Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg
The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain

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• "Addlings": The earnings of a mine worker.


• "After-damp": The gas mixture reamaining after a "fire-damp" explosion in a coal mine. Typically, this gas is composed of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and nitrogen. Aslo known as "choke-damp".


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• "Back-shift": The second shift for hewers.


• "Baff-week": Miners were paid bi-weekly. The week during which no pay was received was called "baff-week".


• "Bait": The food and provisions that a coal colliery miner takes with him on the job.


• "Balance pit": As wains loaded with coal were brought to the top of the shaft, women helped to push a slide underneath the wains and unloaded these wains (skips tubs) and pushed them along the pit bank (called "banking"). They also helped to 'run them in', which meant pushing the empty wains back into the cage. In South Wales, "horse gins" were replaced by balance pits. Full trams were raised by lowering empties containing water and thereby acting as a balance (the horse was replaced by gravity). The speed at which iron and coal ore could be raised to the surface depended upon how quickly water could be drained from the container. Balance pits were introduced in the Tredegir area in 1829. Ty Trist mine was started as a balance pit in 1834, changing to steam winding in the 1860's. (Steam winding was faster than draining water.)


• "Bank": The "bank" referred to above ground areas of a mine (not below ground). For example, a "banksman" worked worked with tubs of coal but above ground, not in the mine pits.


• "Banking": As wains loaded with coal were brought to the top of the shaft, women helped to push a slide underneath the wains and unloaded these wains (skips tubs) and pushed them along the pit bank.


• "Banksman": A banksman is a person who withdraws the full tubs from the cages above ground at the surface and then replaces them with empty tubes.


• "Barragon": A light weight corded cotton used primarily for Summer wear. Manufactured in Bolton.


• "Barrowmen^*": Women and children who pushed and pulled tubs or sledges of coal through the small shafts, up inclines, through water, along hard and wet-clay surfaces, to the more centrally-located horse paths, or to the pit shaft. They crawled along the floors, harnessed to their tubs by a belt of leather or rope. This passed around the waist or shoulder and from it a chain passed between the legs and was hooked onto the tub. These women and children were called putters in Fifeshire, but they were also called "carters", "draggers" (Sirhowly), "drawers", "hauliers" (South Wales), "hurriers" (Yorkshire), or "putters" (Fifeshire).
  ^* Women and children also performed this work, thus the term "barrowmen" is historically inaccurate and is misleading.


• "Batten": The batten is a part of a loom that pushes the woof yarn just "woven" between warp yarns to where the already produced cloth is located.


• "Binding": Coal miners were hired once a year, sometimes there were two yearly occasions when the miners were hired. These miners were bound by a "contract" and the time of hire was referred to as the "binding". (See "bond".)


• "Black country": The area of England known for its coal mines, iron mines, and coal coking operations as well as the iron foundries and steel mills that used the coal. This is the setting of the "coke town" of Charles Dickens' "Hard Times").


• "Blackleg": A strike-breaker. Historically, the term "blackleg" originally was used to refer to Irish miners used as strike-breakers against the English coal miners during the great strike of 1844. Unions, Chartism, and strike-breaking were all new aspects of the Industrial Revolution. It took time for the workmen to understand how they were being used against each other. As many pf the coal miners were women and children, it took time to understand how gender was being used to divide workers by gender. See "knobstick". Additional information


• "Black lung": "Black lung" was a disease that commonly affected miners. Particles of coal-dust were inhaled, causing this disease. This disease greatly shortened the normal life-span.


• "Boll": A measure of coal (approximately 2.35 cwts of coal).


• "Bond" or "Binding": The "bond" (see "binding"), was a contract forced upon coal miners. If any miner complained, he was considered a trouble maker and as coal miners often combined together, such a coal miner would no longer be able to work as a miner at any colliery. Legitimate problems with the bond contract arose for several reasons:
  • Miners were usually paid for coal by measure (tubs by volume), not by weight (even though the coal was sold by weight).
  
  
  • When miners were paid by weight, the scales were often inaccurate (often known even by the mine "viewer"). The miners could do nothing when they were underpaid due to inaccurate scales (see "weighman".) Any complaint and the complaining miner would likely be "victimized" (lose his job). The person in charge of the scales was a representative of the mines, not the miners. There was no way that accurate scales could be enforced.
  
  
  • There was no impartial judge to decide upon payment of coal deemed to be of insufficient quality or quantity (see "laid-out" and "set-out" tubs). In addition, coal deemed to be of insufficient quality or quantity was not only not paid for, the miner was fined for these tubs of coal. It was possible for a miner to work all day, and be fined such that the miner earned no pay at all, but owed money due to the accumulated fines (a form of peonage).
  
  
  • Mine work is very dangerous as well as unpleasant: caveins and coal-gas explosions happened often. "Black lung" disease, and other work related health problems were common. Work shifts were very long (up to 36 hours on some occasions).
  
