What was a Hewer?

[vaughan1]

My great grandad worked as a Hewer in a mine in lancashire.
I don't know what a hewer is or what they did while working.
I was wondering if anyone could help me

thanks

[Peter Goodey]

He did precisely what the word suggests. He hewed.

One definition - " Hews coal and shale by hand with pick and breaks it down with pike or breaks it out ready for filling into tubs after it has bee undercut by machine and dropped or blasted down..."

[esdel]

Its an old word for
1. to strike forcibly with an ax, sword, or other cutting instrument; chop; hack.
2. to make, shape, smooth, etc., with cutting blows: to hew a passage through the crowd; to hew a statue from marble.
3. to sever (a part) from a whole by means of cutting blows (usually fol. by away, off, out, from, etc.): to hew branches from the tree.
4. to cut down; fell: to hew wood; trees hewed down by the storm.

[vaughan1]

thank you