avatar is my paternal grandmother Hazel May Sheridan (Coles /// Callaghan)
researching Coles/Sheridan from Broken Hill Callaghan from Sydney P.J O'Flynn M.J Campbell from County Clare plus others as they pop up
I would agree piler in a forge, and I wasn't surprised when I went back to check, and it was Wales.
My GG Grandfather's sister was a labourer in the iron works in the 1861 census in Glamorgan, so it was something I'd already looked into.
In 'Labour and the Poor in England and Wales, 1849-1851, Volume 3' it was estimated that around 2,320 females were employed in the South Wales iron industry, in jobs that were broadly loading, unloading, weighing, carrying and stacking coal, cinders or iron. Additionally, some worked as ‘Limestone girls’ breaking limestone with picks etc., for use in the furnaces. In each case they worked outdoors, year-round, for 11 hours a day; earning between 3s 9d and 7s per week. It was also observed that “Great numbers find an early grave. Exposed to sudden vicissitudes of heat and cold, of wind and rain, on the bleak mountain-side, or in the fiery atmosphere of the forges, what wonder that consumption should thin their numbers?"
Thanks for quick replies.
teasie I have copied your description into my tree as it makes a lot of sense
What did a piler do. ?? stack stuff on top of other stuff ??
Brian
avatar is my paternal grandmother Hazel May Sheridan (Coles /// Callaghan)
researching Coles/Sheridan from Broken Hill Callaghan from Sydney P.J O'Flynn M.J Campbell from County Clare plus others as they pop up
What did a piler do. ?? stack stuff on top of other stuff ??
I believe so. Another description mentions women working twelve hours of heavy labour, lifting and piling iron, loading and unloading trams, stacking coal at the coking pits (etc)
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