  
  • If miners stopped working, even to report a dangerous situation or because of some legitimate grievance, the miners were in violation of the "bond" and could be dismissed, resulting in the "poor house" or even "transportation" (viewed legally as a criminal for violating the bond). Many of the local Justices of the Peace were family relations of the mine owners or were mine owners themselves, thus were hardly impartial.
  
  
  • Miners were often compelled to buy from "tommy shops" (company stores, recall the term "tommy rot") and lived in company "cottages" ("pit houses").
  
  
  The "Bond" became a major reason for the "great Strike of 1844", where W. P. Roberts (solicitor) defended the interests of the miners, and in which the additional issues related to the exploitation of women and children working in the mines became a public embarassment to the British government, leading to white-wash coverups that lasted for decades past 1844.


• "Bottle kiln" or "hovel kiln": Ceramics were manufactured in "bottle kilns" or "hovel kilns". Bottle kilns were updraft kilns that used coal held upon cast iron grates (after 1700) and were shaped like bottles, hence their name. These kilns had two levels. In the upper chamber the ceramics were "bisqued", while the lower chamber held the glazed wares. The tall bottle kilns required strong bricks able to withstand the stresses due to the weight of the high kiln walls. Hence the walls were thick (and even used bracing chains around the walls to provide strengh). Such kilns required a great deal of coal to heat these walls. "Hovel kilns" were a slight modification, in which the chimney (or "hovel") was constructed separately from the main part of the kiln. Many of these "bottle kilns" and "hovel kilns" were located in Staffordshire. Often these kilns were quite large, as large as a house.


• "Breaker boys": See "sorter".


• "Brakesman": The person who attends to the winding machine in a mine.


• "Buttons down the back": Due to the low passageways below ground, miners must bend down, but still they often bang their backbones on the rock ceiling or supporting beams. The scabs on each vertibra are called "buttons down the back".


• "Butty": A "butty" is an overseer of the miners, below the brow.


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• "Calling course": The time at which a caller goes from house to house to awaken mine workers.


• "Candyman": The "cottage system" worked in a way that was similar to the tommy Shops. Miners forced their employees to live in specially-constructed cottages ("pit houses"). The miners had to live nearby the mines; thus, the mine owners constructed cheap housing and the miners were forced to live in these "company houses" and pay exhorbitant rents, else they would not be hired (see the "Bond"). This was also used as a strike-breaking practice: miners who went out on strike could be thrown out of their houses (as happened during "The Great Strike of 1844", when so many workers were evicted that the term "candyman" referred to the baliff).


• "Captain Swing": The "Captain Swing" disturbances (1830)refers to repression by wealthy farmers of landless agricultural workers, resulting in revolts by landless workers. See the "Tolpuddle martyrs" and the "Peterloo Massacre".


• "Carters": Women and children who pushed and pulled tubs or sledges of coal through the small shafts, up inclines, through water, along hard and wet-clay surfaces, to the more centrally-located horse-paths, or to the pit shaft. They crawled along the floors, harnessed to their tubs by a belt of leather or rope. This passed around the waist or shoulder and from it a chain passed between the legs and was hooked onto the tub. These women and children were also called "barrowmen", "draggers" (Sirhowly), "drawers", "hurriers" (Yorkshire), "hauliers" (South Wales) or "putters" (Fifeshire).


• "Chaldron": A measure of coal, as follows.
  • A Newcastle chaldon was 21 tons, 4 cwt., or 53 cwts. (22.536 bolls)
  • A London chaldron varied between 26.5 cwts to 28.462 cwts.


• "Check-viewer": A representative of the interests of a mine owner, whose function was to determine if work assigned has been fulfilled.


• "Choke-damp": The gas mixture reamaining after a "fire-damp" explosion in a coal mine. Typically, this gas is composed of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and nitrogen. Aslo known as "after-damp".


• "Clatch-iron" or "Clatch harness": Mine workers descended and were brought back to the sirface at the brow from the pit by hand-winding a winch. The workers were secured by a "clatch-iron" or "clatch harness".


• "Cog and rung gin": Some windlasses had been adapted to be worked by horses: the "cog and rung gin" worked on a wheel and pinion basis.


• "Coke girl": A girl that stacked coal. Coke is a high-temperature fuel. Coke girls stacked coal at coal collieries, ready to be coked in ovens. Coke girls also worked at iron furnaces (such as at Dowlais).


• "Colliery": A "colliery" referred to a mine. However, although a coal mine was typically referred to, iron mines were also called collieries.


• "Corf": A basket to hold coal, made from hazel-wood. Also called a "Corve".


• "Corve": A basket to hold coal, made from hazel-wood. Also called a "Corf".


• "Cottage System": The Cottage System worked in a way that was similar to the Tommy Shops. Miners forced their employees to live in specially-constructed cottages ("pit houses"). The miners had to live nearby the mines; thus, the mine owners constructed cheap housing and the miners were forced to live in these "company houses" and pay exhorbitant rents, else they would not be hired. This was also used as a strike-breaking practice: miners who went out on strike could be thrown out of their houses (as happened during "The Great Strike of 1844", when so many workers were evicted that the term "candyman" referred to the baliff).


