The Highpoints and the Low Ones: In, Over, Around and Under the Chemical Factory

Abstract

This chapter explores labour conditions and living conditions in and around the factories of ICI. Drawing on resources such as company proposals, a Mass Observation survey and work by industrial sociologists, Huw Beynon and Theo Nichols, it asks what was it like to work for ICI in the 1930s through to the 1970s? It explores how the company contributed to public health and how institutions of welfare arose in its environment as part of a quest for modernisation. The use of plans—e.g. urban plans, work demarcation and categorization—to bring rationality to the commotion of industrial expansion is highlighted. The role of the accident attendant in industrial work—especially chemical work, is considered. Around the factories and plants too is nature, and it is affected by and affects what happens inside the factory. Something, in the form of pollution, seeps out from industry—and it needs to be accounted for. A case study of pollution in Teesside in the 1960s is explored here, through its tabling as a parliamentary concern.