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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 6th February 2009)

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.

All images on this site can be viewed in more detail by clicking on the image. Use the browser BACK button to return. Some image files, name indexes etc are rather large and will take a few seconds to load, even at broadband speeds. Please be patient.
Methods of Tin and Copper Dressing in Cornwall, by James Henderson 1858, transcribed by Lynne Mayers 2006. 30 page Crown Quarto saddle-stitched paperback booklet transcribed from the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1858, with all the original Henderson drawings computer enhanced. New and improved Second Edition £4.50 Available now from www.lulu.com Click Here for Details
BAL MAIDENS (2nd Edition) by Lynne Mayers. Published by Blaize Bailey Books. 300 pages 175mm x 250mm paperback with index and 81 illustrations. £14.95. AVAILABLE NOW from Lulu. Click Here for Details
A Dangerous Place to Work! by Lynne Mayers - Published by Blaize Bailey Books. 108 page paperback. Women and children at the mines, clay works, slate quarries, foundries, smelters, and gunpowder and explosives works. £7.95. AVAILABLE NOW from Lulu. Click Here for Details

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© Webmaster Peter Boorman & Lynne Mayers 2006
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