• "Cracket": A low wooden stool that a hewer sits upon while working.


• "Culm": Dirt that is mixed in with coal and must be removed. Culm also refers to stones or shale mixed in with iron. The operation of removing the culm was sometimes called to 'shoo' the dirt. The collected culm was sometimes loaded into a special dirt wagon.


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• "Dimity": Sheer corded cotton, usually white. Originally made of silk or wool, but woven only of cotton since the 18th century. Manufactured in Bolton.


• "Dipping-house": Ceramics (pottery) was widely used in Victorian times, not for its aesthetic beauty, but because of its functionality. To harden the ceramics as well as act as a barrier to absorbing liquids (as ceramic material as porous), a glaze was used. Glazes were applied to the ceramic objects by "dipping" the ceramic object into glazes then the dried glazed ceramic was fired in a kiln to harden the ceramic by removing water in the clays. Glaze colours typically come from metals such as Chrome, Arsenic, Lead, Cobalt, Iron oxides, etc. Most metals are toxic. Lead and Arsenic are particularly toxic and acidic solutions can leach out these metals from the glazes, thus harming those who use these ceramics. During Victorian times, poisoning by ceramic glazes was quite common, but was especially harmful to those who dipped the ceramics into the glazes in the "dipping-house.


• "Doggy": A "doggy" is a person works for a "butty" (overseer), seeing that a "butty's" orders are carried out.


• "Doubling": When two strands of yarn are twisted together for strength, the result is referred to as "doubling".


• "Draggers": Women and children who pushed and pulled tubs or sledges of coal through the small shafts, up inclines, through water, along hard and wet-clay surfaces, to the more centrally-located horse paths, or to the pit shaft. They crawled along the floors, harnessed to their tubs by a belt of leather or rope. This passed around the waist or shoulder and from it a chain passed between the legs and was hooked onto the tub. These women and children were called draggers in Sirhowly, but they were also called "barrowmen", "carters", "drawers", "hauliers" (South Wales), "hurriers" (Yorkshire), or "putters" (Fifeshire).


• "Dram": A small cart.


• "Draught": The design of a pattern for selecting warp yarns by specific headdles is called "drawing a warp". The plan of the sequence of headdles is called a "draught"


• "Drawers": Women and children who pushed and pulled tubs or sledges of coal through the small shafts, up inclines, through water, along hard and wet-clay surfaces, to the more centrally-located horse paths, or to the pit shaft. They crawled along the floors, harnessed to their tubs by a belt of leather or rope. This passed around the waist or shoulder and from it a chain passed between the legs and was hooked onto the tub. These women and children were also called "barrowmen", "carters", "draggers" (Sirhowly), "hurriers" (Yorkshire), "hauliers" (South Wales) or "putters" (Fifeshire).


• "Dressing": As cloth is created (see "batten", the cloth tends to get tangled and the yarn to unwind as well. Rapidly weaving cloth by machines causes such tangling, unraveling and slows down the process of weaving. A "dressing" or "sizing" is a liquid that can be used to decrease this tangling and unraveling process from occurring. A dressing is a liquid, thus can easily be applied, but must then be dried. Learning how to work with "dressing" in an automated power-loom took time.


• "Dross": Sorters in coal mines removed dirt from coal (the dirt being called "dross"), and the pieces of coal were then separated or graded by size (thus 'sorted'). Later, screens were used near the pit brow to do this 'sorting'. Even further in time, "picking belts" were used to help in this process of grading by size.


• "Druke and beam": A primitive windlass used in the mines. When wound, it could drag tubs of coal to the surface or to the trams. (See "pitching-vein".)


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• "Fire-damp": An explosive gas found in a coal mine, typically methane (mixed with coal dust). (See "after-damp" or "choke-damp".


• "Foal": A young miner (called a "headsman") that is not yet strong enough to work as a "putter" alone, but is strong enough if assisted by a young child (called a "foal"). The "headsman" pulls the tub by two ropes (or "soames") that are attached to the tub. Sometimes both the "headsman" and the "foal" push the tub. When two children the same age or strength work as "putters" together, they are called "half-marrows".


• "Following-in": When one person works after another at the same location in a mine.


• "Fother": A measure of coal (1/3 of a Newcastle chaldron or a well loaded single horse-cart of coal).


• "Frame Breaking Act": The Frame Breaking Act of 1812 was specifically designed by the government of Spencer Perceval to stop the "Luddites" from destroying spinning jennies that were forcing many of those in the cloth industry to lose their jobs as well as to depress wages paid in the cloth industry. The government had to send 12,000 troops to the Lancastershire area to put down this rebellion. Violations of the Frame Breaking Act were either a death sentence or transportation.


• "Fremit": A worker shared between two hewers, not related to either. (A hewer generally engaged two relatives as bearers to assist him, sometimes sharing a third team member, the fremit, with a fellow worker.)


• "Fustian": Corduroy.


