There are no prescribed qualifications for these posts; but they have always been, and still are, held by highly qualified women—distinguished graduates and experienced in social work; one is a doctor of medicine.
Sir Henry Robinson, Vice-President of the Local Government Board for Ireland, said in his evidence before the Royal Commission on the Civil Service that he would like to have one or two women doctors to go round the work-houses and to visit the female wards, but the salaries offered by the Treasury to women doctors seemed to him too low to attract well qualified women.
The Home Office
It was about twenty years ago that the Home Office began to realise that the ever-increasing number of women and girl workers in factories and workshops made it imperative that women as well as men inspectors should be appointed if the Factory Acts intended for the protection of workers were to be effectually enforced. There was no doubt even from the first about the usefulness of these Women Inspectors, but in ten years' time the number appointed for the whole of the United Kingdom had only increased to eight. At the beginning of the present year, 1913, they numbered eighteen, and only within the last few months has this number been increased to twenty.
There is one Woman Inspector of Prisons at a salary of £300-15-£400.
(The lowest salary received by Men Inspectors is £600-20-£700.)
There is also one Woman Assistant Inspector of Reformatories and
Industrial Schools. Her salary is £200-10-£300, whilst that of Men
Assistant Inspectors is £250-15-£400.
Women Factory Inspectors are appointed in the same way as men. A register of candidates is kept in the office, in which the name of every applicant is entered. When a vacancy occurs a selection is made from the list, and the best qualified candidates are interviewed by a Committee of Selection, consisting of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, the Private Secretary, the Chief Inspector of Factories and the Chief Woman Inspector. Generally speaking, about one half of the candidates interviewed are selected to sit for an examination in general subjects. At the end of two years' probation a qualifying examination in Factory Law and Sanitary Science must be passed.
The Principal Woman Inspector is responsible to the Chief Inspector of Factories for the administration of the Women Inspectors' work throughout the United Kingdom. Women Inspectors are stationed at Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, and Belfast. The work of the Women Inspectors is so organised as to be entirely separate from that of the Men Inspectors, although they cover the same ground. The nature and scope of the women's work is so generally known that it is perhaps unnecessary to describe it in much detail. Investigations into cases of accident affecting women and girl workers or into complaints as to the conditions under which they work are promptly made by the Women Inspectors. Women Inspectors (equally with men) have power to enter and inspect all factory and workshop premises where women and girls are employed. They are empowered to enforce the provisions of the Factory and Truck Acts and to prosecute in cases of breach of the law. They conduct their own prosecutions.
The reports of the Women Inspectors evoked much appreciative comment during a recent debate in the House of Commons. Some interesting remarks on their work are also to be found in the evidence given before the Royal Commission on the Civil Service by Sir Edward Troup, K.C.B., Permanent Under-Secretary of the Home Office.
The number of Women Inspectors at present employed is not nearly large enough to cope with the work that needs to be done. It must be remembered that the staff enumerated above is responsible for the inspection of factories and workshops in Scotland and Ireland as well as in England, and that the number of women engaged in industrial work has increased during the last five years from about one and a half millions to two millions. The necessity of increasing the number of Women Inspectors has frequently been urged upon the Government in the House of Commons and in the press, and it seems probable that the Government must soon yield to this pressure.