Female Coal worker Wigan Colliery.

iBase ID

286676

Reference identifier

SEC20221014050

Title

Female Coal worker Wigan Colliery.

Place

Wigan

General notes

Portrait posed at Alfred Wragg's studio in Wigan.
Before it's probation under the 1842 Mines and Collieries Act, female underground working in the coal mines was widespread. Thereafter, many women still chose to work at the mines above ground, rather than working in mills or just housewifery. They became known as the 'Pit Brow Lasses'.
"These women shocked some parts of Victorian society and were seen by some as the prime example of degraded womanhood. However, the Pit Brow Lasses grew in number until there were over 1300 in the Wigan and St. Helens area by 1880." (Wigan and Leigh Archives).
They became a curiosity, some figures such as Arthur Joseph Munby (1828-1910), a Victorian poet and eccentric, visiting collieries to talk to the pit brow lasses. Munby also sketched them (some being published in 'Working Women in Victorian Britain 1850 – 1910')
Postcard "carte de visite", like this one, were created and sold by local Wigan photographers such as Wragg, Cooper, Brown Barnes Bell and Millard

Medium

Photographic print

Colour

Monochrome

Year of image

c1895

Enter year in yyyy format

Locator

Miriam Wadge Collection