Many of the children employed in the miming industry were girls and, of course, women were also employed below ground officially until the 1842 Mines Act. The number of them was never very great but the work they did in hauling the coal to the pit bottom and winding it up to the surface was every bit as hard as that done by men.

 Women also continued working underground illegally after 1842 and legally on the colliery surface up to the 1920s.