Appendix B to the report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the condition of all mines in Great Britain to which the provisions of the Act 23 & 24 Vict. Cap. 151 do not apply, with reference to the health and safety of persons employed in such mines. / Presented to both houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty.
- Great Britain. Royal Commission on Mines
- Date:
- 1864
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Appendix B to the report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the condition of all mines in Great Britain to which the provisions of the Act 23 & 24 Vict. Cap. 151 do not apply, with reference to the health and safety of persons employed in such mines. / Presented to both houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![various other machineSj wnicli are earned by water. There are trains laid in the day levels, along which small trucks are pulled by horses or pushed by the men, and when the miners go to their work their tools are placed in the trucks, and some ride whilst others push the trucks. MiDDLETON IN Teesdale, Mr. Bainbridge.—The required working hours of the miners is 40 hours per week, divided into five daily shifts of eight hours each, whenever the mines are near the residences of the miners, as in the 10 Alston Moor district; but in Teesdale, where the mines are scattered and at a great distance from the miners' residences, then five 8-hour shifts are converted into four 10-hour shifts, and other equivalents of the weekly 40 hours. It is only in urgent cases, such as the driving the level or drift to its destination, or the completion of communications to the surface, that the men are required to work three 8-hour shifts in the 24 hours. It is in these cases that the ventilating fans and water blasts are used to propel pure air through cast-iron pipes to the points where the men are working. 20 When communications have been effected between drifts and rises and sumps and the surface, reliance is placed for ventilation upon the currents of air passing between the level mouth and the surface shafts. The men, when working at mines at considerable dis- tances from their homes, live at mine-shops, provided for the purpose in the immediate vicinity of the mines. These generally contain separate changing, mess, and bed rooms, with a washing room provided with a stream of good spring water, which flows first into a wooden trough, in which the 30 miners place their cans of milk for the purpose of keeping it fresh and cool, and then into a trough for washing. ' I'here is also a separate room or pantry for the deposit of the miners' wallets, containing the provisions which they bring with them from home for their support during the week. The ventilation of the sleeping-rooms is promoted by openings in the walls covered by perforated zinc plates, and by a double cylinder passing from the roof into the open air, the inner being longer than the outer, and both so capped as to prevent the entrance of snow and rain, or of 40 too strong a downward current of air. The beds and blankets in these shops are provided by the company, and are washed by the men. When in the mines the men wear a flannel shirt and cap, with a vest and trowsers, which are taken off on leaving the mine and hung up in the changing room to be dried by the fire which is kept always burning. Some of the working miners are small statesmen or the sons of statesmen whose properties are inadequate to their maintenance, but the larger proportion of them are 50 merely the tenants of the lords of the mines and other land- owners in the neighbourhood, and a still larger proportion have not more than a cottage and garden, but there are comparatively few who have not the opportunity of cultiva- ting a garden. The district in which the mines are situated does not afford agricultural employment, but some of the men obtain occasional day's work in the improvement of the meadow and pasture lands. No women or girls are employed about the mines in any way. The boys must be 12 years of age before passing 60 from the school to the ore dressing floors; and during the suspension of the dressing' in the depth of the winter, which as Middleton is about /OO feet above the sea, is severe and prolonged, the washer boys who are 14 years of age are placed as labourers with the underground pickmen. They thus get about three months work underground during each year tiU they are 18 years of age, when they are usually allowed to work regularly in the mines, but in recent years the need for employment of the boys at the ore dressing has been such as to occasion their engagement there up to 70 20 years of age, which will doubtless contribute to their healthy stamina, whatever may be the effect upon their skill as miners. The company have schools for their workmen's children at Nenthead and at Middleton in Teesdale where the ma- jority of their miners reside. In the more distant districts and where they have not schools, the company assist the local schools, and allow the parents to select those to which they send their children, on the condition that the company's inspector shall ascertain that the children are 80 efficiently taught. The reading rooms at Nenthead and Middleton were erected at the company's expense, and the cost of cleaning, heating, and lighting is borne by them. The members attending the room contribute 3d. monthly towards the purchase of newspapers and periodicals; an exception