Exploitation of Children in the Durham Coalfield by Garry Dawson Life for most of Britain’s population, prior to the present century, was above all else a constant struggle for survival. The need to earn a living was paramount. When Daniel Defoe was writing of his travels around England in 1723 he reported ‘scarce anything above four years old but its hand were sufficient for its own support’. In other words even children as young as four were expected to contribute to their family’s income. It was thought that by 1800 the situation with regard to the employment of young children was even worse. What little evidence does exist indicates that almost all of the children of the poor were expected to contribute to their keep long before they reached their tenth birthday. There was even a custom in Scotland in which colliers bound their babies over to the mine owners for a lifetime’s servitude in coalmines merely by accepting money at the baptismal ceremony. Before about 1800 most coal was obtained from shallow mines sunk where a coal seam was either at, or very near to the surface. The new industries, which developed from about this time, however demanded more and more coal, to fire their steam raising boilers, and it became profitable and necessary to sink ever‐deeper pits in order to reach larger deposits of coal. As mines were sunk deeper, however, it became more and more dangerous for the men, women and children who were employed in them. Women had not worked underground in the Durham coalfield since about 1790 but were still employed in some collieries on the surface. It was another matter for children. It is difficult to understand, but children of all ages were used in coalmines, as soon as a child was seen to be old enough to help, the child began work. The work was arduous and involved long hours. For a child going underground for the first time the mine would be very scary place, it was pitch black, a candle or oil lamp was all the illumination a child would have, if the candle went out or the oil ran out he could spend hours in complete darkness. During this time they would hear all sorts of noises, strata moving, pieces of roof or sides falling and rats were a common visitor in the mines, so they would hear them scurrying around them. The youngest boys employed in the mines, sometimes as young as five or six years of age, were the ‘trappers’. These boys sat all day, many times in total darkness, cold and shivering, their feet in muck and water, opening and closing heavy ventilation doors for passing coal tubs. They remained in the pit for up to eighteen hours every day, and received five pence (2p) a day as wages. He went to work at 2.00am in the morning, so that during the greater part of the year he did not see daylight from one weekend to the next. When boys grew in stature they could be moved on to putting. This consisted of pushing or pulling corves of coal from the workings to the passages where pony putters could be used. They would drag the coal corves or tubs using a harness called the ‘soames’, which consisted of a chain, which was passed between the legs and was hooked to an iron ring attached to a leather belt. Half naked, crawling on hands and knees like animals, straining every muscle in their frail bodies, they dragged the coal through the dark tunnels. When two boys of unequal age and strength assisted each other, the elder was called the headsman and the younger a foal. The former usually received two thirds of the amount earned jointly by the two. When two boys of about equal age and strength assisted each other they were called half‐marrows, and their earnings were equally divided. One youngster recalls, “Using the girdle and chain was hard work. The blisters were often as big as shillings and half crown pieces. All full of water they were. And the blisters of one day were broken the next, and the girdle stuck to the wound. Sore work, I promise you; but I got one and sixpence a day for it. After this, I was hired as a foal to my uncle. I was a foal for near a twelve‐month; and then a half‐marrow and got twelve and sixpence a week. One day the overman sent us to a part of the mine where we had never been before. There was firedamp there, and it put out our candles, one after another, as fast as we lighted them. So we ran as it was not safe to try it on any longer, and we began to scramble our way back in the dark. Laughing we were a great deal. But we missed our way, and got into an old workings as had been abandoned for years, and got quite lost. We wandered about here for two whole days and nights afore we found our way out, and were nigh starved to death”. Matthew Tate, the Northumberland miner bard, who knew these cruelties as a boy wrote; And mind when we were ‘foley’ boys, An’trod the dirt barroway, Hid frae the sun an’ a’ its joys For fully fowerteen oors a day. Like little slaves before thi’ corve An’ all day pulling at the soames. Man, dis thoo think we did deserve To toil awl day in livin’ tombs. Conditions worsened in the mid 1800’s and there was a huge loss of life among children and young people in mining accidents and disasters. In one unnamed coal mine, 58 deaths out of a total of 349 deaths in one year, involved children of thirteen years or younger. Charles Dickens reporting on an explosion at a colliery on April 19th 1841 wrote; “The cause of this explosion, which cost many lives, was traced, on examination of all signs and appearances, to the trapper boys. One body was found away from his own trap, lying close beside his friend, where we saw reason for knowing he could not have been blown by the explosion; we came to the conclusion that he had left his own trap door open, and gone to play with his friend. The proper course of the ventilation was thus destroyed and when a miner whose body was found near, went there with his candle, to fill coals, the gas that had accumulated while the boys were at play instantly exploded. You are surprised that children should have charge of these air doors, on which the safety of the whole mine chiefly depends; but it has always been so. Reports of colliery disasters and the details of injuries and deaths suffered by young children involved in them prompted the Government of the day to set up a Commission on the Labour of Women & Children in Mines. A brief outline of the evidence, which the Commission collected, follows: ‐ That instances occur in which children are taken into the mines to work as early as five years of age – while from eight to