“What is with the shawls? Modesty? Keeping the soot off?”
I’m guessing warmth and protection from the elements. I have one of those tightly woven wool shawls I picked up when visiting Ireland. It is so warm, and keeps me relatively dry in the rain. You’ll note, every man has some sort of jacket and hat, but the women wear shawls instead.
Given the wooden clogs on the boys doing the “I’m all that” pose for the camera, and the prevalence of shawls, I’m thinking it’s a mill town somewhere in Lancashire. The mill girls were too poor to wear their one good “Sunday hat” on weekdays.
I have the shawl my great great great grandmother wore on the boat coming over from Ireland. It's been floating around in the family for over a century and it came to us when we gave our daughter the same name as that ancestor and everyone thought it belonged with her now.
It's black, thick, course. and still in perfect shape after over 100 years. Would certainly shed light rain and keep you warm.
My take looking at those vides was that it was likely an immigrant area being filmed. Irish perhaps. I've not seen any videos of that era where English women were wearing wool shawls.