The Bleach Packer: One of the Worst Jobs of Victorian Britain | WWDB Highlights

SPEAKER_03 0:00 This is a bleachpacker, one of the worst jobs of the 19th century, but one that people were desperate to do.

SPEAKER_00 0:07 It's obviously quite dramatic seeing a worker wearing a muzzle. The job was so hard, it wasn't unusual for them to drink 10 pints a day.

SPEAKER_03 0:15 When the chemical industry first started, it changed the world. And here in Widness in the UK is where the revolution began. I'm at Catalyst, a museum that celebrates the birthplace of the chemical industry. And today I'm joined by Judith Wilde, Heritage Manager at the museum. So Judith, it is fantastic to be here with you today at the Catalyst Museum. And why is Catalyst Museum such an important place when it comes to the birthplace of the chemical industry?

SPEAKER_00 0:47 Well, you've just said it really, it's the birthplace of the chemical industry. There was a point where heavy chemicals were needed, alkali. In everyday use, there was becoming a huge demand. And musprats were trying to make some chemicals in Liverpool, and they were told, no, we don't want the smell, we don't want the mess. Get yourselves down the Mersey towards Widness. There's nothing there, you can't offend anybody. So this area that we're in would have just been farmland, open space, and then it's ended up obviously being very, very crowded in with chemical firms over the years, and then this is where most chemicals processes were developed, and lots of chemical firms in the area.

SPEAKER_03 1:27 This man, John Hutchinson, he's really sort of the the beginnings of why Widness becomes an important location for the chemical industry. Can you tell me a little bit about Hutchinson?

SPEAKER_00 1:37 Yes, John Hutchinson in his short life, he he only lived till he was 40, did an enormous amount of work and he established his first number one works here in Widness on Spike Island. And he was using the LeBlanc process, which was very dense in a chemical waste and it was very polluting.

SPEAKER_03 1:59 So just to remind us what the LeBlanc process is?

SPEAKER_00 2:01 So it is a way of producing alkali using sulfuric acid and salt cake to sort of make a chemical reaction that gives you the powder, which they call bleach really. And there was various different ways of doing that. It was if you worked in that environment, it was the worst job on the factory. So in the 1840s and 50s, when he was establishing his works, by 1851 he was he was employing a hundred men, which if you think he only built his works in 47, was was a huge undertaking. But also by then, where this area was was just all farmland, it was then um houses were being put up at a rate of knots because there was such demand.

SPEAKER_03 2:44 Well, that brings us on quite neatly to the bleach packers. I would love to go and see you've got an incredible uh model of a bleach packer. So let's go and have a look at that. So this guy right here is a bleach packer. So I and and this story is incredible. So could you tell me about the bleach packers?

SPEAKER_00 3:01 Yes, the bleach packer would have been the worst job on the um factory. So as you can see here, this is an early bleach packer and it's very primitive. So the raw materials will have been um put in in what you would call perhaps a silo and then water sprinkled on, left overnight, and then when you came back the next day, there would be a powder on the floor, and this is what he's doing here is demonstrating what it's like to shovel powder up off the floor and put into the barrel. But you notice he's got these bandages on. He would have had to have provided his own PPE, which is what this is, so it would be bandages, any cloth that he could find, because any part of your skin that is exposed, um, if that gets wet, it's it's obviously will burn you. And this in particular here is is obviously quite dramatic seeing seeing a worker wearing a muzzle, and that is because he would have needed to have breathed in through his mouth and out of his nose rather than the other way around, otherwise he would have been overcome by the gases that were present. So what he would have needed to have done would be to um say in 15 to 20 minute shifts he would he would do this and then have to go outside because um hi there's only a certain amount of time that you will be able to stand it. So if you were overcome, plenty of men were carried out when they were overcome. It wouldn't kill you, it was not great, but it's if you breathed in the other way, then you would immediately be overcome by the fumes.

SPEAKER_03 4:30 And what would happen you just pass out?

SPEAKER_00 4:32 You would just pass out, yes. Yes. So it but it was well known, it it was what it was it was part of the job. They they completely accepted that those were the conditions.

SPEAKER_03 4:41 And so when you say if they were to get wet, they would burn. That could even just be a a light sweat would would burn their skin.

SPEAKER_00 4:48 Yes, that's that that's right, and it would be unpleasant, it would hurt, so that's why they tried to cover up as much of their bodies as they possibly could uh to prevent that. But it it was it was very unpleasant.

