Shropshire Routes to Roots

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

Of Drawing by the girdle and chain

The most remarkable part of the work of the children is drawing by girdle and chain..About 30 years ago it was a very general custom to employ young boys, both in the coal-pits and iron-pits, to draw carriages by means of a girdle put round the naked waist, to which a chain from the carriage was hooked, and passed between their legs, and the boys crawled on their hands and knees drawing the carriages after them. This 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. All persons who have spoken of the girdles both in Staffordshire and Shropshire have described the labour as very severe, and the girdle as frequently blistering their sides, and occasioning great pain.

Mr. William Lloyd, an old miner who was sent to me to the inn at the Iron Bridge with specimens of coal nd ironstone, on being asked his opinion of the girdle, replied, "Sir, I can only say of it what the mothers say, it is barbarity! barbarity!"

All the great companies have made an advance in civilization and have substituted the railroad and the dan for the girdle and chain; but there are still some persons, generally of small capital, who lease a small pit, and instead of steam-engine use a horse and a gin, and instead of laying down a small railway in their pits, employ boys to drag with the girdle and chain. Whilst we honour the desire of these persons to advance the interests of themselves and their families, it is too much for them to expect that society can any longer tolerate such an antiquated barbarism, and allow them, for the sake of saving a small outlay, to make a sacrifice of the health and happiness of helpless children whom all men are bound to protect. the Legislature has prohibited under severe penalties the drawing of carts by dogs, and cannot therefore allow the more inhuman practice of drawing of carts by boys.

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