EDUCATION PACK CONTENTS

Teachers’ notes National Curriculum links

1 The history of Moira Furnace Who built the furnace and why? Making iron Why did the furnace stop working?

2 Sir Francis Rawdon Hastings The 2nd Earl of Moira Aristocratic titles, family trees and coats of arms The Hastings family tree

3 The science and technology of Moira Furnace How did the furnace work? Blast furnaces Iron Reduction (Smelting), Pig iron, Cast iron The lime kilns

4 Mining at Moira in Victorian times A coal mining day at Moira in 1842 Walking to the coalface, ‘Holing’, The day shift, The night shift, Horses underground, The history of the Moira collieries The dangers of mine working Explosions, Black powder Miners’ lives The little butty system and slackers, How much did a miner earn in 1842?, How much did a miner spend each week in 1842?, Pounds shillings and pence Children working in the mines Extract from the 1842 Report on Chidren’s Employment in Mines Miners’ words

5 Living at Moira Furnace Housing The 1881 Census Census abbreviations, Local occupations, Census transcriptions

6 The Ashby Canal The Moira Lock The Joseph Wilkes narrowboat Canal horses The boat fleet Living and working on the canals ‘Roses and Castles’

7 Moira wildlife Woodland Ponds The canal MOIRA FURNACE MUSEUM EDUCATION PACK

Moira Furnace is one of the best examples of an early 19th Century iron-making blast furnace anywhere in Europe. It was built in 1804 by Francis Rawdon Hastings, the Earl of Moira, to exploit the wealth of coal and iron ore in the area.

The furnace site includes the museum itself, which is in three parts within the original blast furnace building; restored lime kilns; woodland; and the restored section of the Ashby Canal, complete with narrowboat.

The Moira Furnace site offers a wealth of activities for schools and helps meet National Curriculum requirements in History, Science, Geography, Literacy and Numeracy. The museum has been designed to show how science and industry have shaped the local landscape and the lives of local people. Its resources offer a range of experiences for children at all key stages.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Blisworth Village Website (www.blisworth.org.uk) British Waterways Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council North West Leicestershire District Council Northern Ireland Environment Agency The Science Museum

COPYRIGHT

Published by The Moira Furnace Museum Trust Limited, 2009

© The Moira Furnace Museum Trust Limited, 2009

The copyright of the material in this publication is vested in the trustees of Moira Furnace. Permission is given by the trustees for any material to be copied, in reasonable quantities, by the purchasing institution for educational purposes only. Permission is not given for commercial use of the material without prior written permission from the trustees.

We have attempted to trace the copyright holders of photographs used but if we have unwittingly infringed copyright, we sincerely apologise and will be pleased, on being satisfied as to the owner’s title, to pay an appropriate fee as if we had been able to obtain prior permission. TEACHERS’ NOTES

Moira Furnace is an ideal place for a school visit. It offers a wealth of activities and helps meet National Curriculum requirements in History, Science, Geography, Literacy and Numeracy. The museum has been designed to show how science and industry have shaped the local landscape and the lives of local people. Its resources offer a range of experiences for children at all key stages.

The furnace site includes the museum itself, within the original blast furnace building; restored lime kilns; woodland; and the restored section of the Ashby Canal, complete with narrowboat. There are two parts to the museum:

The Bridge Loft - where the raw materials for smelting were assembled and fed into the top of the furnace. This now houses displays showing how the furnace worked.

The Hastings Room - where the furnace building was converted into cottages after it stopped working. This now houses displays of the working life of the furnace and the history of the buildings on the site. The Hastings Room includes Mary’s Parlour - a reconstructed Victorian kitchen. This contains authentic objects giving an insight into the everyday lives of the mining families who lived in the furnace later in the 19th century.

The museum also offers a number of activities that can be combined with the museum experience to provide a full day of educational value. These include:

Victorian washday Soap making Bug hunting

All activities and tours are ranger-led. The museum also has its own canal boat which is available for short trips by school groups.

NATIONAL CURRICULUM LINKS

HISTORY

Key Stages 1 & 2

Areas of study include family life, work and leisure from the past in the local area. This includes the lives of significant individuals such as Francis Rawdon Hastings the Earl of Moira, and Joseph Wilkes, a local entrepreneur associated with the construction of the Ashby Canal. The museum’s resources particularly support the following units:

Unit 2: What were homes like a long time ago? (Year 1) The museum offers opportunities to explore people’s lives and lifestyles in the Victorian period. ‘Mary’s Parlour’ - a reconstructed Victorian kitchen - contains authentic objects giving an insight into the everyday lives of the mining families who lived in the furnace later in the19th century. This allows children to identify differences between ways of life at different times. The museum’s displays show different ways in which the past is represented and our activity sheets allow pupils to collect information to create their own records.

The museum contributes to the teaching of the Local History Study unit. It covers aspects of the local community over a period of time and illustrates developments in the local community taught in the Victorian Britain unit. Its resources particularly support the following units: Unit 11: What was it like for children living in Victorian Britain? (Year 5/6) This pack contains resources that explore housing conditions and the working lives of children in the local mines and on canals in Victorian times.

Unit 12: How did life change in our locality in Victorian times? (Year 5/6) Moira Furnace is one of the best examples of an early 19th Century iron-making blast furnace anywhere in Europe. Together with the Ashby Canal, which runs alongside the furnace, it played a key part in the industrial transformation of the local area. The museum’s ‘Hastings Room’ - where the furnace building was converted into cottages after it stopped working - houses displays of the working life of the furnace and the history of the buildings on the site. The unusual census material from 1881 for the furnace buildings can be used to explore the living conditions and working lives of families in the area.

Unit 18: What was it like to live here in the past? (Year 3/4) Moira Furnace is a focal point for industrial change in the past. Its unusual appearance and construction allow considerable scope for observation and recording. Its transition from industrial use to housing is supported by historic photographs and drawings which can be compared with modern photos and observations.

Key Stage 3

The museum meets the requirements for Britain 1750 -1900 with an emphasis on industrial change and its impact on the way of life of people in the local area. It particularly supports the following units:

Unit 11: Industrial changes - action and reaction (Year 8) The Ashby Woulds area was rich in coal and ironstone and the opening of the Ashby Canal made their exploitation a viable proposition. The blast furnace proved to be a failure but coal mining in the area was highly profitable and continued well into the 20th century. The museum’s ‘Bridge Loft’ - where the raw materials for smelting were assembled and fed into the top of the furnace - houses displays showing how the furnace worked and explains the technological processes involved. The furnace site also contains seven restored lime kilns that were built to burn local limestone.

GEOGRAPHY

Key Stages 1, 2 & 3

Moira Furnace gives an abundance of opportunities to study how and why the site has developed, its transport links and changes of use. Together with the developing National Forest and restored Ashby Canal, it also demonstrates environmental preservation and regeneration within a local area. The growth and subsequent decline of the mining industry in the area provide examples of change in economic activity, availability of resources and environmental impact. The museum’s resources particularly support the following units:

KS1 & 2, Unit 6: Investigating our local area (Year 3) KS3, Unit 1: Making connections (Year 7) KS3, Unit 22: Mining on the internet (Year 9).

SCIENCE

Key Stages 1, 2 & 3

Unit 3C: Characteristics of materials (Year 3) Unit 9E: Reactions of metals and metal compounds (Year 9) Unit 9F: Patterns of reactivity (Year 9), Unit 9H: Using chemistry (Year9) The museum displays explain the use of raw materials in the iron-making process and demonstrate the relevance of these processes to the manufacture of a range of products. This pack includes a section on the science and technology of a blast furnace and the impact of developments in technology on iron smelting, casting and founding, and the production of quicklime from limestone.

Unit 2B: Plants and animals in the local environment (Year 2) Unit 4B: Habitats (Year 4) Unit 6A: Interdependence and adaptation (Year 6) The furnace site includes woodland, a wildflower meadow and the Ashby Canal. These offer many opportunities for the observation and identification of plants and animals in their natural environment. Additional activities available at the furnace include bug hunting and wildflower and tree identification.

CREATIVITY, CITIZENSHIP & ICT

The museum offers a wealth of material to support reading and writing. There are many characters (from the Earl of Moira to the humblest mine boy) and events that could be used as a basis for descriptive writing. The museum’s displays and activity sheets encourage the location and use of information and recording. Many aspects of data handling using the museum’s resources will lend themselves to the use of ICT tools.

The materials in the pack do not need to be used in a particular order. Just use the sections that are most relevant to the needs of your pupils. There are lots of opportunities for further work.

Many activities are cross-curricular and will support schemes of work within Citizenship at primary level.

ACTIVITY RESOURCES

The following resources can be used throughout the pack (samples in this section):

Evidence response sheets (general, artefacts and photos) Storyboard outline Drawing frame.

These can be photocopied without permission for whole class use.

