To be fair to Ramazzini, he did not single out miners - I did that as it was
the information relvant to this list and my colleagues interest - he goes on
to list the health damaging effects of other industrial activities at the
end of the 17th century. Included were gilders, where mercury was again a
problem; potters, using lead glazes; sulphur workers; tanners; and glass
workers.
On the matter of wages and the choice of occupation, we have to remember
that the availability of free choice is relevant here. During the late
medieval period there was little if any difference in wages between mining
and agriculture. At the one time when a choice, free from external economic
pressures, was available to workers in the South-West of England, that is in
the years following the Black Death of 1348-1349, they chose agiculture
rather than mining. Tin production fell drastically as landless miners
(tinners) took up vacant holdings.A similar trend can be seen in lead mining
areas as the value of mines fell, in some cases to nothing, as 'a greater
part of the miners were dead, and those that survived were unwilling to
work'.(Lewis, 'The development of industry and commerce in Wales during the
Middle Ages', p. 145, n. 1, quoting from Minister's and Receiver's Accounts
SC6/1186/4.)
The element of free choice was to a large extent removed with increasing
population growth from the 16th century onwards. Rather than making
comparisons on wages and life expectancy between mining and agriculture, we
should be looking at conditions in the various industrial alternatives to
agriculture, including mining. Even within mining there were considerably
variations in conditions. As Jack Langton has pointed out (Langton, J.
'When and how did mining labour become a commodity? The proletarianisation
of colliers in seventeeth and eighteenth century Lancashire', in Paul Benoit
and Catherine Verna, eds., Le Carbon de Terre en Europe Occidentale Avant
l'Usage Industriel du Coke, (Turnhout, 1999), pp. 141-150.) there was no
'free' market in labour; and in some mining areas, like the S W Lancs.
coalfield, kinship links in mining counted for a great deal in deciding the
area of employment. Life expectancy too could vary considerably between
mining fields, with coal miners surviving longer in Durham than they did in
Lancashire. That in itself had an influence on the social structure of the
mining fields.
Peter
______________________________________________
Peter Claughton, Blaenpant Morfil, Rosebush, Clynderwen,
Pembrokeshire, Wales SA66 7RE.
Tel. 01437 532578; Fax. 01437 532921; Mobile 07831 427599
University of Exeter - Department of History
School of Historical, Political and Sociological Studies
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Co-owner - mining-history e-mail discussion list.
See http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/mining-history/ for details.
Mining History Pages - http://www.exeter.ac.uk/~pfclaugh/mhinf/
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