1976: The WOMEN who made CHAINS | Nothing to Lose | Inspirational Women | BBC Archive
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- Опубликовано: 12 апр 2024
- In 1910 a strike led by Mary MacArthur saw 800 female chain-makers go on strike over pay. A regional programme about this moment in history spoke to some of those women from Cradley Heath near Birmingham, who gave their personal accounts of this punishing industry, which many of them had started working in as children.
Clip taken from Nothing to Lose: The Strike of Women Chain-makers, originally broadcast on BBC One (Midlands), Tuesday 7 December 1976.
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Bless these ladies they worked like trojans for a country that can’t be bothered to remember them
Hard worked hard lives, imagine starting work at 11, no paper rounds here straight to chain making and not even getting paid when you were learning the job.
It's such a shame you can hear the lack of education in their conversations and you can see how their childrens bodies were restricted in growth with the work they were doing.
The really sickening thing is, it wasn't that far away and that long ago.
I hope their last few years were filled with peace and dignity, they deserved every bit.
Hannah Huxley the last Shepherdess of Yorkshire,comes to mind.
It's very sad. We were and are lucky in the South. Piece work as a seamstress was well paid for experienced....
Im obviously getting old, when i see films like this I think of my lovely great grandmother and I feel happy and sad at the same time. And the bit where the lady said she was ashamed that the work made her hands hard and "not nice" ...that's strong stuff
I know how you feel with the happy/sad emotion. Makes you wish they were still alive
These clips from the archive document a fascinating social history of the UK, sometimes harrowing sometimes a joy. This one was harrowing. I had no idea there was a history of women hammering out chains, work that put their own health and that of their children at risk and all for a pittance. They were put-upon heroines and every time I learn something like this about our forebears they go up in my estimation. I honor you, ladies❤️
It beggars belief that at the beginning of the 20th century children were still working in industrial jobs (or working at all for that matter) just a few years away from the Victorian era where the poor were dispensable.
@@algrant5293 it hasn't stopped entirely. The chainmaking townships still regularly rank as the most deprived area of the uk. It's nothing like it was but there's still plenty of kids that help out with the family business after school or at weekends.
We need a film made about this!
Why are they turning our society into a museum. Like we are finished.
Chainmaking aint dead yet, we keep it alive at the Mushroom Green Chainshop. On the border of Cradley Heath and Dudley Wood you can get up close and personal with the last chainmakers in our volunteer led museum. We open the doors to the last domestic chain forge left in Europe on the second sunday of the summer months, free to the public. I'll be there tomorrow, proudly operating the womens hearth and plying my trade. We can give you a rare insight into a forgotten part of our history and we would love to see you there. Drop by between 1300hrs and 1600hrs and wear sensible shoes. Dogs are welcome and I guess you can bring the kids too ⛓⚒🔥
Just looked you up, going to be there next time you're open
@@sarto7bellys that's what I like to hear
We don 't know we are born today . And to think these people were looked down upon . These and others like them laid the foundations of Britain 's industrial strength and greatness . RIP TO THEM ALL .
The industrial revolution is one of the worst things to ever happen in this world.
@@folksurvival i agree , but it is parrt of a necessary historical process . The population of the world grew so much from the beginning of the 18th century that without industrial and scientific advances you and i would not be in communication as i write this now . One thing leads to another and so here we are , there may have been another route , but it is what it is .
@@folksurvival
It was so predictable that someone would make that comment!
Yes, life was harder back then for working class people but that doesn't make it acceptable that women today are standing all day in shops or factories aged 67.
@@jomc20 predictable , because it is so obvious . Our society is so much easier for most people . No 70 hour weeks , no working on saturday mornings , health and safety regulations , pensions , private and state , healthcare and childcare , paid holidays , more bank holidays than ever before , etc , etc. And i write this as as 72 year old not as someone who left school last week . The situation is not perfect , but we live in an imperfect world .
I worked at How Group (M5 J1) as IT manager in the late 90's. The security guard was from Tipton. I literally couldn't understand a word he said, and I'm good with accents.
One time I was arriving at work and he was really excited. He said 'Wurble wurble wurble! Wurble wurble! Wurble wurble wurble! '.
I had to phone his brother, Snowy, who was chief electrician at How Group, to translate.
