Child Workers in Britain's Coal Mines

A child miner in 1842.

In 1842, a Children's Employment Commission was set up to discover the true facts about child labour in Britain's coal mines. 

We do not know precisely how many children worked underground in the middle of the nineteenth century. The commission only established the proportion of children and young people to adults, which varied according to district. For example, over one-third of the workforce was under eighteen in the Durham, Northumberland, Glamorgan and Derbyshire mines.

Wellcome Collection. Child workers 'hurrying'. 

The age when children first entered the pit depended on the thickness of the coal seams, family poverty, and local custom. Children as young as four were recorded. On average girls and boys began working underground when they were eight or nine years old. 

The youngest children were 'trappers'. They opened and closed the ‘trap-doors’ which regulated air-flow through the pit. The trappers sat alone for hours in the dark, unless they had a candle. Six-year-old Susan Reece, a trapper in a South Wales pit, said she ‘didn’t much like the work’.

Older children moved coal for the ‘getter’ or ‘hewer’ from the coal-face to the bottom of the mine-shaft. Thin seams (only twenty inches high) could only be worked by using children to drag or push the loads of coal, sometimes up a steep slope. This was called ‘hurrying’ or ‘putting’. 

Children hauled tubs of coal using a girdle or belt and chain, which they paid for out of their wages. The belt blistered and cut the children’s skin; their bodies became stunted from prolonged stooping.

Descending into the pit, 1870s.

In some pits, young boys were ‘engineers’;  they controlled the engine which wound parties of workers up and down the mine-shaft. They had to stop the basket or tub carrying the people at exactly the right moment. If not, the tub and its passengers continued up and over the overhead pulley, injuring them or dashing them into the mine-shaft below.  

In east Scotland, women and girls of all ages carried coal on their backs to the surface via a succession of steep, rickety ladders. The loads they carried were incredibly heavy. Some fathers ruptured themselves as they lifted a load onto their daughter’s back.

Women and children also worked above ground at the pit-brow in many areas. 

Coal mines were (and still are) very dangerous places to work in. Explosions from gases like fire-damp were commonplace; and there were thousands of run-of-the-mill accidents, like being run over by a coal waggon, or a roof collapse. In 1838, there were 349 fatalities in English collieries; over one-third of those killed were under eighteen. 

An explosion in a coal mine, 1870s.

The Mines Reform Act of 1842 banned all women and girls from the pits. The minimum age for boys entering the pit was lowered to ten, but they could be engine-men as young as fifteen. However, it proved difficult to enforce the Act. Boys under ten were found working below ground over ten years after the Mines Reform Act.

 

Oldest and youngest miners in a colliery, c.1906.

Regency Cheshire - Out Now in Paperback!

 

My book Regency Cheshire has been out of print for some years now - so I'm very pleased to announce that you can now buy it in paperback! It's still available as a Kindle e-book, too. I do hope you enjoy reading it! 

The Temple at Eaton Hall.

Child Workers In A Cotton-Spinning Mill

 

Mule-spinning machinery. 

Britain's early cotton factories depended on child labour. Some children and young people worked as 'piecers'; they joined together cotton threads when they broke on a spinning-mule. The youngest worked as 'scavengers'; they cleaned up the cotton dust and waste from under the mule. As the mule carriage moved forward and backward three times every two minutes, this could be very dangerous, as they might get their head trapped. 

'Creel fillers' placed the cotton rovings on the mule ready to be spun. 'Doffers' removed full bobbins of cotton thread and replaced them with empty bobbins. 

In 1819, William Royle, a 30 year-old cotton-spinner at Thomas Ainsworth's Warrington mill, paid his piecers from 2 shillings to 6 shillings a week. He earned 20 shillings net after paying his child helpers. William said he had first started factory work when he was ten years old.

Half the workforce at this mill, which ran from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m., was under sixteen years of age. On Saturdays, the mill stopped at 5 p.m. Four times per week, the children stayed behind for half an hour at the mill to clean the machinery after it stopped. 

The children had no breakfast, dinner or tea break. They had to eat while they worked, so their food was regularly covered with the cotton dust or 'fly' which filled the air in the factory. The children usually had porridge for breakfast, potatoes with perhaps a little bacon for dinner (lunch), and bread and butter for their tea. 

It was hot and humid in the factory (to help stop the threads from breaking) - over 80 degrees Fahrenheit - so women and girls worked in their petticoats, with a 'brat' (pinafore) over their petticoats. Boys and men worked without their waistcoats or coats. The workers were usually barefoot, without shoes or stockings. 

As Poor As A Stockinger

 My latest feature in my continuing industrial series for Jane Austen's Regency World (November issue) is on framework-knitters (stockingers). 

