Women in Wolverhampton's History

Women at Work | 1 | 2 | 3 |

There seems to a general belief that it is only in recent times that women have worked outside the home. However original archive sources prove this to be not entirely true.

The majority of women, mostly working class, have always had to work due to economic necessity.

If we go back to the latter part of the 18th century, a rate book for 1792 lists seventy-four women as paying rates on their own account, mainly but not entirely widows. Between them they are engaged in thirty-seven different occupations. Some of the occupations such as millinery and lacemaking for instance could be described as traditional "women's work". However, no fewer than 25 were engaged in metal finishing trades including locksmithing, screwmaking and brassfounding. There were also women butchers, carriers, innkeepers and a lecturer.

There are a number of women listed in the above extract including Mary Piatt lock manufacturer, and locksmiths Sarah Elwall, Mary Bradley and Widow Carter.

Those listed represent only a small proportion of working women. Women who owned no property did not pay rates, and hundreds more would be working in the growing number of factories, small workshops, retail and domestic service.

The situation with the employment of women ten years later was not dissimilar.

The Wolverhampton rate book for 1802 also lists women employed as boxmaker, butcher, hingemaker, joiner, keymaker, lacemaker, publican, farmer, huckster, bailiff and even "Martha" the prostitute.

Extract from Trades and Professions in the Town in 1802, page 31 (L91G2)

Extract from Trades and Professions in the Town in 1802, page 16 (L91G2)

A particularly hard life was experienced by those involved with coal mining. The Mines Act of 1842 prohibited women, girls, and boys under the ten years of age from working underground. However, unlike some other mining areas, women and girls were not employed below ground in any of the collieries in the Black Country. Instead they were employed on the surface sorting coal, loading canal boats and other surface activities.

In his work Labour and the Poor in England and Wales 1849-1851, J Ginswick quotes from letters to The Morning Chronicle from correspondents in Birmingham. The descriptions of women and girls working in the coal fields makes interesting reading:

"They are lean haggard and grisly creatures, their skins engrained with dirt which is very often never washed off from Saturday to Saturday…They generally wear men's coats buttoned over their dresses, and squat flattened bonnets, often crowned with a wisp of straw done up in a clout, on which to lay the basketful of coals which they often choose to carry on their heads.

The women work at rude and unsexing labour at the pit-mouth, partly assuming their habiliments and altogether adopting the coarseness of the men".

A trade directory for 1851 lists a number of women, in what are considered traditional occupations: milliner, dressmaker and hairdresser, as well as less traditional occupations such as publican, butcher, shopkeeper and brassfounder. New occupations listed include coffee shop proprietor, lodging housekeeper and teacher.

Advertisement from Melville & Co.'s Directory and Gazetteer
for Wolverhampton and Neighbourhood, 1859

Orphaned girls were often placed in domestic work. The Wolverhampton Orphan Asylum had a training home in St Jude's Road built in 1880 where girls were educated and fitted for domestic service.

A change of employment could be found through servant agencies, the agencies themselves often run by women.

Extract from Crockers Post Office Wolverhampton & District Directory,
1884, page 184 (L91.04)

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