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"Oh, Sir, this is sore, sore, sore work. I wish to God
that the first woman who tried to bear coals had broke her back, and none
would have tried it again!"
Such was the despairing lament of a woman, struggling under an excessive
weight of coals, trembling in every nerve, as she sank in sheer exhaustion
to her knees before the colliery manager on his inspection of the pit.
Although women and girls were employed below ground in both the Yorkshire
and East of Scotland coalfields, the practice never spread to
Northumberland and Durham. Hard though the times might be, and desperate
the circumstances of the collier folk, the women of this coalfield were
spared the degradations and indignities imposed upon their neighbours to
the north and south.
Mr Jellinger C. Symons, Reporting in 1841 to the Children's Employment
Commission on the state of the Yorkshire Coalfield, found that girls
performed all the various offices of trapping, hurrying, filling,
riddling, topping and even hewing. (Hurrying was the local term for
putting, and involved pushing the tubs of coal along the tramways. In
filling, the hewer shovelled up the smaller coal and cast it into a riddle
or sieve; such coal as remained after shaking was thrown into the tub.
When the tub was almost full the hewer and hurrier topped it off with
large coal loaded by hand. Hence the expressions "riddling" and
"topping.") The work most commonly done by the girls was that of hurrying.
In thin seams of coal the roadways were as low as 22 inches from floor to
roof, and only small children could be used. Horses could be used In the
thicker seams, but it would have been too expensive for the owners to
enlarge the roadways where the seams were thin and, as one official stated
in his evidence ''Horses are not so handy as Christians, and we could not
do with them."
THE HARDEST JOB
The method of propulsion adopted in these low places was what was termed
the "girdle and chain" system. A broad belt was buckled round the waist,
to the front of which a chain was attached. When the child went down on
all fours the chain was passed between the legs and attached to the tub,
which the child drew along harnessed like an animal. Some of the
By
LAWRENCE SCOLLEN
This is the fourth of a series of articles on the children who worked in
the mines of County Durham during the 19th Century.
tubs had small wheels, and ran on rails, others were rather smaller and
had "sledge" bottoms so that they slid, or rather were dragged, along the
uneven ground. Sub - Commissioner Symons considered that hurrying in low
places was quite the hardest of all the operations performed in
coalmining, yet by its very nature it precluded the employment of any but
the very smallest and youngest of the children. Not only the nature and
severity of
the work gave Mr Symons cause for concern.
“The chain," he wrote, "passing high up between the legs of these girls,
had worn large holes in their trousers, and any sight more disgustingly
indecent or revolting can scarcely be imagined than these girls at work.
No brothel can beat it."
He found on descending a Barnsley pit a group of men, boys, and girls
assembled around a fire, the girls as well as the boys stark naked down to
the waist, their hair bound up with a tight cap, and trousers supported by
the hips. "Their sex," he wrote, "was recognizable only by their breasts,
and some little difficulty occasionally arose in pointing out to me which
were boys, and which caused a good deal of laughing and joking."
In the Flockton and Thornhill pits, although the girls were clothed, most
of the men for whom they hurried were stark naked, or wearing only a
flannel waistcoat. "It is not to be supposed," Mr Svmons reported, "but
that where opportunity thus prevails sexual vices are of common
occurrence. Add to this the free intercourse, and the rendezvous at the
shaft or bull-stake, where the corves are brought, and consider the
language to which the youngest ear is habituated, the absence of religious
instruction, and the early age at which contamination begins, and you will
have before you, in the coalpits where females are employed, the picture
of a nursery for juvenile vice which you will go far and wide above ground
to equal." He did find, however, that "a very general practice prevails
among the colliers of marrying the girls they seduce."
