Pit brow women or pit brow lasses were female surface labourers at British collieries. They worked at the coal screens on the pit bank (or brow) at the shaft top until the 1960s. Their job was to pick stones from the coal after it was hauled to the surface. More women were employed in this capacity on the Lancashire Coalfield than in any other area. [1]
In the early coal industry women and girls worked underground alongside men and boys in small coal pits. It was common practice in Lancashire and Cumberland, Yorkshire, the East of Scotland and South Wales. [2] The death of Elizabeth Higginson working underground was recorded in the register of Wigan Parish Church in 1641. [3] An article in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1795 described Betty Hodson aged nine who worked underground with her brother, aged seven, dragging baskets of coals for their father. [4]
From the 1600s in Lancashire it was common for whole families to be employed in the pits. Colliers relied on their wives, sons and daughters who were employed as drawers. The daughters of colliers usually married within the mining community. As the industry grew the population expanded and more members of extended mining families obtained work. Pitwork in south-west Lancashire resulted in the area around Wigan having the highest rates of female employment in the country in the 19th century. [5]
On 4 July 1838, a flash flood at the Huskar Pit near Silkstone in Yorkshire caused the deaths of 26 children aged from seven to 17 who were drowned while trying to escape. The disaster led to a public outcry and subsequent Royal Commission led by Anthony Ashley Cooper. [6] Until the Mines and Collieries Act 1842 was passed prohibiting boys under ten years of age and all women and girls from working underground in coal mines, it was common for women and children to work shifts of 11 or 12 hours underground. Children as young as five or six worked as trappers opening and closing ventilation doors before becoming hurriers, pushing tubs of coal to the shaft bottom. [7]
The prohibition of underground female labour caused much suffering and hardship and was greatly resented in south-west Lancashire. [5] The employment of women did not end abruptly in 1842; with the connivance of some employers, women dressed as men continued to work underground for several years. Penalties for employing women were small and inspectors were few and some women were so desperate for work they willingly worked illegally for less pay. [8] Children continued working underground at some pits. At Coppull Colliery's Burgh Pit, three females died after an explosion in November 1846; one was eleven years old. [9]
Not all women who had worked underground gained employment as surface workers. Lighter work on the surface had traditionally been reserved for older men and men who had been injured below ground and some colliery owners considered pits unsuitable places for women. Other colliery owners were happy to employ women who had proved themselves reliable and strong workers and were used to the language and habits of the miners. [10] Male surface workers earned twice the wages of the women who worked twelve-hour shifts, five days a week and a shorter shift on Saturdays. [8] Women surface workers were concentrated in Scotland, South Wales, Cumberland, Shropshire and South Staffordshire and Lancashire. [11]
Pit-brow women working outside in the cold and dirt developed a distinctive "uniform", they wore clogs, trousers covered with a skirt and apron, old flannel jackets or shawls and headscarfs to protect their hair from coal dust. [12] The women's unconventional but practical dress drew them to the attention of the public and carte de visite and cabinet card portraits and later postcards of them in working clothes were produced commercially and sold to visitors as novelties. Photographic studios in Wigan which produced such work were Louisa Millard (in the late-1860s), [10] Cooper (between 1853 and 1892), [13] and Wragg (which produced a series of at least 18 studio images). [14] Arthur Munby, a lawyer with an interest in women who worked in dirty and unusual conditions, commissioned many photographs. Munby visited the Wigan area many times over many years, interviewing working-class women and recording in his diaries what they had to say about their jobs, pay and living conditions. [10]
Victorian sensibilities were outraged by women working at pits and dressing in trousers was considered unfeminine and degenerate by society.
Agecroft Colliery was a coal mine on the Manchester Coalfield that opened in 1844 in the Agecroft district of Pendlebury, Lancashire, England. It exploited the coal seams of the Middle Coal Measures of the Lancashire Coalfield. The colliery had two spells of use; the first between 1844 and 1932, when the most accessible coal seams were exploited, and a second lease of life after extensive development in the late 1950s to access the deepest seams.
Ladyshore Colliery, originally named Back o' th Barn, was situated on the Irwell Valley fault on the Manchester Coalfield in Little Lever, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. Founded by Thomas Fletcher Senior, the colliery opened in the 1830s and mined several types of coal. It became infamous as a result of the owners' stand against the use of safety lamps in the mines. Women and children worked in the mines, under poor conditions.
The Mines and Collieries Act 1842, commonly known as the Mines Act 1842, was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act forbade women and girls of any age to work underground and introduced a minimum age of ten for boys employed in underground work. It was a response to the working conditions of children revealed in the Children's Employment Commission (Mines) 1842 report. The Commission was headed by Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Member of Parliament, who was styled Baron Ashley at the time, a courtesy title, and would succeed his father as the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury in 1852.
