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Sweating system was a term used to describe an iniquitous system of subcontracting in the tailoring trade which came into prominence around 1848. In contemporary English the term sweatshop has a similar meaning. Orders from master-tailors were undertaken by sub-contractors, whothemselves farmed the work out to needy workers, who made the articles in
their own crowded and foetid homes, receiving "starvation wages." The term became more widely used in reference to all trades in cases where the conditions imposed by masters tend to grind the rate of payment down to a bare living wage and to subject the workers to unsanitary surroundings by overcrowding and to unduly long hours. Kingsley's pamphlet, "Cheap Clothes and Nasty," and novel, Alton Locke, did much to draw public attention to the practice. In 1890 an elaborate report by a committee of the House of Lords was published, and led in the following year to the passing of the Factory and Workshops Act and the Public Health Act, which improved conditions for workers.
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