Find My Past preview: Battle of Britain

This week's Find My Past programme is a 'must-see' for viewers with relatives who experienced the Battle of Britain. It looks at the stories of the relatives of musician Jamie Naden, Timothy Parsons, who lives and works in Kingston-upon-Thames, and keen cricketer Alex Sears.  So check it out this Thursday at 9pm on Yesterday if your ancestors were involved in WWII!

C is for Coal

In the early nineteenth century, children as young as four years old (boys and girls) worked underground in Britain’s coal mines.  The working conditions for children and adults depended on how high (‘thick’) the seam was. In the Northumberland pits, ponies were used to drag along the tubs of coal, but even so, the children worked a fourteen hour day.

In the ‘thin’ seams in Lancashire, the West Riding, Derbyshire and North Wales, children dragged heavy tubs of coal on their hands and knees, using a belt and chain. Perhaps the worst conditions were in Scotland, where children and young women (bearers) carried loads of coal to the surface in baskets on their backs.

It was not until the Mines Act of 1842, thanks to Lord Shaftesbury, that all females, and boys under ten years old were banned from underground work.

Images: Coal mining (1,2) using pit ponies in north-east England. The boy helpers were called ‘foals’. In the Durham and Northumberland pits, females did not work below ground after about 1780. Charles Knight’s Pictorial Gallery of Arts, Vol. I, c.1862.
Yorkshire children working in the mines, and Scottish coal bearers: 1842 Report on Mines.

Find My Past: Titanic preview

This week's Find My Past programme looks at the famous story of the ill-fated Titanic. In this week's episode, the relatives of a wireless operator, a passenger and a steward discover what happened to their ancestors on that night to remember in 1912.

Preview of new Findmypast TV series!

I'm extremely proud to present a special preview clip of the new Findmypast TV series! It will air tomorrow on Yesterday at 9pm. The series will feature people whose ancestors were caught up in exciting events in history.

The

The famous events that will feature in the series are The Battle of Britain, Mutiny on the Bounty, Jack the Ripper, Dunkirk, D Day, The Titanic, The Battle of the Somme, The Tay Bridge Disaster, A Victorian Royal Scandal and Emily Davison - the suffragette who threw herself under the King’s Horse.

It sounds like a real treat for history buffs as well as family historians!

Canal Boatwomen Guest Blog

Many thanks to the lovely Jen Newby for inviting me to write a guest post on canal boatwomen on her blog! Jen's fascinating book on Women's Lives will be published by Pen & Sword very soon.

Lead Miners’ Children

Compared with coal mining, relatively few children worked underground in the lead mines; most worked at washing and processing the ore, which was done outside in all weathers. Most of the ore washers were boys; only a few teenage girls were employed. They earned 4d a day. They got very cold and wet doing this job.

In the Alston Moor district, the 1842 Report on Mines found that 432 of the 5000 people employed in the area were children and ‘young persons’; only 7 child workers were under thirteen. Only 53 of the ‘bigger boys’ worked underground. In the winter months it got too cold to wash the ore. Boys usually went underground when they were fourteen years old; they earned 9d a day. The miners got ‘asthma’ from breathing in lead dust.
The children of lead miners were often far better educated than those of coal miners. Mining companies such as the London Lead Co. set up schools for the children.

I visited the Killhope Lead Mining Museum a couple of years ago, and went on an underground tour. It was a bitterly cold day, even underground, and it was easy to imagine the hardships which the miners and their children endured.
Images: Killhope Lead Mining Museum’s great waterwheel. The author kitted up ready to explore the mine (I’m more nervous than I look!). The mine entrance.

Photos © Nigel Wilkes.

Tracing Your Canal Ancestors - Out Now!

I'm very pleased to announce that my new book Tracing Your Canal Ancestors is out now! You can order it here from Pen & Sword.