nine is the ordinary age at which employment in these mines commences. That a very large proportion of the persons employed in carrying on the work of these mines is under thirteen years of age. That in several districts female children begin work in the mines at the same early age as the males. That the nature of the employment which is assigned to the youngest children, generally that of trapping, requires that they should be in the pit as soon as the work of the day commences, and according to the present system, that they should not leave the pit before the work of the day is at an end. That in the districts in which females are taken down into the coalmines both sexes are employed together in precisely the same kind of labour, and work for the same number of hours; that the girls and the boys, and the young men and the young women, and even married women and women with child, commonly work almost naked, and the men, in many mines, quite naked. The young children are roughly used by their older companions; while in many mines conduct of the adult colliers to the children who assist them is harsh and cruel. As a result of these shocking revelations Parliament passed the Coal Mines Act 1842 on the 10th August 1842 which began: ‐ “Whereas it is unfit that women and girls should be employed in any mine or colliery, and it is expedient to make regulations regarding the employment of boys in mines and collieries, as to make provision for the safety of persons working therein. This Act prohibited all female labour in coalmines; the employment of boys under the age of 10 years in coal mines and provided for a system of inspection. It did not affect people employed above ground. It also said lifts were not to be in the care of people under fifteen years old. There was also a general prohibition placed on the payment of wages; “And whereas the practice of paying wages to workmen at public houses is found to be highly injurious to the best interests of the working classes” a section of the Act prohibited paying them “within any tavern, public house, beer shop, or other house of entertainment, or any office, garden or place belonging thereto”. Schools in some pit villages were unheard of, deemed by the ‘better people’ to be unnecessary when working life for pitmen’s children could start at six or seven with a working day as long as seventeen hours. What time was there for school? What learning was necessary for pit work? Up until 1891 schools charged a fee, the ‘school pence’, which could be a problem for some families. Standards of education were laid down in 1862 and provided basic knowledge of the three R’s, with needlework for the girls. Discipline was strict and corporal punishment common. Poor attendance seems to have been a frequent if not constant problem at many schools prior to compulsory education in 1880. Boys left school in their teens to seek work in the pits. The Mines Inspection Act of 1860 required boys between the ages of ten and twelve to have a school certificate before they could be employed. The school leaving age was raised to twelve in 1890. A further batch of Acts were passed which eased the plight of young people and these included in 1900 the raising of the minimum for entry into the coal industry to thirteen years, in 1908 the Eight Hours Act for mine workers underground was brought into being and in 1912 the miners secured the Minimum Wage Act. The dangers facing young people whilst working underground were brought home to the people of my town when at 3.45pm on Tuesday 16th February 1909 an horrific explosion occurred at the Stanley Burns Pit, which resulted in the loss of 168 men and boys from the town, the breadwinners for some 300 helpless and dependent women and children. The tale of terror was rapidly spread around and thousands of men, women and children gathered round the pit heap. They gathered in a flash, and within a few minutes of the loud roar of the explosion, the crowds would be well into four figures. Through the long night hundreds of anxious people stood their ground outside the pit awaiting news. The work of rescue went on strenuously through the depressing hours of the night, and, indeed until the last ray of hope as to the possibility of a survivor remaining expired. The prospect was depressing, but the watchers kept their faithful vigil, for so many of them the dearest and best loved on earth lay in the mine. Stanley was a stricken town, a place of grief, in which everyone was thinking sadly of the great tragedy and mourning the many gallant lives so sadly lost. The rescue teams had to overcome apparently impassable difficulties but eventually managed to bring out alive thirty‐one survivors. One of these died later. The last survivor was brought out at ten minutes to one on the Wednesday. By the Wednesday night the words ‘No Hope’ were to be read on the faces of the rescue teams and by Thursday the worst was known, and the grim work of bringing out the bodies began. Among the victims 67 were aged 20 years and under including 6 at 20 years, 8 at 19 years, 10 at 18 years, 14 at 17 years, 10 at 16 years,10 at 15 years, 6 at 14 years and 3 at 13 years. This vast proportion of lads and young men formed one of the saddest features of this great disaster, which brought sorrow to so many hearts. War was declared in 1914 and the fact that the cream of Durham’s youth enlisted was no doubt a reflection of the dreadful conditions of life in the coalfields. The armistice was declared in 1918 and in that same year the Education Act required that all children without exception be schooled in the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic until they reached the age of fourteen years. The school leaving age was later raised to fifteen and then again to sixteen years. It later came into being that no one could be employed underground without having served a term at a training centre where they could be taught the rudiments of pit work. During the 1960’s/1980’s the Durham coalfield was decimated and many collieries were closed down. Wearmouth colliery was closed in June 1994 and the winding towers were blown up in October of that year. This was the last colliery in the Durham coalfield and it’s passing marked the end of an era. Digitised by Jeanette Newell Note: The views that are expressed on the website are the contributors own and not necessarily those of Durham County Council. This is a community website so no guarantee can be given of the historical accuracy of individual contributions