[Scroll down for mp3 file] Miners and pit brow lasses in 1910
The Day in the Life of a Wigan Coal miner was filmed over a century ago and was funded by the London and North Western Railway which served as a form of propaganda. In particular, it sought to counteract the increasingly popular belief that women should not be working at the mines at all. The pit brow lasses were encouraged to smile during filming. It was filmed at the Alexandria Colliery in Wigan. The film is silent and can be viewed on youtube courtesy of mining historian Alan Davies. https://youtu.be/D581TDHFpmE
These audio re-enactments give a feel for what life would have been like for the workers at Garswood Hall Colliery and describe what happens in the silent film.
I am a collier. My dress is a flat cap, large overcoat and clogs. I have many patches on my trousers where I kneel. At the beginning of the day I wave good-bye to my wife and children, and head off to work. In front of me I can see the colliery headgear, engines and chimneys all puffing away with smoke. There are railway freight carriages laden with coal. I reach the pit head and “lock my lamp” which means I am getting it ready. Then into the mine I descend along with my fellow colliers. We have to huddle together and crouch down to get into the cage that goes down the lift shaft.
Once down the pit, I work bare chested and kneel to use a pick axe in a very small space. I chip away at the coal. I have to support the roof with more props. I then bring in a tub that is on a track. I put the large pieces of coal in by hand and use the shovel to put in the smaller pieces. The coal tubs are then taken to the pit surface to be sorted, screened and loaded. I look forward to the end of the day when I go home.
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I am a pit brow lass and we are called “belles of the black”. I wear a head shawl, long skirt and apron. My face is often black from coal dust. The tubs are taken onto a rotating platform above me and then tipped onto a conveyor where I work sorting the coal from the spoil. Other pit brow lasses are involved in getting the spoil to another lift where it is hoisted to form huge heaps like mountains.
The good coal is left on the conveyor and then it ends up in railway freight carriages with the words “Wigan Coal & Iron Company” on the side. We stand on the top of the coal carriages levelling them with very long metal rakes. The coal trains are then pushed away by a steam locomotive.
