Shropshire Routes to Roots

British Parliamentary Papers
Children's Employment Commission
Appendix to First Report of Commissioners
Mines
1842

Of the Ages and Numbers of the Children

Children are sent down to work in the coal-pits and iron-pits at a very early age, and probably much earlier than the proprietors of the great companies can be aware. In fact, neither the proprietors nor lessees of the mines come into direct contact with the minors, but they make their contract with the charter-masters, or, as they are called in Staffordshire, the butties, to pay a certain charter or price for every ton of coals or ironstone raised to the top, and it is the charter-masters who employ and pay the work people, and all the proprietors or lessees have to do with the charter-masters is to cause their ground-bailiff to see that the mine is properly worked, so as to get as much as possible of its contents.

The charter-masters may be induced at the pressing instance of the men working under them to give employment to very young children, and neither the proprietors nor perhaps even their ground-bailiff be aware of it. A remarkable instance of this became known to me when exploring the Hill's Lane Pit belonging to the Madeley Wood Company; the ground-bailiff, two charter-masters, and a labouring collier, accompanied me:-"I say, Jonas," said the ground-bailiff to one of the charter-masters, "there are very few children working in this mine, I think we have none under 10 or 11." The collier immediately said, "Sir, my boy is only a little more than four." This was a very unseasonable interruption, and all that the ground-bailiff said was, "Well, I suppose that you take good care of him. You take him down and up when you go yourself."

The lowness of the roof or thinness of the bed of coals..is no doubt the cause of employing boys instead of horses or asses, which otherwise would be more convenient and cheaper, but at least two-thirds of all the beds of coal in the Coalbrook Dale district are of this thin description. From other evidence there is every reason to believe that very few so employed as substitutes for the animal creation are under six or seven. It cannot however be but a matter of regret that any so young as six or seven should be so employed, and nothing but long familiarity with the practice could reconcile the mind to the employment of children of still higher age at such labour.

[British Parliamentary Papers
Industrial Revolution, Children's Employment. Volume 7. (Irish University Press Series, 1968). Shropshire Archive reference; 328.42 ]