Extracts from Bullets for Bread

[Ragger]

More to follow if members are interested.


My name is David Johnson, I am 19 years old and I am a collier at Acton Hall Colliery, which is in the county of Yorkshire, England. My role in the events recorded here is not important; I merely pass on the knowledge I have gained from Mr. Jenkins. Old Mr. Jenkins, bless him, he departed this world last week killed by the dreaded miners’ disease, black lung, passed on to me some of his knowledge. I listened to him carefully and it appears that life for people such as us has always been the same. He told me stories from long ago, and some of those stories are not at all pleasant to hear. I will attempt to relate these stories, as near as possible, in the same order in which I learned them.

I have experienced much suffering in my short life; my work is arduous and hardship has been a frequent companion. Starvation is never far from our door, and food is hard to obtain on the poor wages we, as a family, receive. The families in our village endure so much injustice that it is hard to believe there is a God in the heavens above. Our situation is even more perilous now, as the coal owners have locked us out of our colliery. However, I will tell you more of that story later.

Coal became widely known as black gold, because of its importance to the Country. It fueled British industry and brought great riches to the coal mine owners. However, for those poor souls who worked under the ground, it brought misery, and frequently, a violent death. Coal mines, as they are now, were dark, dirty, and dangerous places where gas explosions, roof falls and flooding frequently occurred. Life then was even worse than it is now, families very often working as a team, a man, his wife and their children, all making a contribution to mine the coal and all helping to supplement the household income. Children were of all ages and as soon as a child was old enough to help, the child entered the pit. Mr. Jenkins used to place his hand just below his hip to indicate just how tiny these miners were.

In most walks of life there are good times and there are bad times, but for miners the bad times seriously outnumber the good times. Educated miners at the beginning of the century were rare, and although there were a few exceptions, whenever a dispute arose, and there were many, the men were at a disadvantage in negotiations with the coal owners. Attempts to educate the miners were positively discouraged by people of ‘higher rank’, it was, they believed, impertinent for workers to try to know as much as their betters. Mr. Jenkins would laugh when he mentioned this; ‘a big mistake that was because arrogant attitudes like that breed contempt, but that’s how they were in them days, come to think of it, they still are’.

During strikes, the miners often resorted to the destruction of property to reinforce their cause; and to be honest little has changed in that respect over the years. Strikes have been peaceful at times, but the ‘master’ cared little if they themselves were not suffering in their pockets; but more of peaceful campaigns later. A long time ago, gins were used for hauling the corves to the pit bank, to the surface. A common practice, during strikes, was to pull the gins down to prevent the colliery working with strike-breakers.

Sometimes, when there was a shortage of labour, the owners increased wages to attract men to work for them. Miners, however, were not organised or sufficiently aware, to realise that they could exploit this scarcity of labour to improve their living and working conditions. Coal mine owners were eager to keep men and they paid “binding money” to ensure men continued in their employment. Binding time was usually a contract, which lasted for one year, and on rare occasions binding money amounted to as much as twenty guineas a man, a great sum of money, even now. Men took the money, but often squandered it in the alehouses. Unfortunately, when this happened, the family as a whole were no better off; if only the thoughts of men had extended further than the day they received their bond, that money could have been used to offset bad times when they were short of money. But no, they squandered their advantage, and next day they were back at the pit, as poor as ever.

Destruction of property during disputes was not confined to miners; Mr. Jenkins informed me that riots broke out on numerous occasions and for a myriad of reasons, which I will highlight as this story unfurls. To be truthful, hunger was frequently the driving force behind many a riot, however the attitude of ‘masters’ and people in authority, often exacerbated volatile situations. Laws restricting the rights of people were passed in Parliament; Combination Acts that made it illegal for people to organise for the purpose of increasing their wages or for shorter hours. Acts ardently enforced with severe penalties, and Acts that destroyed some unions, while reducing others to proceed with caution and in secrecy.

What chance did workers have? How could they alter their miserable lives when they as mere individuals are exploited? Hunger and unemployment care little for Acts of Parliament. This century was only eight years old when a mob of about a thousand people gathered in Rochdale complaining about Kay‘s shuttle, which they declared cost them jobs. Working with a shuttle, a weaver could do the work of two people, while using only one-hand. Employers also planned to reduce the wages of their workers. Magistrates addressed the mob and advised them to disperse, but they refused.

Special constables, who were sworn in to control the situation, received numerous injuries from volleys of missiles thrown by the mob, who, then sought out and removed shuttles from work places. The special constables retrieved some of these and put them in the gaol for safekeeping. A few rioters were apprehended; as they were being transported to gaol, the mob freed them, then attacked a building in which manufacturers had sought refuge. Next, the gaol where the shuttles were was attacked and set on fire. Homes of some manufacturers were visited and money demanded. Magistrates sent for the Halifax Volunteers, but by the time they arrived the riots were over.

Two years after the Rochdale riots, the Riot Act was read in Falmouth, when mutiny was in the air. Sailors were protesting against customs men taking goods, which the sailors believed were perks of the job. When the local militia arrived to enforce the Act the crowd dispersed.
Mr. Jenkins assured me that he would enlighten me with many more tales of riots before my education was completed.