Framework-knitters were extremely poorly paid. In March 1819, a Leicester framework-knitter, William Jackson, told a parliamentary select committee that none of the workmen earned more than six shillings a week (36p) on average, despite working a 15-hour day. 

Children helped their parents. Leicester had a wife and six children to support. He said that he earned eight shillings a week for making 'superfine' stockings, and he had 'put three of them into the frame' [i.e., making stockings], and they earned him 'nine shillings a week more'. William's wife did some seaming, for which she earned one shilling and sixpence. So their total income was 'eighteen shillings and sixpence'. The family was behind with their rent, and were in debt, even though Jackson had sold some of his belongings to try and make ends meet. 

Washing, fulling or 'felting' stockings. 

Probably one of the best-known stockingers was Jeremiah Brandreth, who was hanged for treason in 1817 following the ill-fated Pentrich Rising. Many contemporaries believed that Brandreth (a former Luddite), and his unfortunate companions on the gallows, was entrapped by a notorious government spy. 

Image of a stocking weaver courtesy of the Wellcome Library. 

Image of washing, fulling and felting stockings from Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert, Recuil de Planches de l’Encyclopédie Par Order De Matières, Tome Sixième, (Panckoucke, Paris, 1786). Author’s collection. 

Out Now!

 

My latest release, Young Workers of the Industrial Age, is out now!

It's currently on special offer at Pen and Sword, or alternatively you can buy it on Amazon UK. 

American readers can pre-order it here on Amazon US  - it will be released in the USA on 30 November. 

The Great Exhibition, 1851.

Once upon a time, in the reign of Queen Victoria, a fairytale palace of glass was built. 

The Great Exhibition of 1851 showed the wonders of Britain’s industry and empire.

But there was a dark truth behind this glittering display. Great Britain’s industrial might was built on the backs of men, women and little children.

In A Welsh Coal Mine.

Children of all ages worked day and night. They toiled in the silk mills, cotton factories and bleachworks. 

They toiled beneath the ground in coal mines, far from the light of day. And they toiled in the dark heart of the glasshouses, lit only by the blaze of the furnaces.

Children worked on the land, too. Their work, like helping bring in the harvest. was regulated by the seasons. 

The Gleaner, 1830s. 

It was incredible just how many different trades and industries used child labour in Britain. Children also worked in people's homes as domestic servants.

Over the next few blog posts, I’ll be taking a look at some of these occupations, and the perils that children faced in some of them.

All images from the author's collection. 

Forging A New Age of Iron

Butterley Iron Works, Derbyshire. 

My latest feature in my Industrial Revolution series for Jane Austen's Regency World (July/August issue) is on the advances made in cast-iron manufacture. In 1775, the year that Jane Austen was born, James Watt’s designs for improved steam-engines first became commercially available.  

Boulton and Watt’s Soho Foundry's steam-engines engines supplied the ‘blast’ for furnaces (instead of bellows); powered forge hammers; and later, powered rolling- and slitting-mills. 

This beach house at Sidmouth (image right) has a cast-iron balcony or 'balconette). 

The genry loved the utility and simplicity of iron. Mr Rushworth’s house in Mansfield Park has a ‘long terrace walk, backed by iron palisades…beyond the bowling-green’.  And a locked iron gate gives Henry Crawford the key to gaining Maria Bertram’s heart. 

Images: 

The Casting-house at Butterley Iron Works, Ripley, Derbyshire. The Pentrich rebels attacked the works in 1817, but were thwarted by its manager. Charles Knight’s Pictorial Gallery of Arts, Vol. 1, London, (c. 1860). Author’s collection. 

Sidmouth photo © Sue Wilkes. 

'A Very Pretty Spotted Muslin'

 

In Northanger Abbey, Miss Tilney wore a 'very pretty spotted muslin'.  My latest feature in my ongoing series for Jane Austen's Regency World (May/June issue) is on calico-printing. You will be able to find out more about the lives of child workers in the calico-printing industry in my forthcoming book, Young Workers of the Industrial Age, to be published by Pen & Sword this autumn. 

Images from the author's collection:

Above: Morning Dress, Lady’s Monthly Museum, February 1801. Figure on the right is wearing a ‘printed cotton gown’ with a ‘stone-coloured pelisse, trimmed with fur. A white velvet bonnet, crossed with green velvet bands’. 

Image right: Block printer and tierer or ‘tear girl’. Children as young as six worked for twelve hours or more helping block printers. Charles Knight’s Pictorial Gallery of Arts Vol. I, (c.1862).

Lord Byron Bicentenary

Lord Byron.

19 April was the 200th anniversary of Lord Byron's tragically early death at Missolonghi, Greece. 

This 'poor little rich boy', born in 1788, was the son of 'Mad Jack', as Captain Byron was known, and Catherine Gordon of Gight. 