• "Fustian-cutter": Cutting fustian cloth required the skills of a "fustian-cutter". Replacing these skilled human workers with a machine required the examination of the exact work done by a "fustian-cutter" so that this work could be mimicked by a machine.


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• "Half-marrow": A young miner (called a "headsman") that is not yet strong enough to work as a "putter" alone, but is strong enough if assisted by a young child (called a "foal"). The "headsman" pulls the tub by two ropes (or "soames") that are attached to the tub. Sometimes both the "headsman" and the "foal" push the tub. When two children the same age or strength work as "putters" together, they are called "half-marrows".


• "Haulier": Women and children who pushed and pulled tubs or sledges of coal through the small shafts, up inclines, through water, along hard and wet-clay surfaces, to the more centrally-located horse paths, or to the pit shaft. They crawled along the floors, harnessed to their tubs by a belt of leather or rope. This passed around the waist or shoulder and from it a chain passed between the legs and was hooked onto the tub. These women and children were called hauliers in South Wales, but they were also called "carters", "draggers" (Sirhowly), "drawers", "hurriers" (Yorkshire), or "putters" (Fifeshire).


• "Headdles": Headdles were horizontal objects with hooks that caught onto a subset of warp yarns. The headdles were then used to separate the warp yarns so that the woof yarns may be woven inbetween the warp yarns. It was possible to use different headdles to mix different warp yarns. Treadles were foot-powered levers attached to the headdles that enabled a weaver to intermix different subsets of warp yarns with a woof yarn, much like playing a piano or organ.


• "Headsman": A young miner that is not yet strong enough to work as a "putter" alone, but is strong enough if assisted by a young child (called a "foal"). The "headsman" pulls the tub by two ropes (or "soames") that are attached to the tub. Sometimes both the "headsman" and the "foal" push the tub. When two children the same age or strength work as "putters" together, they are called "half-marrows".


• "Hewer": One who extracted the coal from the face. A hewer generally engaged two relatives as bearers to assist him, sometimes sharing a third team member (a 'fremit', not a relative) with a fellow worker.


• "Holer" or "Undergoer": A "holer" or "undergoer" is a person that undermines small holes under a mass of coal.


• "Horse gin": In early times, miners collected coal by digging or hewing it out of mountainsides, but as time moved forward, pits (mine shafts) were dug. Coal was still hewed, and manually brought to the surface in tubs, etc. Eventually, the process of hauling the coal was done by engines such as a windlass. Some windlasses were powered by horses, then horse trapiches were used in general. These were eventually by steam engines. Steam engines were also used to pump water from the mines. A "horse gin" referred to horse-powered engines that were used in the mine pits (for example, to turn a windlass). (See "pit gin".)


• "Hough": When two miners share a seat together. Thus an invitation to share your seat is to "crook your hough" or "cruick-yor-hough".


• "Hovel kiln" or "Bottle kiln": Ceramics were manufactured in "bottle kilns" or "hovel kilns". Bottle kilns were updraft kilns that used coal held upon cast iron grates (after 1700) and were shaped like bottles, hence their name. These kilns had two levels. In the upper chamber the ceramics were "bisqued", while the lower chamber held the glazed wares. The tall bottle kilns required strong bricks able to withstand the stresses due to the weight of the high kiln walls. Hence the walls were thick (and even used bracing chains around the walls to provide strengh). Such kilns required a great deal of coal to heat these walls. "Hovel kilns" were a slight modification, in which the chimney (or "hovel") was constructed separately from the main part of the kiln. Many of these "bottle kilns" and "hovel kilns" were located in Staffordshire. Often these kilns were quite large, as large as a house. See "Bottle kiln".


• "How!/How again!": These are salutations between two pitmen.


• "Hurrier": Women and children who pushed and pulled tubs or sledges of coal through the small shafts, up inclines, through water, along hard and wet-clay surfaces, to the more centrally-located horse paths, or to the pit shaft. They crawled along the floors, harnessed to their tubs by a belt of leather or rope. This passed around the waist or shoulder and from it a chain passed between the legs and was hooked onto the tub. These women and children were called hurriers in Yorkshire, but they were also called "barrowmen", "carters", "draggers" (Sirhowly), "drawers", "hauliers" (South Wales) or "putters" (Fifeshire).


• "Hutchies": Oblong, square-sided four-wheeled boxes which were made to run on a rail.


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• "Iron-man": To reduce the costs of skilled Mule spinners, a self-acting mule that did many of the steps that required a skilled worker was invented. This was a time of many (1820) labour strikes. Replacing many skilled workers by a few semi-skilled workers was the cause of some of these strikes. Andrew Ure described the self-acting mule as the "iron man".


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• "Jenny": The spinning "jenny" combined 8 (later 16, then more) spinning-wheels on a common axle, thus producing a leap in the amount of spun yarn produced. Initially, in a household spinning machine, the spindle was horizontal. However, in the "jenny" the spindles are vertical.


• "Jigger": In 19th century Staffordshire, the 'muffin maker' was a potteries worker, who specialized in making small plates less then 7 inches in diameter. The plates were made on a mold, by a jigger.


