Reproduced below is an article from a period publication discussing the legal position with regards to employing children on the stage during the Edwardian era..
The Stage Yearbook, 1913
STAGE CHILDREN: THEIR EMPLOYMENT AND THE LAW
BY BERNARD WELLER
The employment of children in places of public entertainment was never greater than it is to-day. Yet the law regulating the employment seems very imperfectly understood. It is now some years since the Employment of Children Act, 1903 (3 Edw. 7, c. 45), and the subsequent Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 1904 (4 Edw. 7, c. 15), threw the existing practice, such as it was, into much confusion. At first and until the matter was put right in THE STAGE there was a general belief that, as a consequence of the new legislation, every child up to the age of fourteen must have a license for theatrical and similar performances. Managers applied for licenses accordingly. Magistrates and justices granted or refused this or that license as they thought fit. In a case here and there a manager who, either in ignorance of the revised law or out of negligence, employed without a license a child over eleven but under fourteen, was convicted and fined for an alleged offence of which he was not guilty. One hopes by now that it is realised that the Cruelty Act only requires, for its own part excepting in the case of training for dangerous performances, as of acrobats, etc. a license for a child between the age of ten and eleven years; and that, where a license for a child between eleven and fourteen is called for, the necessity arises with the exception noted in order that the child may obtain exemption from the provisions of the Employment Act. At the same time, the joint working of the two Acts does not appear to be appreciated in detail. There are further complications, by reason of the bye-laws that local authorities can enforce under the Employment Act, and by reason of the provisions of the Education Acts. In London, as far as agents are concerned, the bye-laws of the County Council, made under the General Powers Act, 1910, have also to be observed. To the Children Act, 1908 (8 Ed. 7, c. 67), and also to the Criminal Law Amendment Acts (48 and 49 Vict. c. 69, and 2 and 3, Geo. 5, c. 20), a passing reference will be made later.
UNDER THE EMPLOYMENT ACT
The position under the Employment Act had better be taken first. In this Act a child is a person under the age of fourteen years. Section 3 (1) of the Act says:
A child shall not be employed between the hours of nine in the evening and six in the morning. Provided that any local authority may by bye-law vary these hours either generally or for any specified occupation, such bye-laws may (1) prescribe (a) the age below which employment is illegal; (b) the hours between which employment is illegal, and (c) the number of daily and weekly hours beyond which employment is illegal. But bye-laws so made do not become operative until sanctioned by the Secretary of State.
UNDER THE CRUELTY ACT
Passing to the Cruelty Act, we find this position under the Employment Act modified in certain material respects. Under Section 2 it is an offence if any person:
(a) causes or procures any child, being a boy under the age of fourteen years, or being a girl under the age of sixteen years, or, having the custody, charge, or care of any such child, allows that child to be in any street, premises, or place for the purpose of begging or receiving alms, or of inducing the giving of alms, whether under the pretence of singing, playing, performing, offering anything for sale or otherwise; or
(b) causes or procures any child, being a boy under the age of fourteen years, or being a girl under the age of sixteen years, or, having the custody, charge, or care of any such child, allows that child to be in any street, or in any premises licensed for the sale of any intoxicating liquor, other than premises licensed according to law for public entertainments, for the purpose of singing, playing, or performing, or being exhibited for profit, or offering anything for sale, between nine p.m. and six a.m.; or
(c) causes or procures any child under the age of eleven years, or, having the custody, charge, or care of any such child, allows that child to be at any time in any street, or in any premises licensed for the sale of any intoxicating liquor, or in premises licensed according to law for public entertainments, or in any circus or other place of public amusement to which the public are admitted by payment, for the purpose of singing, playing, or performing, or being exhibited for profit, or offering anything for sale; or
(d) causes or procures any child under the age of sixteen years, or, having the custody, charge, or care of any such child, allows that child to be in any place for the purpose of being trained as an acrobat, contortionist, or circus performer, or of being trained for any exhibition or performance which in its nature is dangerous.
