Wk. 7 Prrimary Source Parliamentary Report on Women Miners (1842)

Question 1

Parliamentary Report on Women Miners (1842)

Answer 1

Parliamentary Report on Women Miners (1842) – In the mid-nineteenth century the British government became interested in industrial working conditions. Parliament created a number of Commissions to investigate and report on various industries. These excerpts are about female coal miners, part of a larger report on mining. The excerpts are a summary from one of the officials assigned to report on women miners and testimony from two miners.

What were working conditions like for men and women? – The working conditions for both men and women were deplorable and dangerous, often requiring them to enter caves barely wider than the person themselves. They work in tattered clothes and sometimes without clothes. And the day is very long.

• “One of the most disgusting sights I have ever seen was that of young females, dressed like boys in trousers, crawling on all fours, with belts round their waists and chains passing between their legs”
• ”; the gate or entrance is at the side of a bank, and nearly horizontal. The gate was not more than a yard high, and in some places not above 2 feet.”
• “I go to pit at 5 o’clock in the morning and come out at 5 in the evening; […] I do not stop or rest at any time”

What prompted elite men like Symons to investigate – what was it about women in coal mines that concerned him? – He was concerned about two primary things – 1) the Indecency/Immorality that put girls in such a position., and 2) the girls were in constant danger of being raped and beaten. He also seemed concerned to a lesser degree that girls were expected to do the same work as men.

• “the chain, passing high up between the legs of two of these girls, had worn large holes in their trousers; and any sight more disgustingly indecent or revolting can scarcely be imagined than these girls at work-no brothel can beat it.”
• “I found assembled round a fire a group of men, boys, and girls, some of whom were of the age of puberty; the girls as well as the boys stark naked down to the waist”
• “In the Flockton and Thornhill pits the system is even more indecent: for though the girls are clothed, at least three-fourths of the men for whom they “hurry” work stark naked,”
• “opportunity thus prevails sexual vices are of common occurrence.”
• “consider the language to which the young ear is habituated, the absence of religious instruction, and the early age at which contamination begins, and you will have before you, in the coal-pits where females are employed, the picture of a nursery for juvenile vice”
• “I have known many a man beat his drawer. I have known men take liberties with the drawers, and some of the women have bastards.”