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• "Keel": A keel is a broad flat-bottomed boat that carries eight Newcastle chaldrons of coal from coal wagons ashore to the larger coal ships at Newcastle harbor (and at other locations).


• "Kenner": An expression that miners use signifying that it is time to stop working.


• "Kibble": A square wooden tub used to hold rubbish. The "kibble" is usually placed on a tram.


• "Knobstick": A strike-breaker. Unions, Chartism, and strike-breaking were all new aspects of the Industrial Revolution. It took time for the workmen to understand how they were being used against each other. As many pf the coal miners were women and children, it took time to understand how gender was being used to divide workers by gender. See "blackleg". Additional information


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• "Lace-runner": A young worker who embroidered patterns on lace was called a "lace-runner".


• "Laid-out": A "laid-out" tub of coal is a tub that contains too many stones and coal of unacceptable quality. The coal miner is not only not paid for a "laid-out" tub, but is fined for this "laid-out" tub. (See "set-out".)


• "Luddites": The "Luddites" (1810) believed in destroying spinning jennies that were forcing many of those in the cloth industry to lose their jobs as well as to depress wages paid in the cloth industry. The government had to send 12,000 troops to the Lancastershire area to put down this rebellion. Violations of the Frame Breaking Act were either a death sentence or transportation. (See the "Frame Breaking Act").


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• "Marksman": A "marksman" was an illiterate person who "signed" contracts by making his "mark". Of course, being illiterate, any such "contract" was legitimately open to question, even if compulsion was not used to illicit the "contract".


• "Marrow": A partner that helps another miner. (See "half-marrow").


• "Master and Servants Act of 1823": The 1823 "Master and Servants Act" required the obedience and loyalty from servants to their contracted employer (master), with infringements of the contract punishable as a criminal before a court of law, often with a jail sentence of hard labour. The court of law in the "Black country" was usually a local Justice of the Peace, who if not a relative of the "master" (coal owner) was also a coal owner himself. The employer however, was only bound to a civil court. Such "servants" were often not permitted legal representation. Often such servants were "marksmen" (illiterate, signed with their "mark"), thus it was questionable if any legal contract had ever existed. If two or more "servants" discussed any such putative "contract", this also was a criminal offense (see the "Tolpuddle martyrs") in that it was viewed as a "conspiracy" in restraint of trade. Such servants usually were "victimized", meaning that employers conspired not to hire such servants any longer. See the "Vend".


• "Moot hall": A town hall, dating from the Medieval period, where trade guilds met.


• "Mould-runner": A 'mold runner' was typically a young boy of as little as 9-10 years of age. He would take the mold with its newly formed plate to a drying room and bring another blank.


• "Muslin-wheel": Samuel Crompton's first name for the "spinning mule".


• "Mule": The spinning "mule" was named a mule as a mule is a hybrid between two things. In this case, the "spinning" mule combined a water-frame (water-mill power) with a spinning jenny. The purpose was to increase the efficiency with which yarn could be spun by also reducing the number of workers required.


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• "Overman": An mine "overman" ranks below a mine "viewer". The "overman" is in charge of work at the colliery, the wages, expenses, and fullfillment of ventitlation and safety, as well as fortnightly accounts. An overman is assigned to a pit, and as there may be several pits in a colliery, there may be several "overman" assigned at a colliery. It is expected that an "overman" has experience in all kinds of work done in a colliery. An "overman" is paid weekly wages, but payment includes a house, garden, and coal gratis.


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• "Pee-dee": A child that works on a "keel" at Newcastle harbor is called a "pee-dee".


• "Peterloo massacre": Famine and unemployment reached such serious proportions that demonstrations started to spontaneously take place. On August 16, 1819 one such demonstration took place in Manchester. The Manchester authorities called in the Army. During a cavalry charge using sabres, many people were injured or killed. This event was referred to as the "Battle of Peterloo" or the "Peterloo massacre". It become clear who the British government viewed as an enemy: starving people. See the "Tolpuddle martyrs" and the "Captain Swing" disturbances.


• "Picking belts": Sorters in coal mines removed dirt from coal (the dirt being called "dross"), and the pieces of coal were then separated or graded by size (thus 'sorted'). Later, screens were used near the pit brow to do this 'sorting'. Even further in time, "picking belts" were used to help in this process of grading by size.


• "Picking-peg": An innovative loom shuttle. A picking-peg selected the correct shuttle (different shuttles could have yarn of different materials such as cotton yarn and wool yarn, or different colours). After selecting the correct shuttle, the shuttle (peg) was shot through the warp yarns separated by the headdles, then the woof yarn (attached to the shuttle) was pushed against the cloth being produced. The advantage to the picking-peg is that it automated this process as well as increased the speed with which the woof yarn was inter-woven with the warp yarns.


• "Pilers": "Pilers" worked in "puddling mills" stacking and weighing heavy iron bars which had been cut to be made into rails. As trams on iron rails were used in both coal and iron collieries (Dowlais), "pilers" worked in both coal and iron of mines.


