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People, Pits &' Places

Women of the pits

Some of our readers might have the impression that the Coal Mining Industry was always a province of 'men only', but that was not really the case.

For most of the last 160 years the contribution of females has been limited to surface work - and some of that was very hard. But even worse was the employment in earlier times of young children underground.

I'm not much to look at now but apparently I was a fairly normal baby because someone bothered to take photographs of me. One picture shows me with my 'Auntie' Sarah. She was not a family member - she was a colleague of my mother and my real Auntie Bess. The three ladies worked together at our local pit.

Those three had clerical types of jobs. We had other ladies at the pit when I started work there. One worked in the Granary, dealing with foodstuff for the ponies which were working underground and another was employed in the Saddlers' shop making and repairing ponies' harnesses and other leather equipment.

I'm sure all these mentioned would work hard but nothing in modern time can compare with the terrible conditions in which women, and very young children, worked underground in olden days. The scandalous situation was exposed by the investigation of a Parliamentary Committee established by Lord Shaftesbury in the early 1840's. In the committee's report several witnesses are recorded as giving details of shocking conditions.

The situation was perhaps worst in parts of Scotland, where mineworkers and their families were regarded as part of the mine property - virtually slavery! As to the Durham Coalfield there is sometimes an impression that no women worked underground but the interesting chronology by George Lister records that women worked as miners in Winlaton in 1581, and there were reports that a woman was one of the bodies blown out of a Wearside pit by an explosion in the early 1700's.

The 1840's investigations led to an Act of Parliament of 1842 which banned the employment of women (and boys under ten years old) from work underground. In some areas women continued to work in hard surface jobs such as removing stones from run-of-mine coal on the 'picking belts'.

Two welcome innovations in modern times led to the employment of more women at many pits. These were the introduction of Pithead Canteens, and of Medical Centres. Some of the canteens brought a distinctive feminine touch. I recall one where potted palms were placed between groups of tables; and another which became famous locally for its apple pie, attracting a wide patronage - including school children.

Perhaps these later developments represented a small reversal of the attitude to women in the pits, and ironically some of the 'Equality' laws of the recent years now make it possible for women to work underground again; but sadly any applicants would have to leave Durham to find a working coal mine!