USEFUL GENERAL WEBSITES www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians www.learningcurve.gov.uk/index/snapshots.htm (The National Archives lesson plans) www.headlinehistory.co.uk (Learning with newspapers) www.emsource.org.uk (Museum and archive resources in the East Midlands) www.objectlessons.org.uk (Evidence from objects) ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES

Victorian wash day

Groups of up to 12 children are encouraged to participate in a Victorian-style wash day in the ‘Mary’s Parlour’, the miner’s kitchen section of the museum.

This activity lasts approximately 30 minutes and includes using a dolly peg, dolly tub, posher, wash board, soap and mangle. (For safety reasons, use of the mangle is demonstrated by staff!) Children are given the opportunity to wash an item of clothing, hang it out and learn about the life of a mining family in late Victorian times.

The Joseph Wilkes boat trip

The Moira Furnace narrowboat is available for use by school groups. A maximum of 10 children and 2 adults can be taken at one time on the boat trip which lasts about 30 minutes. The boat leaves the furnace, turns round at Moira Lock, up to Donisthorpe Country Park and back to the furnace.

Lock trips are available on request. This trip takes 45 minutes each way through the lock to Conkers Basin and then back to the furnace.

Boat trips are usually combined with other activities on the day of your visit.

Pond dipping and bug hunting

This very popular activity involves a small group of children (maximum 10) in analysing pond life.

Magnifying glasses, pens, paper and all dipping equipment are provided. Children are given information sheets to help them identify the creatures found. This activity takes 30 minutes. THE HISTORY OF MOIRA FURNACE 1 KS1/2 Who built the furnace and why? HISTORY

Sir Francis Rawdon Hastings, the second Earl of Moira, built the furnace in 1804. It was built to produce iron which was used to make machine parts, tram tracks and cannonballs amongst other things.

The story of Moira begins in the late 1700s when Sir Francis took over the estates left to him by his father. He took samples of coal, iron ore and limestone from the local area which at the time was just fields and wasteland. He found Hastings Rawdon Francis Sir that the quality of these materials was ideal for making iron. By1800 the Earl had sunk his first coal mine and in 1802 he was planning a blast furnace, fuelled with coke made from his own coal.

The result was Moira Furnace. It was built in 1806, at a cost of £30,000, beside the newly opened Ashby Canal which was to bring raw materials to the furnace and carry the finished iron to be sold in other parts of the country. From the Earl of Moira’s industries grew the village of Moira (named after the Earl’s estate in Ireland) with churches, schools, shops, pubs and a railway station.

The ‘Stone Rows’ in Moira, built by the Earl in 1811 to house the workers for his furnace, foundry and coal mines. Each cottage had a parlour, kitchen, large front room, coalhouse, two large bedrooms and a good-sized garden. Making iron

Iron has been used in Britain since before Roman times. It is abundant naturally but is hard to smelt, as its melting point is very high and it can easily be spoilt by impurities. The late 18th and early 19th centuries saw many developments in technology which improved iron making techniques. One was to use coal in the form of coke for smelting, to reduce contamination of the iron, and another was to use a steam engine to power a blowing cylinder to produce an air blast.

The expansion of the iron industry in Britain was a major factor in the development of the Industrial Revolution.

Iron making in Victorian times

What is different from factories today? Where is the power for the machinery coming from? Where is the light coming from for the workers to see what they are doing? Why did the furnace stop working?

From the very beginning there were problems with the management of the furnace. The quality of the limestone was not good enough and the local coal was not suitable for turning into coke. Twice as much coal was needed to produce a ton of iron in Moira than in other places.

The furnace worked from 1806 -1807 and again in 1810 until 1811 when it was blown out. Despite plans to restart operations later in 1811, and even to build a second furnace to operate alongside the first, it appears that no further iron smelting took place. When restoration took place on the furnace in 1981it still contained a working charge (the last lot of rocks ever poured in to the top).

Something went wrong during smelting that damaged the furnace beyond repair. It seems that the top of the furnace (rather than the bottom) became much too hot causing the chimney lining to melt and fall into the furnace. After this, the furnace was shut down though the foundry attached to the furnace carried on working for another 40 years or so using iron made elsewhere.

Moira’s future lay with coal not iron. The furnace building survived because it was used as cottages, some of which were lived in until the 1970s.

Moira Furnace after it was turned into cottages. TEACHERS’ NOTES

This section gives brief background information about the history of Moira Furnace, its location and purpose, and how it has come to survive. It is designed to be read with pupils and could be used as a standalone activity, perhaps as preparation for a visit to the furnace.

The old photographs of the ‘Stone Rows’ and of the furnace buildings could be used to prompt an investigation of living spaces. Children may want to draw a plan of their own house and compare it with the Moira cottages and the furnace itself. They could identify differences in chimney, roof and window styles and in how rooms are arranged within a home.

There are more old photographs of the furnace throughout the pack and further activities relating to living conditions in Section 5 ‘Living at Moira Furnace’. There is much more detailed information about Sir Francis Rawdon Hastings and activities relating to heraldry, family trees and aristocracy in Section 2 ‘Moira people’. SIR FRANCIS RAWDON HASTINGS 2 KS 1/2/3 THE 2nd EARL OF MOIRA HISTORY

Sir Francis Rawdon Hastings was born in Ireland in 1754. He became a prominent Leicestershire landowner and a significant figure in British politics during the reign of George III.

Francis Rawdon inherited the area of Ashby Woulds from his uncle in 1789 and took the family name of Hastings. In 1793 he inherited his father's property in Ireland and the title of Earl of Moira. Aristocratic landowners had Hastings Rawdon Francis Sir the right to mine, use and sell the mineral reserves that lay below the ground they owned.

Sir Francis was an important military commander. He served in the British Army during the War of American Independence and in 1794 he commanded an expedition to rescue noble families from the revolution in France. He was Commander-in-Chief of the army in Scotland from 1803-1806.

Sir Francis, the 2nd Earl of Moira

Look at his clothes:

Are they the same as people wear today?

Are they what poor people would have worn in those days?

In politics Sir Francis was regarded as being brave, talented and loyal but also somewhat foolish. Many people thought that the Prince of Wales took advantage of his weaknesses and played a major part in his later financial difficulties. His friendship with the prince also made him unpopular with King George and is thought to have damaged his reputation and political career. Like many aristocrats of the time, Sir Francis had large debts and was often in need of money. He sold off his estates in Ireland and parts of his estates in Leicestershire but was determined to keep Ashby Woulds where he hoped that coal mining and iron making would restore his fortunes. Unfortunately, Moira Furnace was never the success that he wished for.

Because of his debts he was unable to live in Britain and died in 1826, while he was Governor of Malta, on the navy ship HMS Revenge anchored at Naples.

Aristocratic titles, family trees and coats of arms

During his life, Sir Francis held all the following aristocratic titles:

Baron Rawdon Lord of Ashby Manor 2nd Earl of Moira Baron Botreaux Baron De Moleyns Baron Hastings Baron Hungerford 1st Marquess of Hastings Viscount Loudoun Earl Rawdon

A study of the Hastings family tree shows where some of these titles came from. Many were added because of marriages between different families and through the handing down of titles from father to eldest son.

The Hastings Family

Can you find Francis Rawdon Hastings and his wife Flora? Why did Sir Francis add ‘Hastings’ to his name? Why was there not a 5th Marquis of Hastings? Family trees Can you draw your own family tree? If you were a Lord or Lady, what title would you choose? Can you design your own coat of arms? THE HASTINGS FAMILY TREE

Theophilus HASTINGS Married Lady Selina Shirley 1696-1746 1707-1791 9th Earl of Huntingdon

Francis George Elizabeth Ferdinando Selina Selina Henry 1729-1789 1730-1743 1731-1808 1732-1743 1735-1736 1737-1763 1739-1757 10th Earl of Huntingdon Married Sir John Rawdon, 1st Earl of Moira Did not marry but had illegitimate son

Francis RAWDON (HASTINGS) Married Flora Campbell Charles 1754-1826 1780-1840 married Parnell Abney 2nd Earl of Moira Countess of Loudoun 1st Marquis of Hastings

Charles Frank ABNEY HASTINGS ABNEY HASTINGS 1792-1858 1794-1829 George Augustus Francis RAWDON HASTINGS 1808-1844 2nd Marquis of Hastings Married Barbara Yelverton, Baroness Grey de Ruthyn

Reginald Paulyn Serlo Henry Weysford Charles Plantagenet Edith Maud 1832-1851 1842-1868 1833-1874 3rd Marquis of Hastings 4th Marquis of Hastings Countess of Loudoun, 21st Baroness Botreaux Unmarried Married Lady Florence Paget Married Charles Frederick Clifton, 1st Baron Donington

Charles Edward Paulyn Francis Cuthbert Gilbert Theophilus CLIFTON HASTINGS CAMPBELL 1855-1920 1856-1907 1859-1927 11th Earl of Loudoun 3rd Baron Donington Married Alice Fitzalan-Howard Married Lady Maud Grimston Married Maud Kemble Hamilton

Edith Maud RAWDON HASTINGS Elizabeth ABNEY HASTINGS Flora RAWDON HASTINGS Isabel RAWDON HASTINGS Reginald ABNEY HASTINGS Edward ABNEY HASTINGS 1883-1960 1884-1975 1885-1950 1887-1917 1889-1915 1895-1915 Countess of Loudoun Baroness Strange of Knockin, Hungerford and De Moleyns Married Reginald Huddleston Married Sir John Phillips, 1st Viscount St Davids Married Hubert Rostron TEACHERS’ NOTES

In this section you will find information about Sir Francis Rawdon Hastings who played an important part in Moira's past.

