stout hearty pit thrutching corves, years it? answer:
me!' From "Victorian Portraits from Life co working m one rames continued they were underground in 1842.
THEI which mine which is being worked. 'MARGARET Pallett was woman of 45, with a very black face. She worked below ground in the goes old to eighteen, demands when the women were turned When I said. 'Did you like She gave me the usual "like it? Aye! an I'd gaw dahn again, if tha'd let! work in the mines Working Women: should Margaret Pallet was one of many women in the 1860s who said they likto work secretly, often • Lubmar made redundant, disguised as men, many years after forbidden cleaning jobs The and grand daughters worked on the surface, at the pith lasi. to the potead wor two pithead WOmE retired from No 10 Lowca Pit, Harr ington in Cumberland on 1 July 1972, 130 years after women were forbid- lous wretches underground and three years before the Sex Discrimination Act.
Far from allowing women to be miners, the SDA said that, No female PUEE shall be employed in a job the duties ordinarily require the employee to spend a significant pro- tacked because portion of time below ground at a cidents.
This was lightly modified in prac tice in 1978 when the National Coal Board appointed a woman as deputy exist. medical officer for South Wales who underground work women The Equal Opportunities Commis sion in 1979 confirmed its support for the ruling of the SDA Today, neither the Coal Board not the National Union of Miners think that women should be allowed to In the 50s the Coal Board and the NUM agreed that disabled miners given preference for pithead jobs and as the women retired they were replaced by men.
In some cases the women were Work in canteens, on switchboards or alternative arguments about whether women should work in the mines began in the 1840s when the appalling conditions were first exposed.
But moral outrage was more pro minent than concern for their welfare Pit women were called "coarse, licenThe Wigan pithead women who wore trousers under their wide aprons were considered to be outrageous, though women miners elsewhere continued to wear dresses.
At the same time dresses were at they caused ac Deaths of women were sensational Socialist Challenge/Revolution Youth weekend school Women's oppression and the fight to build a women's movement 13/14 March, County Hall, Waterloo, SE1, Creche provided Open to all Socialist Challenge supporters: Tickets: E3 for /WD rally and school from J Arkwright, PO Box 50, London N1 2XP. tionalised the point that safety conditions for all miners didn't A favourite argument was that made jobs dangerous because they were not strong enough to save themselves in an emergency STRE pithead women scorned these criticisms and were proud of their strength.
They knew what women doing manual work always find out, that many jobs do not require Amazonian strength so much as learning a knack how to lift and carry with the minimum of effort.
Pithead women were needed as a source of cheap labour for the coa owners. ror alone time te womer had the support of their fathers and families because it was quite usual in mining areas to have a daughter at the pithead whose wage was an impor tant part of the family income.
However official union policy supported their exclusion As a Wigan miner put it: 'Strip the women of their clogs and flannel trousers and let the unemployed men of Wigan step into them and take their places at the pitheads and in stead of women receiving 1/6d let men have 2/8 or 3/- for the same labour and see if Wigan does not imPithead women earned one third of men's wages, being excluded from the mining unions until WW.
The unions knew the owners were using women to divide the community but they came to the wrong conclusions by excluding women from all mining work Constant attempts were made to amend tuning legislation to stop women working in the mines. When an attempt was made in 1911, the Wigan pithead called meeting of 2000 supporters Elz: pithead worker, moved a resolution against any interference and asked local MPs for SUS COT Their cause was taken up by the suffragettes in Wigan and the pithead women began to join a union, the Na Federation of Womer Workers, which intervened in severa! local wage disputes All attempts until 1975 to exclude women the defeated. It is ironic that moves which women fought successfully for over 100 years should slide in as part of legislation which was claimed to be in the interests of women.
Recommended reading: By the Sweet o Their Brow, Women Workers at Victorian Coal Mines, by Angela V John: Croon Hern. Landon Victorian Working Women: Portrait from Life, Michael Hiley: Gordon Fraser Socialist Challenge 4 March 1982