The Mines Act

Working conditions in mines in the Industrial Revolution in England were extremely harsh and The Mines Act , passed in 1842, hoped to improve them. The basic provisions of the act stated that –

•  No female was to work underground

•  Boys had to be at least 10 years old to work underground

•  Parish apprentices who were between 10 and 18 years old were not affected – they could continue working in the mines

The Act however, did not address hours of work, only focusing on working conditions themselves in these mines. Although the act hoped to better lives and living conditions of the workers in the mines, it annoyed many women and hurt families because these women and children who were working in the mines often earned additional money which was essential in sustaining families.

These are a few testimonies gathered by Lord Ashley's Mine Commission <http://www.victorianweb.org/history/ashley.html>–

“No. 116.--Sarah Gooder, aged 8 years.

I'm a trapper in the Gawber pit. It does not tire me, but I have to trap without a light and I'm scared. I go at four and sometimes half past three in the morning, and come out at five and half past. I never go to sleep. Sometimes I sing when I've light, but not in the dark; I dare not sing then. I don't like being in the pit. I am very sleepy when I go sometimes in the morning. I go to Sunday-schools and read Reading made Easy. She knows her letters, and can read little words. They teach me to pray. She repeated the Lord's Prayer, not very perfectly, and ran on with the following addition:--"God bless my father and mother, and sister and brother, uncles and aunts and cousins, and everybody else, and God bless me and make me a good servant. Amen." I have heard tell of Jesus many a time. I don't know why he came on earth, I'm sure, and I don't know why he died, but he had stones for his head to rest on. I would like to be at school far better than in the pit.

No. 137.--Thomas Wilson, Esq., of the Banks, Silkstone, owner of three collieries.

Girl pulling a coal tub in mine. From official report of the parliamentary commission.

The employment of females of any age in and about the mines is most objectionable, and I should rejoice to see it put an end to; but in the present feeling of the colliers, no individual would succeed in stopping it in a neighbourhood where it prevailed, because the men would immediately go to those pits where their daughters would be employed. The only way effectually to put an end to this and other evils in the present colliery system is to elevate the minds of the men; and the only means to attain this is to combine sound moral and religious training and industrial habits with a system of intellectual culture much more perfect than can at present be obtained by them.

I object on general principles to government interference in the conduct of any trade, and I am satisfied that in mines it would be productive of the greatest injury and injustice. The art of mining is not so perfectly understood as to admit of the way in which a colliery shall be conducted being dictated by any person, however experienced, with such certainty as would warrant an interference with the management of private business. I should also most decidedly object to placing collieries under the present provisions of the Factory Act with respect to the education of children employed therein. First, because, if it is contended that coal-owners, as employers of children, are bound to attend to their education, this obligation extends equally to all other employers, and therefore it is unjust to single out one class only; secondly, because, if the legislature asserts a right to interfere to secure education, it is bound to make that interference general; and thirdly, because the mining population is in this neighbourhood so intermixed with other classes, and is in such small bodies in any one place, that it would be impossible to provide separate schools for them.

No. 14--Isabella Read, 12 years old, coal-bearer.

Works on mother's account, as father has been dead two years. Mother bides at home, she is troubled with bad breath, and is sair weak in her body from early labour. I am wrought with sister and brother, it is very sore work; cannot say how many rakes or journeys I make from pit's bottom to wall face and back, thinks about 30 or 25 on the average; the distance varies from 100 to 250 fathom.

I carry about 1 cwt and a quarter on my back; have to stoop much and creep through water, which is frequently up to the calves of my legs. When first down fell frequently asleep while waiting for coal from heat and fatigue.

I do not like the work, nor do the lassies, but they are made to like it. When the weather is warm there is difficulty in breathing, and frequently the lights go out.

No. 134.--Isabel Wilson, 38 years old, coal putter.

When women have children thick (fast) they are compelled to take them down early. I have been married 19 years and have had 10 bairns; seven are in life. When on Sir John's work was a carrier of coals, which caused me to miscarry five times from the strains, and was gai ill after each. Putting is no so oppressive; last child was born on Saturday morning, and I was at work on the Friday night.