[dazbt]

YES, PLEASE CONTINUE RAGGER.

a great piece of writing relating to an important piece of our mining history, related in an unusual and interesting style, a privilege to see parts of it here.

[John]

It's a wonderful thing to be able to read and write, I often wonder how people got on who were illiterate and unworldly as they were 200 years back. I equate not being able to read with all signs being in Arabic script, just marks that mean nothing.
It rankles me that even today kids leave school without knowing how to read, Jeeze, it's the 21st century, education is there for all, but sadly we are slipping backwards in many aspects.

[Ragger]

Sept 16, 2015 15:53:28 GMT -5 dazbt said:

YES, PLEASE CONTINUE RAGGER.

a great piece of writing relating to an important piece of our mining history, related in an unusual and interesting style, a privilege to see parts of it here.

[/quoteIw
I will add more Daz. Hope you're keeping well.

[Ragger]

Second chapter.


2.


Mr. Jenkins tales concentrated on the areas of Northumberland and Durham, where he had once worked, but he assured me that similar situations were rife throughout the British Isles. In 1810, the coal owners determined between themselves that the yearly system of ‘binding’ the workers to collieries would be altered. They did not care how the miners felt about such a change, and never dreamed of consulting them. At first, the men agreed to the change but later decided they were making a mistake. On the sixteenth of October 1810, a meeting took place at Long Benton in Northumberland, where delegates from the collieries resolved to resist the proposed changes, and unless the owners agreed to continue the binding from the eighteenth of October, as usual, they would strike. The reaction of the coal owners to the threat of a strike was predictable, they refused to take any notice of the men, because they, as ‘masters’, knew best; a strike, therefore, began the day after binding day.

Delegates from the collieries met frequently in an attempt to keep the men united during the strike. The coal owners, however, did everything in their power to disrupt these meetings, and were skilfully assisted in this mission by sympathetic magistrates and the military. The prisons were soon full of miners, sent there in large numbers. The Gaol and House of Correction at Durham became seriously overcrowded and the authorities were fearful that disease would spiral out of control. A number of the men were removed from the gaol, and were sent to the stables and stable yards of the Bishop of Durham. They were guarded by the Durham Volunteers, special constables, and later the Royal Carmarthenshire Militia. So many miners were arrested and imprisoned that the Bishop’s stables soon housed almost three hundred men.

The ‘Lords and Masters’ were determined to preserve their positions of supremacy, asking what right these men had to challenge the decisions of their betters and think for themselves? The combined powers of the land, the law, the church, and the military, were used to keep them in their place. Unfortunately, for the coal owners, the men stood by their previous decision. In an attempt to find a compromise, a magistrate, and a Captain of the Carmarthenshire Militia, attempted to speak with prisoners in the stables, but all of these men refused to help. Eventually their colleagues, who had not been arrested, agreed to settle the dispute by consenting to change the time of binding to the fifth of April. It was no great victory, but the men had stood up to their employers and had taken a small step towards realising the importance of a united campaign.

Times were hard for all, and during the year of 1811, Luddism raised its head during a depression in the hosiery trade. Knitters' income fell, and for many people work was not available. To makes matters worse employers were using un-apprenticed workers. Thousands of families sought help from the Overseers of the Poor, (people appointed to relieve distress). Anyway, letters, signed by, “General Ned Ludd” and his “Army of Redressers” were sent to manufacturers. Factories were broken into at night and new machines destroyed. Gangs, armed with pistols, guns, and hammers were wreaking havoc, and breaking knitting frames. In the East Midlands Horse and foot soldiers were billeted in Nottingham, but attacks on knitting frames continued.

The funeral of a man who was shot and killed became a demonstration of Luddite strength and the Riot Act was read. Destruction continued and over the next few days, more frames were smashed and factories and houses attacked. Luddism spread to the neighbouring counties of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire. In Yorkshire, croppers, a small, highly skilled group of cloth finishers, turned their anger on a new shearing frame, which they feared would put them out of work. Rewards were offered for information about the Luddites and in February of 1812, as the problem spread north, the Government passed the Frame-Breaking Act, which carried the death sentence, and ordered twelve thousand troops into areas affected by Luddism. The Government dealt with the consequences of disorder but the cause of it remained.

That same year Sheffield market place was the site of a riot when a vast crowd of workers, incensed by the steep rise in the price of potatoes, seized stock from various premises and either threw it into the streets, or carried it away. Hungry people grabbed what they could from the street and disappeared with it. The riot continued for a couple of hours before the magistrates and police urged the rioters to disperse. A section of the mob marched to a place where the local militia stored their weapons; they broke in, but found no ammunition. They damaged equipment and stole a variety of things, before Hussars arrived with a magistrate, the rioters ran, but some were caught and were committed to York Castle where they were charged for their participation in the riots.

In Scotland, weavers were on strike for three months, attempting to protect their living standards. When their funds ran out the strike collapsed. It was mainly a peaceful protest, though Magistrates and the Government claimed otherwise. Due primarily to this strike, Trade Unionism was declared illegal in Scotland. Seven strikers were arrested and charged with illegal combination. They were sentenced to eighteen months in gaol.

