cold iron has to be cut into proper lengths by means of an “oliver” or sledge hammer, worked by two or three men by means of a treddle. In forging a nail a girl works with the hammer on the anvil, and with her foot a small “oliver.” Apart from the small wages received it cannot be said that the industry is unhealthy, but the work is hard, and requires a great amount of physical exertion which ought to be met by good food and adequate physical rest, the former of which is denied the workers by their small wages, and the latter by the long hours of toil required to secure the necessaries of life.

In consequence of the irritation which the palm of the hand is exposed to in handling the hammer, etc., there occurs a thickening and contraction of the fascia in the front of the hand whereby the fingers become crooked and drawn towards the palm. Spinal curvature, too, is not unknown. It is extremely apt to develop in those who engage in the work at an early age. Pulmonary disease is said to carry off the men while still young, and the occupation is one that exposes the worker to the risk of burns. Attention is drawn to this industry, not so much because the trades are unhealthy in themselves, as that the nail-makers at Bromsgrove and Sidemoor, and the chain-makers of Cradley Heath, scarcely earn wages sufficient to buy the proper food necessary for the maintenance of the body, while they are obliged to put forth considerable muscular effort owing to the laborious nature of their calling.

THOMAS OLIVER.