INTOLERABLE
Women and girls in the collieries of Eastern Scotland were chiefly
employed as coal bearers and putters. The coal bearer's duty was to carry
on her back loads of coal varying from three-quarters of a hundredweight
to three hundredweight in weight. The coal was loaded into a "creel," a
large wicker or wooden tray which was placed on the girl's back (the girl
bending well forward so that the creel lay reasonably level) and straps or
"tugs" attached to the creel were passed around the forehead to prevent
the load from slipping. Thus laden, the girl had to struggle along the
unrailed roads of the steeply-sloping "braes" of the pit from the face to
the shaft bottom. Other hazards to be negotiated were the turnpike stairs,
which were rough spiral staircases leading to a surface outlet in the
hillside, or trap staircases, a series of near-vertical ladders leading
from one level to another and eventually to the surface. Accidents were
numerous on the trap staircases, due to the inevitability of a certain
amount of coal falling from the creel as the bearer climbed the ladder,
and most of the women and girls were badly scarred from being struck by
coal in these circumstances. The heavy load carried, and the grossly
unnatural posture which had to be adopted under its weight, made
coal-bearing one of the most intolerable occupations that could be
imagined, and it resulted in early and permanent physical damage.
A 40-year-old bearer, Jane Peacock Watson, submitted the following
evidence to Mr Robert Franks, investigating the state of the East of
Scotland coalfield. "I have wrought in the bowels of the earth 33 years;
have been married 23 years, and had nine children; six are alive, three
died of typhus a few years since; have had two dead born, I think they
were so from the oppressive work; a vast number of women have dead
children and false births, which are worse, as they are no' able to work
after the latter. I have always been obliged to work below till forced to
go home to bear the bairn, and so have all other women. We return as soon
as we are able never longer than ten or 12 days, many less if they are
needed. It is only horse-work, and ruins the women; it crushes their
haunches, bends their ankles, and makes them old women at 40." Another
witness, Isabel Hogg, aged 53, formerly a coal-bearer, was described by
the Sub-Commissioner as one of the most respectable coal-wives in Penston,
her rooms being well-kept and well furnished, and her house the cleanest
he had seen in East Lothian. Mrs Hogg averred that from the "great sore
labour" false births were frequent and very dangerous.
LOYAL SUBJECTS
"I have four daughters married," said Mrs Hogg, and all work below till
they bear their bairns - one is very badly now from working while
pregnant, which brought on a miscarriage from which she is not expected to
recover.
"Collier people suffer much more than others - my guid man died nine years
since with bad breath; he lingered some years, and was entirely off work
11 years before he died.
"You must just tell the Queen Victoria that we are guid loyal subjects;
women-people here don't mind work, but they object to horse-work, and that
she would have the blessings of all the Scotch coal-women if she would get
them out of the pits, and send them to other labour."
The evidence submitted regarding the work of the coal-bearers was such as
to present a picture of what Sub-Commissioner Franks termed "deadly
physical oppression and systematic slavery, of which I conscientiously
believe no one unacquainted with such facts would credit the existence in
the British dominions."
The Scottish putter girls, like their Yorkshire counterparts, used wheeled
tubs, or "hutchies" in seams with adequate height, and sledge - bottomed
boxes ("slypes") in low places. The hutchies held up to l0cwt of coal and
the slypes from 2 and a quarter cwt to 5cwt. The girdle and chain of the
type used in Yorkshire was not employed in the Scottish pits; instead a
harness was worn over the shoulders and back, to the strong girth of which
an iron hook was attached. This hook could be inserted into the chain of a
hutchie and by straining at the harness like a horse the putter could drag
her burden along the rails. Where the gradient was particularly severe,
smaller girls were sometimes needed to push at the back of the hutchie,
and they did this by placing their heads against the back of the carriage
and exerting what strength they could through their arms and head to
propel the unwieldy vehicle forward. So far as the moral state of his
district was concerned, Mr Franks seems to have been more preoccupied with
the evils of drink than with immorality of the type reported in the
Yorkshire coalfield. He quoted the following passages from the Report of
William Stevenson. Esq., on "the Sanatorv Condition of the Parish of
Inveresk in the County of Midlothian": "Those colliers with whom I came
into connexion, I found a dissipated, drunken, improvident, and dirty set
of people, with no notion of anything but drunkenness and rioting: laying
by no provision for the future, though in receipt of good wages, which
might be considerably larger if they would abandon their dissipated
habits, and work the whole six instead of only four days in the week.
