Home Office, The Asbestos Industry (Asbestosis) Scheme (1931)

The British scheme that made asbestosis a compensable disease, made by the Home Secretary, J. R. Clynes, on April 30, 1931, under the Workmen's Compensation (Silicosis and Asbestosis) Act, 1930, and in force from June 1, 1931. It covers workers in asbestos crushing, mixing, textile manufacture, insulation, mattress making and dry sawing and grinding. Where a medical board certifies death or disablement from asbestosis, the worker or his dependants are "entitled to claim compensation as if the disease as aforesaid were a personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of that employment."

What it shows

A worker employed in the covered processes for five years or more was presumed to have caught the disease there unless the employer proved otherwise. Workers had to submit to periodic medical examinations. By 1931 Britain treated asbestosis as an industrial disease that employers must pay for, the step Dr. Lanza urged for New Jersey that summer (meeting minutes, July 15, 1931). The second file is a later reprint of the scheme that includes its 1946 amendment and other dust disease schemes.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

Johns-Manville's own chronology of what the company knew describes this document as follows:

British establish regulations for asbestos factories on 4/10/31.

Editor's note: J-M's description dates this April 10, 1931, and calls it regulations for asbestos factories. The document is the Asbestos Industry (Asbestosis) Scheme, a compensation scheme dated April 30, 1931; the separate dust-control regulations of 1931 are not in this file.