Welcome to this Bal Maidens and Mining Women website, exploring 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 (known as bal maidens), clay & slate works, and related industries (such as the explosives industry, smelters etc) in Cornwall and Devon and includes a searchable database of 30,113 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 is a full searchable transcript of the 1842 Commission into the Working Conditions of Children at the Mines in Cornwall and West Devon. This includes interviews with 21 bal maidens.

Also for information on the women and girls who worked at the paper mills in Devon and Cornwall please go to our publications list.

Please also check the page Books & Articles for further reading including a number of books by Lynne Mayers.

For Women who worked in Explosives and also in Munitions please see below, or follow this link-Women + Explosives UK

Second edition of the book which won the 2005 Holyer an Gof Trophy Best Cornish Publication 2004

Winner 2015 Holyer an Gof Award Best Cornish Booklet published 2014

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