• "Pit brow lasses": Women who worked at the surface and beneath the surface of collieries, in a variety of jobs.


• "Pit gin": In early times, miners collected coal by digging or hewing it out of mountainsides, but as time moved forward, pits (mine shafts) were dug. Coal was still hewed, and manually brought to the surface in tubs, etc. Eventually, the process of hauling the coal was done by engines such as a windlass. Some windlasses were powered by horses, then horse trapiches were used in general. These were eventually by steam engines. Steam engines were also used to pump water from the mines. A "pit gin" referred to engines that were used in the used in the mine pits (coal, lead, iron, etc.). (see "horse gin".)


• "Pitching-vein": A system used to help haul tubs of coal up steep slopes, consisting of windlasses positioned at convenient intervals on the incline of the vein, and women who would turn the handles of the wooden rollers to help the heavy tubs of coal advance to the surface.


• "Pointswomen": Women who worked at railway sidings.


• "Poll girl": A "poll girl" took iron ore from trams (for example, at Dowlais), and sorted out stone and shale, cleaned the ore, and then piled it, ready for ironworks furnaces.


• "Potbank": The "mine" where clay was extracted from to be used in making pottery or pottery glazes. A potbank might also refer to the buildings and workers where pottery was manufactured.


• "Power-loom": Factories are defined as being composed of machines that originally spun yarns and wove cloth. To "qualify" as a factory, the power used to run the machines were originally based upon water mills and then by coal-fueled steam engines. In the case of looms, a power-loom was a loom driven by water mill power first, later by a steam-engine.


• "Power-spinner": Factories are defined as being composed of machines that originally spun yarns and wove cloth. To "qualify" as a factory, the power used to run the machines were originally based upon water mills and then by coal-fueled steam engines. In the case of looms, a power-spinner was a yarn spinning machine driven by water mill power first, later by a steam engine. Originally, a horse-driven "trapiche" was used as a source of power to drive the spinning machines.


• "Puddling mill": Puddling mills were used to make steel from pig iron. Puddling was invented in 1783, and was in heavy use by the mid 19th century (for example, at the Bloomfield ironworks that used 'wet puddling' at Tipton in 1830).


• "Putters": Women and children who pushed and pulled tubs or sledges of coal through the small shafts, up inclines, through water, along hard and wet-clay surfaces, to the more centrally-located horse paths, or to the pit shaft. They crawled along the floors, harnessed to their tubs by a belt of leather or rope. This passed around the waist or shoulder and from it a chain passed between the legs and was hooked onto the tub. These women and children were called putters in Fifeshire, but they were also called "barrowmen", "carters", "draggers" (Sirhowly), "drawers", "hauliers" (South Wales), "hurriers" (Yorkshire), or "putters" (Fifeshire).


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• "Rake": The trip from the pit surface to the coal face, then back from the coal face to the pit surface.


• "Rag-pump" or "Rag-wheel pump": A "rag-pump" is a manually powered pump used to pump water from a mine. Water in mines is always a problem. Steam engines were first used to pump water from mines. Later, steam engines were used to wind windlasses to draw coal and people up from the pits to the brow.


• "Rekoning day": Pay day in a mine was called "rekoning day". (See "baff-week".)


• "Roberts, William Prowting": The "Bond" became a major reason for the "Great Strike of 1844", where W. P. Roberts (solicitor) opposed the mine owners and defended the interests of the miners, and in which the additional issues related to the exploitation of women and children working in the mines became a public embarassment to the British government, leading to white-wash coverups that lasted for decades past 1844. Another major achievement by Roberts was the public exposure and opposition to "truck" shops and "pit cottages". Roberts also often confronted the "Master and Servants Act" of 1823 (a "legal" form of involuntary servitude). Click for another view.


• "Rolly-way": An underground horse road in a mine.


• "Roving": A "sliver" or small portion of cotton fibers are elongated or attenuated, then slightly twisted together. The twisted fibres may then be twisted with more cotton fibres which are now stronger, and thus further, additional attenuation is possible. This process of attenuation is called roving (see "slubbing").


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• "Scotch cattle": This referred to a secret society of coal colliery workers that used intimidation in an attempt to secure their objectives, active in 1822. Mine owners collieries were blown up. Mine owners' truck shops were destroyed. Blacklegs were severly beaten or killed. Colliery workers from a distant place (so that they couldn't be identified) dressed up in disguise as "cattle" with the leader wearing a headdress of bull's horns carried out these violent activities.


• "Screen-man" or "Screener": A mine worker whose job was to grade coal by size using a screen. However, the work also included removing stone, and dirt. It would be misleading to think that this term referred only to men, as many women and children worked as screeners, even after it was against the law for women and children to work in the pits (below ground). Similarly, an initial screening took place below the bank (below the surface of the mine).


• "Set-out": A "set-out" tub of coal is a tub that contains an insufficient amount of coal. A miner is not only not paid for a "set-out" tub of coal, he or she is fined for "set-out" tubs of coal. (See "laid-out".)


