1. Life in the mines

2. Working life V harsh life – Worked 14 hr days
Saw no light for most of their lives
6am – 8pm, 6 days a wk
½ hour breakfast, 1 hr dinner

3. Pay Men got 16 shillings a wk (1 euro) Women got half that
Children got even less
Women and children..
...employed because
they got less pay

4. Work Men worked as hewers Cut the coal from the mine
Used pick-axes and shovels
Women
Hurriers– carried coal from the rock to the surface
Pushed heavy carts
Women sometimes chained to them
Stifling heat – worked topless
Endured leering looks and remarks by men

5. Children Mines had safety doors underground Important to control...
Trappers – v young children – some 5yrs old
Mines had safety doors underground
Important to control...
...amount of oxygen
Kids crouched by the trapdoor
Opened and closed it...
...as coal-carts went by

6. Dangers in the mine - 1 Tunnels – supported by timber props
Often collapsed
Miners buried alive
Dangerous gases underground
Explosions caused by candle flames
Even sparks from pick-axes
Mines could flood
…if men broke through rock, released a river

7. Ill-health Black lung - the coal dust got in people’s lungs
Slow, horrible death
Deformities
Bad backs
No sick pay, no health insurance
No compensation
If your hands were destroyed + you couldn’t work…
…you got no money

8. Improvements Davy Lamps Covered the flame from the gases
A candle-lamp with a special protective gauze
Covered the flame from the gases
Newcomen’s steam pump
Helped pump water from mines
Carried canaries in cages down
Let workers know if deadly gas escaping
Canary stopped singing – why?
It was dead

9. Rights Workers had no rights Fined if they were late for work
Replaced if they were sick
Improvements
The govt slowly started to improve their lives
A num of Factory Acts passed in 1800s
Controlled what employers could do
Some of the new laws were…

10. Factory Acts Children under 13 only allowed to work 8hr days
Boys under ten and all women forbidden to work underground
Factories could only work between 6am and 6pm
Life was still hard

11. Trade Unions Some workers were influenced ...by Karl Marx
Felt that if they organised themselves into a group…
They could demand better conditions
Robert Owen organised 1st worker’s trade union in 1834
But govt and employers banned the union!
Tolpuddle martyrs – a group of farm labourers tried to join a union
…arrested and transported to Australia for 7yrs

12. Robert Owens and his factory
Not all employers were bad
One employer – Owens – believed his workers should get profits from his factory
This was in Lanark
Gave good pay
Built clean, safe houses for them
Provided education for their children
But he was the exception