Children in the South Wales Coal Industry

Many children were employed both below and above ground at mines. In the early days of the coal industry children as young as six years old were employed underground. Some of them worked as door-keepers which meant opening and closing the underground doors which shut Off sections of the workings and controlled ventilation. This is what 10 year old Elizabeth Williams told Government Commissioners in 1842:-

...We are door-keepers in the four foot level We leave the house before six each morning' and are in the level until seven o'clock and sometimes later. We get 2p a day and our light costs us 2/2p a week. Rachel ... was run over by a tram a while ago and was home ill a long time ...

Edward Edwards who was nine described his job as a 'trammer' to the 1842 Commissioners:-

...I have been working here for three months and I drag carts loaded with coal from the coalface to the main road, a distance of sixty yards. There are no wheels to the carts ... sometimes the cart is pushed on to us and we get crushed often...

As a result of this report an Act of Parliament was passed in 1842 forbidding the employment of children under 10 (later raised to 12) years old underground. However despite the appointment of Inspectors to enforce the Act, there is plenty of evidence to show that children of below this age were still going underground in the 1860s.