Someone on the list sent me an email asking for further details of this
Royal Commission report a week or so ago, but due to software problems I've
lost the original message, so I hope Peter won't mind me replying via the
list - the subject may be of some interest to others anyway.
I've only looked closely at the section dealing with the collieries in the
Bristol and Somerset area, but, from memory, the report deals with most of
the coalfields in Britain and a number of metalliferous mining areas.
There are two volumes: the Report itself and an Appendix. They contain more
or less the same information, dealt with by subject in the Report and by
area in the Appendix. The full details are as follows:-
"Children’s Employment Commission. First Report of the Commissioners.
Mines", PP 1842, XV
"Children’s Employment Commission. Appendix to First Report of the
Commissioners. Mines. Part II. Report and Evidence from Sub-Commissioners",
PP 1842, XVII
They only deal with those mines which were visited by the commissioners and
consist largely of reports of interviews with named miners. They also give
some details of owners and numbers employed at the mines.
Getting hold of a copy is likely to be a problem. I've never seen an
original copy, but they are included in the microfiche edition of
nineteenth-century British Parliamentary papers published by Chadwyck
Healey. They were also republished in book form by the Irish University
Press in the 1960s. The trouble is that it's difficult to find either of
these except in university libraries or large public libraries.
Keith Ramsey
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