When the bells rang - The factory bells at Blaafarveværket
A modern everyday life - If you had stumbled past Blaafarveværket or Koboltgruvene on a cold, early winter morning, you would have heard the clear and pure sound of what must have sounded like a church bell. It was the signal that called miners, smelters, crushers, carpenters, coopers, blacksmiths and the like in for a new working day.
Many of these workers were recruited from neighbouring farms. Especially the mining work was occupied by these people. The work required less specialisation than work in smelters and crushing plants. Among the miners, there were several small-scale farmers who took on temporary work in the mines to save up money to buy their own land.[1]
The mining industry was based on fixed working hours, which made demands on the discipline of the workforce. It's easy to imagine that for someone used to agricultural work, it would be difficult to adapt to the time-divided everyday life of the mining industry, where the distinction between work and leisure was absolute. However, it is worth noting that Norwegian agriculture was increasingly characterised by a more time-divided everyday life throughout the 19th century.
A clear symbol of a more time-controlled everyday life is the food clock/staff cage clock that appeared on Norwegian farms. Such clocks were of course also used at Blaafarveværket. The bell was rung to signal different phases of the working day, and the ringing took place at exact times. A "time disciplining" of the workers was underway.[2]
"The food clock by the curtain had taken hold of my freedom"[3]
The factory bells at Blaafarveværket were placed strategically so that as many people as possible could hear them over a long distance. At the Cobalt Mines in the 1840s, it was mounted on the second floor of the Scheide House at Mellomgruvene. As the name indicates, Mellomgruvene was located in the middle of the section being worked, and was the busiest mining area in the 1840s. Scheidehuset was also the tallest building and from the bell tower, the bell can still be heard far down in the valley below.
The task of ringing the bell was assigned to "boys" and "scheideguts". In January 1842, it was the boy, Johannes L. Steenstuen, who had this task.[4] For this he earned an extra 24 shillings.
The other place where the Blaafarveværket had a bell was down at the smelting works at Sand. The new regulations drawn up in the early 1850s made it clear that no-one other than (pardon the pun) master of the hut Gustav Roscher, the manager of the smelter, was to ring the bell. Paragraph 6 of the regulations for the hut master stated the following:
Punctually at the times of lunch (when this is permitted) and dinner, and at the cessation of working hours in the evening, and for the resumption of work after lunch and dinner, he must ring the work bell, or have it rung.[5]
The hut master had to be ready five minutes before the start of the working day and ring the bell two minutes before the workers were obliged to turn up. In the 1850s, the start of the working day varied according to the seasons. In December 1851, the smelter employees started at 06.00.[6]
According to the 1852 regulations, no worker was allowed to leave work before the bell rang at the end of the working day. It was also important that workers were ready at their workplaces at the end of their lunch and dinner breaks. As soon as the bell had stopped ringing, to indicate that the break was over, the workers were to immediately start their work again.[7]
In 1846, the works bell at Blaafarveværket was mounted in the attic of a wheelhouse at Haugfoss.[8] From later photographs, we can see that in 1897 the clock was outside, on the cliff behind the smelting hut, mounted in a separate clock tower.
Eli Moen has claimed that the smelter employees were more disciplined than their colleagues at the Cobalt mines. This is because those who worked at the smelter often started at a young age and stayed in their position for a long time. These workers often came from families of miners who had worked at the smelter for several generations.[9] From a young age, they had become accustomed to turning up, for the most part, on time.
In our archive, we have preserved cabin master Roscher's notebook, in which he noted everyone who was late and the reasons why. This book provides an interesting picture of what it was like to work at Blaafarveværket in the 1850s. The most common reason for absence was simply that the workers overslept. They usually had no excuse for this. Sometimes the late-comer claimed that the night watchman, who may have been responsible for waking the workers in the morning, had not knocked.[10] Others complained about the weather and difficulties in crossing the river, lack of food, watching over sick children, etc. The most particular reason given was by the bricklayers and their henchmen, seven in all, who had left five minutes before the midday break on 28 May 1852. They stated that they needed a little extra time to wash off the arsenic before eating, and therefore left five minutes before the bell rang.[11]
In this way, we can see that the factory bell was a key tool in disciplining the workforce. There is therefore every reason to believe that the workers had an ambiguous relationship with the sound of the factory bell. On the one hand, it symbolised work and income, while on the other hand, as Alf Prøysen put it, the factory bell had "taken hold of freedom".[12]
The work clock today
Today, a clock still hangs on the second floor of the reconstructed shepherd's house at Mellomgruvene. If you take the trip up, you can try ringing it and hear the echo down the valley, just as the young Steenstuen once did.
Down at Blaafarveværket itself, you haven't yet been lucky enough to ring the hut master's bell. The rock outcrop behind the smelting hut has been empty for almost 100 years. But that's all over now. Now we can once again see the clock tower, which appeared sometime between 1846 and 1897, up there on the knoll. The symbol of industrial discipline is back.
[1] Look. Moen, Eli. Competition for bread? Workers at Modum Blåfarveverk 1822-1848. Master's thesis in history. University of Oslo. 1984.
[2] Frykman, Jonas: "The cultivated human being". Published by Pax. 1994. s. 28
[3] Hedmark County Council - Cultural Heritage Department. "Food clock tower in Hedmarken". 2019. p. 9 quote Alf Prøysen
[4] RA, Modums Blaafarveværk, G/Gd/Gdd/L0268: -, 1842, p. 33
Use link for page view: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/db20120810690033
[5] RA, Modums Blaafarveværk, H/Ha/L0386: -, Hyttemesterens Pligter, med hensyn til Regulativet for Arbeiderne ved Modums Blaafarveværk, 29.11.1851
[6] RA, Modums Blaafarveværk, H/Ha/L0386: -, Opseer Peder Sjulsen, 16.12.1851
[7] RA, Modums Blaafarveværk, H/Ha/L0386: -, Regulations for workers at Modums Blaafarveværk who are employed in the cabin and in the hump works, 29 November 1852
[8] SAKO, Modum sheriff's office, Y/Yc/Ycc/L0001: Modum nordre fire record, 1846-1871
Use link for page view: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/db50001429300040
[9] Moen, op.cit.
[10] RA, Modums Blaafarveværk, H/He/L0442: -, Mulkteringsbog 23 February 1852 to 16 July 1855
[11] RA, Modums Blaafarveværk, H/He/L0442: -, Mulkteringsbog 23 February 1852 to 16 July 1855
[12] Hedmark Fylkeskommune, op.cit.