• "Shifter": A day labourer in a mine that is hired to work only for a specific shift was called a "shifter".


• "Sizing": As cloth is created (see "batten", the cloth tends to get tangled and the yarn to unwind as well. Rapidly weaving cloth by machines causes such tangling, unraveling and slows down the process of weaving. A "dressing" or "sizing" is a liquid that can be used to decrease this tangling and unraveling process from occurring. A sizing is a liquid, thus can easily be applied, but must then be dried. Learning how to work with "sizing" in an automated power-loom took time.


• "Soames": A young miner (called a "headsman") that is not yet strong enough to work as a "putter" alone, but is strong enough if assisted by a young child (called a "foal"). The "headsman" pulls the tub by two ropes (or "soames") that are attached to the tub. Sometimes both the "headsman" and the "foal" push the tub. When two children the same age or strength work as "putters" together, they are called "half-marrows".


• "Slubbing": Woolen yarn was made on machines such as a "slubbing-billy". Wool was first "carded", which means that wool was combed to remove dirt or particles, then straightened. A portion of carded wool (called a "slub") was elongated and given a slight twist as it was intertwined and collected upon a spindle, for example, collected upon a slubbing-billy spindle (see "roving").


• "Slype": A wood-framed box, curved and shod with iron at the bottom, used to hold between 225 and 500 pounds of coal. Slypes were dragged by workers in leather harnesses that were chained to the cart.


• "Sorter": Sorters removed dirt from coal (the dirt being called "dross"), and the pieces of coal were then separated or graded by size (thus 'sorted'). Later, screens were used near the pit brow to do this 'sorting'. Even further in time, "picking belts" were used to help in this process of grading by size.


• "Staith": A waterside depot for coals brought from the collieries for shipment, furnished with staging and chutes for loading vessels.


• "Stick": A stick was a limited "strike". A "stick" meant to cease work to increase wages or to prevent a decrease in wages. A strike is more general, not limited to issues specifically based upon wages.


• "Strapper": A worker who was attached by a leather harness chained to either a hutchie or a slype. Closely related to a carter, drawer, dragger, haulier, hurrier or putter.


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• "Tally-snatcher": Name for a tally-taker. Miners were fined if the tubs credited to them contained coal-dust or were only partly filled (though over-filled tubs were not paid any extra). When workers were paid by weight, false scales were used. The tally-takers were called "tally-snatchers" because the miners were often denied tallies (payment) due to coal dust in the tubs or tubs that were considered of low weight. The miners had no redress for the 'snatched' tallies.


• "Tip girls": Welsh pit women who helped remove cinders from furnaces, unload at the tips and chip bits of iron ore with small picks.


• "Tippler": A mechanism designed to "tip" and empty a coal wagon. The wagon runs up rails to the tippler platform, locks temporarily into place, and is rotated more than 100 degrees to release its coal. Once emptied, the cart can pull forward and leave the platform.


• "Tolpuddle martyrs": In 1824, the "Combination Act" was repealed. The 1800 "Combination Act" viewed it as unlawful for workers to "conspire" to improve working conditions. The "Captain Swing" distubances attest to the widespread poverty at this time. Thus the repeal of the "Combination Act" was interpreted as permitting what are now known as "unions". An increasing number of poor tenant farm workers were dispossesd of their lands leading to widespread poverty. Six such impoverished farmers from Tolpuddle, Dorset swore a "secret oath" or combined as a "union". The government's repeal of the "Combination Act" was interpreted as not allowing unions, and these poor farmers were found guilty of a crime (of "Combination") and were "Transported". Click to see demonstration supporting the martyrs. See the "Peterloo massacre" and the "Captain Swing" disturbances.


• "Tommy-shop": A company store (where workers are required to buy, and the goods are at exhorbitant prices and of very poor quality ["Tommy rot"]). This practice was outlawed by the Truck Act of 1831 (but continues even to this day).


• "Tony Pandy Riots": The Tony Pandy Riots of 1910, South Wales used scabs, called "Knobsticks" or Blacklegs". These tactics were supported by the British government. Historically, the term "blackleg" or "knobstick" was originally used to refer to Irish miners used as strike-breakers against the English coal miners during the great strike of 1844. Unions, Chartism, and strike-breaking were all new aspects of the Industrial Revolution. It took time for the workmen to understand how they were being used against each other. As many pf the coal miners were women and children, it took time to understand how gender was being used to divide workers by gender. Of course, such tactics were not limited to 1844, and the Tony Pandy riots of 1910 are evidence of this. See "blackleg" and "knobstick". Additional information


• "Trammers ": A trammer was someone who guided the horses that pulled four-wheeled carts (called trams) that contained the coal. Originally these trams ran on wooden rails; later, on cast-iron rails.


• "Tramping": Unemployed workers often had to walk or travel by whatever means they could afford to towns often far away to seek work. This is referred to as "tramping". Depending upon class affiliation, this could be viewed negatively or sympathetically.