At Littleport disgruntled men, their anger inflamed by drink, broke into houses and shops, then they marched on the vicarage causing mayhem. They proceeded to Ely and caused havoc there before returning to Littleport. The militia came to restore the peace; rioters barricaded themselves in the George and Dragon alehouse. During the inevitable clash that followed the arrival of the militia, two men were shot and many more arrested. In due course, five rioters were hanged, and several more transported to Australia.

The war with France, which lasted from 1793 to1815, proved to be an extremely expensive conflict, trade was bad and resulted in many businesses closing down, costing workers their jobs. Wages, paid to those fortunate to have jobs, were low and taxes high; bread reached an incredibly high price. Radicals campaigned for change, but rich Tories, who held power, refused to make reforms. In December 1816, protestors organised a meeting in Spa Fields, near London. The crowd became unruly; protesters broke into a gunsmith’s shop and marched on London. The army stopped them and arrested three hundred rioters. Mr. Jenkins shook his head as he told me how a sailor was executed for his participation in the riot. ‘The poor man had only just arrived in London after fighting the French for years; somehow he was caught up in the riot and paid for it with his life.’

Welshmen rioted in Merthyr Tydfil and Tredegar during a miners strike and troops were brought in to disperse thousands of workers; in Tredegar one person was killed. Over in Aberystwyth, troops were called out and they fired warning shots to calm protesters who were against land enclosures. The Government’s response to all the unrest in the Country was to pass legislation, which became widely known as Sidmouth’s Gagging Acts.

The new law banned all public meetings except under licence from magistrates. Reading rooms and similar meeting places were also put under the licensing system. Public houses and coffee-houses could be closed if they were suspected of harbouring Radicals. Severe penalties, as if they were not severe enough, were laid down for uttering or writing treasonable or seditious words. The Home Office sent spies and provocative agents, headed by a man named Oliver, to mix with local Radicals and to report on all seditious proceedings. Magistrates were encouraged to employ similar agents of their own.

In1817, riots occurred in Derbyshire. The spy, Oliver, played a dangerous game with people’s lives. He visited industrial areas, claiming to be a delegate from the Physical Force Party; he declared that the rest of the country was ready for insurrection. But those people he addressed were lagging behind. His only ‘success’ in provoking men to take up arms was in Derby where frame-work knitters were nearer starvation than other textile workers.

Jeremiah Brandreth was taken in by Oliver’s lies, and with a small band of men, armed with guns and pikes, marched on Nottingham. They believed they were one of many such groups of men, but they were on their own. Their numbers were few, and when the army came to intercept them, they fled. The army hunted them and caught them. Thirty-five stood trial for high treason; twenty-three were ‘proved’ guilty. Eleven were transported for life and three were transported for fourteen years. Five received gaol sentences but the other four, including Brandreth were hanged.

This same year, three working-class Radicals in Manchester organised a protest march to draw attention to the problems of unemployed spinners and weavers in Lancashire. They intended to present a petition to the Prince Regent in London. Each man, it was decided, should carry a blanket on the march; this would keep them warm at night and indicate that they were weavers. The marchers acquired the name ‘The Blanketeers.’

Spies, employed by Manchester magistrates, reported that violence might be used during the ’Blanketeers’ march. Magistrates determined that the march should be stopped from taking place. The starting point for the march was planned to be from St. Peter’s Field in Manchester, where an estimated ten thousand people attended to see the marchers off; while leaders were addressing the crowd, the Riot Act was read and the King's Dragoon Guards were sent in to arrest the leaders and disperse the crowd. Twenty-nine men were arrested.
A great number of men set off marching before the soldiers arrived. The cavalry followed them. One mile from the city centre, the cavalry attacked some of the marchers. At Stockport, several marchers received sabre wounds and one man was shot dead; he was an innocent bystander, who was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Several hundred marchers were arrested. A few marchers struggled on as far as Macclesfield and Ashbourne in Derbyshire, but only one man, Abel Couldwell, managed to reach London to hand in his petition. Many marchers were unjustly committed to gaol as vagrants, without trial. The Habeas Corpus Act, which orders prisoners to be brought to the court to determine whether they are unlawfully imprisoned, was at this time suspended. ‘Therefore justice was also suspended.’ Mr. Jenkins maintained.

1818 and troops were used against a crowd in Carmarthen who were trying to stop the export of food, and The Worcestershire riots, that became known as the Freeman Riots, took place on the Pitchcroft. The Pitchcroft Rioters protested about new buildings built on common land. The Yeomanry attempted to disperse the crowd but instead the mob chased and pelted them; they took refuge in the yard of the Star Inn, where an infantry unit rescued them.

Then there was the infamous Peterloo massacre in August of 1819. Manchester Reformists held an open-air demonstration in St. Peter’s Fields. Henry Hunt was there to address the crowd; Hunt was wanted by the Government for his Radical speeches. It is claimed that Hunt had offered to give himself up before the meeting but his offer was ignored. Hunt was addressing the meeting when the Yeomanry and soldiers rode in among the crammed demonstrators, striking right and left with the flat of their sabres. The crowd gave way and Hunt was arrested. A stampede started and the crowd fled as the yeomanry charged them in earnest. Eleven people were killed and hundreds were injured. Sabres cut some, while either the horses or the fleeing crowd trampled others underfoot.

