Pit Brow Lasses

Before it was banned in the 1842 Mines and Collieries Act, many women worked underground in the mines. After 1843, many women chose to sort coal above the surface, as opposed to working in mills or becoming traditional housewives. These women 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.

The museum has a cap worn by a Pit Brow Lass dating back to the twentieth century, and an engraved portrait of the women sorting coal at Mesnes Colliery. The engraving is said to have angered an admirer of the women,  Arthur Joseph Munby. Munby was a poet and barrister. He has been described as a gifted man obsessed by the plight of working women. When he heard of the engraving he is thought to have said 'what right has this artist to poach on my manor, to exhibit my heroines thus and perhaps send people to see and spoil them or to try and put them down’.

Sources:

By the Sweat of Their Brow by Angela V. John

A Man of Two Worlds by Derek Hudson