SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY through one of the great pottery works can fail to be struck by the large number of women and girls employed. Much of the work is done in groups, and both the work and the wages are interdependent. For instance, in a printing group two or three women and girls work with each printer. There is first the journeywoman transferrer who transfers the printed paper to the ware. An apprentice will then rub the pattern into the ' biscuit,' and finally wash the paper from the ware, leaving the pattern behind. The 'cutter* is the youngest of the party, her work being to fetch the print from the press and cut away all the superfluous paper, leaving the pattern on a long narrow strip ready for the transferrer. 208 In a printing group described by Miss Collett in 18934, the printer received 2$s. 3^., out of which he had to pay for gas; the journeywoman transferrer earned i is. 3^., the apprentice js. 6d., and the cutter $s. m In many other processes girls are employed as assistants to men working the lathe for the cup-maker or the maker of plates. Other processes in which women and girls are specially employed are those of sponging, scouring, ' towing,' dipping, and painting. As their work varies, so does their rate of pay, which ranges from 5/. to 1 8j. and upwards per week. The paintresses, who have to serve a seven years' apprenticeship, are the best paid; they get about 2s. per week in the first year of their apprenticeship and afterwards one-third of their full ultimate rate of pay. From statistics gathered by Miss Collett in 18934 it appears that the earnings of the greatest number of women and girls averaged from los. to 1 2s. per week, some earning more, some less than that amount. 210 At that time about four hundred women were said to be members of one or other of the men's unions. At the end of 1904 this number had fallen to 325, consisting chiefly of women in the printing group. In 1893 the Women's Trade Union League succeeded in forming a potteries' branch among women in that industry, but it did not flourish, and having in 1902 reached the low level of thirty members it was dissolved next year. 211 The employment of so many married women in the pottery industry is an important factor in the social problem of a district where the atmosphere and surroundings are so grimy that the difficulty of keeping decent homes must be very great when the mother is at home all the day, but when she is at work, the effect on the homes of the people and the inevitable con- sequences in the health, feeding, and general up-bringing of the children are bound to be more or less serious, and when to these considerations is added the fact that this industry is one of the occupations dangerous to health, the outlook for the rising generation is somewhat disquieting. In South Staffordshire women and girls work in enamelling and japanning works, especially at Wolverhampton and Bilston ; at saddlery and harness-making in Walsall, and in clothing factories here and elsewhere. The enamelling and japanning trade is one which seriously affects the health of women, especially those engaged in the processes in which lead is used, notably that of brushing the lead powder from the tin plate. 2 212 108 C. F. Binns, The Story of the Potter (1898), p. 227. 109 Rep. of Labour Com. 1893-4 [c. 6894, xxiii, p. 61]. " Ibid. 63.
- " Rep. on Trade Unions, 1902-4, Board of Trade (Labour Dept.), 76-8.
'" Rep. of Labour Com. 1893-4, xxiii, 83. 3"