Pupils might like to create a factfile for Sir Francis which could include sheets on his working life and what he achieved in his career and a summary sheet of his importance locally or nationally. Further sheets could be added and pupils might produce an obituary for him as it might have been produced in the newspaper at the time.

Pupils could be asked to select one event from Sir Francis’s life and draw this to make a montage for display around the class. It could also be clipped onto a timeline around the classroom.

Discuss Francis Rawdon Hasting's family tree and how it is set out. Aspects that could be highlighted might include: fashionable names, any names that recur, marriages and evidence of male primogeniture. You might also want to explore the idea that the Hastings should have been part of today’s royal family (see the Channel 4 website).

Pupils could be asked to design their own family tree and/or coats of arms using the templates or web resources.

WHAT YOU CAN SEE AT MOIRA FURNACE

The ‘Hastings Room’ contains information about Sir Francis and a life-size mannequin in 18th century military costume.

USEFUL WEBSITES

Sir Francis Rawdon Hastings www.education.mcgill.ca/profs/cartwright/rawdon/sirfrancis.htm www.answers.com/topic/marquess-of-hastings www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/I-m/monarchtree.html

Aristocratic titles www.thepeerage.com www.burkes-peerage.net

Family trees and coats of arms www.digiserve.com/heraldry www.coatsofarms.addr.com www.storyboardtoys.com/gallery/coat-of-arms-lesson-plan.htm www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/british_galleries/designa/coat_of_arms/coat_of_arms.html THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF MOIRA FURNACE 3 KS 1/2/3 SCIENCE How did the furnace work? HISTORY

The three materials needed to make iron - coal, limestone and iron ore - were dug up from the ground in the local area, and taken by canal boat to the furnace buildings. They would then be carried in barrows up to the bridge loft, separated, weighed and measured, and poured into the furnace stack - the chimney at the end of the building.

A fire was lit at the bottom of the stack and air was pushed into the chimney from a big engine at the side of the furnace. The air made the fire burn very hot and melt all of the rocks in the stack. When the rocks had all melted and fused together, molten iron was produced. A plug was taken out of a wall of sand at the bottom of the chimney and the molten iron ran out into moulds in the floor of the foundry.

Blast furnaces

A blast furnace produces molten iron from the reaction between iron ore and Iron ore Limestone Coke carbon at high temperature. The very high temperature is achieved by injecting a blast of compressed air into the base of the furnace during burning. A small amount of limestone is added to react with ash and impurities in the iron ore to form a liquid called slag. The impurities would otherwise clog up the furnace.

Early blast furnaces used charcoal as Air their source of carbon and bellows powered by a water wheel to supply the Ir Iro o air blast. By the time Moira Furnace was n n built, two major advances in technology had occurred. One was to use coal ‘Pig Beds’ instead of charcoal as the source of carbon. (The coal was in the form of How a blast furnace works coke, where water and pollutants have been removed.) The other was to use a steam engine instead of bellows to blow compressed air into the furnace. These advances meant that furnaces could be built much larger and near to supplies of coal and iron ore rather than having to be built near a water supply. Iron

Iron is an element with a melting point of 1535 degrees centigrade. After aluminium, it is the most abundant metal in the earth’s crust and is the fourth most common element. In its natural state (iron ore) it is mixed with other elements which have to be removed before it becomes usable. Iron ore is only mined when it contains at least 15% iron.

Unfortunately, the iron ore used at Moira had a low iron content. This meant that the furnace produced poor quality iron.

Reduction (Smelting)

This is the process of making iron (Fe) from iron ore. It is called reduction because during the process iron oxide is reduced to iron. The iron ore is heated together with carbon (C), the reducing agent. The carbon removes oxygen (O) from the iron ore and combines with it to form carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide. The chemical equation for this reaction is:

Fe2O3 + 3C 2Fe + 3CO2

As it gets hotter the iron absorbs some of the carbon which causes it to melt. At this stage the limestone - which contains calcium carbonate

(CaCO3) - that was added to the iron ore and coke, breaks down into calcium oxide and additional carbon dioxide:

CaCO3 CaO + CO2

The calcium oxide reacts with impurities in the iron - mainly silicon

dioxide (SiO2) - forming a slag containing calcium silicate (CaSiO3) which floats on the iron.

Pig iron

While iron was being made at Moira the furnace remained alight and in blast day and night. As the coke burned, the contents of the furnace sank and fresh coke, iron ore and limestone were tipped into the top. Molten iron and slag collected in the bottom of the furnace chimney where there was a hearth with a dam made of large stone blocks covered with iron plates. In the dam were two openings - a tap hole at the side and a slag notch at the top. The slag was tapped when the hearth filled up but the molten iron was tapped less often, about every 12 hours. When iron is molten it cannot be rolled or hammered into shape so has to be poured into moulds and left to cool. Moira originally had a casting shed next to the furnace. In the floor of the shed was a bed of sand containing a network of branching troughs into which the molten iron flowed. The main branches were called sows and the side ones pigs because the pattern looked like a sow suckling her piglets. The iron was therefore called pig iron. Moira produced about 2 tonnes of pig iron a day. Pig iron beds in a Victorian foundry

Cast iron

Some Moira iron was sold as pig iron. The rest was used to make cast iron goods for sale and for use in local industries. For this the pig iron had to be melted again in a small furnace and cast in moulds.

A pattern of the thing to be made, such as a pot or rail, is made out of wood and pressed in to a box of casting sand. The wooden pattern is then removed leaving the impression of its shape behind. This is the mould into which molten iron is poured. When the iron has cooled, the mould is broken away leaving the iron in the shape of the pattern. Producing wooden patterns and preparing moulds was very skilled work.

This is a drawing of part of a carved stone mould from the furnace. It was used to make letters in cast iron. You can see the channels that the molten iron flowed through.

Why do you think the letters are back to front? Can you design a mould to make something you use every day?

Moulds are still used to make many everyday objects, like mobile phones and calculators.

What materials are these made from? Why do we no longer make so many objects out of iron? Although Moira Furnace stopped smelting iron in 1812, the casting shed remained in use as a foundry for another 40 years. Pig iron was brought from elsewhere, remelted and cast into items such as tram plates for the Ashby Canal, machinery and equipment for local collieries, window frames and fireplaces. The foundry was demolished in 1903 and converted in to pigsties and outside toilets for the adjoining cottages.

You can still see the foundations of the casting shed in front of the furnace chimney.

Cast iron objects

1 3

2

4

Cast iron items for sale in the Coalbrookdale Company Catalgue 1875 5

6

Do you know what all these objects are?

Do we still use them today?

If we do, are they still made of cast iron? The lime kilns

Limestone was burned in the lime kilns from about 1812 to 1860. The limestone was brought by tramway from the quarries of Ticknall and Breedon about 10 kilometres north of Moira.

Unburned limestone was used at the furnace in the ironmaking process but some of it was burnt separately in the lime kilns to make quicklime. Limestone, which contains calcium carbonate (CaCO3), is heated to above 825 degrees centigrade to remove carbon dioxide. This leaves calcium oxide (CaO) known as quicklime. The chemical equation for this reaction is:

CaCO3 + heat CaO + CO2

Quicklime is a white powder that had several important uses in the 19th century. It was spread on the fields as a fertilizer to improve the quality of the soil. It was mixed with water to make a sort of a paint called limewash. Limewash was used as a disinfectant to keep the walls of farm buildings clean. Quicklime was also mixed with sand and water to make mortar for building.

Working at the lime kilns was very dangerous. Quicklime is corrosive. This means that it can burn the skin, eyes and lungs if breathed in. It is very unlikely that the lime burners wore any protective clothing. Lime burners’ lives were usually very short.

The lime kilns as they are today A drawing of the lime kilns as they would have looked when they were working

In 1812, 3 tons of quicklime sold for 30 shillings. To make 3 tons you would need 21 shillings worth of limestone and 3 shillings worth of coal.

How much profit was there in 3 tons of quicklime?

How much is that in today’s money? TEACHERS’ NOTES

This section explores the science and technology behind Moira Furnace. It outlines the technology and chemistry of a blast furnace which older children could use as a starting point to explore the properties of metals and their use in manufacturing. It also includes a description of 19th century limeworking which provides a strong contrast with modern working methods and could prompt discussion about personal safety and contrasting lifestyles. (Section 4 ‘Mining at Moira in Victorian times’ also includes information about the dangers of mineworking and the employment of children.)

As with other sections, it is designed to be used as a standalone activity but will perhaps be more useful as part of a broader study of industrial activity and change. It will be particularly useful for Key Stage 3 pupils in both Science and History.

The design of Moira Furnace was experimental in its day and pupils could compare it with other forms of furnace and its use of compressed air with other sources of power (for example, water or horsepower).