Many decent people were appalled by the events at Peterloo; however, the Government did not share their views. They responded by passing The Six Acts. Under these repressive measures civilian bodies were prohibited from training in the use of weapons. It also limited the activities of agents provocateurs, such as the spy Oliver. Magistrates were given new powers to search private houses and public places for weapons and to confiscate them and their possessors, and to put down any meeting they disapproved of. Magistrates were also authorized to seek, and confiscate all libellous materials, Penalties for those involved in these crimes included transportation. New powers of summary convictions of political offenders were given to magistrates so that people could be brought to trial faster. Increased taxes placed on printed material, threatened the viability of the Radical press and some publications went underground.

Regardless of the Six Acts, trouble continued as before. In Gwent in 1822 the military fired shots during a miners strike, this action is said to have led to the beginning of an organization that became known as the Scotch Cattle movement. The Scotch Cattle Movement armed themselves and used violence and threats of violence to attain increases in wages and improved working conditions.

Glasgow in 1823 saw riots of a different kind; it was over the stealing of dead bodies. Widespread unrest was caused when a group of men were discovered to be in the possession of a bundle that turned out to be a dead body taken from the churchyard. As word spread, people speculated who would want bodies. Their speculation directed them to a lecture room in Duke Street. A mass of people collected in the street and they proceeded to break open the door to the premises.

On the floor of the room stood a large tub, which contained heads, arms and legs. On the table lay the whole body of a woman. The body of a man lay beside it with his head cut off, his entrails out, and further dissected. At the end of the room was a complete skeleton. The crowd found more bodies, limbs, and mutilated body parts laying about the room. The mob removed the bodies and everything found in the room and deposited them in the street. They were demolishing the premises when the Police and a detachment of soldiers arrived to calm the situation. As Mr. Jenkins told me, ‘riots broke out on numerous occasions and for a myriad of reasons’ and each new story he relayed to me proved he was right.

Seamen rioted in 1825, in Sunderland during a dispute with coal owners. Whenever there was a riot, soldiers were called in, this time it was the Newcastle Militia; the Militia opened fire and killed four men.

[dazbt]

Thanks Bill, of interest perhaps; there is a surviving copy of Bullets for Bread up for sale on the internet @ USD63.54 (£40.75)+ p&p, I hope the royalties are proportionate

[Ragger]

Sept 18, 2015 12:05:48 GMT -5 dazbt said:

Thanks Bill, of interest perhaps; there is a surviving copy of Bullets for Bread up for sale on the internet @ USD63.54 (£40.75)+ p&p, I hope the royalties are proportionate

That's crazy Daz. Read it here for nowt.

[dazbt]

Sept 18, 2015 13:47:17 GMT -5 Ragger said:

Sept 18, 2015 12:05:48 GMT -5 dazbt said:

Thanks Bill, of interest perhaps; there is a surviving copy of Bullets for Bread up for sale on the internet @ USD63.54 (£40.75)+ p&p, I hope the royalties are proportionate

That's crazy Daz. Read it here for nowt.

Now that's value for money, I always believed that the CC&MF licence fee was a good deal

[Ragger]

Sept 18, 2015 13:47:17 GMT -5 Ragger said:

Sept 18, 2015 12:05:48 GMT -5 dazbt said:

Thanks Bill, of interest perhaps; there is a surviving copy of Bullets for Bread up for sale on the internet @ USD63.54 (£40.75)+ p&p, I hope the royalties are proportionate

That's crazy Daz. Read it here for nowt.

Perhaps I should have mentioned that the events mentioned in the book really happened.

[Ragger]

Chapter 3.


Sadly, disasters in the mines continued at an alarming rate; from 1812 to 1823, hundreds of miners lost their lives in Northumberland and Durham pits. God knows how many died in disasters elsewhere in the British Isles. These tragedies and the difficulties faced by impoverished families inspired some people to try to improve the miners’ position.

Mr. Jenkins told me that in 1825, a miner, named Mackintosh, attempted to better the miners’ lives at Hetton in the county of Durham, by adopting the co-operative principle where people banded together for mutual assistance. The coal owners were opposed to anything that would make the miners more independent and set out to crush the movement by fair means or foul. Poor Mr. Mackintosh’s character was attacked, his honesty was questioned, and he ended up being mocked and ignored, even by the very people he had tried to help. Employers persecuted him so much that he left England and started a new life in America. Those who participated in the destruction of a good and honest man should have been ashamed of themselves. Perhaps the miners deserved all they endured for they were not strong enough to stand up to their employers in their persecution of Mr. Mackintosh.

Five years later, in 1830, the miners of Northumberland and Durham formed one large union, known as “Hepburn’s Union”, named after Thomas Hepburn. Miners were awakening to the importance of public opinion, which could be a valuable asset in their fight for better conditions. The public were not aware of the unfair conditions miners were subject to, the long hours they were obliged to work underground, and especially the amount of time children spent in the mines. Within a year, the miners were on strike; it was 1831 and the men sought to resolve some of their many grievances. The binding period for the miners of the Tyne and Wear collieries expired on the fifth of April and the men refused to be bound again until their grievances were addressed. Their demands were for:

a) A general wage increase.
b) Shorter hours, (especially for boys).
c) A review of parts of the bond service. Especially the power of the owners to lay men off for the least bit reason. For example, minor problems with the pits, the engine, or waggon ways. (When wages were frequently stopped for three days).
d) A change in the system where men were at the whim of the viewers or agents, in order to continue working; (they could be evicted from their houses, either on the completion of their bond, or non-fulfilment of articles of the bond).
e) A review of the practice of losing work over Christmas without pay.
f) An alteration to the practice whereby men are coerced into buying from “Tommy Shops.”