Many
of the colliers abuse their wives and children in a shameful manner,
kicking and striking them for no cause whatever; but we shall find that
this is the case with most men who give themselves up to drunkenness and
dissipation in the way that many do. Their wives are also very drunken;
and I have seen the young children, many of them from not more than eight
or ten years of age, take a glass of whisky just as readily as their
parents. When any accidents happen, or when through intemperate habits
they are laid on a bed of sickness instead of being a warning to them it
is always made an excuse for drinking, for the neighbours usually
congregate in numbers in the house of the sick man, when the whisky bottle
is produced; and although it may not follow that they get intoxicated in
that house, still it being a beginning leads them on either to adjourn to
the public house, and there keep up a constant drinking for two or three
days, or else they go to the other houses, and getting a dram at each
finish the day in a state of beastly inebriety; the same is often the case
even when their comrade is lying a corpse."
QUICK RESPONSE
It was generally agreed in principle by both owners and workmen that from
every aspect the employment of women and girls in mines was undesirable.
The extra expense which would have been incurred by the owners, however,
in replacing female labour by men prevented their taking any active steps
in the matter. Similarly, the loss of wages which would have resulted made
the men and their families reluctant to agitate for a change in the
system. But the dreadful tale unfolded by the Commission had a remarkably
quick response, and legislation was introduced in 1842 which, among other
reforms, prohibited the employment of women and girls in mines and
collieries.
There was in consequence a measure of financial loss on both sides, as had
been anticipated. Women with qualifications for no other employment that
the dull routine of carrying heavy burdens and pushing loaded tubs in
constricted working places were thrown on to a labour market which could
offer them no opportunities. There were numerous complaints of hardship
occasioned to widows, orphans, families without sons to aid a father who
was old or ailing, and so on. Nevertheless the great majority of those
affected adapted themselves to the change, and indeed found that in the
long run they were not significantly worse off. A married woman with four
children, who had formerly been employed at Pencaitland Colliery,
explained the position thus:
"While working in the pit I was worth to my husband 7s a week, out of
which we had to pay 2s 6d to a woman for looking after the younger bairns.
I used to take them to her house at 4 o'clock in the morning, out of their
own beds, to put them into hers. Then there was 1s a week for washing,
besides there was mending to pay for, and other things. The house was not
guided. The other children broke things; they did not go to school when
they were sent; they would be playing about, and got ill-used by other
children, and their clothes torn. Then when I came home in the evening,
everything was to do after the day's labour, and I was so tired I had no
heart for it; no fire lit, nothing cooked, no water fetched, the house
dirty, and nothing comfortable for my husband. It is all far better now,
and I wouldna' gang down again."
A STEP FORWARD
Younger women obtained employment at the pit banks, some took up farm
work, went into other industries or entered domestic service. After a few
years it seemed incredible that women had ever worked below' ground, and
few would ever have considered returning to the back-breaking labour of
hurrying or putting.
So far as the cost to the owners was concerned, this proved in the event
to be less than was feared, nor was it generally necessary to increase the
price of coal. The work went on with greater regularity and efficiency
than hitherto and the extra money involved was regarded as well-spent. In
some districts, mine-owners opened washhouses, and engaged women to teach
their former employees washing, sewing and other domestic crafts.
Thus came into effect. a law which, in addition to prohibiting the
employment of females below ground, also made regulations governing the
employment of boys in the mines. Since the Report of the Children's
Employment Commission was not presented until April, 1842, the passing of
the Act in August of the same year is remarkable not only as a great step
forward in social legislation, but also as an example of the efficiency of
the Parliamentary and legal processes of the first years of Queen
Victoria's reign.
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