The illustrations of cast iron objects could be used by Key Stage 1 and 2 pupils as an activity in itself or to lead on to:

- exploring the use of iron as a material in Victorian household objects and how those objects would have been used - exploring the use of iron in street furniture (lamp posts, manhole covers, benches etc.) - comparing a range of Victorian objects, not just those made of iron, to modern objects to think about how they were made, what they were used for and whether we still use objects like them today. Some might be brought in from home.

WHAT CAN BE SEEN AT MOIRA FURNACE

The furnace building is a uniquely preserved pre-Victorian blast furnace. The foundations of the casting shed are still visible and the channels for molten iro have been recreated in brick. Display panels and models in the museum illustrate the processes of iron-making in the early Victorian era. The museum has a collection of objects made of cast iron. The original limekilns have been restored in their original location.

USEFUL WEBSITES

Blast furnaces, smelting and iron-making www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/launch_ani_blast_furnace.shtml www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/smelting www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/chemistry/usefulproductsrocks/index.shtml

Cast iron objects www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/museum/othertrades/cranefoundry/catalogue.htm www.objectlessons.org MINING AT MOIRA IN VICTORIAN TIMES 4 KS 2 HISTORY ENGLISH Coal has been used as a source of energy for centuries in many different CITIZENSHIP parts of the world. The Industrial Revolution in Britain was based on the abundance of coal to power steam engines, either for factory machines or for the expanding network of railways. It was in Britain that the main techniques of underground mining were developed from the late 18th century onward.

Moira sits above the deepest part of the Leicestershire and South Derbyshire coalfield. The Earl of Moira made trials to find coal in 1796 and shafts began to be sunk near the furnace from 1800 onwards to supply coal for the blast engine. Between 1804 and 1813 three large mines, about 215m deep were sunk to the Moira Main Coal (a seam up to 5m thick in places) and a colliery village was built to accommodate a part of the workforce employed in them.

A COAL MINING DAY AT MOIRA IN 1842

In the 1840s the working day started early in Moira. Dim lights would be showing in the windows of the two rows of stone built houses facing each other across the road to Measham. Around two o’clock in the morning, miners would be leaving to walk the dark roads and paths to the pits of the Moira Collieries - Bath Pit, Marquis Pit and the recently opened Newfield Pit.

These early starters would be the ‘holers’, workers who cut and brought down the coal at the coalface. As they arrived at the pit, the engine man would be waiting, boiler fires prepared. The men were lowered to the pit bottom on loops of chain attached to a winding rope. An iron umbrella protected them from above.

Going down the shaft was as unpleasant as being lowered down a factory chimney, hot and full of smoke and fumes from the ventilating furnace. It usually took about half an hour to get all 40 men into the pit. Lowering men down the pit shaft Walking to the coalface

Once down the pit, the men would start the walk to the coalface. They went through the ventilation control doors, along the road cut through solid coal, past the horse gin (a horse driven engine for pulling wagons up a slope), and on to the working area. This was about three-quarters of a mile from the shaft. At least the road was high enough for the men to walk upright, unlike at many pits.

At the end of the main road, the men would turn up the stall roads (where coal had already been extracted), and small groups of men went to each stall. The stall roads had walls made up of timber logs to support the roof.

‘Holing’

Once at the coalface the work of the day would begin. The coal seam was about five metres thick but only the best part (about 1.8m thick) was mined. This was hard dull-looking coal known as ‘spires’. In the middle of the section was a narrow band of softer, brighter coal called ‘dicey’. This was easier to mine than the spires but not such good quality.

Working by the light of candles only, the miners used their picks to cut a seven centimetre deep slot into the coal over a distance of about six metres. This operation was known as ‘holing’.

Each holer had to cut about 12 metres of coal out before he was allowed to come up the shaft. This was called his ‘stint’. No explosives were used. The saying “Why don’t you use some Moira powder?” meant using a hammer and wedge. The holers generally returned to the surface at three o’clock in the afternoon or shortly afterwards.

The day shift

Around six o’clock in the morning the remainder of the workforce would gather at the pithead. This was the main day shift; the coal getters, called ‘ratchers’, and pony boys. It took about 45 minutes to wind 60 -70 men and boys down the pit. Their main work was to remove the coal and transport it from the coalface to the pit bottom.

The facemen, or ‘hewers’, would take long, thin wedges and hammer them into the top of the seam that the holers had made, causing it to break off in large blocks from the roof of the seam. These large blocks of coal were then cleared away, loaded into ‘corves’ (flat-bottomed tubs with 15cm sides) on carriages and moved on a railway laid along the coalface. The wedges were then driven into the bottom half of the seam at floor level causing the coal to break off upwards. Again the large coal would be removed while the small pieces were thrown onto waste heaps. Loaded carriages at the coalface were taken up the stall road into the main road. Two or more carriages were then coupled together and drawn by horses to the pit bottom. At the pit bottom the corves of coal were hung on the winding rope for the journey up the shaft.

On the pit bank at the surface, men were busy removing the corves of coal from the rope at the pithead and sending empty corves back down. Others were engaged in emptying and stacking the large blocks of coal or loading them into wagons on the railway leading to the canal. Around six or seven o’clock at night, the winding of coal would end for the day and men and boys would come out of the mine.

The night shift

As the day shift finished, the night shift began. Night shift duties were to clean up all coal slack and small coal pieces and put them into the waste. The men also moved the wooden props forward to the coalface to hold the roof up. (The props were called ‘puncheons’.) They also replaced any broken sleepers and cleared all loose stone and coal from the horse ways.

As well as the coal workers there were also specially picked teams called ‘waste-men’. It was their job to construct ventilation airways and make sure they were kept open. This was a very dangerous job as the airways sometimes contained gas and the men only had candles to see by.

Horses underground

The boys working in the pit collected the horses and ponies from underground stables and took them into the workings. Two horses drew carriages of coal from the coalface to the pit bottom. One horse was led by a boy of eleven or twelve and the other by an older youth.

About a third of the way from the pit bottom, the horse gin was used to pull the carriages up an incline. This was Horses pulling ‘corves’ underground operated by four horses walking round and round, coupled to the arms of the Look at the mask on the horse’s head. gin, which coiled a haulage rope onto What do you think this is for? a winding drum. About 30 horses How did they get the horses underground? worked underground at Bath Pit. Why would it have been important to keep the horse healthy and happy? Many horses were used on the furnace site when in operation and at all the mines in the area. The history of the Moira collieries

The pits in the Moira area seem to have had different names at different times. Sometimes they are named after places, and sometimes after people, especially the Earl of Moira and his family. Have a look at the Hastings family tree to see if you can identify some of the names that were used.

The owners of the collieries at Moira were members of the Hastings family until the death of Lord Donington in 1895 when a new company, The Moira Colliery Company Ltd., was formed.

The working dates of the pits are also not always clear. Sometimes we only know the date when full production of coal mining started. As work underground moved further away from the mineshafts it became more economical to sink new shafts. These later became known by separate names:

1804 Double (or Spinney) Pits 1806 Furnace (or Harvey’s) Pit 1813 Bath Pit 1816 Marquis Pit (originally a second shaft of Bath Pit) 1821 Rawdon Pit (originally a third shaft of Bath Pit) 1831 Hastings and Grey (or Newfield) Pit 1851 Reservoir (or Canal Head or Cut End) Pit

Rawdon Pit, which continued to produce coal until 1990, was the last to close in the area.

Bath Pit in Victorian times (photo courtesy of The Science Museum) THE DANGERS OF MINE WORKING

Explosions

Methane gas, or firedamp as it was called, was a big problem in the mines. Some men would take their shirts off and wave them around to try to remove the gas. Sometimes, if they were in too much of a hurry to start work, they would not wait long enough for the gas to disperse and would light their candles. This lit the gas and caused an explosion.

Workmen were usually safe if they kept their candles near the floor but even small The Davy Lamp was movements could cause an explosion. Davy invented in 1815 by the Lamps, which were invented in 1815, were British chemist Sir Humphry safer than candles but did not give as much Davy. It was the first miners’ light. They were often only used on special safety lamp. occasions. It was a cylinder of wire gauze containing a wick If someone got burnt down the mine, a cotton attached to an oil reservoir pad was applied to the burn and covered with and surrounded by an iron flour to dry up any moisture. Bags of flour frame. The gauze was meant to cool the were kept handy so that it could be easily temperature of the flame to applied. The wound would be dressed reduce the risk of gas properly when the injured person reached the exploding. surface. You had to be seriously injured to come out of the pit before the end of your shift. However, despite many modifications and improvements to its design, The coal underground could also set itself alight it did not succeed in when it came into contact with air; this is called reducing the number of spontaneous combustion. These ignitions, or accidents or deaths. ‘gob fires’, were very frequent at Moira.

