(b) Bristol and district.
"Seventeen houses in Bristol, employing about 1,170 women, have no married hands. In three of these, it is the rule that girls must leave on marriage, because the employer or the forewoman dislikes having married women, either 'because they are not such good workers after they have got the breakfast for their husbands and children, and seen to the house, and are not then much good for work in a factory,' or else because of a feeling that it is wrong to take married women from home duties.
"In eight houses, employing about 1,200 women, there is no rule against employing married women, and a few are employed. The exact proportions were impossible to ascertain, but mostly box-makers.
| Employed | Married. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| A. | 100 | Most leave when married, but a few good workers kept on. | |
| B. | 6 | Two. | |
| C. | 5 | One or two. | |
| D. | 30 | A very few kept on. | |
| E. | 2 | Both married. | |
| F. | 18 | One married. | |
| G. | 40 | Generally leave; a few kept on. | |
| H. | 1,000 | A good many married. |
"So few married women are employed in these trades in Bristol that it is impossible to find any evidence of their influence on rates of pay, and the generalisations as to the quality of married women's work are made on very little information. One employer (B.) declared that married women are better workers because they do not go out unless they have good-for-nothing husbands and have to be the breadwinners, a remark corroborated by G., who assigned the same reason for their superiority, adding that married women make 2s. or 3s. a week more at piecework than the unmarried, and seem more anxious to get on. C. regards them as steadier than girls: "They take life more seriously."
"In two houses in Gloucester with twenty-two and fifty-five girls, there are no married women. 'They don't want to stay.'
"In Frome, a leading printing establishment employs 130 girls, but none are married. There is a rule against employing married women. It is regarded as immoral to do so—'It means that the husband spends the extra money in beer.'
"In Stroud, amongst thirty girls, none were married.