The safety profession is a venerable one. We can trace its origins back to 1844, when legal requirements were first made for accident prevention measures such as machinery guarding [Factories Act 1844]. Inspectors had the powers to declare any part of machinery dangerous, although the employer could only be prosecuted if there was subsequently an accident as a result of that particular part of the machine. Specialist technic al inspectors were first appointed in the UK in 1899 and the first national safety museums were established in Germany and the UK from the 1890s onwards [Hale 1978]. The first ‘safety officers’ employed by industry can be traced to the origins of the “Safety First Movement” during and after the First World War. Their primary tasks were to ensure discipline in following safety rules, using protective equipment and not removing safety fencing (guards). After the Second World War, these safety officers began to get together in a number of countries to form an association. These associations — aided and directed by regulatory initiatives — began on the path of professionalisation of the discipline, leading through the stages of regulating entry requirements, defining training requirements and a career path in the profession, defining the areas of expertise and tasks belonging to the profession, striving to protect that area of professional practice with statutory rules, and stimulating the academic development of the discipline underpinning that area [Atherley & Hale 1975, Hale et al 1986, Dingwall 1996, Evetts 2002].
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