Mr. Jenkins told me that Tommy shops got their name from the old word ‘tommy’, which referred to food. Anyway, two points were acceded to, one, that boys should work only a twelve hour shift, and two, that workmen would receive their wages in money, which they could spend anywhere they desired. This would end their reliance on the “Tommy Shops” that were usually run by a relative of the colliery viewer; men were ‘obliged’ to buy at these shops. The general practice at many collieries was to pay men either in full, or in part, with tokens, rather than money. The tokens were exchanged for goods at these “Tommy Shops”, which often charged inflated prices. Anyone in debt to the shop by payday had the owed amount deducted from his or her wages.

The two concessions were a step in the right direction but the miners were determined to fight on. Wednesday, April the sixth, saw many miners meeting on Black Fell, where they resolved not to return to work on the past terms. Once again, the military were only too ready to assist the civil powers. Within a week a few collieries resumed work with men who returned on the old terms. They were branded as “Black-legs” by the striking miners, who were determined to carry on fighting.

On the eighteenth of April, approximately one thousand five hundred miners decided they would visit collieries in the Blyth and Bedlington area. They stopped the pits working and threatened to set fire to them if their demands were not met. At Bedlington Glebe Pit, they destroyed corves and threw them down the shaft, and damaged other machinery. In Blyth they went to the house of the resident viewer at Cowpen Colliery. They took everything that they could eat and drink out of the cellar, but they did no damage. As they left they threatened that they would be back again if the viewer tried to get the pit working before their terms were agreed to.

Next day a substantial number of men visited Jesmond Dene Colliery, where they damaged machinery, and then threw it down the pit shaft. Mining areas were in turmoil as large groups of men travelled round the place, causing terror amongst the inhabitants and destroying property. At one colliery on the Weir, the horse-keepers were told they would be killed if they went down the pit to feed the poor horses.

Large numbers of special constables were sworn in and the Northumberland and Newcastle Yeomanry were drawn on for added protection. A further detachment of eighty marines and three subalterns sailed from Portsmouth to bolster the might of the military presence in the troubled counties. On April the twenty-first, a meeting of miners took place at Jarrow and several speakers urged the miners to keep the peace and conduct themselves in an orderly manner. However, leaders say one thing, but men have their own ideas.

During the first week in May and another large meeting took place on the Black Fell. The Marquis of Londonderry, accompanied by a military escort, addressed the men, requesting them to disperse. He promised to meet delegates from the collieries at Newcastle to discuss current differences. The men agreed to this and later meetings took place in Newcastle, over a two-day period. However, the men rejected the terms offered to them, and the strike continued, although a few pits were working under military protection.

Detachments of regular troops, horse and foot, assisted by Cavalry and Foot Yeomanry, were stationed near Wallsend. The authorities, at the insistence of the coal mine owners, deployed patrolling soldiers to guard the pits in order to protect their machinery, property, and men who were working. Scores of men wandered Northumberland and Durham with their families, preferring to beg rather than accept the owners’ terms. On the sixteenth of May, at South Shields Colliery, striking miners tried to prevent some bound men from going to work. Mr. Fairless, a magistrate, arrived with a party of marines, so the striking miners left. The following day a sizeable group of men arrived at Hebburn Colliery; they threw everything they could down the shaft, before the military arrived.

By the middle of June the owners realised the damage to their property was costing them loads of money and it was not worth holding out any longer. Victory against the coal owners was a rare thing, but this was only one battle and there would be many more.

Trouble was never far away and on Christmas Eve, an estimated one thousand men met at Waldridge Colliery, in Durham. They stopped the pumping engine and threw a large number of items down the shaft at a time when men were working in the mine. They were incensed that during a dispute the owners employed lead miners to do their work. The Government put up a reward of two hundred and fifty guineas, which was matched by the colliery owners, to apprehend and convict those responsible for the outrages.

Such a sum of money was akin to a King’s ransom and was bound to secure a positive result. Seven men were soon caught and tried; the jury at Durham Assizes found six of the men guilty and the ‘guilty’ men received sentences of up to fifteen months in prison. Claims were rife that innocent men were in gaol because the guilty men had not been apprehended. Coal owners and the authorities were of one mind; someone had to be punished for the outrageous behaviour at Waldridge Colliery, and if a man was a union man, then that was reason enough to apprehend him. Men who had never been near Waldridge Colliery were taken from their beds and imprisoned.

Unrest in other areas of the Country arose, as people tormented by food, or rather the lack of it, faced the prospect of starving to death. The widespread introduction of Meikle’s threshing machine was another burden for agricultural workers and led to job losses in farming areas. Workers choose to protect their paltry livelihood by destroying the machines. Early in June 1830, riots began in Kent, ricks, barns and houses, were set on fire.

