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This horse is headed down the shaft of a coal mine in France, date unknown. (Wikimedia image)
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This video shows you some of the last employed pit ponies in Britain; the voice is poet John Stafford, who eulogizes a pony named Dot. Dot was one of the last pit ponies to work at Annesley Colliery in Nottinghamshire, England.
Thinking about coal mines made me remember about the use of ponies, horses and mules deep below the ground in mines in North America, Australia and Europe. Perhaps they were used in other parts of the world, as well.
Horses and ponies weren't used much, if at all, in mines in the British Isles until 1842, when an Act of Parliament outlawed women and children under the age of ten from working in coal mines. Up until then, it had been women and children who lugged or dragged the coal out of the mines.
"Pit ponies" are most famous for being used in the British mines, where as many as 70,000 were underground at the height of horse-powered coal mine production in 1913. Larger horses were popular for underground work in Germany and mules were preferred in the United States
The pit ponies wore leather shields over their faces, like a solid bridle shield. Bare wires could cause sparks if a pony bumped into one. One statistic said that the ponies were not blind, as most people thought they would be from living in the dark, but a large percentage had lost at least one eye from accidents. In photos, you will notice that the pit ponies had their tails shaved, and probably their manes as well.
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| These tandem-hitched heavy horses aren't pit ponies, but they are pulling a load of feed for the ponies stranded during a coal strike in England. Do you think they made it through that mud? Double-click to view full size. (Libray of Congress image) |
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A1908 image from the Library of Congress shows us mules in a Pennsylvania coal mine. They wore ear hoods to prevent them from being shocked by low-hanging wires. No doubt, they learned to walk with their heads low. This was before there were any child labor laws in the United States. Notice that three of these young miners have whips around their necks.
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This horse was being shod by two young colliery farriers in Wales. Notice the horse is wearing a hood. His tail isn't shaved as is often seen in old photos, but his mane is roached.
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When their work in the forge was done each day, the farriers went down the mine and shod the ponies as they finished a shift, or the ponies from another shift before they started. Ponies weren't allowed to work if they had a shoe off, so the farrier's visit was important. Every foot on every pony had to be lifted and looked at every day.
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Sign courtesy of Mining Culture Educational and Research Network
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This was a long, long day for a farrier. There was no light in the underground stables except for miner's lamps. The farrier would take the vessel out of his lamp and put it on his tool box, like a candle. He would have been trimming and shoeing almost by touch.
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Yes, there were hoof boots long ago. This one is from a mine in the Lake District in Cumbria, England, near the Scottish border. The sole of the boot is studded with copper rivets. You can see it at the Keswick Mining Museum.
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All the shoeing below ground was done cold, of course, in spite of all the available coal. Any spark could ignite a fire or, worse yet, an explosion, because of gasses and dust in the air.
Welsh miners lamps are especially interesting. Today, they're popular on wooden boats. They have a distinctive tall chimney and usually come with a hook at the top. Once British farrier Grant Moon, who competed under the Welsh flag, brought one of the USA as a special award, and told us about how the mine's name and mark were engraved into the chimney. They are special.
The miner's lamp did a lot more than light the way through the mine. The color and height of the flame in the lamp was a means of constant feedback to the miner about the gases present in the air below ground. They were known as "safety lamps". They are small and you might overlook them. But a miner wouldn't.
Many years ago I met a lovely gentleman from Yorkshire, England named Eric Plant, FWCF. He had worked as a farrier at a colliery and he was the first person who told me about pit ponies; I had no idea that as many as 70,000 ponies were working in Great Britain's mines in the early 1900s. Later in life he was the farrier for the magnificent Tetley Shires, the showcase team for Tetley Brewery in Leeds, England.
Mr. Plant painstakingly photocopied all his booklets about pit ponies and the welfare movement to protect them and sent them to me. I always wanted to tape his stories, but I didn't have the privilege of seeing him again before he died. Most of the little facts about ponies and mining in this blog post came from my very precious file of Mr. Plant's own memorabilia.
