From Great Britain,
Parliamentary Papers, 1842, VoL XVI, pp. 24, 196.
In England, exclusive of Wales, it is
only in some of the colliery districts of Yorkshire and Lancashire that
female Children of tender age and young and adult women are allowed to
descend into the coal mines and regularly to perform the same kinds of
underground work, and to work for the same number of hours, as boys and
men; but in the East of Scotland their employment in the pits is general;
and in South Wales it is not uncommon.
West Riding of Yorkshire: Southern
Part - In many of the collieries in this district, as far as relates
to the underground employment, there is no distinction of sex, but the
labour is distributed indifferently among both sexes, except that it is
comparatively rare for the women to hew or get the coals, although there
are numerous instances in which they regularly perform even this work. In
great numbers of the coal pits in this district the men work in a state of
perfect nakedness, and are in this state assisted in their labour by
females of all ages, from girls of six years old to women of twenty-one,
these females being themselves quite naked down to the waist.
"Girls," says the Sub-Commissioner [J.
C. Symons], -regularly perform all the various offices of trapping,
hurrying [Yorkshire terms for drawing the loaded coal corves], filling,
riddling, tipping, and occasionally getting, just as they are
performed by boys. One of the most disgusting sights 1 have ever seen was
that of young females, dressed like boys in trousers, crawling on all
fours, with belts round their waists and chains passing between their
legs, at day pits at Hunshelf Bank, and in many small pits near Holmfirth
and New Mills: it exists also in several other places. 1 visited the
Hunshelf Colliery on the 18th of January: it is a day pit; that is, there
is no shaft or descent; the gate or entrance is at the side of a bank, and
nearly horizontal. The gate was not more than a yard high, and in some
places not above 2 feet.
" When I arrived at the board or
workings of the pit I found at one of the sideboards down a narrow passage
a girl of fourteen years of age in boy's clothes, picking down the coal
with the regular pick used by the men. She was half sitting half lying at
her work, and said she found it tired her very much, and 'of course she
didn't like it.' The place where she was at work was not 2 feet high.
Further on were men lying on their sides and getting. No less than six
girls out of eighteen men and children are employed in this pit.
"Whilst I was in the pit the Rev Mr
Bruce, of Wadsley, and the Rev Mr Nelson, of Rotherham, who accompanied
me, and remained outside, saw another girl of ten years of age, also
dressed in boy's clothes, who was employed in hurrying, and these
gentlemen saw her at work. She was a nice-looking little child, but of
course as black as a tinker, and with a little necklace round her throat.
"In two other pits in the Huddersfield
Union I have seen the same sight. In one near New Mills, the chain,
passing high up between the legs of two 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.
"On descending Messrs Hopwood's pit at
Barnsley, I found assembled round a fire a group of men, boys, and girls,
some of whom were of the age of puberty; 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 their hips. (At Silkstone and at Flockton they work
in their shifts and trousers.) Their sex was recognizable only by their
breasts, and some little difficulty occasionally arose in pointing out to
me which were girls and which were boys, and which caused a good deal of
laughing and joking. In the Flockton and Thornhill pits the system is even
more indecent: for though the girls are clothed, at least three-fourths of
the men for whom they "hurry" work stark naked, or with a flannel
waistcoat only, and in this state they assist one another to fill the
corves 18 or 20 times a day: I have seen this done myself frequently.
"When it is remembered that these girls
hurry chiefly for men who are not their parents; that they go from 15 to
20 times a day into a dark chamber (the bank face), which is often 50
yards apart from any one, to a man working naked, or next to naked, it is
not to be supposed 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 bullstake, where the corves are brought, and
consider the language to which the young ear is habituated, the absence of
religious instruction, and the early age at which contamination begins,
and you will have before you, in the coal-pits where females are employed,
the picture of a nursery for juvenile vice which you will go far and we
above ground to equal."
Two Women Miners
From Great Britain,
Parliamentary Papers, 1842, Vol. XV, p. 84, and ibid., Vol. XVII, p.
108.
Betty Harris,
age 37: I was married
at 23, and went into a colliery when I was married. I used to weave when
about 12 years old; can neither read nor write. I work for Andrew Knowles,
of Little Bolton (Lancs), and make sometimes 7s a week, sometimes not so
much. I am a drawer, and work from 6 in the morning to 6 at night. Stop
about an hour at noon to eat my dinner; have bread and butter for dinner;
I get no drink. I have two children, but they are too young to work. I
worked at drawing when I was in the family way. I know a woman who has
gone home and washed herself, taken to her bed, delivered of a child, and
gone to work again under the week.
I have a belt round my waist, and a
chain passing between my legs, and I go on my hands and feet. The road is
very steep, and we have to hold by a rope; and when there is no rope, by
anything we can catch hold of. There are six women and about six boys and
girls in the pit I work in; it is very hard work for a woman. The pit is
very wet where I work, and the water comes over our clog-tops always, and
I have seen it up to my thighs; it rains in at the roof terribly. My
clothes are wet through almost all day long. I never was ill in my life,
but when I was lying in.
My cousin looks after my children in the
day time. I am very tired when I get home at night; I fall asleep
sometimes before I get washed. I am not so strong as I was, and cannot
stand my work so well as I used to. I have drawn till I have bathe skin
off me; the belt and chain is worse when we are in the family way. My
feller (husband) has beaten me many a times for not being ready. I were
not used to it at first, and he had little patience.
I have known many a man beat his drawer.
I have known men take liberties with the drawers, and some of the women
have bastards.
Patience Kershaw,
age 17, Halifax: I go
to pit at 5 o'clock in the morning and come out at 5 in the evening; I get
my breakfast, porridge and milk, first; I take my dinner with me, a cake,
and eat it as I go; I do not stop or rest at any time for the purpose, I
get nothing else until I get home, and then have potatoes and meat, not
every day meat.