The Shaftsbury investigation led to the first Coal Mines Act of 1842 that introduced regulations to improve mine safety. The Act required that at every mine entrance there must be a board containing the following wording. It must be painted in black and white and ‘no letter shall be less than Three-quarters of an Inch in height; and the board shall be fixed up at a height not less than Six Feet from the ground.’
BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT, VICTORIA, c.
It is unlawful to employ any Woman or Girl in a Mine or Colliery: Penalty
It is unlawful to employ any Boy under Fourteen years of age in a Mine or Colliery: Penalty
It is unlawful for any other person than a Man between Twenty-one and Fifty years of age to have any charge of the Machinery by which persons are let down into or are brought up from a Mine or Colliery: Penalty
Every Indenture of Apprenticeship becomes null and void if the Apprentice is allowed to work in a Mine or Colliery.
It is unlawful to employ any Woman or Girl in a Mine or Colliery: Penalty
It is unlawful to employ any Boy under Fourteen years of age in a Mine or Colliery: Penalty
It is unlawful for any other person than a Man between Twenty-one and Fifty years of age to have any charge of the Machinery by which persons are let down into or are brought up from a Mine or Colliery: Penalty
Every Indenture of Apprenticeship becomes null and void if the Apprentice is allowed to work in a Mine or Colliery.
The employers were meant to be denied any opportunity to flout the law and there were severe penalties for those who tried. They ‘… shall forfeit a sum not more than Ten Pounds, nor less than Five Pounds, for every person employed or suffered to be in a Mine or Colliery.’ If employers were convicted and failed to pay their fine ‘… such person shall be imprisoned in the common gaol or house of correction with or without hard labour’. Would owners such as Sir James Lowther have risked fines and imprisonment with hard labour?
A working life in the pits was never to be easy but the 1842 Act began the process of making it safer. The mine owners and employers could no longer ignore the well-being of the miners.