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Houses & homes in Tredegar during the 19th century Part 8 of 10 Aunt Lizzie's story & household spending in 1841 Tredegar, 19th century, Victorian, Industrial Revolution, coal, iron, Blaenau Gwent, Wales. www.access2heritagebg.co.uk
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168
Houses and homes in Tredegar
during the 19th century
A Key Stage 2
Educational Resource Pack
Part 8—A Woman’s Story &
Household spending from 1841
169
A day in the life of Aunt Lizzie by George Jenkins
Lizzie was 10 years old when her youngest brother, Fred, was born in 1879. Her two eld-
est sisters, Mary and Fanny, were already living away from home as house servants—‘in
domestic service’. Lizzie’s two elder brothers, Tom and Bill, worked in the coal mine
with their father Tom (Tom the Shoer—who looked after pit ponies). Lizzie’s two younger
brothers were Ted, aged 3, and Jack aged 2. A fortnight after the arrival of baby Fred,
Lizzie’s mother died. She was in her 40th year.
Lizzie’s unmarried aunt took
care of Fred until his 5th year
but she lived in the next valley.
So Lizzie left school and, for the
next 14 years, acted as house-
keeper and mother. It was a 2-
storey, 2-bedroom, terraced
house with an outside toilet, no
hot water system, no electricity,
no light of any kind in the up-
stairs rooms, and all cooking
was carried out over the open
hearth fire and oven.
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Lizzie’s father and 2
elder brothers would rise
at 5.30 a.m. Their first
task being to clear the
previous day's ashes,
light the fire, boil water
for morning tea and sit
down to a modest
breakfast before leaving
for the mine.
As they left, Lizzie would
get up, wash and dress in
the one living room, clear
the breakfast dishes,
take out a pastry board from the pantry and make 6 loaves of bread which her younger
brothers would take to the public bake-house on their way to school.
Lizzie would call them from their deep sleep and they would come down in their Welsh
flannel night shirts, wash in a bowl on the same table and dress ready for school. As
they left, carrying the loaves of bread, she would tend the fire on which a heavy iron
boiler filled with water was placed, for Monday was washday.
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Lizzie would carry in a metal tub from an outside
shed, place it on the stone floor in front of the fire
and pour in the boiling water.
She would bring clothes for washing downstairs,
separating very dirty working clothes from those
less soiled, putting the latter in the tub and
agitating them with a washing dolly until they were
clean.
Rinsed in clean water, these were squeezed
through a mangle before being hung on the
back-garden clothes line.
Very dirty clothes required harsher treatment.
Kneeling over the bath she would rub them
vigorously on the washboard, using strong carbolic soap. Scrubbed, rinsed and
mangled, these would then join others on the line.
This was a whole morning of very hard labour and it was a rush to get it completed
before Fred, Jack and Ted came home briefly from school - for there were no school
dinners. After making a simple meal of bread, butter and jam, for herself and younger
brothers, her next task was shopping, for in times long before fridge or supermarket,
perishable goods had to be bought daily.
172
Billie Hughes the grocer's shop was just across
the road. Behind the polished wooden counter
were mountains of butter on white china slabs,
sacks of sugar, tea, rice, huge sides of bacon
alongside the cutting machines, and bins of
currants, raisins, and other provisions.
White-aproned Dai George would carefully
weigh out each item, scooping them into paper
bags, writing down the cost on an oddment of
greaseproof paper.
Back home, Lizzie would hurry to prepare the
meal.
From the garden shed, she would collect vege-
tables that her Father had grown, peeling them
before placing into a saucepan on the hearth
and placing the meat in the oven to roast.
Sometimes she made Welsh Cakes cooked on
an iron bake-stone, which her Father had made
when apprenticed to a blacksmith.
173
All too soon she knew
her younger brothers
would be rushing in
from school followed
by her father and
elder brothers, Tom
and Bill.
They would be
smothered in coal
dust, their faces
black, their clothes
full of the dirt of the
mine where they had
spent the last nine or
ten hours.
Lizzie’s first duty was to put the boiler on the fire, making sure there was plenty of hot
water, and bring in the tub in which she done the day's washing, and place it on the
floor. The bathing ritual would never change.
Firstly, father would strip to the waist, kneel on the floor and bending over the tub, thor-
oughly wash his face and upper body.
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Lizzie would then wash his back and retire
as her father, firstly removing his working
trousers, would sit in the bath in front of the
blazing fire and wash the rest of his body.
He would then stand up, towel himself
vigorously and dress in his comfortable
everyday clothes.
The tub would be emptied, refilled with
clean water and Tom the eldest would
repeat the process, and he would be
followed by his brother Bill. Only when this
had been completed and the tub taken out
to the shed could a clean white linen cloth
be placed on the table.
Around it would sit father, Lizzie, Tom, Bill,
Ted, Jack and Fred. Before starting the
meal Father would say Grace and pray to
God to guide and protect Mary and Fanny,
away in service, and his dear wife Mary
whom he greatly missed.
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They ate their meal in silence for it was a time when
"children were to be seen and not heard."
There were always stockings to be darned and clothes to be
repaired, buttons to be sewn on and the fire to be tended.
As the clock struck 9, she and her brothers, after washing in
a bowl in the living room, would put on their night shirts,
light their candles and climb the stairs to bed, except Lizzie
who slept in the parlour on a makeshift bed.
Monday, the week’s washday, was particularly busy but
there was little peace during the rest of the week.
Each room had to be swept and dusted in turn, the floor
rugs beaten on the outside line to get rid of dust and dirt.
There were paths to be swept, chickens to feed and brass
ornaments to be polished.
And each day including Saturday, there was the bath ritual -
the boiling of water, bringing in the fuel from the coal house,
chopping sticks for the next day's fire and the non-stop
cooking for a family of seven, her young brothers to be
cared for.
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Yet life was not all hard
work, much of it based
on chapel - not merely
worship and Sunday
School where she
continued her neglected
education, but also
occasional outings and
socials, regular choir
practice and hymns
around the piano on
Sunday evenings, trips
to visit relatives, as well
as picnics. There were
special celebrations at Christmas, Easter and Whitsun, modest by today's standards,
but highlights then.
In later years, Lizzie’s father, ailing from pneumoconiosis—the disease that affects coal
miner’s lungs after working many years underground—also had to be cared for. Aged
just 22 when her father died, Lizzie then married a miner, going to live in a house little
different from her own and taking her youngest brother Fred with her.
177
How were workers’ wages spent in 1841?
In old money, there were 12 pence(d) to one shilling(s). There were 20
shillings in a pound(l). So there were 240 old pence(d) in an old pound!
In old weights, there were 16 ounces(ozs) to one pound(lb) in weight!
178
In old money, there were 12 pence(d) to one shilling(s). There were 20
shillings in a pound(l). So there were 240 old pence(d) in an old pound!
In old weights, there were 16 ounces(ozs) to one pound(lb) in weight!
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