BAL MAIDENS
Women And Girls of the Cornwall and Devon Mines

By Lynne Mayers
Author estimates that between the years 1720 and 1920 at least 60,000 women and girls worked in the mines, quarries and clay works of Cornwall and Devon. They carried out hard, skilled and specialised work, which was a crucial part of the dressing operations.
Mayers has carefully researched their working lives and home-life, their characteristics and the occupational hazards which they encountered. How essential were they to the industry? What were their working conditions? How much did they earn? What did they do with the very little spare time and money they had? As the mines closed, where did they go and what happened to them? This is the record of a remarkable group of women, plus some individual accounts of the few whose stories have survived.
The Cornwall and Devon mines and smelters of the 18TH and 19TH century formed a unique and separate part of the mining heritage of these islands. No other metal mining district was so extensive, nor used women and girls in such abundance.
In this second edition the material has been both revised and expanded. There is also a more detailed coverage of the tin streams of the late 19TH century.
Soft cover, 6x9, 282 pages, $30.00