The Coal Mines Act of 1842, Social Reform, and Social Control

Abstract

Oliver Macdonagh’s ‘model’ for social legislation in the mid-nineteenth century is, after more than twenty years, a familiar one. It requires the exposure of a social evil, preferably in sensational terms, which sets in motion ‘an irresistible engine of change’. The increased scale of industrial processes, coupled with the ‘ widespread and ever-growing influence of humanitarian sentiment’, and stricter views of sexual morality and ‘decency’ combined to put pressure on legislators to assume new social responsibilities. This pressure, it has been said, frequently owed its origin to a pervasive Christianity, or at least to the work of churchmen, while legislation rested less on philosophic foundations than on forces which, if not inevitable, were at least inherently probable in the context of Victorian social and political life - in short, were part of a ‘self-generating’ process.

The Northern Coal-Owners and the Opposition to the Coal Mines Act of 1842

“…Sub-commissioner Kennedy argued that the same criteria applied to mines as to cotton mills; the intervention of the legislature was therefore "necessary for the protection of the children who were not able to protect themselves; and also for the protection of the state from the growth of an ignorant, depraved, and dangerous population". 165 For those who were "of an age of discretion, and capable of making their own contracts", however, he found "no case for any interference with the mode of labour", and the "age of discretion" was not, of course, finite. 166 Subcommissioner Symons went further, and wanted a law to reduce hours of work at the coal-face to nine, 167 while Kennedy himself wanted compulsory compensation for accidents.…”

The spirometer and the normal subjects

“…66 Of course, this may be partially due to the fact that women (since 1842) were prohibited from working in mining, which was the industry that (as we explore in the next section) was subject to most of the UK's clinical investigations of lung function in attempts to establish the cause of miner's lung. 67 However, even considering their exclusion from mining, and disregarding the work of women in potentially toxic industries like munitions factories during the First World War, it is still remarkable that there were no accepted normal values for women's lung function in Britain until 1979. 68 Consider that by 1844 not only did we have normal lung function values for men but we had normal lung function values for subdivisions of men: male policemen, firemen, wrestlers, grenadier guards, miners, aristocrats, small men, tall men and every man in between.…”

Review of Periodical Literature and Occasional Publications

“…Daunton effectively compares the Great Northern and South Wales coalfields, detecting major contrasts in working operations and consequential influences on the social relationships in mining communities (36). Some of those relationships, as well as the attempted control by coalowners, are explored in an important paper by Heesom (58), who also contributes to a debate about the coalowners' motivation (121). Economic growth and wages on Teesside, one of the newer industrialized areas, are examined from different standpoints by Kenwood (92) and by Hall (72).…”