Dangerous Gallery

COAL MINE/'PENITENT

A penitent, so named because his clothing resembled that of religious orders, rids the air of explosive gas by setting fire to it. A dangerous task, that often ended unhappily

© Mary Evans Picture Library

1869, Air, Clothing, Coal, Dangerous, Ended, Explosive, Fire, Gas, Historical, History, Industry, Mine, Mining, Named, Operations, Orders, Religious, Resembled, Rids, Safety, Setting, Task, Unhappily

In No Mans Land

"In No Man's Land: The Dread Territory Which Belongs to Neither German nor Briton" Royal engineers, working in the dark of No Man's Land to construct barbed wire barriers in front of British trenches, are exposed by German magnesium flares, giving this illustration a Caravaggioesque quality. Such work was extremely risky, or "nervy", as one Royal Engineer described it to The Times. He went on to say, "..it is done in the open and out of the kindly cover afforded by a trench... fortunate indeed is the working party if the enemy does not hear the sound of the picket being driven into the ground and open fire..." Flares lasted for 15 seconds, an eternity for men who had to throw themselves flat to the ground and lie inert until darkness returned. Bruce Bairnsfather depicted a similar situation in a cartoon accompanied by a quote from Wolfam's aria in Tannhauser. "Oh star of eve, whose tender bean Falls on my spirit's troubled dream." Date: 1915

© Illustrated London News/Mary Evans

Collecting Eggs at Flamborough Head

Collecting seagull's eggs at Flamborough Head, Yorkshire. A traditional practice for farmers whose land adjoined the cliff edge, which gave them a legal right to supplement their income by selling eggs. The farmer sub-licenced gangs of three or four climmers, to gather eggs of the gulls, common guillemot, razorbill and others from the cliff side. It was a perilous business, requiring fitness and skill, but the rewards must have been great - in 1908 such eggs commanded a shilling a dozen (about the same as a hundredweight of coal) and it was estimated that gangs could collect up to 300 or 400 eggs a day in season. Date: 1911

© Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection