ABSTRACT
In 1862 the government appointed a Royal Commission to investigate working conditions in the metalliferous mining sectors. The Inquiry was initially instigated to settle a controversial point raised during a parliamentary debate on the proposed expansion of regulation into iron mining and reflected the Home Secretary’s established tradition of information-gathering to deflect criticism, rather than a directed effort to improve occupational mortality amongst metal mining labour. The fact that life expectancy amongst the metal miners had fallen below the average 36 years enjoyed by the colliers, and few reached their twenty-ninth birthday, had largely gone unnoticed. Despite the lack of a strong commitment by government the inquiry was extensive and through. It successfully exposed high occupational mortality from respiratory disease and the extent of the widening and increasingly unsustainable gulf in regulation between the two sectors. The Commission, however, hindered by limited medical knowledge and swayed by erroneous expert opinion, failed to establish the association between labour in a dusty working environment and miners’ phthisis.