Surrey, Sussex, Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire all suffered from riots and hundreds of rioters were imprisoned. During riots in the Wylye valley, Wiltshire, the yeomanry killed one man and wounded several more. Threatening letters, many signed by ‘Captain Swing,’ were sent to farmers and manufacturers threatening to destroy their property if they failed to remove machinery or raise wages. In some places machinery and wrought iron foundries were attacked.

Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, and Norfolk, experienced attacks on newly installed machinery at paper mills. Machinery in a sawmill was also destroyed in Norfolk, and the mill was set on fire. A large mob damaged a woollen cloth factory in Wiltshire, and the Waterloo Foundry, a sacking factory, and Shepherd's threshing machine factory were all attacked in Hampshire. In Worcestershire, Kidderminster carpet weavers rioted and destroyed needle-stamps and presses.

A mob attacked the workhouse in Selborne, Hampshire and turned out the occupants before burning and breaking fittings and furniture. They also pulled the roof down. The following day another much larger mob did similar damage to the workhouse at Headley, a short distance away. Then they coerced the village parsons into promising to reduce by half the income they took from tithes. Tithes are payments made toward the support of the parish church and its clergy. Less than a month later, at a special court hearing in Winchester attended by the Duke of Wellington, nine local men were sentenced to transportation.

Merthyr, in Wales, experienced serious uprisings in 1831. It was over job losses, wage reductions, and partly protests for parliamentary reform. Over twenty people were killed and Dic Penderyn was later hanged for his involvement in the riots. James Thomas Cooper, who led a number of riots in Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset, was another man who was executed. Hundreds were sentenced to transportation because they rioted, some of them for life. Many families were then in a worse position than before, the breadwinner in gaol or transported to New South Wales, or Van Diemen’s Land.

Again, this year there were many other riots, which included the Bristol riots, the burning of Nottingham castle, the sack of Derby gaol, and the Royal carriage molested in London. Britain appeared to be on the point of revolution. Trade was poor, and unemployment existed everywhere. People were impelled by hunger and wanted reform. The Bristol riots were especially fierce with something like five to ten thousand people taking part in the rioting, and an estimated five hundred people died. Four rioters were hanged and eighty-eight either transported or sent to gaol.

[Ragger]

Chapter 4.

4.


1832 was a year of great unrest as cholera spread throughout many areas of Britain. Riots began when a man and his wife, from Derbyshire, agreed to go to the new cholera hospital in Toxteth. A mob of women accompanied the couple to the hospital, where a crowd of men and children were waiting. They screamed, shouted, and attacked a number of officials who tried to explain to them what the cholera hospital was. The crowd believed the couple would be experimented on by surgeons, who were body snatchers. The mob smashed hospital windows and threw missiles at hospital officials. The mob was mistaken of course, as the hospital intended helping the infected couple. But, in their ignorance, they rioted.

By March of 1832, miners were on strike again. The end of the binding period was near and a general meeting of Northumberland and Durham men took place at Bolden Fell. Coal owners loathed the growing power of the Union; they decided that members of the union would not be bound at the next yearly binding. This was a calculated attempt to break the power of the union, because union men would not be allowed to work in their collieries.

Men, who were beginning to realise the benefits of unionism, decided to retain their union membership. The primary purpose of the meeting at Bolden Fell was to decide which course of action to take to defeat the owners; they decided that if union men could not be bound, then no one should bind. The collieries ceased working but the owners would have none of it; they set on new men to replace the men who were on strike.

Naturally, these new men needed somewhere to live and the only houses the colliery owned were occupied by the families of miners on strike. The owners decided their most practical course of action was simply to evict the inhabitants of their property. The first evictions occurred at Hetton; special constables were recruited and London police were standing by, along with a detachment of the Queen’s Bays (2nd. Dragoon Guards). Non-union men were given arms to protect themselves.

During daylight, all was peaceful, but as night fell, union men fired shots. The next day the body of a bound miner, was discovered. After ten days of investigation, followed by a trial, a jury recorded a verdict of “wilful murder” against George Strong, John Turnbull, John Moore, and Luke Hutton. Under a heavy military escort, they were transported to Durham Gaol to await their inevitable fate.

More special constables were sworn in, with instructions to lock up any miners they found standing together. Once again, union men were targeted, and many arrests were made. Some men, who had played no part in any disorders, were detained without food or water. If men resisted, they were threatened with a cutlass or a pistol. Men were subjected to a constant barrage of threats, or promises, and eventually sufficient numbers of them returned to work to restart the pits. The colliery agents openly campaigned against union leaders in order to create disharmony in their ranks. These allegations went virtually unchallenged; the fear of being arrested was enough to discourage union meetings at the collieries.

Friar’s Goose Collieries near Newcastle were the next target for the eviction gang. When they arrived they observed that a considerable group of miners had gathered there. Police officers were armed with swan shot. Evictions were in progress when a number of miners entered premises being used as a guardhouse and removed some guns. The police were in a narrow lane, with hills on both sides. From the hills, the miners threw missiles at them.

Fearing for their lives, police fired at the crowd, and escaped to the house of the colliery viewer who lived on higher ground. Some miners fired shots at them as they fled to safety and a number of police officers were injured. Two men were sent to alert the military, but miners, suspecting their intention, hindered them as much as they could by throwing missiles of all descriptions. The two men were injured, but eventually they reached the barracks to deliver their message. Soldiers quickly assembled and set off for Friar’s Goose, arriving to find that most of the miners had left, and the disturbances were over. Police searched houses and arrested all the men in them, whether guilty or innocent, and took them to Newcastle Gaol.

