South Wales Valleys Women

Many of those people who depended on the mining industry, although they did not work in it, were the wives of miners. Although most women in the Women and children gathering to trade gossip in Wattstown 1931 from a Tribute to the Rhondda coalfield would have been in this position it is quite surprising how many women did work. Women still worked in the mining industry itself during this period.

A number of women were employed in producing bricks. Brickworks would often be attached to collieries to meet the need for bricks for mineshafts and house building.

In fact after coalmining. ‘being in service’ was probably the next biggest area of employment for people in Glamorgan. However, most of the girls who worked as domestic servants had to leave Glamorgan and Wales. In particular a large number would have gone to London where it became fashionable to employ a Welsh parlour maid. The hours of work and the wages received were much worse than anything these women who were still working at the mines would have experienced! Here are the sad memories of one South Wales girl in service in London of her first day:

Mrs. Fox had told me to put on my black afternoon dress and white apron. I kept trying to staunch (hold back) the tears with the flannel and water in the washstand bowl. A black frock seemed to suit the occasion. I was in mourning for my lost self ... My childhood was dead-and now I was the skivvy (servant) ... 1 was given my supper in the tiny kitchen while the family ate in the living-room. It was strange to be considered not fit to eat in the same room as other human beings. It was a good supper ... but loneliness and misery had taken away my appetite. How delicious, in comparison, seemed the remembered slice of marge-spread toast given me by Mam and eaten as a member of a family.