Poisoned by the Fluff: Compensation and Litigation for Byssinosis in the Lancashire Cotton Industry
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00233 |
| Author | Geoffrey Tweedale,Sue Bowden |
| Published date | 01 December 2002 |
| Date | 01 December 2002 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 29, NUMBER 4, DECEMBER 2002
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 560–79
Poisoned by the Fluff: Compensation and Litigation for
Byssinosis in the Lancashire Cotton Industry
Sue Bowden* and Geoffrey Tweedale**
The literature on the history of industrial diseases is scanty, especially
for byssinosis – a chronic respiratory illness caused by exposure to
cotton dust that was prevalent in Lancashire cotton mills from the early
nineteenth century. This article uses government, legal, medical, and
trade union records to explore the development of state compensation
for byssinosis. This began in 1941, but not until the early 1970s did
compensation extend to all affected workers. Even then, dissatisfaction
with state benefits for byssinosis ensured a steady stream of common
law actions after 1975. Most of these were settled, highlighting the
failure of government and industry to control dust and safeguard
workers’ health. Government aversion to increasing costs in a
declining industry was a major factor in the development of an
inequitable compensation system, which shifted many of the costs of
industrial disease onto cotton workers.
INTRODUCTION
Government figures show that in the United Kingdom at the end of the
1990s, more than 200 workers died each year from fatal accidents and about
2,000 from occupationally-related lung disorders – this is aside from the
many hundreds of workers injured and disabled by their occupation.
1
These
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* Department of Economics, Sheffield University, Sheffield S1 4DT, England
** Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, Manchester M1
3GH, England
We would like to thank the staff at the Health & Safety Executive Library, Sheffield; the
John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester; Manchester Central Reference Library;
and Alain Kahan at the Working Class Movement Library, Salford. Douglas Farnie,
David Reid, Morris Greenberg, and Nick Wikeley provided additional references and
suggestions. In particular, John Pickering and Anthony Coombs (John Pickering &
Partners) kindly provided invaluable information and documents. The Wellcome Trust
supported the research, in part.
1 Health and Safety Commission, Health and Safety Statistics 2000/2001 (2001).
figures are underestimates,
2
yet the public remain ignorant of the suffering
caused by industrial diseases and injuries. Historically, industrial diseases
and injuries have rarely featured in the literature and even specialists in
medical and industrial history have shown little interest. Aside from asbestos
and lead, the history of occupational health remains largely uncharted
territory. Not surprisingly, the literature on the history of compensation is
sparse, there being only one case study.
3
Byssinosis is an occupational hazard more obscure than most. It is a chronic
respiratory disease caused by exposure to cotton (or flax) dust. Over a period
of years, the dust (or rather the contaminants in raw cotton released mainly
during the preliminary opening and carding operations)
4
produces asthma-like
symptoms, which can lead to permanent respiratory disability or death.
5
In the
United Kingdom it is a regional disease, with most byssinosis cases occurring
in Lancashire – though workers in Yorkshire, Scotland, and Northern Ireland
have also been affected. Byssinosis in the United Kingdom was first identified
in the nineteenth century, but it was not until the 1940s that compensation was
introduced and not until the 1970s that common law actions began. Few
historical accounts of byssinosis have been written: those that have con-
centrate on the American experience, where byssinosis was much more slowly
recognized than in the United Kingdom.
6
One study looked at byssinosis in
Lancashire. It discusses the legal picture but it is somewhat dated.
7
In this
article, we take a fresh look at byssinosis, using newly-available archives. We
describe the historical development of compensation arrangements for this
industrial disease, looking in detail at the first legal case and other significant
court actions. By placing byssinosis litigation in its histo rical context, we seek
to explain why it took so long for tort claims to begin.
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2 G. Slapper and S. Tombs, Corporate Crime (1999) 68–84.
3 N. J. Wikeley, Compensation for Industrial Disease (1993). See, generally, P. Bartrip,
Workmen’s Compensation in Twentieth Century Britain (1987).
4 In the mills, cotton manufacture began in the blowing room, where compressed bales
of cotton were opened and fed through machines to remove impurities. The next
process was carding, in which the raw fibres were fed through an ‘engine’ and ranged.
5 See C.I.C. Gill, ‘Byssinosis in the Cotton Trade’ (1947) 4 Brit. J. of Industrial
Medicine 48; Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Cotton and Allied Fibres: Health
and Safety, 1971–1977 (1979); W.K.C. Morgan, ‘Byssinosis and Related Conditions’
in Occupational Lung Diseases, eds. W.K.C. Morgan and A. Seaton (3rd edn., 1975)
484; J.A. Smiley, ‘Background to Byssinosis in Ulster’ (1961) 18 Brit. J. of Industrial
Medicine 1.
6 R.E. Botsch, Organising the Breathless: Cotton Dust, Southern Politics, and the
Brown Lung Association (1993); J.K. Corn, ‘Byssinosis – An Historical Perspective’
(1981) 2 Am. J. Industrial Medicine 331; C. Levenstein et al., ‘Labor and Byssinosis,
1941–69’ in Dying for Work: Workers’ Safety and Health in Twentieth Century
America, eds. D. Rosner and G. Markowitz (1989) 208; C. Levenstein et al., The
Cotton Dust Papers: Science, Politics, and Power in the ‘Discovery’ of Byssinosis in
the US (2002).
7 P. Neild, Byssinosis – `The Lancashire Disease’ (1982).
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