Mule scavenger

Scavengers were employed in 18th and 19th century in cotton mills, predominantly in the UK and the United States, to clean and recoup the area underneath a spinning mule.

The cotton wastage that gathered on the floor was seen as too valuable for the owners to leave and one of the simplest solutions was to employ young children to work under the machinery.

In the performance of this duty, the child was obliged, from time to time, to stretch itself with sudden quickness on the ground, while the hissing machinery passed over her; and when this is skilfully done, and the head, body, and outstretched limbs carefully glued to the floor, the steady-moving, but threatening mass, may pass and repass over the dizzy head and trembling body without touching it.

[citation needed] A record held at the Quarry Bank Mill, now a museum, states: On 6 March 1865 a very melancholy accident befell a lad named Joseph Foden about 13 years of age.

While engaged sweeping under a Mule his head was caught between the Roller beam and the carriage – as the latter was putting up – and completely smashed, death being instantaneous.

[1]Research by Jane Humphries, a professor of economic history at the University of Oxford, revealed that a mill near Cork had such a poor safety record that six people died and 60 others were mutilated over a four-year period.