Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Images
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The Disaster
- 2 The Village
- 3 The Coalfield
- 4 The Industry
- 5 The Colliery
- 6 The Aftermath
- 7 Sir Stafford Cripps
- 8 The Working Mine
- 9 The Inquiry
- 10 The Management
- 11 The Firemen
- 12 The Inspectorate
- 13 The Miners
- 14 The Union
- 15 The Reports
- 16 The Last Rites
- Epilogue
- Appendix A Nationalisation
- Appendix B The Davy Lamp
- Appendix C Butties
- Appendix D Owners
- Bibliography
- Index
12 - The Inspectorate
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Images
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The Disaster
- 2 The Village
- 3 The Coalfield
- 4 The Industry
- 5 The Colliery
- 6 The Aftermath
- 7 Sir Stafford Cripps
- 8 The Working Mine
- 9 The Inquiry
- 10 The Management
- 11 The Firemen
- 12 The Inspectorate
- 13 The Miners
- 14 The Union
- 15 The Reports
- 16 The Last Rites
- Epilogue
- Appendix A Nationalisation
- Appendix B The Davy Lamp
- Appendix C Butties
- Appendix D Owners
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Mines Inspectorate was one of the earliest products of the dilemma with which the emerging social conscience of the nineteenth century was forced to grapple: how to mitigate the worst sufferings of the industrial worker without restricting the freedom of the entrepreneur to pursue his private and legitimate aim of making money. In the light of the starkly illustrated report of the Children's Employment Commission, on the long hours and at times almost bestial conditions in which even tiny children (and grown women) were required to work underground, there could be no serious opposition to the widespread demand that these abuses should cease. Proposals for the necessary legislation appeared in the form of a Bill promoted by Lord Ashley, which provided that, after 1 March 1843, it would be unlawful to employ women and girls underground in any capacity and to employ boys underground below the age of ten; boys of less than ten were not to be bound apprentice and no apprenticeship should last for more than eight years. The penalties for infringement of any of these conditions were fixed at not less than £5 and not more than £10. The legislation, according to Boyd, the historian of the Inspectorate,‘was characterized as a useless and mischievous prying into the affairs of private individuals’; Lord Londonderry described it as a measure which ‘might be regarded as the commencement of a series of grievances which would be got up for the purpose of working on that hypocritical humanity which reigned so much’; but it became law in spite of him.
In a timorous attempt to secure compliance with the Act, Parliament empowered the Secretary of State to appoint ‘proper persons to inspect mines and collieries’. The first and only inspector appointed was a clergyman, Seymour Tremenheere,1 whose beat was the 2,000 or so coal mines of Great Britain, or rather the surface area of the mines, for it had been concluded, possibly in his own interests, that he had better not venture underground. His appointment was predictably unpopular with the colliery owners, and Lord Londonderry had let it be known that he would say to an inspector, ‘You may go down the pit how you can, and when you are down you may remain there.’
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- Information
- GresfordThe Anatomy of a Disaster, pp. 138 - 154Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 1999