He said 'Ower kid says him seen ya up in the server room on Sat'dy noight; you was re-booting them servers. Him was watching you with him's bino-clears! Him said you'm shoulda waited till mundy, stead a ruining you'm weekend!'
Lovely people.
Fabulous!
😂😂 that's great, we have some cracking accents in the UK!
Wurble 😅
It's heartbreaking to listen to what these women had to endure. True unsung heroines whose stories deserve to be heard by a modern audience. I hope at least they had a decent old age.
The women who made Britain
Old ladies are cool, respect deserved 👍
Patronising twerp. They worked to feed themselves and their children, they had no choice.
Yes, and this is real oral history - they are recounting what they lived through (by now) more than a century ago.
They're the young ladies but later.
If we're lucky, we'll get to that age.
Remember, they were very young when they were making the chains..
@@livelongandprosper70 I remember, the ladies told us that in the video
That lady's accent at 5:24 about her 'omber and' (hammer hand) is amazing!
"This is my hammer hand, look, you see that knuckle, look at it. It's my hammer hand that is, that. The children say 'What's that gran, look at your hand, it is funny', I say 'That's my hammer hand'. They don't know what I mean, and that."
Thankyou, I struggled to understand a lot of the conversation.
Yes, she was very broad Black Country wasn't she, as a Brummie I could just about get what she said!
Black Country people are great 😊
"the good old days" can bugger off.
And if were not careful it will all come back round again, as long as your poor.
Much worse is happening today. Just in other countries. So you can have your luxuries.
Black country women salt of the earth 👍❤❤
People, including children who used to work in the Potteries in Stoke-on-Trent also had really hard jobs, they were using glaze that contained lead so a lot of them were poisoned, the kilns were extremely hot to work in too.
Very interesting video.
Indeed they did , I live in the Potteries and our social history is fascinating and sad all at the same time
@@Catmad65 it's very sad what's become of our home, breaks my heart to see what a dump its become.
lol, people who are against government regulations should watch this video. maybe they'd realize without regulations society would rapidly devolve into grim conditions like these women described.
Who do you mean?
@@yuelingchu4361 lol, the people i mentioned in the first sentence of my comment.
Yes and still companies try to deny the workforce their rights.
Workers fought for decent working conditions and a decent wage , suffering much hardship and discrimination. My nan always said they were always a shilling away from the workhouse.
1:10 In 1905 she work six days a week making chain. The work ethic of these ladies is incredible.
It wasn’t necessarily a worth ethic they had no other choice
Those poor women couldnt even nurse their babies and many died.
The babies were cradled on the bellows that powered the forge or in piles of small chain on the floor. One story I've heard is of women taking a break for a few hours to give birth and leaving the baby with the midwife to clean up. They had to get straight back to work.
@@yourneurdivergentpiers3457 Wow that's horrific. These are the people who got us to where we are ... I hope we don't destroy all their efforts !
@@theeggtimertictic1136 they did more for us than you may realise. The women who made chain in the black country led one of the most historic industrial actions of the 20th century. The result of which was the very first UK national minimum wage being signed into law.
@@yourneurdivergentpiers3457 I really would love to see a film made about them!
@@theeggtimertictic1136 they are a fairly forgotten part of our history and they deserve better.
Different breed back then. God bless em.
Fascinating but sad what these women went through.
No women, none, that am stronger then Black Country women and I'm proud to have come from Cradley, where I'd bet most of the women in this video am from (it's the historic home of chain making). They remind me so much of my own grandmother, a battleaxe, of the best kind, an extremely formidable women who didn't make chains, but worked seven days a week in factories and fields. My great-great-greatmother, one Elizabeth Cartwright, did make chains and nails and I can imagine she was a lot like these too. Total respect to them for doing the work they did and lived the life they did. There woe never be any other like these uns. Thanks ladies.
Half a crown a week for 6 days a week, 12 hrs a day = 30p
That's human slavery.
in 1905 for children?
@@zaftraI think you just justified their comment, they were children working in industrial jobs that even men found hard work.
Bingo. People forget what the socialists and unions fought for. They managed to snatch dignity for the common people from the rich and powerful.
@@algrant5293 Children, Working down the mines from 11 years old, Children and Women working like slaves in the Cotton Industry, thank God we don't have that now. It is still happening now in the world, children working to mine the minerals for Electric car batteries, or Children making clothing in sweat shop factories.
