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I don't have any answers to this - only another question! I have been trying to find out about the tally system in Cornwall's lead/tin/copper mines. I have found one reference to a tally stick being used c. 1820 - but don't know who used it (surface captain?), and one reference to a woman being a tally clerk at the glass mine WW1. Does anyone have any additonal information? Thanks Lynne Mayers ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Smith" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 9:21 AM Subject: "Chalkers On" & "Token Hanger". Does anyone have any information, especially contemporary accounts and descriptions, about the exact jobs carried out by "chalkers-on" and "token-hangers" in C19th (or earlier) collieries. Also are these terms only found in the Great North Coalfield or were they used in other regions also? Chalkers-on - I have a basic understanding of what a "chalker on" was - i.e. usually a young boy who was responsible for making a chalk tally on a record board of what each of the putters and hewers in his district had produced (in the way of filled tubs or corves) per shift. The chalker on was normally stationed at one of the "rolley way" cranes or tub martialling flats underground. Some accounts I've read suggest the "chalker on" was also responsible for marking each tub filled with the hewers' initials, mark or safety lamp number. In this way the correct miners could be credited with filling each tub when raised to bank. Maybe this was one of the jobs of the "chalker on" in some areas of the UK but I thought it would have made more sense for each individual hewer to have chalked his own identification marks on those tubs he'd filled. That way there would be less risk of errors and mix-ups being made once the tubs arrived at the flats. I believe that in certain areas of the South Wales and the East Midlands (where tub tokens were never very popular) the practice of hewers "chalking on" there own identification numbers to the sides of filled tubs carried on into the C20th. Does anyone have any ideas or more information? Token-hanger - From a couple of C19th mining term glossaries I understand that a token hanger was probably responsible for a similar function as the "Chalker-on" was at pits that didn't employ the "chalking-on" system. Reading between the lines I think the "token hanger" was stationed at a suitable location in the pit, i.e. the tub martialling flats, from where he could he could ascertain from the in coming putters who had been responsible for filling each tub. The "token hanger" would then attach a numbered token (or couple of tokens - one for the putter and one for the hewer?) to each tub so as it could be identified once raised to bank. In the more conventional tub token systems, which carried on in use well in the C20th in some parts, it was generally the responsibility of each putter and hewer to attach their own tokens to the tubs they had filled/hauled. If this is the case was the role of the "token hanger" then redundant or was the term "token hanger" also applied to the boy at the surface weighing station who removed the putters and hewers tokens from each tub (returning them back onto there respective numbered pegs in the token cabin) prior to them being tippled? Regards Mark Smith Visit the UK's National Mining Memorabilia Association's Web site at; http://freespace.virgin.net/mark.smith30/index.htm or http://clix.to/NMMA