Once met with an accident; a coal brake my cheek-bone, which kept me idle some weeks.

I have wrought below 30 years, and so has the guide man; he is getting touched in the breath now.

None of the children read, as the work is no regular. I did read once, but no able to attend to it now; when I go below lassie 10 years of age keeps house and makes the broth or stir-about.

Nine sleep in two bedsteads; there did not appear to be any beds, and the whole of the other furniture consisted of two chairs, three stools, a table, a kail-ot and a few broken basins and cups. Upon asking if the furniture was all they had, the guide wife said, furniture was of no use, as it was so troublesome to flit with.

No. 26.--Patience Kershaw, aged 17, May 15.

My father has been dead about a year; my mother is living and has ten children, five lads and five lasses; the oldest is about thirty, the youngest is four; three lasses go to mill; all the lads are colliers, two getters and three hurriers; one lives at home and does nothing; mother does nought but look after home.

All my sisters have been hurriers, but three went to the mill. Alice went because her legs swelled from hurrying in cold water when she was hot. I never went to day-school; I go to Sunday-school, but I cannot read or write; I go to pit at five o'clock in the morning and come out at five in the evening; I get my breakfast of porridge and milk first; I take my dinner with me, a cake, and eat it as I go; I do not stop or rest any time for the purpose; I get nothing else until I get home, and then have potatoes and meat, not every day meat. I hurry in the clothes I have now got on, trousers and ragged jacket; the bald place upon my head is made by thrusting the corves; my legs have never swelled, but sisters' did when they went to mill; I hurry the corves a mile and more under ground and back; they weigh 300 cwt.; I hurry 11 a-day; I wear a belt and chain at the workings, to get the corves out; the getters that I work for are naked except their caps; they pull off all their clothes; I see them at work when I go up; sometimes they beat me, if I am not quick enough, with their hands; they strike me upon my back; the boys take liberties with me sometimes they pull me about; I am the only girl in the pit; there are about 20 boys and 15 men; all the men are naked; I would rather work in mill than in coal-pit.

This girl is an ignorant, filthy, ragged, and deplorable-looking object, and such an one as the uncivilized natives of the prairies would be shocked to look upon.

No. 72--Mary Barrett, aged 14. June 15.

I have worked down in pit five years; father is working in next pit; I have 12 brothers and sisters--all of them but one live at home; they weave, and wind, and hurry, and one is a counter, one of them can read, none of the rest can, or write; they never went to day-school, but three of them go to Sunday-school; I hurry for my brother John, and come down at seven o'clock about; I go up at six, sometimes seven; I do not like working in pit, but I am obliged to get a living; I work always without stockings, or shoes, or trousers; I wear nothing but my chemise; I have to go up to the headings with the men; they are all naked there; I am got well used to that, and don't care now much about it; I was afraid at first, and did not like it; they never behave rudely to me; I cannot read or write.

No. 7--Benjamin Miller, Underlooker at Mr. Woolley's, near Staley Bridge , April 14, 18 41.

How do you account for women being used so frequently as drawers in the coal-pits?
--One reason is, that a girl of 20 will work for 2s. a-day or less, and a man of that age would want 3s. 6d.: It makes little difference to the coal-master, he pays the same whoever does the work; some would say he got his coal cheaper, but I am not of that opinion, the only difference is that the collier can spend 1s. to 1s. 6d. more at the alehouse, and very often the woman helps him to spend it.

Do women ever become coal-getters?
--Not one woman in a hundred ever becomes a coal-getter, and that is one of the reasons the men prefer them.”

Lord Ashley was a driving force in getting the Bill passed in the Parliament. He addressed them, after his commission had gathered information, and asked them to improve working conditions for women in children. A large part of his argument stemmed from the ideals of Victorian Morality. Women, in that age, were supposed to belong at home, and take care of the family. Due to this, he talked about how young girls worked in dirty mines in trousers, and looked almost by men. This also dealt with the fact that the Industrial Revolution itself skewed a lot of the stereotyped gender roles that existed before it.

