Durham Mining Museum - Childrens Employment Commission

Children's Employment Commission.

Evidence And Observations From John Roby Leifchild, Esq.

Northumberland And The North Of Durham Collieries.

No. 1. — Extract of a Letter, dated March 22, 1841, from Matthias Dunn, Esq., Colliery Viewer (No. 261).

The following classification of colliery workpeople may be called the most general one for this district :—

1.	Hewers — who cut the coal by piece-work labour from 8 to 10 hours per day, and earn, at full work, from 4s. to 5s. a-day — have house and firing at 6d. per fortnight.
2.	Putters — who tram the coals (also by piece-work) from the hewers to the depot where are placed upon the horses, carriages, or rollies, earnings from 2s. 6d. to 4s. a-day, to their activity and strength 12 hours.
3.	Drivers of horses, 12 hours; have 1s. 3d. a-day, and of ages from 12 to 15 years.
4.	Trap-door keepers, the lowest age being 6 or 7 and gradually progressing to rolley-drivers, &c. — 12 hours.
5.	Putters at bottom of shaft, earnings from 3s. to 4s. a-day; hours 12; but generally by piece-work, according to the number of tubs per day.
6.	Boys from 10 to 16 years of age are also employed 12 hours a-day at helping the putters, leading wood and water and also assisting at the flats or cranes, where the coals are transferred, keeping the lamps, assisting the overmen, cleaning the tramways. &c., at wages varying from 15. 3d. to 2s. 3d. for 12 hours work.

There is also various desultory work at the top of the pit, such as taking out stones, carrying the picks, tramming out from screens, firing the engine, assisting the bankmen, &c. ages varying from 10 to 16 years, making from 1s. to 1s. 6d. a-day.

Several departments of men's work at daily wages also exist over and above, such as overmen, ridders of stone, horsekeepers, furnace keepers, bankmen, enginemen, stone-drifters, joiners, smiths, labourers, waggonmen, &c., nearly all at daily wages, varying from 4s. down to 2s. a-day.

The proportion of men to boys varies according to the peculiar circumstances of each colliery but taking St. Lawrence Colliery as an example, which I presume may be a fairish average, I find it run thus nearly :—

Men	152
Boys above 13	43
Boys under 13	47
Total	242

I may observe here that with the exception of the putters and helper up, the labour of the boys is light and healthy. The boys attend at the hours of 3, 4, or 5 o'clock and work the 12 hours out generally running from 5 to 5. Overtime is very little practised now. The putters work is constantly liable to vary, inasmuch as the coals may require to be brought from the dip or from the rise. No regular time of meals is taken, they doing that at their own option according as they can best spare the time. The working in the coal-mines of this district is esteemed perfectly healthy, inasmuch as they are well ventilated, although certain parts occasionally are filled with inflammable gas. Chokedamp is scarcely known in this part although it abounds in some of the southern districts.

No bad consequence arises from the exclusion of light and as for air, the ordinary mines in the principal passages have a column of fresh air constantly in motion of more than 3 cubic feet per minute.