Shropshire Routes to Roots

Personal reports: The Children's Employment Commission

In 1842 the Children's Employment Commission reported on working conditions for children in the mines. The two extracts below are from the evidence gathered in Shropshire.

Firstly, as background, one of the Sub-Commissioners explained the nature of the girdle:

A girdle is put round the naked waist, to which a chain from the carriage is hooked and passed between the legs, and the boys crawl on their hands and knees, drawing the carriage after them. This is called "Drawing by the girdle and chain.". This practice...is not totally unknown in South Staffordshire in working some thin seams of coal...but it is not nearly so common in Shropshire. About thirty years ago it was a very general custom to employ young boys, both in coal-pits and iron-pits, to draw carriages by this means. The custom is not yet entirely out of use, though the respectable companies have many years discontinued it, and have substituted instead small iron railways, and small carriages called dans, which the boys push before them.

Then twelve year old James Pearce, from Shropshire, told the commission:

About a year and a half ago I took to the girdle and chain; I do not like it; it hurts me; it rubs my skin off; I often feel pain. I have often had blisters on my side; but when I was more used to it it would not blister, but it smarted very badly...When I came home at night I often sat down to rest me by the way, I was so tired. The work made me look much older that I was. I worked at this drawing with girdle and chain three or four months. I thought that if I kept at this work I should be nothing at all, and I went and worked upon the bank. Many boys draw with girdle and chain now. There is not the railway and the dans...I think it is a great hurt to a boy: it must be, to draw the same as a horse draws. A great many boys find that they are unable, and give over drawing with girdle and chain. It is very hard, very hard, sir. If they were to lay down rails, and push the coals on dans, it would be very convenient for the boys, though the expense might not be convenient for the masters.

(Teacher's Note: You may like to use a comprehension worksheet based on these texts.)