Large numbers of police officers flooded into the mining villages where mine owners happily supplied them with beer and refreshments; the police returned the favour by knocking down any striking miners they came across and locking up those who objected. Coal owners were determined to crush the life out of the union, and they seemed to be winning the battle. Nevertheless, in the face of all the intimidation they endured, some men tenaciously and courageously fought on.

Striking miners’ families were often seen begging; such was their plight. Police and military continuously harassed the men, while wives and children were insulted and ridiculed by the wives and children of working men. As the strike went on, the situation for these poor families became increasingly unbearable and men slowly filtered back to work. Their employment was conditional; they were required to have nothing more to do with the union.

A terrible event took place at South Shields on the eleventh of June 1832, when a magistrate, Mr. Nicholas Fairless, encountered two miners who pulled him from his horse and assaulted him. He died ten days later from the injuries he received. One of the miners, William Jobling, was caught, tried, and executed; his body, hands and face were covered in pitch then gibbeted on Jarrow Slakes as a warning to any others with violence in mind.

Most of the pits were working now and the union was all but destroyed, apart from a small number of miners who believed that if they gave in they would not recover from this setback for a very long time. The writing was on the wall; recruiting new union members was now impossible and the current membership was falling off at an alarming rate. A meeting of this dwindling group of union men took place at Chirton, which is near North Shields, on the eighth of July. A group of special constables were in the area and trouble broke out; a number of men tried to calm things down, including a Percy Main miner named Cuthbert Skipsey. One of the police officers, George Weddle, drew his pistol and shot Skipsey, who sadly died almost immediately. Weddle was later found guilty of manslaughter and was sent to prison for six months. People were incensed at the injustice of the penalty Jobling had received, while Weddle only got six-months in gaol. Jobbling’s body remained exhibited on Jarrow slakes from the third of August until the end of the month when some unknown person removed it. It was rumoured that the authorities had paid someone to remove the body to calm the situation.

In London, the new London police, the Peelers, attacked peaceful people attending a National Union of Working classes meeting in London in 1833. They thrashed the people for an hour; one man retaliated and struck back with a knife killing the Peeler. An inquest took place two weeks later, but resentment at the police action was so great that the jury refused to return a verdict of murder. Eventually the coroner reluctantly accepted a verdict of justifiable homicide.

In Scotland, bands of armed poachers began operating in the area around Cumnock and Auchinleck. One poacher was caught and taken to Cumnock, where he was held in an alehouse or some sort of hotel. After a trial, he was convicted. Three other poachers made their way to Cumnock to find out what had happened to their friend. They too were arrested when it was realised they were wanted men. Word spread of the poachers’ arrest and eventually a large crowd gathered outside of the place where the poachers were held.

A cart, which was transporting the convicted poacher, was attacked and the prisoner was rescued. A mob was determined to free the other three poachers, but just before this mob entered the room in which the poachers were held, a shot was fired above the heads of the crowd. Someone from the mob grabbed at the gun and it went off, killing one of the constables guarding the poachers. In the confusion, the poachers escaped. Later, a man was charged with culpable homicide, and a number of others charged with rioting and some other offences.

During the trials, it came to light that the poachers’ arrest warrants were not legal, so therefore the poachers had been detained illegally and consequently it was not illegal to free them. Mr. Jenkins told me that some men were gaoled, but there was little desire to convict the men involved. The jury determined that the gun had gone off in the general confusion, and the death of the constable was deemed to be accidental.

In 1834, six Dorchester farm labourers were convicted and sentenced to seven years transportation. The men are sometimes referred to as the Tolpuddle Martyrs; their ‘crime’ was to swear men into a Lodge, which was intending to join Robert Owen’s Grand National Consolidated Trade Union. These poor men never went on strike or even made threats to strike; furthermore, it appears they never actually joined Owen’s Union. Theirs was a harsh punishment indeed; surely if men can be transported for having intentions, well, we could all be transported.

Then there was the introduction of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which was an attack on working people. Out relief, that is relief to people not actually residing in a workhouse, should never be given to able-bodied males and when workhouse relief was given, it must be more unpleasant than the most unpleasant way of earning a living on the outside; and everyone knows, some people have terrible jobs. Men and their wives had to separate on entering workhouses to prevent childbearing. Of course, conditions in workhouses were deliberately harsh to discourage people from seeking help.

Over the border, in Monmouthshire, a member of the Scotch Cattle movement murdered a constable. The authorities hung Edward Morgan in Monmouth Gaol for his participation in the Scotch Cattle campaign, but the constable’s murderer escaped.

Trade had been good during the time this new Poor Law Amendment Act was introduced, but that was about to end and a couple of years later industrial depression forced unemployed workers to seek parish relief. The new Act was applied and discontented unemployed workers revolted.

Mr. Jenkins claimed that a new movement, the Chartists, were soon carrying the fight for political change to Parliament itself in the form of the People's Charter. The Charter contained six points; Universal male suffrage; no property qualifications for Members of Parliament; payment of MPs; equal electoral districts; secret ballot; and annual Parliaments. Thousands of working people rallied together because of this charter, and hundreds of them went to prison for their beliefs.

