In March 1875, a royal commission (headed by Sir James Fergusson) was set up to look at the consolidation and extension of factory law.

The new act should include workplaces in the open air, and carrying, washing and cleaning; however mines and agriculture should be excluded.

From ten to fourteen employment would be conditional upon satisfactory school attendance and educational achievement.

[6] The Factories and Workshops Law Consolidation Bill had its a first reading in April 1877,[7] but made no further progress;[d] at the end of July it was postponed to the following year.

Leave to bring in the Factories and Workshops Bill to the House of Commons was granted to the Home Secretary, R. A.

"[20] The protected persons fell into three categories:[1] The premises being regulated were now separated into five categories:[1] Factories fell into two types; Workshops were places in which the manufacture, repair or finishing of articles were carried out as a trade without the use of mechanical power and to which the employer controlled access (it was irrelevant whether these operations were carried out in the open air, and shipyards, quarries and pit banks were specifically scheduled as workshops, unless factories because mechanical power was used).

The act also excluded domestic workshops involving non-strenuous work carried out intermittently and not providing the principal source of income of the family.

Half holidays could be combined to give additional full-day holidays;[1] it had to be clarified later that the act's definition of a half-holiday as "at least half" of a full day's employment "on some day other than Saturday" was to give the minimum duration of a half-holiday, not to prohibit one being taken on a Saturday.

(In Scotland, for factory children only, this overrode attempts by local school boards to set standards of scholastic attainment to be met before a child could cease full-time schooling; the Scottish education acts ceded precedence to the factory acts.

Young persons and children could not work in the manufacture of white lead, or silvering mirrors using mercury; children and female young persons could not be employed in glass works; girls under sixteen could not be employed in the manufacture of bricks, (non-ornamental) tiles, or salt; children could not be employed in the dry grinding of metals or the dipping of lucifer matches.

c. 53) gave additional powers for the regulation of white-lead manufacture and bakehouses (but sanitary requirements for retail bakehouses were to be enforced by local authorities);[1] in the same session a private member's bill intended to prohibit the employment of female children in the manufacture of nails was defeated at Second Reading.

[1][f] The TUC had few complaints about the act, but complained that the inspectorate enforcing it was too small and lacking in 'practical men'.

The latter complaint was partially addressed by changing the recruitment process and appointing a number of former trade union officials to the inspectorate.

c. 55) at the end of the 1886 session, the act made no provision for (and the Home Secretary Hugh Childers refused to accept any amendment allowing) enforcement by inspection.

When an Inspector discovers that the law has been broken he summons the offending party; but, as a rule, if he does not make the discovery himself, no one informs him of it.

No one can be ignorant of them; yet when they are disregarded, as they are constantly, it is the rarest thing for any of the women affected by the illegality to give information.