This is Lord Ashley's speech to the parliament ( http://anglais.u-paris10.fr/article.php3?id_article=88 ):

Sir, the next subject to which I shall request your attention is the nature of the employement in these localities. Now, it appears that the practice prevails to a lamentable extent of making young persons and children of a tender age draw loads by means of the girdle and chain. .this practice prevails generally in Shropshire , in Derbyshire, in the West Riding of Yorkshire , in Lancashire , in Cheshire , in the east of Scotland , in North and South Wales , and in South Gloucestershire . The child, it appears, has a girdle bound round its waist, to which is attached a chain, which passes under the legs, and is attached to the cart. The child is obliged to pass on all fours, and the chain passes under what, therefore, in that posture, might be called the hind legs ; and thus they have to pass through avenues not so good as a common sewer, quite as wet, and oftentimes more contracted. This kind of labour they have to continue during several hours, hours in a temperature described as perfectly intolerable. By the testimony of the people themselves it appears that the labour is exceedingly severe ; that the girdle blisters their sides and causes great pain. ' Sir ', says an old miner, 'I can only say what the mothers say, it is barbarity- absolute barbarity .'

Robert North says, 'I went into the pit at 7 years of age. When I drew by the girdle and chain, the skin was broken and the blood ran down. . . . If we said anything, They would beat us. I have seen many draw at 6. They must do it or be beat. They cannot straighten their backs during the day. I have sometimes pulled till my hips have hurt me so that I have not known what to do with myself .'

In the West Riding, it appears, girls are almost universally employed as trappers and hurriers, in common with boys. The girls are of all ages from 7 to 21. They commonly worked quite naked down to the waist, and are dressed- as far as they are dressed at all- in a loose pair of trousers. These are seldom whole on either sex. In many of the collieries, whom these girls serve, work perfectly naked.

Near Huddersfield the sub-commissionner examined a female child. He says, 'I could not have believed that I should have found human nature so degraded ' . Mr Holroyd, and Mr Brook, a surgeon, confessed, that although within a few miles, they could not have believed such a system of unchristian cruelty could have existed. 'Speaking of one of the girls' , he says, 'She stood shivering before me from cold. The rug that hung about her waist was as black as coal, and saturated with water, the drippings of the roof' .'In a pit near New Mills' , says the sub-commissionner, 'the chain passing high up between the lgs of two girls, had worn large holes in their trousers. Any sight more disgustingly indecent or revolting can scarcely be imagined than these girls at work. No brothel can beat it'.

Sir, it would be impossible to enlarge upon all these points ; the evidence is most abundant, and the selection very difficult. I will, however, observe that nothing can be more graphic, nothing more touching than the evidence of many of these poor girls themselves. Insulted, oppressed and even corrupted, they exhibit, not unfrequently, a simplicity and a kindness that render tenfold more heart-rending the folly and cruelty of that system that has forced away these young persons, destined, in God's providence, to hollier and happier duties, to occupations so unsuited, so harsh, and so degrading. . .

Surely it is evident that to remove, or even to mitigate, these sad evils will require the vigorous and immediate interposition of the legislature. That interposition is demanded by public reason, by public virtue, by the public honor, by the public character, and, I rejoice to add, by the public sympathy: for never, I believe, since the disclosure of the horrors of the African slave-trade, has there existed so universal a feeling on any one subject in this country, as that which now pervades the length and breadth of the land in abhorrence and disgust of this monstrous oppression. It is demanded, moreover, I am happy to say, by many well-intentioned and honest proprietors- Men who are anxious to see those ameliorations introduced which, owing to long established prejudices, they have themselves been unable to effect. From letters and private communications which I have received on the subject, I know that they will hail with the greatest joy such a bill as I shall presently ask leave to introduce.

Sources:

Bourdenet, Nathalie. "The Mines Act, 1842." University of Paris . 6 May 2006
     <http://anglais.u-paris10.fr/article.php3?id_article=88>.

Del Col, Laura. "Testimony Gathered by Ashley's Commission." The Victorian Web. 6 May 2006
     <http://www.victorianweb.org/history/ashley.html>.