“(ii.) The altering, repairing, ornamenting, or finishing of any article; or
“(iii.) The adapting for sale of an article.”[36]
Premises in which such operations are carried on are divided into these four classes:
1. Textile factories, where mechanical power is used in connection with the manufacture of cotton, wool, hair, silk, flax, hemp, jute, or other like material;
2. Non-textile factories, where mechanical power is used in connection with the manufacture of articles other than those included in (1), and, in addition, certain industries, such as “print works,” or lucifer-match works, whether mechanical power is or is not employed;[37]
3. Workshops where articles are manufactured without the aid of mechanical power; and—
4. Domestic workshops or factories, where a private house or room is, by reason of the work carried on there, a factory or a workshop, where mechanical power is not used, and in which the only persons employed are members of the same family dwelling there.[38]
The Act also has a limited reference to laundries, docks, buildings in course of construction and repair, and railways.[39]
Certain definitions are important in the interpretation of the regulations. The expression “child” means a person under the age of fourteen, who is not exempt from attendance at school.[40] The expression “young person” means a person who has ceased to be a child, and is under the age of eighteen.[41] These expressions will be used with this significance in the remainder of this chapter, unless the contrary is stated.
The authority for the enforcement of the Factory and Workshop Act is in general the Home Office, acting through its inspectors. In certain cases, which will be mentioned later, the duty of enforcement is imposed on one or other of the locally elected bodies.