I was researching some razors to put up for sale and was reminded of a sad story I saw on James Bingham’s Hawley entry:
He was interviewed by a government commission on child labour, when he stated that when he was ‘first in the trade the average age of razor grinders at death was 34’. He said that exhaust fans had improved matters, so that ‘we have some men of good age. The effect of the work depends very much on the temperance of the workers’
…we really don’t fully appreciate the labour standards we have, wow.
That was my thought as well. Metal dust doesn’t get into the lungs easily since it’s heavy. I wonder if they were actually running combustion engines (presumably steam engines given the time) indoors?
Oof ya I bet there was a lot of CO poisoning before we understood that. Maybe from forges for hardening?
Probably that too 😬