Black powder

After 1874, black powder (also called gunpowder) began to be used to dislodge the coal instead of a wedge and hammer. The miners would light their own shot holes (holes in the coal where the powder was packed in). However, the powder was slow-burning and would keep igniting even when it appeared to have gone out. Having lit the powder, the men would run out of the way into other sections of the mine, sometimes straight into other miners also running out of the way. This caused many accidents so men called deputies were put in charge to supervise the blasting of the whole mine shaft.

Later on, high explosive powder was introduced as it detonated instantaneously and left nothing behind. An illustration from a Victorian magazine

You can see a picture of a Davy Lamp and how the coal mine was ventilated. What would it have been like to live in an area where there were lots of mines? Do you think it would have been warm or cold working underground? MINERS’ LIVES

The little butty system and slackers

A ‘buttyman’ ran the whole mine and paid those who worked for him. The butty system was changed in 1874 to a system where each section of the mine had a butty. This was called the ‘little butty’ system. This meant that the mine owner, rather than the butty, had control over the mine and paid several butties to look after it, not just one.

Each butty had up to ten men who he paid out of his own allowance from the owner. Each section was paid by how much coal they produced. Each tub of coal, which was numbered to show who had filled it, was weighed and recorded by the workmen and the mine owner. If the tub was heavier than normal it would be sent back down to be checked and refilled.

Men called ‘slack bobbies’ were employed to see that the workmen filled the tubs with good coal only and not with slack (waste material) or stone. If slack was found, the workmen would receive a fine or lose money by being told not to come to work for a couple of days. These days were called ‘slackers’.

How much did a miner earn in 1842?

In 1842, the government investigated the working of mines (you can see the cover of the report opposite). Dr. James Mitchell carried out the survey in Moira. He looked into working conditions and wages, particularly of children working in the mines. He recorded the wages paid to all the different types of miners at the Bath Pit:

‘Young boys of 6 or 7 years old whose job was to open and shut the doorways and sweep the roadways of dust - 8d per day.’

‘Older boys who were leading horses - between 1s 5d and 1s 8d per day.’

‘By the age of 16 years the strongest were fillers and even holding coal - 2s per day.’

‘The rest of the men, including holers, fillers, hammer men, timberers and the night men - 2s 8d per day.’ How much did a miner spend each week in 1842?

Dr. Mitchell found that the miners who worked at the Bath Pit were “well fed and contented”. A miner who was married and had three children earned 16 shillings a week and spent his money like this:

Flour 3s 6d 1 Meat 2s 8 ⁄2d Sugar 6d What a miner spent in Potatoes 6d 1842 Small beer 9d How much is this in Butter 9d today’s money? Skimmed milk 7d Do we still buy the Pease 2d same things for the Oatmeal 1d family these days? Cheese 7d Do you think this family Rent 1s 6d had a good life? 1 Leaving coals 7 ⁄2d Tea, coffee, salt etc. 1s 6d ______13s 9d

This left 2s 3d of his money to spend on clothes, shoes, beer in the pub and other expenses. Pounds, shillings and pence

Today we use pounds and pence when we go shopping. Before 1971 different money was used. There were pounds, shillings and pence. The symbols and abbreviations for money were also different. Today we use ‘p’ for pence (for example 50p), but under the old system, there were 12 pennies (d) to a shilling and 20 shillings (s or /-) to the pound. This meant that there were 240 pennies to the pound.

The old system of currency:

12d = 1/- (12 pennies equals 1 shilling) 20s = £1 (20 shillings equals 1 pound)

The present system:

100p = £1.00

Conversion table

Coin Old value New value

Farthing ¼d 0.1p Halfpenny 1/2d 0.2p Penny 1d 0.4p Threepenny bit 3d 1.25p Sixpence 6d 2.5p Shilling 1s 5p Two shilling piece 2s 10p Half-crown 2s 6d 12.5p

The names of some of these coins were pronounced quite differently from the way they are written. Some were often known by different names altogether.

Ask an older person to tell you what they called them. You could also ask them how they pronounced the names of the coins.

The ‘head’ and ‘tail’ of a Victorian penny CHILDREN WORKING IN THE MINES

Very young children worked in the mines. The nature of their work depended on age or strength. The youngest, some perhaps as young as seven or eight, were A drawer employed to open and close the doors that allowed clean air to flow through the tunnels. Should they happen to fall asleep they might be wakened by a crack from the horse-boy’s whip.

The inspectors’ report of 1842 described what the youngest children did:

“They are called trappers. Their duty consists in sitting in a little hole, scooped out for them in the side of the gate behind the door, where they sit with a string in their hands attached to the door and pull it the moment they hear the ‘corves’ (the carriages for carrying the coal) and the moment that it has passed they let the door fall to. They have nothing else to do. They work frequently for about 12 hours a day. A trapper They sit, in the dark, with a damp floor to stand on. It is a most painful thing to contemplate the dull dungeon-like life that these little creatures are doomed to spend; a life passed in solitude, damp and darkness. They are often allowed no light.”

Other children were employed to sweep the roads, while older boys drove the horses and ponies. Others, older still, but not yet strong enough to work at the coalface hung the corves on the winding rope to be hauled up to the surface.

Working conditions at Moira were quite comfortable compared A putter to mines in other parts of the country but children had little chance to gain an education. They all went to Sunday school but were unable to go to day school because their families needed the extra money that they could earn. There were no girls working in the Moira collieries though girls as young as eight worked in pits in other parts of the country.

The evidence given to the Royal Commission in 1842 by girls working in a Scottish mine A boy working underground A working boy

Children as young as six years old worked in coal mines. Imagine you were working in the mine:

Describe your work as a trapper, putter or drawer.

Think about the dark, the low tunnels, the heat, the danger from gas:

Describe the working conditions in the mines. You might want to use some of the special words listed below.

Some people thought that children should work in coal mines:

Give some reasons why they might think this. Explain why they hought it was wrong for children to work in the mines.

An extract from the Children’s Employment Commission report 1842 from Moira

EXTRACT FROM THE 1842 REPORT ON CHILDREN’S EMPLOYMENT IN MINES

Interview between Dr Mitchell, Sub-Commissioner for the Children’s Employment Commission and John Sharp

I was 20 on the 3rd April, 1841, and went into the coal-pit at about 14. Many work at 8. I drove an ass at Moira. I got up at half-past 4, took breakfast, and went off to the pit. I began to go down at 6 o’clock. It took us half an hour. The holers had been down about 3 and had coals ready. I took the ass out of the stable, yoked him, and went up to the workings. Men loaded the corve. When loaded I drove the ass up to the mainway, when the corve was taken off the slide, and put on a skip, and a man drew it along the horseway to the foot of the shaft, by means of a belt round him, and a chain which passed between his thighs. This is not done now. It has been given over 6 years since. Horses are now used instead of men, and in one pit, the New Field, an engine draws the coals to the foot of the shaft. There are now horses and trams.

I had an hour for dinner, about 1, and the engine stopped. Now there is no regular time, and we take a quarter of an hour as we can, in our turns, so as to keep the engine at work amongst us. We left off at 7; the man at the top, the bankmaster, called to give over, and we came up in the same time as we took to go down. There were 50 or 60 in the pit. We could get home by 8 o’clock. We then got a warm supper, and at about 10 I took off my clothes, washed my face and hands, and a little about the neck, and went to bed.

After half a year I was employed to hang the skips to the chain at the bottom of the shaft, in order to their being pulled up. The time of working was the same, but it was harder work than driving the jackass. I continued a quarter of a year at this. I then went to the Bath Pit, and was employed in placing coal after it was hewed down in the skips. It was much harder work, but better pay. I worked at this 12 months.

I cannot read. I was at school before I went down into the pit, but I was always a bad boy and played the truant, and went to bird’s-nesting, and one thing or another. I played at marbles, chased birds, threw stones, and all such things. I did not go to Sunday-school. I always say the Lord’s Prayer after I get to bed before going to sleep. I may sometimes omit it, but it is very seldom. I go every Sunday to the meeting twice a-day. After the meetings are over, I walk about, and sometimes go and have a sup of ale, and sometimes get drunk. I think it a sin. I do not often make a beast of myself, but sometimes. I get up on Sundays at 7 or 8. A collier wakes at his regular time, and cannot keep in bed much longer, as he is uncomfortable. There are some colliers who usually get up at 3, and on Sundays some of them do the same in summer-time, and go out and lied down in the sun, with their face upwards, and their hands under their head, and come to breakfast between 8 and 9. After breakfast they walk about till meeting-time, and then go to meeting. Miners’ words

Here are some of the special words that miners used in the Moira area. You might find some of them useful in writing your description of life in the mines. Also, have a look at the extracts from the Children’s Employment Commission report from 1842.

All-ups A mixture of every quality of coal raised from one seam, except the fine slack which was left in the pit.

Corves Baskets for carrying large lumps of coal.

Dicey Hard, glossy coal which broke or split up into cube- shaped pieces.

Gean Easy, good or profitable work. “It’s gean work.” “A gean shift.”

Gob To gob was to leave behind the unsaleable or waste coal. The waste pile was known as ‘the gob’ and ‘gob fires’ were the spontaneous combustion of coal waste (where the coal sets light to itself). “Throw it in the gob.”

