"Children of tender age were sent down into the pits to keep a trap door, or to help up, whilst they should have been in a nursery; and owing to the long hours they were kept at work, it was impossible for them to see daylight except at the end of each week, or to get a glimpse of it in the long days of summer".

The hewer was the actual coal-digger. Regardless of conditions he was the workman who loosens the coal from the bed. Their ages ranged from 21 to 70. His usual wages (1849) were from 3s. 9d. to 4s. 3d. per day (8 hours working) and his average employment was 4 or 5 days in the week.

He also had, as part of his wages, a house containing two or three rooms, according to the number in his family, and a garden, which varied in size. He also had a fother of small coals every fortnight, for the leading of which he pays sixpence.

The hewers were divided into "fore-shift" and "back-shift" men. The former usually worked from four in the morning till ten, and the latter from ten till four. Each man worked one week in the fore-shift and one week in the back-shift, alternately. Every man in the fore-shift marked "3" on his door. This was the sign for the "caller" to wake him at that hour. When roused he got up and dresses in his pit clothes, which consisted of a loose jacket, vest, and knee breeches, all made of thick white flannel; long stockings, strong shoes, and a close fitting, thick leather cap. He then took a piece of bread and water, or a cup of coffee, but never a full meal. Many prefer to go to work fasting. With a tin bottle full of cold water or tea, a piece of bread, which was called his bait, his Davy lamp, and "baccy-box," he went to work.

Placing himself in the cage, he was lowered to the bottom of the shaft, where he lite his lamp and proceeded "in by," to a place appointed to meet the deputy. This official examined each man's lamp, and, if found safe, returned it locked to the owner. Each man then found out from the deputy where his place of work was. He proceeded onwards to his cavel, his picks in one hand, and his lamp in the other. He traveled thus a distance varying from 100 to 600 yards. Sometimes the roof under which he had to pass was not more than three feet high. To progress in this space he kept his feet wide apart, his body bent at right angles to his hips and his head held well down with his face turned forward. Arriving at his place he undressed and began by hewing out about fifteen inches of the lower part of the coal. He thus undermined it, this process was called kirving. The same was done up the sides. This was called nicking. The coal thus hewn was called small coal, and that remaining between the kirve and the nicks was the jud or top, which was either displaced by driving in wedges, or was blasted down with gunpowder. It then become the roundy. The hewer filled his tubs, and continued thus alternately hewing and filling.

Hewing Coal, Brinsley Colliery
(Thanks to Charles Snarski for the photo)

From right to left, pictured are:-

Sarah Elizabeth Shaw (nee. Williams) who would have been my great grandmother.
On her knee, youngest daughter Hilda (who later married a Marlpool miner, Wilfred ???) who was my great aunt. Then Bill Shaw, my great grandfather and whose back was broken at the pit and later died aged just 29.

 "My mother remembers her father, George Birkin, routinely bringing home his pit tools, drills, mandrels, rammers etc. for safekeeping and maintenance, from the time when miners had to provide all.  She never knew her grandfather, Bill, but remembers Grandad "Brock"(lehurst) whom Sarah Elizabeth remarried.