Cape Asbestos, Barking, health and environment: 1928-1946

The mining of chrysotile began in the province of Quebec in the late 1870s. Twenty years later, while annual exports were still measured in hundreds of tons, serious and lethal effects were being reported in England and shortly after in France. In 1913, after a number of years of operating in South Africa, Cape Asbestos Company established a factory in Britain in Barking, Essex. Some 15 years later, in 1929, the local Medical Officer of Health was seeing their asbestotic workers at his Chest Clinic, the local Chest Hospital was investigating them and publishing their findings, and the Coroner began what was to be a long series of inquests.

Documents from the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, The Royal School of Mines, Central Library of Imperial College, The Porton and Barking Archives, and documents obtained by legal discovery were utilized in preparing this historical perspective.

Despite complaints from the local authority, Parliament was assured that there was no special incidence of disease at Cape, Barking, and that its exhaust ventilation was quite up to the general standard and constantly being improved. Reports on the factory environment and information on the health of Cape's workforce that are available for the years 1928-1934, provide a less sanguine view of the situation, as was confirmed by subsequent health reports on its workforce.

The case of asbestos is considered as a paradigm for the economic considerations that are considered to justify the perpetuation of unsafe and unhealthy occupations, decisions with which medical opinion can be found to concur.