Featured by Graham Stirrup as Star Site in the Guide Section of Who Do You Think You Are Magazine, Issue 1, October 2007 (Click star to see article)

Welcome to this Bal Maidens and Mining Women website, exploring the many different roles which women and girls have undertaken at mines around the world.

The emphasis is on those who worked at the mines (known as bal maidens), clay & slate works, and related industries (such as the explosives industry, smelters etc) in Cornwall and West Devon and includes a searchable database of more than 24,000 named individuals. (Updated 17th April 2008)

There are pages about mining women around the world, notably of pit brow lasses of the north of England, and coal dressers on the French and Belgian coal fields. There are also Name Indexes (which include both males and females) for the 1842 Royal Commission Reports into the Employment of Children and Young People at the Mines for Cumberland, Durham, Northumberland, Cornwall and West Devon, and the Forest of Dean.

Please also check the page Books & Articles for further reading.

****New**** A Dangerous Place to Work! by Lynne Mayers - 108 page paperback. £7.95. This book tells the story of the employment of women and children right across the mining industries of Devon and Cornwall, up until the second half of the 20th century. It includes their work at the mines, clay works, slate quarries, foundries, smelters, and gunpowder and explosives works. ggffhff Available now from www.lulu.com

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