@@algrant5293 children did work. Dude I was 14 working a Saturday job, plucking rotten pheasants in a butchers in 1983.
The anniversary of the 1910 chainmakers strike is coming up. Come show your support for the women who toiled at the Chainmakers Festival in Mary McArthur Park on June 29th. I'll be there representing Mushroom Green Chainshop and the last chainmakers, performing live demonstrations of chainmaking and answering your questions. Taraabit
Mushroom Green chain shop, what a great name . Where exactly is it, Birmingham?
Hope you have a great day.
@@algrant5293its in Dudley, close to Birmingham. Mushroom Green is the name of the hamlet itself. Google can direct you straight to us.
Jeez! I was thinking crochet/lace chains or paper chains at first then jewellery chains maybe? Was not expecting this industry, amazing women!!
BBC Archive, You're so talented! I had to hit the like button!
One of the best channels on the internet for us British. Love ❤ it
Realising now what a long process that must have been to make
Fascinating vid. Really interesting. If I wore a hat I'd take it off to these ladies.
Loved this video real history and my gran used to make springs in her outhouse
I would imagine @simonroper9218 would be pretty excited by the fantastic linguistics of the lady at 0:16...
Got to admit I struggled wirh all their accents but that lady was particularly difficult.
Her bit at 5:24 about her 'omber and' (hammer hand) is amazing!
"This is my hammer hand, look, you see that knuckle, look at it. It's my hammer hand that is, that. The children say 'What's that gran, look at your hand, it is funny', I say 'That's my hammer hand'. They don't know what I mean, and that."
I'm a southerner but I had no trouble with the accents at all 🤷
@@LuciThomasHardylover-qx6ts In the 1980s I moved from rural Devon to rural Norfolk. I had a summer job cleaning hire boats on the Broads. The supervisor had a really strong Norfolk accent that I thought sounded Australian. Olive, who I worked with had to translate the instructions for me. 😂
@@susanwestern6434 how lovely! I spent my early childhood in mid Norfolk and my mum's family are all Suffolk/Cambridgeshire, I always think of those as really soft accents! Compared to a Geordie or Mancunian.... when I go back to East Anglia now there aren't many people left with a local accent. Is it as much to do with dialect as accent do you think? When I moved West I had to learn certain dialect words like 'Emmit' for ant or 'diddikai' which was specifically for the old fashioned tramps who slept in hedges. I've since found it elsewhere being used for traveling people/Roma.
People forget that working conditions like this, and even worse existed in poor communities for men women and children all over Britain during the Age of Empire and right up until the General Strike of 1926. The winners were not the poor, not were they ever the beneficiaries of any kind of privilege. A very harsh world.
There are some thick archaic west midlands dialects in this clip. It's really quite difficult to follow all of what was being said. For example 'omer and... I guess is hammer hand.
They really are not very broad at all, I think that modern Brummies have got broader, but still perfectly intelligible.
They ain't Brummies. They're Yams.
Not west midlands.its black country.
From chaining themselves to railings to making the damn things.
Hard job
And young people today believe old had it made ! They don't know what hard work is !
Hello, young person here. We dont think the chainmakers of Cradley Heath had it easy. We know for a fact that our parents did though. Never met anyone more lazy or entitled than the post war generation.
TOTAL FOOKIN’ METAL! HAIL THE METAL GODDESSES!!!
Its amazing the work these women did..in a man's world & never were seen
@jillyb9995 You comment is excellent & I totally agree with you! It was a hard life for everyone!! I’m sorry to learn about how harsh their lives were!!
Backbone of the country ❤
Hard Times.
What a treasure. And where can i get eye glasses like the ones here 😂👓 awesome
Auto subtitles having to work hard on this one.
Make chain's.
Sounds ominous.
God bless them all.
Shocking
The free market forces capitalism, don’t you just love it 😮
I did watch whole video, but didn't fully understand why there were so many infant deaths around chain making. Was it due to injury being around while their mothers worked the iron? What did I miss, cos the accent was hard for me to understand at times
These wonderful women working so hard so they could feed their families, of course it was slavery & it should be recognised as such
Are these the good old days people keep telling me about?
No, they’re the horrors of toxic corporate greed years which provoked the solutions of trades unions and ultimately the nhs. Then there was about 20 years of fair pay for a fair days work, before it all went south, and here we are now with zero hrs contracts and kids going hungry again. 🙄
Half a crown in 1905 is £12.58 in today's money 😶 for a 67 hour a week, 'ard as ought her
They probably used women as they could pay them less than men.