Byron spent his childhood in Aberdeen, and was later educated at Harrow.

When Byron succeeded to the baronetcy in 1798, he discovered that his predecessors had squandered the family fortune. The ancient family home, Newstead Abbey, was ruinous and forlorn. 

'Hours of Idleness', his first collection of poems, was published in 1807, but received short shrift from some reviewers.  However, it was the publication of Childe Harold (1812), which brought Byron instant fame. 

Newstead Abbey. 

A chaotic and colourful love life - including, many believe, a relationship with his half-sister Augusta - and a disastrous marriage to Annabella Milbanke led to a different kind of notoriety.

Byron left England for good in 1816. He never saw his divorced wife, or their little girl, Ada, again. 

Bosun's Monument, Newstead.

Lord Byron travelled widely - Switzerland, Italy, and Greece - and you can explore an interactive map of his travels here. 

His relationships with Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont would fill a book by themselves.

Cascata Delle Marmore, near Terni.

Lord Byron visited this 'matchless cataract' near Terni in 1817 (image on the right).

Byron lived a full life abroad. There was a torrent of new poems, lovers, travels, history, architecture. But he wanted a cause to believe in - and the need for freedom for the Greek people truly inspired him.

He arrived in Greece in 1824, ready to fight for freedom. However, his doctors, and a fever,  proved too much for Lord Byron. 

The Byron Society has a list of events planned for the bicentenary here. 

Byron's Residence at Missolonghi in 1824. 

Images:

Lord Byron. Published by James Robins & Co., 1824.

Newstead Abbey. © Sue Wilkes.

The dog Bosun's monument, Newstead Abbey. © Sue Wilkes.

A bust of Lord Byron in the gardens of Newstead Abbey. © Sue Wilkes.

Cascata Delle Marmore, © Sue Wilkes.

'Lord Byron's Residence at Missolonghi' where he died in 1824. An 1827 engraving by H.Raper and R.Roberts, author's collection. 

Saving Lives At Sea for 200 Years!

 

Sir William Hillary

Britain is an island nation. Since ancient times, our commerce and defence depended on the sea. But our treacherous waters exacted a terrific toll of ships and passengers every year. Victims often lost their lives within sight of shore because no vessel was strong enough to reach them safely. 

The late eighteenth century witnessed the earliest recorded attempts at organized rescue efforts.  At Formby, Lancashire, a boat was kept on shore specifically to aid shipwrecked persons as early as 1776. The notoriously dangerous Mersey estuary had shifting sandbanks, and the Liverpool Dock Trustees founded several coastal lifeboat stations. The crews manning the boats were rewarded for every life they saved. 

Sir William Hillary founded the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck in 1824. Hillary, who lived on the Isle of Man, had personally witnessed several shipwrecks in Douglas Bay, and helped save some victims.

I was very interested to discover that Jane Austen's sailor brothers, Frank and Charles, were keen supporters of the Institution. You can find out more in my latest article for the March issue of Jane Austen's Regency World magazine, which features the amazing story of the birth of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

Images: Sir William Hillary, shown wearing the robes and cross of a Knight of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, commonly known as a Knight of Malta. Artist unknown, English School, mid 19th Century. Courtesy of the RNLI Archive.

Author’s Collection: Captain Marryat’s design for a new lifeboat, Gentleman’s Magazine, May 1820.

A Bright Future

Old-style crown glass shop windows.

My latest feature for Jane Austen's Regency World's January issue, in my series on Austen and the Industrial Revolution, is on glass manufacture. 

When Jane Austen visited her brother Henry in London, she would have seen the new fashion for large, imposing plate-glass shop-windows. 

Plate-glass casting at Ravenhead.

Until the late eighteenth century, plate-glass, used for the largest windows or mirrors, was incredibly expensive. Only the wealthiest could afford it. 

But the advent of plate-glass casting at Ravenhead (the British Plate Glass Co.) in 1773, followed by glass-houses on Tyneside, where there was already a flourishing industry, revolutionised the look of British retail establishments. 

Glass-making in Britain faced a bright future!

Images

A New Bond street shop in the 1790s. Before plate glass became affordable, shop windows were made from small panes of crown glass. James Gillray 1796, courtesy Library of Congress, catalogue number: LC-USZC4-8787.

Casting plate glass at the Ravenhead works in Lancashire in the 1840s. Engraving by Mr Sly. Pictorial History of the County of Lancashire, 1844. Author’s collection.

Ready To Pre-Order!

I'm very pleased to say that 'Young Workers of the Industrial Age' is now available to pre-order from Amazon UK! It's currently scheduled for publication in hardback in September this year.