• "Trapiche": Originally, mills were used to crush grain into flour. Mills of stone were used originally, and were used for other purposes than grain, such as crushing and extracting the juice from sugarcane. The efficiency of this process was increased by using horses, rather than men to drive these mill-stones over the grain or sugarcane. Eventually, windmills and steam-engines and other engines were developed for this process. Trapiches were widely used on sugar plantations in the New World and were horses used to push the heavy mill-stones. Richard Arkwright adapted a Trapiche to turn the multiple spinning-wheels used to create yarn. Later, watermills were used, then replaced by coal-fueled steam engines. The slaves were replaced by the "Yorkshire" slaves.


• "Trapper": A child worker in a mine whose job consisted of opening and shutting trap-doors (used for ventilation).


• "Travelling": "Travelling" refers to the distance miners must walk underground (often bent down low due to the low passageways), from the pit to the coal face. The distance can be up to five miles. Miners were not paid for time they "travelled".


• "Treadles": Headdles are horizontal objects with hooks that catch onto a subset of warp yarns and the headdles are then used to separate apart the warp yarns so that the woof yarns may be inter-woven between these separated warp yarns. It is possible to use different headdles to mix different warp yarns. Treadles are foot powered levers attached to the headdles that allow a weaver to intermix different subsets of warp yarns with a woof yarn, much like playing a piano or organ.


• "Trim": When coal from wagons is loaded onto a keel (ship), a conical heap forms in the ship that blocks the hatchway. This conical heap that impedes work is called a "trim".


• "Trimmer": When coal from wagons is loaded onto a keel (ship), a conical heap forms in the ship that blocks the hatchway. A flat sheet of iron is then placed atop the trim, causing any additional coal that is transferred to fall over the sides of the iron sheet (hence the trim ceases to grow in size). Trimmers are workers that use shovels and rakes to spread the coal away so that the hatch will be free to allow additional coal to be loaded into the keel.


• "Truck Act": The Truck Act of 1831 required that workers be paid in money and not in any other form; thus, "tommy shops" were made illegal (on paper). The reason for this is that payment in any other form might in fact not be equivalent. A Tommy Shop (company store) sold goods at jacked-up prices and poor quality ("tommy rot"), but the employee was forced to buy at these jacked-up prices (the price of goods was not a fair equivalent). Of course, the Truck Act was not enforced, and even still exists today. For another similar practice, see the "cottage system".


• "Tup": At the end of the year, there was a holiday a fortnight long during which stock was taken and no coal was mined. The last "corf" of coal sent up to the "bank" was covered with candles and this was called "sending away the tup".


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• "Undergoer" or "Holer": An "undergoer" or "holer" is a person that undermines small holes under a mass of coal.


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• "Vend": The "vend" was a mutual agreement between participating coal collieries. The purpose of the "vend" was to set or regulate coal output with the aim of setting prices. Indirectly, regulating coal output also implied regulating or determining the amount of work that miners did in the mines. The "Bond" imposed no restrictions to the number of miners employed nor the amount of work that employed miners were to be allowed to do.


• "Viewer": The over all manager of a colliery. All overmen reported to the "viewer".


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• "Wain": A four-wheeled horse-drawn wagon used to carry loads rather than for transporting people. (Four-wheeled wagons used to transport people were called carriages; two-wheeled wagons used to carry loads were called carts.)


• "Warp": The warp yarns are at right angles to the woof yarns, both being woven into cloth on a loom. The warp yarns are long (the length of cloth being produced), while the woof yarns are only as long as the width of the cloth being produced.


• "Warping": Warping meant collecting the yarns together that were used on a loom. The warp yarns were to be of the same length, hence warping machines were developed.


• "Weighman": Coal miners were usually paid by measure (volume) while the coal mines sold the coal by weight. A fairer method of payment would be by weight. However, the coal mine owners were represented by their man, who checked the weight of the coal. Scales were used that often reported lower weights than were believed to be true. There was no way to enforce the use of accurate scales. Furthermore, it was overwhelmingly believed that the coal owner's weigher often reported lower weights. (See the "bond".) The coal miners wanted their own "weighman", someone that the coal miners paid who they felt would then provide a true weight. Eventually, the coal owners came to agree with the coal miners, as the coal miners' "weighman" could be "influenced"; the "influence" not being to report low weights, but to influence the new unions that were looming in the future. (See W. P. Roberts, and Alexander MacDonald).


• "Whim gin": The horse-driven "whim gin" or "whimsey" superseded the "cog and rung gin". The whim gin used a drum and was mounted on a vertical shaft away from the pit mouth. Its diameter could be increased to provide faster winding. The number of levers and horses could be increased for heavier winds.


• "Wailer": Wailers were children that worked in mines. Their job was to work in wagons (as an additional kind of screeners), sifting coal to remove stone that the screeners had missed.


• "Woof": The warp yarns are at right angles to the woof yarns, both being woven into cloth on a loom. The warp yarns are long (the length of cloth being produced), while the woof yarns are only as long as the width of the cloth being produced.

References

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