Pit ponies were foal that were brought into mines and spent the rest of their lives hauling coal until they died from exhaustion. They lived in perpetual darkness, and didn't know what sunlight felt like. There were as many as seventy thousand put to work in English mines in 1913, the peak before mechanization took over. Before pit ponies, the mines used women and children. In 1838, after the Huskar Pit accident in which 26 children drowned, a public outcry led to an official inquiry, which resulted in the Mines Act of 1842, banning the employment of children under ten. Later, the age was revised to thirteen. --- Source: [[Reference Notes/Books/We Loved It All|We Loved It All]]