After outgrowing this duty, older children would untie the knots that had occurred and would disrupt the machines. This was another immensely dangerous task, as children had to be quick as the pressure would build up by the blockage and combust, easily slicing through fingers and the machines snapped back into operation. However, these jobs increased the demand for child labor by creating work situations where children were seen and valuable and productive (Child Labor during the British Industrial Revolution). Another treacherous job children participated in was work in coal mines. Coal mining became prominent in Britain after an apparent shortage of water and wood. People soon realized that Britain had an abundance of coal and it quickly became used for transportation in trains, as a source of heat and energy, and a source of power for steam engines, which then powered factory machines (Cody, David). …show more content…
The owner then sold the coal to factories. Many mine owners were wealthy but paid miners pitiable wages. Many of these owners paid little notice to safety concerns and masses of small children worked underground in the mines. Originally, mines were operated with a small-scale focus, though as the demand increased, mines grew deeper in search of more coal (Cody, David). Jobs in the mines included ‘putters,’ children who pushed trucks of coal along mine tunnels, ‘trappers,’ which were those who opened and shut wooden doors to let fresh air circulate through the tunnels, and those who sorted the coal and cut the coal with a pickaxe (Victorian Britain: Children in Coal