The Act, however, does not enforce all that it says in this section. In addition to a minor reservation in this section affecting occasional entertainments for the benefit of schools or of charities, and to another reservation also in this section giving local authorities power by bye-law to vary the hours mentioned in paragraph (b), there is in the following section a provision that by means of license obtainable from a petty sessional court or in Scotland from the Education authority sanctions the forms of employment that paragraphs (c) and (d) otherwise forbid sanctions these forms provided the child is over ten years of age. The prohibitions contained in paragraphs (c) and (d) hold good up to an age less than ten years. That is to say, no child under the age of ten years must be employed in a place of entertainment to which the public are admitted by payment, for the purpose of singing, playing, performing, or being exhibited for profit. Moreover, as regards a child engaged in an entertainment not dangerous in a public place of amusement, a license under the Cruelty Act is only compulsory for the age of ten. It is not compulsory as soon as the child is eleven. The ridiculous position that the license is, under the Cruelty Act, only compulsory during a single year of a child's life namely, from ten to eleven was no doubt brought about by faulty drafting. One may fairly assume that there is nothing in this particular year that requires the elaborate and also unpleasant machinery of police-court licensing.
WITHOUT LICENSES
Stage children, then, except those engaged in dangerous performances at the age of eleven may perform without licenses, subject to the provisions of the Employment Act. The general restriction under this Act says that a child shall not be employed before six o'clock in the morning nor after nine o'clock in the evening. But the Act gives a very free hand to the local authority - meaning in the City of London the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and commons in common council assembled, and elsewhere in this connection the county council, borough council, or district council, according to circumstances, and in Scotland the education authority. The local authority can, amongst other things, vary by bye-law the general nine o'clock limit for any specified occupation. Thus it is open to managers to apply to the local authority for special treatment in the case of stage children. The local authority can, if it is sympathetic to the general needs of theatrical employment, make the hour ten or eleven instead of nine o'clock; even, if it pleases, varying the hour to the age of a child between eleven and fourteen, or to the season of the year, as, for example, at Christmas. On the other hand, the local authority can, subject to the approval of the Home Secretary, restrict both ages and hours.
The London County Council was at first disposed to take the latter course, arguing that stage children would be exempted from the bye-laws by means of licenses. This view, however, was not upheld at the inquiry ordered by the Home Secretary in 1905; and, therefore, the present bye-laws of the L.C.C. do not in the case of stage children, as they do in that of children otherwise employed, vary the nine o'clock limit, though the ordinary reader, not noticing or not understanding the inconspicuous three lines at the end of bye-laws, might not suppose it. Not merely in London, but generally in the country, this statutory limit - that is to say 9 p.m. as the time up to which children may be employed - remains unaffected in the case of stage children not less than eleven years old and not engaged in dangerous performances. If in any town the hour of 9 p.m. has been altered by byelaw, inquiry from the local authority will bring the necessary information. It is the sort of local information that no place of amusement ought to be without. This freedom to employ stage children up to 9 p.m. without license is a considerable facility. In plays a child is often only wanted in the prologue or the first act. In spectacular productions the scenes with juvenile effects, or that part of them in which the younger children under fourteen are concerned, can be brought within the first half of the performance, as, for example, in pantomimes. In variety and other programmes of a miscellaneous nature child turns can - apart from two performances a night, where the second performance cannot take place before 9 p.m. - be arranged for in this way. For day performances there is no time restriction, but the education of a child, unless the child is exempt from school attendance, must not be interrupted. Attendance at the public elementary schools, however, is not compulsory. Education, so long as it is efficient, may be given privately.
WITH LICENSES
Where the nine o'clock facility does not meet the case, then recourse must be had to license under the Cruelty Act. A magistrate can, even more than a local authority, for his decision is not subject to the approval of the Home Secretary, fix what hours of employment and also other conditions that he pleases for any child whom he licenses. Usually a magistrate carries the hour beyond 9 p.m. A license is granted by the court in the distract in which the license is to take effect. A form can be obtained at any (police court. In London the form, when filled in, must be sent to the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis seven clear days before the application for the license. In the provinces the form must be sent to the head constable or similar officer. In both London and the provinces for each place of performance in a new police district a fresh application must be made and a fresh license obtained. It follows that a manager on tour, often with long distances to travel, is continual]y perplexed about any child members of his company.
