I can add a little to what Roy has said in his caption regarding children working at the mines.without going into too much detail. In his report to the Childrens Employment Commission in 1843 C. Barham makes many salient points. He canvassed virtually all of the major mines and came up with these stats.
Above 18 or adults-15,500 males; 2700 females.
13-18 or young persons- 2720 males; 1740 females.
Under 13 or children -1639 males; 696 females.
He added:
This gives a total of 24,995 persons employed in the mines in question. The whole mining population in Cornwall has been estimated at from 28,000 to 30,000. That of Devon may be taken ar about 1500. Returns have been obtained from all the more important mines, with the exception of four or five. The persons employed in these and several smaller works, together with the omissions in the returns made, may be calculated to amount to less than one- third of the total given above. On the whole, the number of children and young persons employed in the mines of West Devon and Cornwall may be safely taken at from 9,000 to 10,000; and of these about 3,000 are under 13.
I might add that girls never worked underground.


Dolcoath Old Sump Shaft.

A J.C.Burrow picture taken prior to 1893. The children were apparently working at the mine even though the schools act became law in 1888. Perhaps this was a weekend or summer holidays maybe. Tales of children as young as 8 & 10 being employed underground at some mines, and as young as six on the surface were not uncommon.
🔗Dolcoath-Copper-Mine-User-Album-Image-016[linkphoto]Dolcoath-Copper-Mine-User-Album-Image-016[/linkphoto][/link]

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Very sobering....though it was often worse in the coal industry where (in Scotland at least) females as young as twelve years old did work underground.

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Very sobering....though it was often worse in the coal industry where (in Scotland at least) females as young as twelve years old did work underground.

I think you may find that girls as young as six worked as trappers. See:

http://www.pitwork.net/history1.htm#child 

Ceretainly boys as young as seven worked down the Cornish mines and one young lad had get up the ladder in the shaft on his father's back because he was too weak to do otherwise.

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yes im afraid in the manchester coalfield children as old as 10 were controling the shaft cages and children of both sexes were going down the pit as young as 7/8,theres extensive archives of the horrendous casualties stored at wigan catalogued by dickinson( the 1st inspector of mines north west) his pocket books read like a horror story. hence why the mining act was written banning children under a certain age going down.but pits employing less than 30 people or seams less than 24 inches were exempt meaning the practice didnt die out in oldham till the late 1890s even then they still worked at the pit top sorting coal.gerry fanning did a very good book on the oldham coalfield and that lists a lot of pits employing children.(british mining no 68)

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I've heard that young boys being carried down shafts by fathers or older brothers happened in the Peak lead mines too - climbing shafts here tended to have two rows of stemples down the sides rather than ladders, so a small boy might not be big enough to stretch between the two and climb up or down. Although it sounds a bit of a dodgy way to climb, slipping when climbing seems to have been an uncommon occurrence.

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Funny that falling from the stemples was rare. In the cornish mines the single most common cause of death was falling from ladders.

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I suppose in some ways, it's actually a more secure way of climbing than using a ladder as you're wedging yourself across the shaft - unlike on a ladder ,your centre of gravity will be over your feet. After all, think how we free-climb small shafts when we're exploring 😉

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I can find nothing on the employment of children in the North Wales slate industry. This doesn't mean that it didn't exist. It may just have never been studied?
Does anybody know anything?

I don't, but I have a copy of the Medical Report on the Condition of Miners in West Cornwall that mentions in some detail child employment, which was taken from a PP 'Report of Commissioners on the Condition of all Mines in Great Britain 1864'. You may find something in there.

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