Mosh To crumble or break down. Coal was liable to ‘mosh down’ if treated roughly during transportation, or left exposed to the weather. “That nesh coal has moshed down badly.”

Nooper A large pick used for ‘dressing’ or straightening the coalface.

Putter A man or boy who moved the tubs (or corves) of coal to and from the workings and the main shaft. A ‘hand putter’ pushed the tubs by hand and a ‘pony putter’ used a pony to haul the tubs.

Ratcher A coal getter or collier.

Shirt it To stop work at the end of the shift.

Spires Dull, hard slatey coal which was hard to work.

Stint The length of coalface to be ‘undercut’ during a shift. In other words, the amount of work to be done by one man in a day.

Wapping A roughly-made rope. TEACHERS’ NOTES

This section looks at the development of mining in the Moira area after the working life of the furnace had ended. It focuses particularly on the working lives of those employed in the mines, including children as well as men. It highlights the difficulties and dangers of working underground and gives insights into the everyday lives of Victorian families. It makes extensive use of a primary resource, the Children’s Employment Commission report, which is included in full as a supplement.

It will be particularly useful for History at Key 2 in investigating what it was like for children living in Victorian Britain set within a context of broader changes during the Industrial Revolution in the area. There may be opportunities for Citizenship studies comparing the lives of children in Victorian Britain with those of children in developing parts of the world today.

The wealth of original material and selection of miners’ words offer many opportunities for creative writing, artwork and role play based on the descriptions of different tasks and roles in the mining industry. Pupils might like to compile a diary for a chosen character drawing on the material provided.

USEFUL WEBSITES

Miners’ lives and language www.durham.gov.uk/miner/projects.nsf www.coalpits.co.uk/ (includes Harry Tootle’s Mining Dictionary) www.headlinehistory.co.uk/online/East%20Midlands/Victorian/leadStory21.htm

Child labour www.unicef.org/protection/index_childlabour.html www.ache.org.uk/ LIVING AT MOIRA FURNACE 5 KS 1/2 HISTORY Housing

After Moira Furnace closed down, families working in other local industries used the buildings as housing. The area beneath the Bridge Loft was converted into four two-storeyed cottages divided back to back down the centre of the building, and the engine house became a terrace of three cottages. In 1851, when the census was taken, three families lived in the furnace and there was even a family living in the arches under the bridge (the canal had been filled in by then!).

At one time there were as many as 65 people living on the site but later on numbers reduced to a more comfortable level. By the 1970s the Bridge House cottages had been combined to form more spacious accommodation and outbuildings and conservatories had been added.

It is because the buildings continued to be lived in that Moira Furnace has survived as a historic site. Also, if the furnace had been more of a success for iron-making it would have been unlikely to have kept its original form. The foundry buildings disappeared without any record and the Engine House is only known from photographs and the archaeological evidence from when the furnace site was restored.

Photographs taken between 1910 and 1980 show how the site changed over the years for different uses. You can see sheds, privies (toilets) and pigsties where the foundry used to be. The derelict bridge was eventually removed and replaced by a brick buttress and the overgrown canal was filled with pit spoil. In a photograph from the 1960s you can even see a large tree growing out of the furnace stack. Old photographs of Moira Furnace Top: outbuildings, no canal and no bridge. Middle: the Engine House (now gone). Bottom: furnace and canal with a wooden bridge which has since been demolished. The 1881 census

The population of England and Wales has been counted every ten years since 1801 in what is called the census.

The early censuses were not very detailed with only the numbers of people in different categories recorded. There was no attempt to record any personal details. However, from 1841 the census aimed to record the name, age and occupation of everyone in the country, though ages were rounded down to the nearest five years.

From the 1851 census onwards, exact ages were asked for together with the relationship of each person to the head of the household and where each person was born. From these records we can ask:

Who lived here in Victorian times? What job did they do? Where did they come from? How big were their families? How old were their children?

The two census sheets in this pack show the families who were living in the furnace buildings in 1881, after the furnace had stopped working. The original sheets, which were filled in by the census 'enumerator', can be difficult to read because they were hand-written. Extracts from the census return for the furnace have been transcribed to make them easier to read.

Census abbreviations

Head - the head of the household, usually the husband Widr. - Widower Daur. - Daughter Mar. - Married Unm. - Unmarried Scholar - school pupil Ser. - Servant do - ditto (the same)

Local occupations

Engine driver/engine man - probably the operators of the colliery steam winding engines, not railway engine drivers. Wheelwright - a cartwheel maker Boatwright - a boat builder or repairer. Higgling farmer - a higgler is a travelling dealer, usually with a horse and cart. A higgler in this area probably dealt in coal. Census research

Every 10 years a count is made of everybody living in England and Wales. It is called a census. These census sheets are about who was living at Moira Furnace in 1881. Look carefully at the sheets and answer the following questions.

How many families lived in the furnace?

How many people were there?

How many men lived there?

How many women were there?

How many children were there?

How many people live in your family? Who are they?

What jobs did the people do in 1851? Make a list.

What was the most common job? Why do you think this was the most common job?

What do you notice about the people who do not have a job?

Can you find out what a boatwright and a wheelwright did? In Victorian times most people lived near to where they were born.

Make a list of the different places where people from the furnace were born.

Why do you think people lived near to where they were born?

Where were you born? How many of your family were born near to where you live? 1881 Census Return: Moira Furnace (Sheet 1) 1881 Census Return: Moira Furnace (Sheet 2) 1881 Census Return: Moira Furnace (Sheet 1) If you are comparing it with the original, look for number 155 in the first column

CON- AGE last RELATION No. of ROAD, STREET and No. NAME and Surname of each DITION Birthday to Rank, Profession, or OCCUPATION WHERE BORN Schedule Person as to Of or NAME of HOUSE Head of Family Marriage Males Females 155 Furnace James Sharpe Head Widr 55 Colliery labourer Measham Derbyshire Harry Sharpe Son Unm 18 Coal miner Moira Leicestershire Thomas Sharpe Son Unm 15 Coal miner Moira Eliza Sharpe Daur 11 Scholar Moira Ellen Sharpe Daur 7 Scholar Moira Martha Berry Ser Unm Housekeeper Henton Bedfordshire

156 Furnace Joseph Wright Head Mar 62 Coal miner Measham Derbyshire Mary Wright Wife 59 Measham Richard Wright Son Unm 22 Coal miner Moira Leicestershire William Wright Son Unm 20 Coal miner Moira Agnes Wright Daur 18 Moira Thomas Wright Son 14 Coal miner Moira

157 Furnace Samuel Newbold Head Mar 48 Coal miner Moira Leicestershire Elizabeth Newbold Wife 48 Oakthorpe Derbyshire Elizabeth Newbold Daur Unm 18 Donisthorpe Leicestershire Samuel Newbold Son 13 Moira Leicestershire Sarah Newbold Daur 9 Scholar Moira

158 Furnace Joseph Wileman Head Mar 58 Higgling farmer Moira Leicestershire Rebecca Wileman Wife 58 Derbyshire Arthur Wileman Son Unm 22 Engine driver Moira Ursula Wileman Daur Unm 17 Moira Samuel Wileman Son 14 Farm boy Moira Mary Wileman Daur 12 Scholar Moira Rebecca Wileman Daur 9 Scholar Moira 1881 Census Return: Moira Furnace (Sheet 2) If you are comparing it with the original, look for number 159 in the first column

CON- AGE last RELATION No. of ROAD, STREET and No. NAME and Surname of each DITION Birthday to Rank, Profession, or OCCUPATION WHERE BORN Schedule Person as to Of or NAME of HOUSE Head of Family Marriage Males Females 159 Furnace John Brooks Head Mar 56 Engine man Donisthorpe Derbyshire Eliza Brooks Wife 53 Donisthorpe Mary Brooks Daur Unm 23 Dress maker Moira Leicestershire Walter Brooks Son Unm 18 Miner Moira John W. Reeves Grdson 6 Scholar Moira Thomas Ridgway Lodger Unm 20 Miner Newton Leicestershire

160 Furnace Benjamin Wileman Head Mar 36 Coal miner Measham Derbyshire Sarah Ann Wileman Wife 30 Measham Letty Ward Wileman Daur 8 Scholar Oakthorpe Derbyshire Edith W. Wileman Daur 5 Scholar Oakthorpe

161 Furnace George Birch Head Mar 54 Wheelwright Friston Suffolk Sarah Birch Wife 55 Friston Alfred Birch Son Unm 21 Painting artist Peasenhall Suffolk Frederick Birch Son Unm 19 Wheelwright apprentice Peasenhall

162 Furnace John Shuttleworth Head Mar 70 Boatwright Market Harborough Leicestershire Elizabeth Shuttleworth Wife 67 Oakthorpe Derbyshire TEACHERS’ NOTES

This section looks at the use of the Moira Furnace buildings as housing after the working life of the furnace came to an end. The adaptation of the buildings and developing use of the site will support work at KS2 on Unit 12: ‘How did life change in our locality in Victorian times?’

