Isle of Purbeck Workers

In January 1885 the Harper's New Monthly  Magazine produced an article on the industries of Purbeck.

From the Castle in Corfe it is easy to see the two great industries of the Island. Below the first range of hills lie a number of hillocks that denote the presence of the clay pits, whence is extracted the white blocks and lumps that in Staffordshire, and even in America, become in dexterous hands fine china cups and plates and ware of all descriptions. The works are full of interest, albeit the mining is of the very simplest description, for at times strange relics of the war wave that swept the south of England are discovered, and the foundations of a whole Roman Villa were once laid bare, and sundry columns and relics brought to the light that found a place in the neighbouring museum, and in the masters house nearby; and earlier days were recalled to recollection by the finding of a beautiful urn full of calcined bones and pieces of stuff, while in the debris turned out at the same time we came upon various-hued glass beads and flint arrow-heads, that were industriously collected and kept with great care until this day.

            The pitmen are a strong, vigorous set of men, dangerous in a fray, and in the old election-days, before voting by ballot was an accepted fact, a terrible factor in an election: for to a man they went with the master, and so had as natural enemies the burly farmers, who, handsomely mounted, and looking like slaves dragged at the conqueror’s chariot wheels, rode in from the other side of town to support the conservative candidate, whose tenants they were, and whom they were bound to support or leave their farms. The farmers and clay pit men met at the Market cross, and lucky indeed was the day that did not witness a fierce encounter between the two parties, when the farmers’ hunting crops and the pitmen weapons, consisting of stakes dragged from the hedges, or in fact any weapon that came ”handy” caused such terrible destruction both of heads and property that the riot act has been read and the aid of the military evoked before peace was finally restored.

            On the other side of the hill lie the stone-quarries, worked by a set of men entirely distinct from the clay-cutters. Self-governed and self-contained, they suffer no interference either with their rights or the places where they work. The Quarries themselves are separate, each surrounded by its own particular wall, and in most cases having its own shed, where in wet weather the quarrier can sit chipping his stone into potable shape, and which is sometimes the abode of a patient, shaggy donkey, whose life is spent in a monotonous round as he walks in a circular direction, dragging miniature trucks laden with stone up the small incline that leads into the heart of the quarry. No one can work in the quarry who is not a freeman, and to take up one’s freedom one must be the legitimate son of a freeman. This has had a serious effect on the mental health of the aborigines, for the original owners of the quarries were few in number, and intermarriage has been so frequent that often during the year three or four of the unfortunates are taken away to the county asylum.