The Grinding Room. Albert George Morrow (1863-1927). c. 1884. Drawing. Source: “Iron and Steel Making in South Wales.” The English Illustrated Magazine. [Click on image to enlarge it.]
The Dangers of the Knife-Grinder’s Work — Accidents and Breathing Metal Powders
The knife-grinder has, after all, a story to tell, and a very dismal one it is. He is environed by dangers, as completely as he is saturated with the wet "swarff" (powdered stone) which dyes him a deep saffron colour from head to toe. He sits over a tool which at any moment may send him through the roof with all the suddenness and velocity of dynamite, and he works in an attitude and (especially if he be a "dry" grinder) inhales a dust which he knows will shorten his life by ten, twenty, or even thirty years as constitution and fortune may serve him. The sharp crack of a breaking stone is an appalling sound to the occupants of a grinding-hull. A bang in a trough, a crash in the roof, and a piteous moan, and all is over. If the victim be alive he is hurried to the hospital; if dead, his crushed body is rever ently carried away. No vigilance in the master, no care in the workman, seems able to avert these periodical catastrophes. The insidious water-rot, the hidden flaw, and the unequal grain do their fatal work in spite of all precautions. To meet the destitution arising from these calamities a Grinders' Misfortune Society was established in Shef field in 1804. [636]
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Bibliography
Palmer, Henry J.. “Cutlery and Cutlers at Sheffield” The English Illustrated Magazine. 1 (August 1881): 659-69. Hathi Trust version of a copy in the Pennsylvania State University Library. Web. 4 March 2021. [Complete text in the Victorian Web.]
Last modified 4 March 2021