Bal maiden

A bal maiden, from the

As the Industrial Revolution began in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Welsh metal mines declined and mining in Cornwall and Devon became viable once more. Women and girls were recruited in large numbers for work in ore processing. Women and children accounted for up to half the workers in the area's copper mines. Although machinery was capable of performing much of the work done by bal maidens, the industry grew so quickly that the number of women and girls working grew steadily even though their numbers fell as a proportion of the workforce to 15–20% by 1850. At the peak of the Cornish mining boom, in around 1860, at least 6,000 bal maidens were working at the region's mines; the actual number is likely to have been much higher. While it was not unusual for girls to become bal maidens at the age of six and to work into old age, they generally began at around age 10 or 11 and left work once they married.

From the 1860s, Cornish mines faced competition from cheap metal imports, and legislation introduced in the 1870s limited the use of

For at least 3,000 years from antiquity until the late 20th century, mining of tin and copper played a significant part in the economy of Cornwall.^[9][10] Cornwall, the northern part of Iberia and the Ore Mountains (the modern border between the Czech Republic and Germany) are the only places in Europe in which major tin deposits are found near the surface. As tin is an essential ingredient of bronze, Cornwall was of great economic significance in Bronze Age Europe despite its relative isolation.^[11][e] Mining by the Roman Empire led to the Iberian mines becoming depleted by the 3rd century AD, leaving Cornwall and neighbouring Devon the most significant sources of tin in Europe.^[13][a] While it appears from surviving evidence that after the decline of the Bronze Age civilisations copper production ceased in Cornwall, it seems that the tin mines were in continuous operation throughout the Roman period and the Middle Ages.^[10][f]

The primitive early mines of Cornwall and Devon probably were operated by local extended families,^[14] with the men, women and children all working.^[15] Men and boys probably worked both above the surface and below ground, and women and girls worked only above ground;^[16] there is no archaeological evidence for women and children working underground in Bronze Age Britain, although some mines from the period contain tunnels so small that only children or very short adults could have worked in them.^[10][g]

At some point between the death of

Although women and girls probably worked in mining since antiquity, the earliest known written references to female manual labourers in mining are in the 13th and 14th century records of the royal lead and silver mines at Bere Alston, on the border between Devon and Cornwall.^[22] The mines were bordered on three sides by a loop of the River Tamar, the east bank of which has been the traditional boundary between Devon and Cornwall since 936. The mines themselves were on the Devon side of the border at Bere Alston itself, but the surface-level smelters were on the Cornish side at Calstock as there was a readier supply of timber for use in the furnaces.^[23]

Although the mining itself was carried out by men, female workers were employed to sort ore for crushing, to prepare the bone ash used as a flux during the smelting process, and for general manual labour.^[22] An adult woman was paid up to one penny per day, and young girls between 1⁄2 and 2⁄3 of a penny.^[24][25][i] Miners and other skilled labourers at Bere Alston were recruited from throughout England and Wales, and from the evidence of surnames in the records it appears that many of the female labourers were the wives and daughters of these incomers rather than locally recruited women.^[24]

The area's population collapsed both during and after the Black Death. Those miners who had survived the pandemic left mining to work in farming, in which wages had doubled owing to the severe labour shortage, and the mines of Bere Alston were abandoned.^[31]

Although women and girls were almost certainly employed at the lead and silver mine at Bere Alston, and also a few records have so far been of female workers at tin works on Bodmin Moor and around Redruth and Marazion in the 14th century.^[32] It does not appear that significant numbers of female labourers worked in Cornwall's mining industry until the early 18th century, as no records have yet been discovered for this period.^{[33][21][34][j]}

Mechanisation and the 18th century copper boom

In 1678,

In around 1720, two key innovations revolutionised the Cornish mining industry. The whim, a horse-powered mechanism for lifting ore to the surface, made mining in deep shafts practical, and the horse-powered pump allowed mining beneath the water table.^[16]

Role of 18th century bal maidens

With the need for expensive machinery and horses and for large numbers of workers at each mine, the traditional operation of mines by extended families or by individual entrepreneurs became impractical, and the new deep-level mines came under the ownership of groups of investors and of mining companies.

