WASHING AWAY
VICTORIAN VALUES
The pit head baths were more
than a cleansing facility.
Helen Morgan reports:
Sending miners home after their shift without the dirt that came with coal mining was transformational. The pit head baths were a statement about mining culture and the community. Both unions and female activists campaigned for them against resistance from the mine owners. But eventually the changes happened in line with everything that was going on in society in the early 20th century. The coal industry was labour intensive requiring hundreds of thousands of workers. By 1913 the Welsh coal industry had reached its peak, employing 232,000 men, equivalent to one third of the economically active workforce. “So you can imagine how many dependents on the industry that created,” says Benjamin Price. In that single year more than 57 million tons of coal were taken out of the ground, much of which was being sent all over the world. It powered industry, shipping and heating our homes as well as everything from the Japanese navy to the Titanic. In 1913, Barry was one of the busiest coal ports in the world. This gave the coal workers a significance that was disproportionate to other sectors. They came to use this power to campaign for better wages, better conditions and for better services for themselves and their families. They realised that coal was in every home: heating the water, fuelling the fire on which food was cooked as well as keeping the house warm. For their wives, it meant constant cleaning as well as lighting the boiler to heat the water for the tin tub in front of the fire. All this at a time when many homes in Wales did not have easy access to water, let alone a tap with running water. The campaign for pit head baths had already gathered momentum in 1912, led by Katherine Bruce Glazier. She trumpeted the social benefit of cleanliness, and for dirt to stay in the pit where it belonged. Pit owners in Treharris looked to the Continent and saw that pit head baths were directly linked to a drop in absence due to disease. Eventually they provided medical facilities with a qualified nurse, canteen with shop, water bottle filling facilities, lockers for clean clothes and separate lockers for dirty workwear as well as boot cleaning machines.
Benjamin Price’s talk in the Borough Theatre on September 9th starts at 7.30pm. Non-members can join on the night or via the Membership page.