The use of old photographs and census returns for the furnace provides opportunities for pupils to learn about history from original sources. The census returns can be used in their original format but they have also been transcribed for ease of use. An activity sheet is included with this section

The photographs of the Furnace buildings and canal, which form another facet of the changes in places and on people brought about by the Industrial Revolution, will support work on Units 12 and 18. Additional photographs, some of which appear in other sections, have been included to provide a good spread of the history of the site. Pupils could be encouraged to attempt to put the photographs into date order and analyse what they are looking at as documentary evidence.

WHAT CAN BE SEEN AT MOIRA FURNACE

There are display and interpretation boards around the Moira Furnace site which provide the opportunity to compare historical images of the site with the present day reality.

USEFUL WEBSITES www.learningcurve.gov.uk/snapshots/snapshot50/snapshot50.htm www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/censuseducation.asp THE ASHBY CANAL 6 KS 1/2/3 HISTORY Ashby Canal was built to transport coal from local mines to be sold in other KS 3 parts of the country. The furnace was built alongside the canal so that the GEOGRAPHY iron it produced could follow the same route. Some of the furnace’s raw materials would have been brought in along the canal. Others came from very near the furnace site, and to transport these a number of horse-drawn tramways were built.

The Ashby Canal Company was formed in 1794 to construct a canal from the lime works at Ticknall and Breedon (a few miles beyond Moira) to join the Coventry Canal near Nuneaton. Here it could join the national canal network thereby linking Ashby to the rest of the Midlands and the south of England including London.

The canal was completed as far as the Ashby Woulds in 1804 at a cost of The Ashby Canal at Moira Furnace in 1916 £184,000 but the company’s money ran out soon after so the canal does not go Look at the clothes people are wearing: much further than Moira Furnace. As a Is this an ordinary day or result, Ashby and the quarries at Cloud a special occasion? Hill and Ticknall were linked to the canal What do you think they might be by horse-drawn tramways. celebrating?

The 14 foot (4.2m) wide canal worked very well in transporting goods up and down from Coventry as it ran for nearly 30 miles without a single lock, which made life much easier for the canal workers. It did this by following the natural contours of the land. This efficient transport system allowed the coal industry to develop and flourish.

However, it was mining that was one of the reasons that the canal eventually failed. Coal was dug from beneath the canal, which lowered the land level. Maintaining the canal at its original level became harder and harder to do. Also, railways, which had begun to be built in the 1830s and 40s, allowed goods to be transported faster and more cheaply. The Ashby Woulds section of the canal from Moira to Donisthorpe was eventually closed in 1944. The very last commercial use of parts of the canal further south was as late as 1966. The canal you see today was re-watered in 1999.

The Moira Lock

The lock was built in 2001 and is the first lock ever to be built on the Ashby Canal. It was built to reach the basin at Conkers after mining subsidence lowered the land. Boat trips are now available through the lock.

How a lock works The Joseph Wilkes - the Moira Furnace narrowboat

This boat started life in 1908 as a standard 70ft 'Joey' on the Birmingham Canals. A Joey was a horse-drawn boat that could be steered from either end. This meant that the boat could change direction without having to find a point on the canal wide enough to turn around. Joseph Wilkes Joseph The

For many years our boat was involved with the iron and steel industry, first with Hartshill Iron Company, then Stewarts & Lloyds, and finally British Steel.

Moira Furnace bought the boat in 1999, repaired the original riveted iron hull, and rebuilt it as a Steward & Lloyds tug from the 1950s. Tugs were used all over the canal system to tow boats through tunnels, to assist with breakdowns and to carry out canal maintenance.

It is named the Joseph Wilkes after the 18th century entrepreneur who helped finance the building of the The Joseph Wilkes passing through Moira Lock Ashby Canal. Canal horses

Teams of horses were needed to pull boats and to move goods between the canal and the place where they were needed. Later on at Moira, they were used to move coal from the mines to the wharves where it was loaded on to canal boats.

A horse pulling a boat or barge wastes minimal energy through friction and can move almost 50 times more weight in a boat than it could in a cart on old-fashioned roads.

Horseboating was hard work but boatmen had generations of skill to draw on and the waterways were built to suit horses with smooth curves on bridges and buildings (to avoid snagging towlines), and well-maintained and unobstructed towpaths.

The boatmen’s knowledge of the position of locks and where boats were likely to meet others coming the opposite way was essential. (Horseboats do not have brakes and are difficult to stop quickly.)

The boatmen used ‘strapping posts’ to slow the boat down or change direction. The posts were made of wood or iron and set in the ground a barge. pulling Horse Images Blisworth of J Payler, courtesy Photo close enough to the canal for the One horsepower boatman to wrap the 'strap' (a A packhorse could carry 100 kg strong piece of A horse and cart could move 2000 kg rope attached to A horse and wagon on a tramway could move 8000 kg the boat) around them. A horse and boat on a canal could move 50000 kg

They also used ‘smacking whips’, not on the horse, but to create a loud smacking noise like a gunshot to warn of the boat's approach. Before the development of steam locomotives the most efficient way to haul heavy materials overland was the tramway. A tramway was a track laid with iron rails along which a pair of horses could draw a train of up to five wagons fitted with iron wheels.

Tramways were laid around Moira to connect the various industrial operations with the canal. The rails for many of the local tramways were made at the Furnace foundry and the marks left by the tramways can still be seen in various places around the furnace site.

The boat fleet

During its heyday, there would always have been several boats on the canal at any one time. As well as visiting boats, bringing goods and materials to Moira, or taking iron and coal away, the colliery owned its own fleet of canal boats. In 1837, the fleet consisted of eighteen boats, listed as:

8 wooden barges - 58ft long, 13ft 6in wide (17.6m x 4.1m) 7 narrowboats - 70ft long, 7ft wide (21.3m x 2.1m) 1 ice-breaker 1 sailing boat (used on the canal reservoir) 1 salt-water barge

A barge carrying coal. This photograph was taken in 1955 near Northampton. Living and working on the canals

When canal boats were first used on the canal, teams of men worked on them and most families lived ashore. Work was hard but the pay was good; the boatmen were better off than factory workers.

When the railways started to move goods more cheaply than the canals, boatmen’s wages were cut. Families then began to live on the boats to save money. Most of the boat was needed for goods so the whole family had to live in a space three to four metres long. It had to be cleverly designed to use as a kitchen, living room and bedroom.

Children lived and worked with their parents on the narrowboat. They could not go to school regularly as they were always travelling, so few of them could read or write. Their job was to lead the horse, open the locks and collect fresh water. They worked long days, sometimes up to 17 hours, without being paid.

In 1877, The Canal Boats Act tried to shorten working hours and improve conditions. In 1884, inspectors began to check that children were going to school.

It is not surprising that most boat people were born and brought up on the A girl operating a lock gate. She is canals and went on to marry other boat wearing traditional costume. people. Few came to the canals from Photo courtesy of S Woolacott, Blisworth Images other trades.

A family of four in the cramped living conditions experienced by families who worked the boats. ‘Roses and Castles’

This is the name given to a style of decoration on narrowboats of the Midlands and associated waterways where families lived aboard. It became popular in the mid-1800s. The name is a bit misleading because although roses and castles were a popular feature of the designs, so too were other flowers, cottages, churches, rivers and lakes - anything that could be part of a romantic landscape.

‘Roses and Castles’ covered virtually everything in or on the narrowboat. The drinking can, the horse’s harness, doors, fitted furniture, lamps, anything and everything was decorated with bright and cheerful designs. Inside the cabin there would have been lacy curtains, polished brass and lace-edged china plates, threaded with coloured A typical ‘Roses and Castles’ design. ribbons.

No-one knows exactly where the ‘Roses and Castles’ style came from although there are some similarities to the decoration of gypsy caravans or funfairs. Wherever it came from, the reason for its popularity and growth is certainly tied to the limited size of the boat cabin, the pride of the boat people and the competition between the canals and the railways.

As a general rule, the outer surfaces of boats owned by companies tended to have large lettering and scrollwork, supplemented with geometric patterns. ‘Roses and Castles’ were primarily for the interiors, although individual owner-operators tended to have their boats decorated quite lavishly on the outsides. Some companies too, had decoration outside.

Restored canal barges with ‘Roses and Castles’ decoration on the cabin doors. TEACHERS’ NOTES

This section explores both the historic and present Ashby Canal which runs alongside Moira Furnace. It looks at the commercial history of the canal, and others, and its modern use as a leisure facility.

The canal’s history, which forms another facet of the changes in places and on people brought about by the Industrial Revolution, will support work at KS2 on Unit 12: ‘How did life change in our locality in Victorian times?’. The very unusual living conditions onboard canal boats, especially for children, can form the basis of work on Unit 11: ‘What was life like for children living in Victorian Britain?’. Activities around ‘Roses and Castles’ designs and the making of lace plates would enhance this work as well as providing opportunities for creative artwork.

The technology of locks and the use of horses and boats, together with the original photographs in this section, will create opportunities for further artwork and creative writing. Pupils can use these resources to create the life stories of children living and working on the canals in Victorian times. (‘Roses and Castles’ painting templates are reproduced courtesy of British Waterways.)