This accent is very unique. I was born and bred about 12 miles away but have never heard it spoken before, it must have died out. There's a bit of Brummie, mixed with what sounds like a bit of the North East. Puzzling! 🤔
Its still very common to hear people talking like this in the area. It's more of a dialect than an accent and its the oldest form of English still spoken in the world.
Richard Bennett on Berean Beacon RUclips Channel talks about his country 🇮🇪
Italy???
Young people now don't realise how easy they have it.
Why, did you make chains?
You can't compare yourself to people working then. Young people today are always going to be poorer than their parents, and their parents are poorer than their parents still. Wealth isn't transferred at all either. Disparaging the rights earned for us all so we are no longer worked like slaves and discarded when we break is stupid. There's going to be a huge problem in the world when there's no more young people to pay pensions and run things. You can't blame people for feeling there's no future, because they're correct.
You sound like a very ignorant person when you make comments like that.
What are chains?
They were a different breed. We will never see their like again.
harsh
Which accent is this ?
Black Country.birthplace of the industrial revolution...all of your tomorrows have come from here.fact.
I'm not sure but I can't stop watching this video because of the accent!
??ph mark i
We are so spoilt today.
Chains, my baby's got me locked up in chains...
People today have nothing to complain about, these people built a country with their blood and hard work
And people think they have it hard nowadays!
That's a funny old accent. It's a mixture of a few thing's
Not really. The poor education in the area has created small pockets of middle English still being spoken to this day. They're speaking in a very old dialect.
@@yourneurdivergentpiers3457 very odd dialect you mean!
@@GuessMyName234 no, old. Many of us would go as far as to say that Black Country Spoken English is it's own language entirely. You see when the great vowel shift spread north and francisised English it missed out Birmingham and alot of the Black Country because we had no major rivers and therefore no universities. While everyone else started trying to emulate the language spoken in london and the court we carried on speaking how we always had done. That's why Chaucer and Shakespeare make more sense with a black country accent.
@@yourneurdivergentpiers3457 I said old
@@GuessMyName234 might want to reread all your previous comments there
These people are and were the back bone of society !
Real 'equality'
And then we see sniveling snot nose millennials and Gen Z whining about how hard their lives are. These people endured and never complained. Respect.
It appears that people now have no respect for their elders...and those who have gone before...people are living in a modern bubble created by Television Companies..woth no sense of the past
When people was not afraid of hard work !
They were forced into it.
So much for the notion of 'white privilege ' !
I can't understand a damn thing they're saying 😊
The true cost of the bdsm scene
Unfunny r.sole.
The BBC calls this "white privilege".
But nevertheless, this was still progress compared to farming a small strip of ground in medieval times
🤔
Worse. Because unless they earned money to buy food, they starved or the whole family ended up in the workhouse
@@sue3028 Well this was equivalent to the workhouse, but there were many jobs like that. Such as watch fusee chains, these were often made by children because their eyesight was good. Such jobs were not particularly arduous but they were exceedingly tedious, but they had to be done by someone.
these old ladies hairdressers should be arrested!! nothing has changed either, the older generation still have the most appalling hair dressers, giving old lady hair cuts from the 1950s still.
All the one's on benefits need to take a long hard look at these people. Absolute grafters
This must be the white privilege the BBC like to tell us about.
Sounds like a miserable existence to me 🤷
Luxury we used to get up two hours before we went to bed go to work and make chain with our tongue
I happen to know, the one with the "Beryl" glasses had a fanny like a yawning Donkey 🐴
Because she's your great grandmother?
@@JasDarc just granny, and yes, a great fanny 🤤
Chainmaking aint dead yet, we keep it alive at the Mushroom Green Chainshop. On the border of Cradley Heath and Dudley Wood you can get up close and personal with the last chainmakers in our volunteer led museum. We open the doors to the last domestic chain forge left in Europe on the second sunday of the summer months, free to the public. I'll be there tomorrow, proudly operating the womens hearth and plying my trade. We can give you a rare insight into a forgotten part of our history and we would love to see you there. Drop by between 1300hrs and 1600hrs and wear sensible shoes. Dogs are welcome and I guess you can bring the kids too ⛓⚒🔥