SPEAKER_02 4:59 I remember the bleach chambers, these were huge chambers with wooden sides like sleepers on them, you know. And the chaps actually got into these chambers to turn the bleach over by hand.

SPEAKER_03 5:12 It looks like a very uncomfortable job, and so they were shoveling it up so that it could later be be shipped. And you say it was the best paid job because it was so unpleasant, but as a result, people were kind of clamoured to do it.

SPEAKER_00 5:26 Yes, there was always there was never any shortage of people who would do this work because it was well paid, they could feed their families, they and they accepted that that was part of life, that with that that heavy labour and hard work was part of life, so they worked hard and played hard. So a shift would end at um and we've got an oral history that that says of a man that came out of shift in the 1950s and would immediately go across the road to um the pub and order six pints of beer, and only when he drank the six pints of beer could his drinking start, and uh obviously by three o'clock they they're having trouble getting rid of him when they the the licences laws meant that he had to close at three o'clock.

SPEAKER_01 6:07 And these bleach packers, you might he's one man, he died in this home over here only two years ago. He was ninety-six when he died all coming off, and he was a bleach packer. I seen that man and walking at the waver hotel offshore, and he all was ordered six pints. Six pints of beer.

SPEAKER_00 6:25 But that was it wasn't unusual for them to to drink ten pints a day, and it was said to be that the job was so hard, certainly they needed the moisture, they needed the refreshment because of the however many hours they'd spent doing this really difficult job. The alkali inspectors came in at some point to look at um how uh people were treated, what the working conditions were like, and also what the atmosphere and pollution was like. So they had an alkali inspector's report, but actually it was found that when the report was done and the men were interviewed, they never complained once about the conditions, which I guess shows you the how things were then really.

SPEAKER_03 7:05 The money was good enough. Well, they spent all the extra money they got on beer by the sounds of it.

SPEAKER_00 7:09 It would have been cheap then anyway.

SPEAKER_03 7:11 So actually, um this kind of comes to this point that I wanted to raise was whether as the chemical industry started up, you can imagine that all these factories going up, all this smog in the air, that people would be upset by that. But actually it sounds like as you mentioned, it it's it's what they had to make a living, and and in fact they probably welcomed it in many ways.

SPEAKER_00 7:33 Yes, well they welcomed the work. So we're we're highlighting really the the work that we think is like the worst and most extreme. But obviously with that and the development of the chemical industry would also come the other trades that went with it. So if you were building new factories, you would need bricklayers, you would need uh you join us, you would need all plumbers, you would need all those trades, and all those trades then would would locally be supporting these factories. So there was it was there was a heavy industrial area for people to find work, and everybody found work here. There was no, you know, very little shortage of of employment densely in this area.

SPEAKER_03 8:12 Would uh the locals have known the bleach packers by eye once they'd um come out of working and they they'd gotten uh they'd taken off all of their rags and their muzzle, um would it be would it have been noticeable perhaps by uh burn marks on their on their faces or or maybe a a smell, I don't know?

SPEAKER_00 8:31 Yes, I I guess so. Um as as the process became more sophisticated and and uh and improved, um they would have actually gone into work, taken their out their their home clothes off, if you like, they would wear paper clothing and not much else, because by by then they're not actually as as exposed to it. But nevertheless, when it it was a case of when we've done oral histories and we've talked to people, they always knew the bleach packers, they always knew who they were. Oh, he was a bleach packer. As though it almost was set oh, he he did it was a bleachpacker, he was this. So you were kind of known for it, I think, more than just any other process worker. It was a kind of a maybe not for the right reasons, a status thing as well, you know.

SPEAKER_03 9:16 So when did um people stop being bleach packers?

SPEAKER_00 9:20 Uh well it was a process really that was still going into the 50s and sixties over at Kasna Kelner, but but by then it's automated and there's there's there's a different way of making it than than this very primitive way.

SPEAKER_03 9:32 So I'm just wondering whether are there any bleach packers still left alive today who could tell the story of what it was like, but maybe not.

SPEAKER_00 9:39 Maybe not in in those terms, yes, which is why it's good that we've got some oral good oral histories, because um we started as a museum 40 years ago, and because we took those then, you are able in living memory at the time to get to get that information, which is why that type of thing is important.

SPEAKER_03 9:55 Well, you certainly won't catch me um getting one of those outfits on and doing a job like that.