Records from the Pool Adit copper mine at Trevenson (the most successful of the early copper mines) show in 1729, 25 bal maidens and three males worked as 'pickers' sorting high quality from poor quality ore, earning a flat rate of 4d per day and typically working 20 days per month.^[48][i] (Records do not show the ages of the pickers at Pool Adit, but the male pickers are likely to have been boys too young for heavy labour.^[48]) In 1730 Pool Adit employed 30 female and four male pickers, and by 1731 the figures had risen to 55 female and five male, typically working 22 to 26 days per month.^[49] The number of bal maidens employed in the industry rose dramatically, and by the early 1770s Dolcoath, by then the most significant of the Cornish copper mines, employed around 220 bal maidens on the copper dressing floors alone.^[50]

It appears that during the 18th century copper boom, it was customary throughout the Cornish mining industry to use bal maidens purely as casual labour. There are no records of bal maidens being contracted to a particular mine or paid a piece-rate for the amount of work done. Instead, mine accounts invariably show them being paid a fixed daily rate and employed only as and when they were needed.^[51] When poor weather conditions made surface-level work impossible, water shortages meant water-powered machinery could not operate, or accidents in the mines caused a temporary closure, the bal maidens would be suspended.^[52]

In the 1770s and 1780s the discovery of copper at

At the end of the 18th century, the copper mining industry of North Wales centred around Parys Mountain declined, and the depression in the British copper market ended.^[55] As the price rose, the Cornish mines began to reopen.^[56] By this time, the Industrial Revolution had begun, bringing with it new attitudes towards organisation and efficiency.^[56] While the mine managers of the 18th century generally treated bal maidens as useful only for breaking and sorting ore, the managers of these new mines sought to use all their employees as efficiently as possible.^[56]

While 18th century metal mines had worked on the principle of adult men digging the ore and women and children picking and cobbing the ore ready for smelting, in the new large-scale mines of the early 19th century working practices changed. The strenuous underground work was still carried out by male workers, as was breaking large rocks with heavy hammers ('ragging').^[58] In copper mines, very young girls, and sick and injured older women, carried out the simple work of picking.^[59] Girls in their late teens forced the broken ore through a broad mesh to sort the ore ('riddling'), and used hammers to break the large chunks of ore left by the riddling process into smaller chunks. Girls in their mid-teens cobbed the resulting chunks, separating the valuable ore from waste rock.^[58] Grown women would carry out the heavy manual labour of breaking rocks with hammers ('spalling'), of crushing sorted ore to small grains ready for smelting ('bucking') and of transporting ore between various pieces of apparatus.^[44][45] An experienced bal maiden working as a spaller would produce approximately one ton (2240 lb; 1016 kg) of broken ore per day, depending on the type of stone.^[60] In the tin mines, in which ore could be crushed far more finely than copper before smelting, cobbing and bucking did not take place. Instead, the chunks of spalled ore were mechanically stamped to fine grains, and washed into a series of collecting pits to separate the coarse 'rough' from the fine 'slimes'.^[61] The resulting rough and slimes were separated out on large wooden frames ('buddling' and 'framing' respectively), to extract the tin ore from the surrounding dust and grit.^[62]

Following the introduction of the mechanical ore crusher in 1804 the tasks traditionally carried out by bal maidens began to be mechanised.^[63][64] Despite this, the rapid growth of the mines in comparison to the slow spread of mechanisation meant the number of bal maidens appears to have risen steadily,^[65] although statistics for the number of women employed in the mines in the early days of industrialisation are incomplete and a few are contradictory.^[40]

Total numbers

Because records from the period are incomplete and inconsistent in format, the total number of bal maidens working in this period is unclear. Estimates for the total number employed at the end of the 18th century range from 1,200 to 5,000,

Women typically began working at the mines at around the age of 10 or 11, although there are some cases of girls starting work at as young as six,

Unlike the coal mines of Wales and northern England, the Cornish mines generally did not provide housing for their workers, largely owing to the casual nature of work under the tribute team system.[41] Bal maidens would typically travel to the mines from their family homes, some families building homes near the mine.^[41] (Until the Inclosure Acts of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, anyone moving to an area had the right to build a house on common land, provided they could build it overnight.^[41]) They would generally remain living with their families until marriage.^[91] (Much of early 19th century Cornwall retained the old custom of 'keeping company', by which a couple would not be formally married until the woman became pregnant, and the woman would continue to work and to live with her family until that time.^[92]) While some lived at or near the mine at which they worked, mine workers typically walked three to four miles (five to seven km) to and from work each day.^[93] The miners' cottages were generally crowded and squalid, sometimes with ten or more people living in each small cottage, while the abstraction of the region's water supplies for use in the mines led to serious problems with sanitation and the provision of fresh water.^[94]

During the

From the 1840s onwards, more mines provided crude shelters to protect surface workers from the worst of the weather,