Coal mining in the United Kingdom dates back to Roman times and occurred in many different parts of the country. Britain's coalfields are associated with Northumberland and Durham, North and South Wales, Yorkshire, the Scottish Central Belt, Lancashire, Cumbria, the East and West Midlands and Kent. After 1972, coal mining quickly collapsed and had practically disappeared by the 21st century. The consumption of coal—mostly for electricity—fell from 157 million tonnes in 1970 to 18 million tonnes in 2016, of which 77% was imported from Colombia, Russia, and the United States. Employment in coal mines fell from a peak of 1,191,000 in 1920 to 695,000 in 1956, 247,000 in 1976, 44,000 in 1993, and to 2,000 in 2015.
The Lancashire Coalfield in North West England was an important British coalfield. Its coal seams were formed from the vegetation of tropical swampy forests in the Carboniferous period over 300 million years ago.
The Astley and Tyldesley Collieries Company formed in 1900 owned coal mines on the Lancashire Coalfield south of the railway in Astley and Tyldesley, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. The company became part of Manchester Collieries in 1929 and some of its collieries were nationalised in 1947.
Bedford Colliery, also known as Wood End Pit, was a coal mine on the Manchester Coalfield in Bedford, Leigh, Lancashire, England. The colliery was owned by John Speakman, who started sinking two shafts on land at Wood End Farm in the northeast part of Bedford, south of the London and North Western Railway's Tyldesley Loopline in about 1874. Speakman's father owned Priestners, Bankfield, and Broadoak collieries in Westleigh. Bedford Colliery remained in the possession of the Speakman family until it was amalgamated with Manchester Collieries in 1929.
Manchester Collieries was a coal mining company with headquarters in Walkden formed from a group of independent companies operating on the Manchester Coalfield in 1929. The Mining Industry Act of 1926 attempted to stem the post-war decline in coal mining and encourage independent companies to merge in order to modernise and better survive the economic conditions of the day. Robert Burrows of the Atherton company Fletcher Burrows proposed a merger of several independent companies operating to the west of Manchester. The merger was agreed and took place in March 1929.
Fletcher, Burrows and Company was a coal mining company that owned collieries and cotton mills in Atherton, Greater Manchester, England. Gibfield, Howe Bridge and Chanters collieries exploited the coal mines (seams) of the middle coal measures in the Manchester Coalfield. The Fletchers built company housing at Hindsford and a model village at Howe Bridge which included pithead baths and a social club for its workers. The company became part of Manchester Collieries in 1929. The collieries were nationalised in 1947 becoming part of the National Coal Board.
Astley Green Colliery was a coal mine in Astley, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. It was the last colliery to be sunk in Astley. Sinking commenced in 1908 by the Pilkington Colliery Company, a subsidiary of the Clifton and Kersley Coal Company, at the southern edge of the Manchester Coalfield, working the Middle Coal Measures where they dipped under the Permian age rocks under Chat Moss. The colliery was north of the Bridgewater Canal. In 1929 it became part of Manchester Collieries, and in 1947 was nationalised and integrated into the National Coal Board. It closed in 1970, and is now Astley Green Colliery Museum.
Ellerbeck Colliery was a coal mine located on the border of Coppull and Adlington in the Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England. The Hilton House and Red Moss Coal Company sank the first shaft in 1876 and the colliery closed in 1928.
The Wigan Coal and Iron Company was formed when collieries on the Lancashire Coalfield owned by John Lancaster were acquired by Lord Lindsay, the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, owner of the Haigh Colliery in 1865. The company owned collieries in Haigh, Aspull, Standish, Westhoughton, Blackrod, Westleigh and St Helens and large furnaces and iron-works near Wigan and the Manton Colliery in Nottinghamshire.
Parsonage Colliery was a coal mine operating on the Lancashire Coalfield in Leigh, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. The colliery, close to the centre of Leigh and the Bolton and Leigh Railway was sunk between 1913 and 1920 by the Wigan Coal and Iron Company and the first coal was wound to the surface in 1921. For many years its shafts to the Arley mine were the deepest in the country. The pit was close to the town centre and large pillars of coal were left under the parish church and the town's large cotton mills.
Gibfield Colliery was a coal mine owned by Fletcher, Burrows and Company in Atherton, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England.
Gin Pit was a coal mine operating on the Lancashire Coalfield from the 1840s in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. It exploited the Middle Coal Measures of the Manchester Coalfield and was situated to the south of the Tyldesley Loopline.
Peelwood Colliery was a coal mine operating on the Manchester Coalfield after 1883 in Shakerley, Tyldesley, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England.
Mosley Common Colliery was a coal mine originally owned by the Bridgewater Trustees operating on the Manchester Coalfield after 1866 in Mosley Common, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. The colliery eventually had five shafts and became the largest colliery on the Lancashire Coalfield with access to around 270 million tons of coal under the Permian rocks to the south.
The Burnley Coalfield is the most northerly portion of the Lancashire Coalfield. Surrounding Burnley, Nelson, Blackburn and Accrington, it is separated from the larger southern part by an area of Millstone Grit that forms the Rossendale anticline. Occupying a syncline, it stretches from Blackburn past Colne to the Yorkshire border where its eastern flank is the Pennine anticline.
Bank Hall Colliery was a coal mine on the Burnley Coalfield in Burnley, Lancashire near the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. Sunk in the late 1860s, it was the town's largest and deepest pit and had a life of more than 100 years.
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