Coal was needed in vast quantities for the Industrial
Revolution. For centuries, people in Britain had made do with
charcoal if they needed a cheap and easy to acquire fuel. What
'industry' that existed before 1700, did use coal but it came from
coal mines that were near to the surface and the coal was
relatively easy to get to. The Industrial Revolution changed all of
this.
Before the Industrial Revolution, two types of mines existed :
drift mines and bell pits. Both were small scale coal mines and the
coal which came from these type of pits was used locally in homes
and local industry.
However, as the country started to industrialize itself, more and
more coal was needed to fuel steam engines and furnaces. The
development of factories by Arkwright and the improvement of the
steam engine by Watt further increased demand for coal. As a result
coal mines got deeper and deeper and coal mining became more and
more dangerous.
How did the miners try to overcome the dangers they faced ?
To clear mines of gas - be it explosive or poisonous - a crude
system of ventilation was used. To assist this, young children
called trappers would sit underground opening and shutting trap
doors which went across a mine. This allowed coal trucks through
but it also created a draught and it could shift a cloud a gas.
However, it was very ineffectual. It was also believed that a
system of trap doors might help to stop the blast of an explosion
damaging more of the coal mine
Regardless of these developments, mining remained very
dangerous. A report on deaths in coal mines to Parliament gave a
list of ways miners could be killed :
falling down a mine shaft on the way down to the coal face falling
out of the 'bucket' bringing you up after a shift being hit by a
fall of dug coal falling down a mine shaft as it was lifted up
drowning in the mine crushed to death killed by explosions
suffocation by poisonous gas being run over by a tram carrying dug
coal in the mine itself
In one unnamed coal mine, 58 deaths out of a total of 349 deaths in
one year, involved children thirteen years or younger. Life for all
those who worked underground was very hard.
In 1842, Parliament published a report about the state of coal
mining - the Mines Report - and its contents shocked the nation.
The report informed the public that children under five years of
age worked underground as trappers for 12 hours a day and for 2
pennies a day; older girls carried baskets of dug coal which were
far too heavy for them and caused deformities in these girls.
One girl - Ellison Jack, aged 11 - claimed to the Commission of
Enquiry that she had to do twenty journeys a shift pushing a tub
which weighed over 200 kilos and if she showed signs of slacking,
she would be whipped. Children had to work in water that came up to
their thighs while underground; heavily pregnant women worked
underground as they needed the money. On unnamed woman claimed that
she gave birth on one day and was expected by the mine manager to
be back at work that very same day !! Such was the need to work -
there was no social security at this time - she did as the manager
demanded. Such a shocking report lead to the Mines Act of 1842.
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