Bal Maidens and mining women

Bal Maidens and Mining Women websites explore 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, clay works and related industries in Cornwall and West Devon (known as bal maidens) and includes a searchable database of over 22,500 named individuals.

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.