While some of the larger mines provided separate eating areas for bal maidens, others obliged male and female workers to eat together, a cause of consternation among some observers concerned that exposure to the "coarse joking" and "rude behaviour" of men had a negative effect on the "modesty and delicacy" expected of women.^[113] Other contemporary concerns were that heavy protective clothing led them to be unfeminine,^[114] that working in the constant view of men caused the bal maidens to have an unhealthy interest in their own appearance and attractiveness,^[115] that spending long hours at work meant that they did not have time to learn the skills to be good housewives.^{[115] [116]} (Barham's 1841 investigations found no evidence to the claim that bal maidens grew up to be poor housewives, concluding that "they are for the most part tender mothers and industrious wives [and] the laborious occupations to which they have been inured make household duties appear comparatively light".^[117]) Other contemporary observers noted that bal maidens were generally good natured and well behaved,^[118] and often devoutly religious,^[117] but it is well-documented that bal maidens typically took great pride in their own appearance and clothing.^[119] Many contemporary observers commented on the high fashion of the clothing worn by bal maidens on Sundays and holidays;^[120] although the disposable income of a bal maiden was low, they would sometimes form "dress clubs" to buy fashionable clothing which they would take turns wearing.^[115][n]

Despite the hardships and relatively low pay, Barham's 1841 investigation into the Cornish mining industry found that bal maidens generally enjoyed their work, and that those who had been in other jobs tended to prefer work at the mines.

In around 1865, faced with increased competition from overseas mines and with the most productive copper mines becoming exhausted, the Cornish mining industry went into terminal decline.^[46][127] By 1880 the level of Cornish copper production was at around a quarter of its 1860 level.^[46] As production fell, the numbers of employees in the mines fell with it.^[127] Much of the copper industry collapsed, causing a movement within Cornwall from the copper to the tin mining.^[128] While some bal maidens continued to work at the mines, many worked in tin streaming ^[d] in the rivers and streams flowing from the tin mining areas.^[129] In those copper mines which survived, investment in new machinery virtually ceased, so employment of some bal maidens continued.^[63] The tin industry, which was still economically successful, began to invest in new machinery to replace manual ore dressing, drastically reducing the number of female workers.^[130][o] By 1870 the number of bal maidens in work had fallen by around 50%.^[127]

At the same time as the Cornish mining industry went into decline, public opposition to the use of female and child labour in mines was rising.

As the metal mining industry on which it depended declined, and prices for staple goods rose sharply resulting from fluctuations in food prices and of the American Civil War, the economy of Cornwall collapsed.^[139] Large numbers of Cornish families emigrated to mining districts in other countries and other parts of the United Kingdom;^[140] in some former mining districts as much as 3⁄4 of the young people moved out in the 20 years following the closure of the local mines.^[141] Between 1861 and 1900 at least 35% of Cornish women aged 15–24 moved to other parts of the UK, and over 26% left the country altogether.^[140] Although the male emigrants generally found work in mines in their new places of settlement,^[4] or put their mining skills to use digging tunnels for the rapidly growing railway networks,^[142] the jobs traditionally done by bal maidens, where they still existed, were usually done by locally recruited men or boys, and the tradition of female Cornish mine labour died out in emigrant families.^[4][q]

While a few former bal maidens found alternative employment at local factories,

By the end of the First World War most of the more complicated tasks in the remaining mines had been mechanised, and those bal maidens who remained in work were restricted to simple manual labour of physically moving ore, spalling and overseeing the buddling frames.^[150] A successful 1919 Workers' Union campaign for a minimum 30s per week wage in the industry virtually doubled the wages of the few remaining bal maidens in Cornwall. Those at Dolcoath were made redundant within weeks of this increase.^[151] Dolcoath, the last mine in Cornwall to employ traditional bal maidens, closed in 1921, bringing the centuries-old tradition to an end.^[4][152] (The end of the use of bal maidens did not mean the end of female workers in those mines that survived; women continued to work in administrative roles until the final collapse of the Cornish mining industry in the late 20th century.^[153][154])

After the closures

During the Second World War, Britain suffered severe shortages of raw materials. While consideration was given to reopening the closed mines, this was not deemed viable and instead the few remaining mines increased their production.^[136] As many male workers were away on military service,^[155] some women were briefly employed in tin-picking at Geevor,^[156] and in ore-dressing at the Great Rock iron mine on Dartmoor, during and after the war until around 1952.^[136][157] Other than a very limited number of female workers after the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 ended the policy of recruiting only men for underground work in the few surviving mines, the Geevor pickers were the last female manual labourers in the Cornish mining industry.^[158]

Minnie Andrews (born in Camborne in 1874^[159]), who had begun work as a racker at the age of nine, was believed to have been the last surviving former bal maiden (other than the Geevor pickers), when she died in March 1968.^[160] In 1998 South Crofty, Europe's last operational tin mine, closed, bringing metal mining in Cornwall to an end.^[3][c]

See also

• Pit brow women – women working coalfields in England
• Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape
• Dartmoor tin-mining
• Geology of Cornwall

Footnotes