The restoration of the canal, together with the developing National Forest, demonstrate environmental preservation and regeneration within a former mining area. This provides examples of change in economic activity, availability of resources and environmental impact which will be useful in Geography at KS3.

WHAT CAN BE SEEN AT MOIRA FURNACE

The present day furnace building sits alongside the Ashby Canal and Moira Furnace runs trips on its own narrowboat The Joseph Wilkes. The tiny back cabin of the boat gives an idea of the cramped living conditions experienced by the families who worked on themand a trip on the boat offers a real experience of the slow travel of Victorian times.

USEFUL WEBSITES www.wow4water.net (Includes an information pack on the Ashby Canal and a game to create your own ‘Roses and Castles’ painting) www.waterways.org.uk/Waterways/WaterwaysForKids/ www.show.me.uk/hosted/networks/networks.swf (A game called ‘Move It’ about moving goods around England in 1850) www.canaljunction.com/canal/heritage.htm www.waterscape.com www.eyerevolution.co.uk/virtual_tours/london_canal_museum www.virtualwaterways.co.uk/Education_and_research.html Roses &Castlespaintingtemplates Event sheet ! ! Top tips: painting templates Roses orCastles learning aboutthehistoryofart. they canthenadaptthetechniqueandpainttheirownversionswhilstenjoying If yousimplifythetraditionalpaintingmethodssothatchildrencanfollowthem artist mayoffertocomeanddemonstrate. Step-by-step guidescandirectthechildrenthrough thestages,oralocalcanal -paintingpaperplatesorcanvasbagsinthetraditionalrosesstyle -colouring/paintingsimpletemplates(seeattachedtemplates) A rangeofactivitiesmaybeplanned: and visualway. Traditional canalartillustratesthe heritageofthewaterways inaverycolourful Traditional CanalArt You willneed: Association Waterways The Inland Have somebabywipeshandyforpaintcovered hands. for thechildrentowear. Painting canbeamessyactivitysotryandhaveaprons orcoveralls Non toxic paint & paintbrushes Non toxicpaint Optional Canvas bags Paper plates

www.wow4water.net Traditional roses Canal art

www.wow4water.net Traditional castles Canal art

www.wow4water.net MOIRA WILDLIFE 7 KS 1/2 The Moira Furnace site includes woodland with ponds, a wildflower meadow SCIENCE and the Ashby Canal. These have all been shaped by the industrial past of the area which has left unique habitats for wildlife to exploit and adapt.

WOODLAND

Furnace Plantation, the area of woodland alongside the lane Trees are often most easily identified from their leaves and flowers or fruits. Here are the leaves leading to the furnace, is often of some of the trees you can see at Moira called ‘Pit Prop Wood’. There used Furnace. to be several small coal pits in this area and trees were grown to provide wood to make pit props - the timbers that held up the roof and walls of underground tunnels. The mature trees here, mostly oak and ash, were planted about 100 years ago to provide timber for Oak Elm local industries. Both oak and ash are very strong and long-lasting woods which were often used for things where today we would use metal.

Other trees in this wood include Ash Black Poplar hawthorn, horse chestnut and black poplar.

The uneven ground levels in the woodland give an idea of its original use. There are ditches and pits where workmen used to dig for coal, iron ore and clay, and mounds where they used to tip waste materials.

Nowadays the woodland is managed to control the spread of sycamore trees and brambles and to create open areas to encourage wildlife. Even dead trees (standing or fallen) are left in place to provide habitats for insects.

Great spotted woodpeckers nest in holes in the trees and you will sometimes hear them tapping on the trees with their beaks. If you are lucky, you may even see one. You can see rooks’ nests in the branches of some of the taller trees and will almost certainly hear their well-known ‘caw-ing’ sound. You will probably also see grey squirrels running up and down the trunks and branches of the trees. Enough light reaches the ground in About blackbird- Pit Prop Wood for flowering sized and striking black-and-white. It plants, nettles and brambles to has a very distinctive spread, forming a habitat for bouncing flight and wood mice, birds, insects and spends most of its butterflies. time clinging to tree trunks and branches. Its presence is often In spring, woodpigeons are easily announced by its spotted darting through the tree Spring 'drumming' display. The male has a tops and the distinctive sound of distinctive red patch on the back of the head. the chiffchaff is often heard. Chiffchaff, great tits and blue tits Bare, greyish-white face, thinner beak nest and breed in the woods in and peaked head March and April. In summer, distinguish it from cabbage white, orange-tip and the crow. Rooks are wall brown butterflies will be seen very sociable birds where there are flowers. and you're not likely to see one on its Rook own. They feed and Further into the woodland, towards roost in flocks in winter, often with jackdaws. the lime kilns, you will see holly and young elm trees that are shooting out of the stumps of elm trees that had to be cut down because of a disease which affected all of the elm trees in Britain.

PONDS

Because there is a lot of clay in the soil around Moira, water does not drain away very quickly. That is why there are several ponds in the woodland. Sometimes these ponds disappear during dry weather but some water stands in the woodland all year round. If enough light reaches the surface the result can be a healthy pond providing the right conditions for insects, frogs and toads. Falling leaves in the autumn add nutrients to the water and a fallen branch or trunk will provide food or shelter for some of the species in the pond.

As you come out of Pit Prop Wood into the field in front of the lime kilns there is another pond. The reeds, rushes and long grass around this pond provide a very different habitat to that of the woodland ponds and is ideal for dragonflies and damselflies.

Orange-tip butterfly THE CANAL

Ashby Canal runs for nearly thirty miles following the contours of the surrounding countryside. Because of its design, the canal has no hard-edge bank protection. This encourages the growth of bankside vegetation which provides a haven for aquatic wildlife.

Canal towpaths and embankments are not cultivated or chemically treated like the rest of the countryside. Wild flowers that are no longer common on farmland grow abundantly along canal banks. In summer you should be able to see great reedmace (which are often called bulrushes), water forget-me- not, yellow flag irises and greater pond sedge. Great reedmace The canal also has thriving plant life on and under its surface. Below the water grows spiked water-milfoil and several types of pond weed. These can be seen poking up through the surface of the water at certain times of the year. Of the floating plants, the yellow water lily is the most spectacular and visible. Water-lilies stay closed during the morning and only open their petals around noon on a sunny day. They close up again when evening approaches. Yellow water lily

Although the water in canals may sometimes look muddy it is unpolluted. Unlike rivers, canals do not carry industrial waste or drainage away from cities. That is why there are large numbers of birds which feed off fish or other water creatures or plants. At Moira you can see swans, ducks, moorhens, coots, herons and, if you are very lucky, you may see the blue flash of a kingfisher. Moorhen and chick Along the towpath in summer, you may see butterflies and dragonflies. Moira is home to the emperor dragonfly and the rare red-eyed damselfly.

Canals are a significant area of standing Emperor dragonfly fresh water and often support species that are under threat in other parts of the country. At Ashby you can see the uncommon water shrew which is the largest of the British shrews with a long pointed snout, small ears and tiny eyes. Water shrew Ashby Canal is very popular with fishermen who come to catch a wide range of fish including carp, pike and tench. TEACHERS’ NOTES

This section looks at the wildlife in and surrounding the Moira Furnace site. It is organised by location and habitat, rather than by type of wildlife, to demonstrate the response that the living world has made to the historical and industrial development of the area. The development of flora and fauna since the end of industrial activity shows how quickly the natural world changes and modifies and could prompt discussion with children about how it might change in the future.

The section is also based around what pupils can expect to see on a visit to the furnace. The woodland and canal banks offer many opportunities to observe and identify plants and animals in their natural environment (Unit 2B ‘Plants and animals in the local environment’). Activity sheets are included for children to record and analyse what they have seen.

Observing the mix of wildlife in different parts of the furnace site will support work around Unit 4B ‘Habitats’ by allowing children to see how the conditions of life have been influenced by the nature of the local environment and how animals and plants have developed together through interdependence. By extension, this can also support work on Unit 6A ‘Interdependence and adaptation’.

Additional activity sheets are included to develop literacy, observation and artwork - and for fun! Visits to Moira Furnace can include pond dipping and minibeast hunting.

USEFUL WEBSITES

General & Habitats www.kew.org/education/wildlifezone/index.html www.naturalengland.org.uk/information_for/students_and_teachers/default.aspx www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk

Birds www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide Butterflies www.butterfly-conservation.org Dragonflies www.dragonflysoc.org.uk Mammals www.abdn.ac.uk/mammal

Ponds & Canals www.canaljunction.com/canal/environment.htm www.naturegrid.org.uk/pondexplorer/pondexplorer.htmlwww.waterscape.com/features- and-articles/features/wildlife www.wetfeet.org.uk

Trees, wildflowers and woodland www.british-trees.com www.englishflowers.co.uk/education.asp www.foresteducation.org/learning_resources.php?id=70 www.forestry.gov.uk./forestry/infd-5g2kv3 www.nationalforest.org/involved/education www.naturegrid.org.uk/woodland/woodexplore.html