“If there is one type of man to whom I do feel myself inferior, it is the coal miner" - George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, 1937. Henry Moore, in his artwork below, depicts the dark and claustrophobic conditions that men from both my grandfather's and grandmother's families spent all their working lives. My great-grandfather left school to begin work in Monckdon Colliery in Yorkshire, where he was employed as a coal hewer. The following extract is taken from the Museum of Mining and describes what a Hewer had to do in 1892: “ The hewer is the actual coal-digger. Whether the seam be so thin that he can hardly creep into it on hands and knees, or whether it be thick enough for him to stand upright, he is the responsible workman who loosens the coal from the bed. The hewers are divided into "fore-shift" and "back-shift" men. The former usually work from four in the morning till ten, and the latter from ten till four. Each man works one week in
Knowledge Karomah Laduni & News