In every town the preliminaries, with the seven days notice and the dreary police court business, have to be gone through, and every sort of magisterial or justice's vagary endured. One bench grants a license freely enough, another refuses altogether, and a third raises difficulties or imposes conditions. A single license should cover the duration of a tour. If one court is satisfied that a license may be granted, the license should be valid not in the district of origin for the few days, but everywhere else. It should be borne in mind that the granting of the license does not suffice even for the district in which the license takes effect. The person to whom the license is issued for a child performer is required, under a penalty not exceeding five younds, to cause a copy thereof to be sent forthwith to the local authority - that is, to the county, borough, district, or (in Scotland) education authority, as the case may be. That is so in order that the inspectors and other officers appointed under the Employment Act may see whether the restrictions and conditions of licenses are duly complied with. Any such inspector or other officer has the power to enter, inspect, and examine any place of public entertainment at which licensed child is for the time being engaged. This power also applies where a child is so employed without a license.
PENALTIES
In applying for a license the applicant should produce a certificate of birth of the child and a doctor's certificate. The penalty under the Employment Act for a false or forged birth certificate or a false representation of age is a fine not exceeding forty shillings in the case of the parent of a child. If this penalty scarcely seems sufficient, the penalties for offences under Section 2 of the Cruelty Act, already quoted, are severe enough. The penalty on summary conviction is at the discretion of the court - a fine not exceeding £25, or alternatively, or in default of payment of such fine, or in addition thereto, imprisonment with or without hard labour for any term not exceeding three months. The Cruelty Act gives a constable powers of arrest without warrant. Under the Employment Act any person who employs a child or other person under the age of sixteen in contravention of the Act, or any bye-law under the Act, is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding forty shillings, or, in the case of a subsequent offence, not exceeding £5.
Where the offence of wrongly taking a child into employment is in fact committed by an agent of an employer such agent is liable to a penalty as if he were the employer.
THE CHILDREN ACT, 1908
This Act (8 Edw. 7, c. 67) prohibits children from being in the bar of licensed premises except when closed. This prohibition, however, one assumes, does not operate in any oppressive way against theatres and music halls, as it is stated that nothing in the section (Section 118) shall apply to a child who is in the bar of licensed premises solely for the purpose of obtaining access to or egress from some other part of the premises not being a bar, or in the case of railway refreshment-rooms or "other premises constructed, fitted, and intended to be used in good faith for any purpose to which the holding of a license is merely auxiliary." A child here means a person under the age of fourteen years. Persons habitually wandering from place to place, taking children more than five years of age, must be in a position to prove that the child is either:
(1) totally exempted from school attendance or
(2) not, by being so taken about, "prevented from receiving efficient elementary education."
The penalty is a fine not exceeding, with costs, 20s. A constable may arrest without warrant any person whom he believes to be guilty of an offence under this section of the Act (Section 118). If during October to March a child has obtained a certificate for 200 attendances at a public elementary school during that period, it is not encumbent on the parent or guardian or such person being engaged in a trade or business of a nature to require him to travel from place to place to prove that the child is receiving efficient education during the months of April to September.
OBLIGATIONS OF LICENSED AGENTS
Theatrical, variety, or concert agents licensed by the London County Council are subject to the bye-laws of that authority, made under the London County Council (General Powers) Act, 1910. The fact that the children are licensed or unlicensed is immaterial. Under these bye-laws (8, 9, and 16) no agent may propose or arrange for the employment abroad of a girl under the age of sixteen years without first obtaining the sanction in writing of her parents or lawful guardian. He must have satisfied himself that suitable arrangements have been made for the welfare of the girl during the continuance of such employment, and for her return to this country on the conclusion of the employment. The employment must be legal in the country in which the employment is to take place. The agent on making an engagement with such person must furnish to her free of cost a written document containing the provisions of this bye-law (8), and stating that such provisions have been complied with. The agent must in any particular case if required furnish the Council with full particulars of the arrangements.
The agent must in every case in which he arranges for the employment abroad of any young person of either sex, or the employment in this country of such person resident abroad, furnish the person free of charge with a copy of the contract or other document showing the terms and conditions of the employment drawn up in a language understood by the person.
The agent must keep a complete list of children under the age of sixteen years who are booked by him for engagements either in London or elsewhere. In the list he must indicate the place or places of entertainment at which each child is booked to perform and the length of engagement of each child at each place in public.
The crime of procuring or attempting to procure which has been committed before now under cover of alleged stage employment is provided for in the Criminal Law Amendment Acts, 1885 and 1912.
THE GENERAL POSITION
It may be useful to append a summary of the general position under the Cruelty Act and the Employment Act:
Primary Sources: As indicated.
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