The Children’s Employment Commission of 1840 was one of the most shocking documents of its time. Its inspectors, who had been sent out to investigate whether the provisions of a series of factory acts limiting the working hours of apprentices and children were being implemented, decided also to examine conditions in the mines. In mining towns baby girls were disparagingly described as ‘a hutch of dross’, while boys were ‘a hutch of coal’. Even so, girls and women were enormously useful in the mines, partly because they could make themselves helpful at a younger age, and thus start work earlier, and partly because of their willingness to crawl into the most uncomfortable areas without complaint. Although the Commission’s focus was the conditions of children, the report unexpectedly threw up voices of women as well as girls. It was illustrated with sketches showing the nature of work underground, and so horrified the public that a law was passed making it illegal for women and children to go down the pits. This legislation heightened the misery for those women for whom the pit was their only source of income. To evade the law, some disguised themselves as men; their co-workers turned a blind eye. Here are a few comments recorded in the 1840 Commission:
The foreman at Ormiston colliery: ‘In fact women always did the lifting or heavy part of the work and neither they nor the children were treated like human beings where they are employed. Females submit to work in places where no man or even lad could be got to labour in; they work in bad roads, up to their knees in water, their posture almost double. They are below till the last hour of pregnancy. They have swelled ankles and haunches and are prematurely brought to the grave or, what is worse, to a lingering existence.’
Janet Cumming, 11, coal bearer: ‘I gang with the women at five and come up at five at night; work all night on Fridays and come away at twelve in the day. The roof is very low; I have to bend my back and legs and the water is frequently up to the calves of my legs. Have no liking for the work. Father makes me like it.’
Janet Allen, 8, who pushed tubs: ‘It is sair, sair work, would like to be playing about better.’
Jane Johnson: ‘I was seven and half years of age when my uncle yoked me to the pit as father and mother were both dead. I could carry two hundredweights when fifteen but now feel the weakness upon me from the strains. I have been married ten years and had four children, have usually wrought till one or two days of birth. Many women get injured in back and legs and I was crushed by a stone some time since and forced to lose one of my fingers.’
Isabel Hogg, 53, retired coal bearer: ‘Been married thirty seven years; it was the practice to marry early, when the coals were all carried on women’s backs, men needed us. I have four daughters married 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 but was entirely off work eleven years before he died.’
Jane Peacock Watson, 40, coal bearer: ‘I have wrought in the bowels of the earth thirty three years; have been married twenty three years and had nine children; six are alive, three died of typhus a few years since, have had two dead born, think they were so from oppressive work; a vast women have dead births. … I have always been obliged to work below till forced to go home to bear the bairn, and so have all the other women. We return as soon as we are able, never longer than ten or twelve days, many less if we are needed.’
Katharine Logan, 16, coal carrier, who was put in a harness: ‘drawing backward with face to tubs. The ropes and chains go under pit clothes, it is o’er sair work, especially when we crawl.’
Helen Read, 16: ‘[I work] from five in the morning till six at night and carry two hundredweight on my back. I dinna like the work but think I’m fit for none other. Many accidents happen below ground. I’ve met with two serious ones myself. Two years ago the pit closed on thirteen of us and we were two days without food and light. Nearly one day we were up to our chins in water. At last we picked our way to an old shaft and were heard by people working above.’
Margaret Watson, 16: ‘We often have bad air, had some a short time since and lost brother by it. He sunk down and I tried to draw him out but the air stopped my breath and I was forced to gang.’