being made to youths under 18, who only contribute 2d. monthly.' The general management rests with the members themselves. There are also free libraries open to all their workmen, and numerous village and hamlet hbraries which the company^ 90 have aided in establishing, and to the maintenance of which they contribute. i In Middleton there is a very large and beautiful sciiool- house which has recently been erected by the Company. I visited with Dr. Ewart numerous excellent cottages with four large and high rooms, and properly provided with all conveniences, and with back yards and gardens and underdrained, built by the Company for their own people. There are also numerous good cottages built on their own freeholds by the workmen. In the Company's recently erected cottages a system of iqq ventilation has been introduced which appears to act very efficiently. A tile pipe is extended from beneath the ceiling of the rooms in the wall along the side of the chimney flue, (but without any connexion with it) which has an outlet in the side of the chimney above the roof. The air in this tube becomes rarified by the heat derived from the adjacent smoke flue, and so the impure au' from the room is removed. The Company's benefit society includes all the regular workmen in their employment, together with the agents, hq clerks, overseers, &c. if they are anxious to become mem- bers. The members on entering the society must be in good health, and pay a fine proportioned to their age, and subsequently contribute 30s. a year till 65 years of age. From the society they receive 7s. a week when entirely laid by from sickness or infirmity, or a less sum if capable of pai'tial occupation. At the age of 65 aU contributions cease, and the members are entitled to 6s. per week, whe- ther in sickness or health, for the remainder of their life. The fund also makes a contribution at the death of the ]20 woi'kman or his wife, and a small donation to the widows of those who have been upwards of a year members of the society. The Company provide medical attendance in cases of sick- ness and accident, and have resident medical men at Nent- head and Middleton, whose duty extends to the families of the workmen (including midwifery), all free of charge to the workmen. Allenheads.—At Allenheads there is a reading room and school house provided by Mr. Beaumout for the miners, 13Q and numerous good cottages, some the property of the pro- prietor, others built by the workpeople. There is also a school house in Weardale. Mr. Bewick.—At these and the other large mines belong- ing to Mr. Beaumont, until recently, the only parts which required artificial ventilation have been the foreheads or fore- most ends of particular drifts, which had no through commu- nication, and these have been hitherto almost invariably ven- tilated by propulsion by means of fans, bellows, water blast, or other adaptation, according to circumstances. Within the \^() last two or three years ventilation by means of exhaustion has been introduced on the Blackett Level (new) Works. At one point on this work the air is extracted from the fore- head in metal air pipes five inches diameter, connected with a pair of cyUnders having valves similar to Struve's plan. These cylinders are fixed at the surface at the commence- ment of the level, (which is already driven nearly half a mile and daily increasing,) and are worked by a water wheel eight feet diameter. At two other places on the Blackett Level exhausting ^59 fans on Biram's principal are applied; at one of these two and at the other three foreheads are ventilated. In each of these cases the machines are placed near the top of a vertical shaft or pit, a five inches air pipe being carried from each forehead along the level, up the shaft, and to the machines at the surface, both of which are driven by water wheels. At another of the shafts on the Blackett Level where there are two foreheads, the fresh air is propelled from the surface by a fan connected with air pipes (5 inches diameter) which pass from the fan down the shaft and to each fore- 160 head. This fan is also driven by a water wheel. The advantage of exhaustion over propulsion or vice versa, is not yet satisfactorily decided. In narrow airless foreheads propulsion has the advantage of delivering a current of pure air at the place where the miners are occupied, whilst by ex- haustion, the fresh air which has passed into the mine to replace the exhausted air, becomes deteriorated before it reaches the workmen. In ventilating a large area, or series of mines, exhaustion is, I think, preferable. The general ventilation of the older and more extensive 170 mines of Mr. Beaumont is carried out by shafts and levels without the intervention of artificial or machine \ entilation, the only exceptions to this are the two furnaces, one at this place and another at the Burtree Pasture Mine in Weardale. The AUenheads furnace was first lighted in July 1861, and has since continued without intermission, except for repairs, &c.; that at Burtree pasture was commenced in October 1862, and has since been in constant operation, except for about four months in the beginning of this year. Each furnace is in connection with the whole mine, but igo where the levels are far distant—say, 1 to 1^ miles—the effect is not perceptible. By these furnaces the atmosphere of the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b23983292_0022.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
