Robert Bald, a civil engineer and factor to the Earl of Mar, wrote a scientific treatise on the mining industry, but included a heart-felt appendix on the conditions of women who worked in mines. Despite his harrowing descriptions, it took a government inquiry in 1840 into child labour to change the practice of using women and children in pits.
… We conceive it proper to bring into view the condition of a class in the community, intimately connected with the coal-trade, who endure a slavery scarcely tolerated in the ages of darkness and of barbarism. The class alluded to is that of the women who carry coals underground, in Scotland, – known by the name of Bearers.… The women are not only employed to carry the coals from the wall-face to the pit bottom, but also to ascend with them to the hill; no doubt this was the practice in the very early periods in collieries; and it is only wonderful, that such a custom should remain to the present day, in the midst of all our refinements.
This latter mode is unknown in England, and is abolished in the neighbourhood of Glasgow.… It is, however, a certain fact, that severe and laborious as this employment is, still there are young women to be found, who, from early habits, have no particular aversion to the work, and who are as cheerful and light in heart as the gayest of the fair sex; and as they have it in their power to betake themselves to other work if they choose, the carrying of coals is a matter of free choice; and therefore, no blame can be particularly attached to the coalmaster. Yet, still it must, even in the most favourable point of view, be looked upon as a very bad, old and disgraceful custom.
But, as married women are also as much engaged in this servitude as the young, it is in this instance that the practice is absolutely injurious and bad, even although they submit to it without repining …
In those collieries where this mode [using people not horses] is in practice, the collier leaves his house for the pit about eleven o’clock at night (attended by his sons, if he has any sufficiently old) when the rest of mankind are retiring to rest. Their first work is to prepare coals, by hewing them down from the wall. In about three hours after, his wife (attended by her daughters, if she has any sufficiently grown) sets out for the pit, having previously wrapped her infant child in a blanket and left it to the care of an old woman who, for a small gratuity, keeps three or four children at a time, and who, in their mothers’ absence, feeds them with ale or whisky mixed with water. The children who are a little more advanced, are left to the care of a neighbour; and under such treatment, it is surprising that they ever grow up or thrive.
The mother, having thus disposed of her younger children, descends the pit with her older daughters, when each, having a basket of a suitable form, lays it down, and into it the large coals are rolled; and such is the weight carried, that it frequently takes two men to lift the burden upon their backs: the girls are loaded according to their strength. The mother sets out first, carrying a lighted candle in her teeth; the girls follow, and in this manner they proceed to the pit bottom, and with weary steps and slow, ascend the stairs, halting occasionally to draw breath, till they arrive at the hill or pit top, where the coals are laid down for sale; and in this manner they go for eight or ten hours almost without resting. It is no uncommon thing to see them, when ascending the pit, weeping most bitterly, from the excessive severity of the labour; but the instant they have laid down their burden on the hill, they resume their cheerfulness, and return down the pit singing.
The execution of work performed by a stout woman in this way is beyond conception. For instance, we have seen a woman, during the space of time above mentioned, take on a load of at least 170 lbs. avoirdupois, travel with this 150 yards up the slope of the coal below ground, ascend a pit by stairs 117 feet, and travel upon the hill 20 yards more to where the coals are laid down. All this she will perform no less than twenty-four times as a day’s work. … The weight of coals thus brought to the pit top by a woman in a day, amounts to 4,080 pounds, or above thirty-six hundred-weight English, and there have been frequent instances of two tons being carried. The wages paid them for this work, are eightpence per day! …
The collier, with his wife and children, having performed their daily task, return home, where no comfort awaits them; their clothes are frequently soaked with water, and covered with mud; their shoes so very bad as scarcely to deserve the name. In this situation they are exposed to all the rigours of winter, the cold frequently freezing their clothes.
On getting home, all is cheerless and devoid of comfort; the fire is generally out, the culinary utensils dirty and unprepared, and the mother naturally first seeks after her infant child, which she nurses even before her pit clothes are thrown off.
From this incessant labour of the wife, the children are sadly neglected, and all those domestic concerns disregarded, which contribute to render the life of the labourer comfortable and happy. It is presumed, that it is from this habit of life that infectious diseases make in general greater havock among the children of colliers than among those of any other class of labourers, so much so, that we have seen the number of deaths in one year exceed the number of births. Enter their houses; these will afford ample demonstration of all that is adduced.
This habit of life is also the cause of the money which they earn being spent, without economy; hence they are always in want. No doubt, there are many exceptions to the contrary; but the case now brought forward is too frequently to be found …
Besides the wives and daughters of the colliers, there is another class of women attached to some collieries, termed Framed Bearers, or, more properly, Fremit Bearers, that is, women who are nowise related to those who employ them. These are at the disposal of the oversman below ground, and he appoints them to carry coals for any person he thinks proper, so that they sometimes have a new master every day: this is slavery complete; and when an unrelenting collier takes an ill-natured fit, he oppresses the bearer with such heavy loads of coal, as are enough to break, not only the spirit, but the back of any human being.
That the women are fully sensible, and feel the severity of their labour, is but too evident, especially to all those who have been accustomed to travel below ground. One case, for example, we shall mention, which occurred.
In surveying the workings of an extensive colliery below ground, a married woman came forward, groaning under an excessive weight of coals, trembling in every nerve, and almost unable to keep her knees from sinking under her. On coming up, she said in a most plaintive and melancholy voice: ‘O SIR, THIS IS 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.’