In Birmingham, in 1838, magistrates banned meetings in the Bull Ring. However, Chartist speakers defied the ban; the authorities drafted a squad of the new London policemen in and they were set on the crowd that had assembled to hear the speeches. Chartists retaliated and drove the police back, but soldiers arrived to regain control. Later on, in the evening, another confrontation saw the protesters gain the upper hand. It was a short-lived victory and the authorities soon resumed their domination.

William Lovett was a Chartist leader and his name was on many resolutions to be published, criticizing the use of the new London police in the Birmingham disturbances. Lovett and John Collins, a workers’ leader in Birmingham, who took the resolutions to be printed, were tried, found guilty and sentenced to one year in gaol. Riots took place in other areas and many leaders were arrested.

Back in the coalfields, tragedy was soon to visit Yorkshire; life for mining families is hard but it is even harder when disaster strikes and takes the lives of children. One such disaster happened at Huskar Colliery, in Yorkshire, in 1838. A violent thunderstorm raged from about two until four o'clock in the afternoon. The pit had a shaft used for pulling coal up to the surface by a steam engine. In a wood, there was a drift, used for ventilation. Rain put out the fire in the boiler, which caused the engine, used for taking miners to the surface, to be placed out of operation.

A message was sent down the pit for all the miners to make their way to the pit bottom. Some of the children, boys and girls, decided to wait until the engine was working again. They spent nine hours underground when forty of them decided to leave the pit by way of the ventilation drift in Nabbs Wood.
At the bottom of the drift there was an air-door, which the children went through. As they made their way up the drift, a stream, which had swollen into a rushing torrent by the downpour, overflowed down the drift. The children were washed off their feet and down to the door through which they had just passed. Water rose against the door and twenty-six children were drowned. Some of the older children managed to escape along a slit that connected Huskar Colliery to Moorend Colliery. Some of the children were only seven and eight years of age; they should have been playing in fields and enjoying their childhood, not working in the bowels of the earth.

Life went on and so did the riots. Henry Vincent, of the London Working Men’s Association, who was especially influential in South Wales and Bristol areas, was imprisoned in Monmouth Gaol. Chartists plotted to free Vincent and capture nearby Newport. The authorities in Newport heard rumours that the Chartists were armed and planning to seize Newport. If the Chartists were successful in Newport, the authorities believed it would encourage others all over Britain to follow their example.

John Frost, an ex-mayor and Radical politician, commanded the detachment of Chartist marchers, made up predominately of miners. Three to four thousand men descended on Newport, only to find the authorities prepared and soldiers awaiting their arrival. Frost’s amateur army of chartists walked into a trap and were no match for trained soldiers, who under orders, fired from under cover of the shutters of the Westgate Hotel into the unsheltered crowd. Chartists fought in vain and many lost their lives in doing so. Afterwards it was estimated that well over twenty men were killed and approximately fifty others wounded.
John Frost, Zephaniah William’s, and William Jones, were each found guilty and sentenced to death; sentences, which were later commuted to transportation.

Round about this time, the Turnpike Trust appointed a new Toll Farmer in Pembrokeshire, who erected more Tollgates and increased toll charges. This proved especially costly for small farmers, who had little option but to use the roads. Tollgates therefore, were very unpopular and led to riots. A number of these riots were known as ‘Rebecca Riots.’ ‘Rebecca and her daughters’ attacked the Tollgates. Rebecca and her daughters were really men dressed up as women. Some claim the name Rebecca came from the Holy Bible; well, they were consistent and religiously attacked tollgates.

The year following the Huskar Disaster nine miners were killed at Housewoodhill Colliery, in Scotland, when the roof caved in, and another fifty-one in an explosion at St. Hilda Colliery, South Shields. Two years later, explosions killed eleven miners at Quarter Colliery, also in Scotland, and thirty-two at Willington Colliery in Durham.

Apparently, a man named Charles Dickens interviewed a man who was working at Willington at the time of the explosion and he said; "The cause of this explosion, which cost all these lives, was traced, on examination of all signs and appearances, to the trapper boys, Robert Pearson and Richard Cooper. Cooper's body was found away from his own trap, and lying close beside that of Pearson, where we saw reasons for knowing he could not have been blown by the explosion; and all on us come to the conclusion that he had left his own trap-door open, and gone to play with Pearson. The proper course of the ventilation was thus destroyed, and when George Campbell, whose body was found near, went there with his candle, to fill coals, the gas that had accumulated while the boys were at play instantly exploded."

Robert Pearson was only nine years of age; thirty-two men and boys were killed including Thomas Pearson, the fifteen-year-old brother of Robert. In all, three sets of brothers died. Michael Martin and his son William also perished that day. Michael left a wife and four other children. Many families were left in similar situations to the Martin’s after disasters. As well as a man losing his life down the pit, his wife and children were often evicted from their homes, which were owned by the colliery. The colliery owners needed the house for the man or men, who would replace dead miners. Owners did not think they were being unreasonable, ‘it was good business sense.’

These and other accidents helped to direct the public’s attention on the use of children in coalmines. The Royal Commission in 1840 focused on children, but women and girls benefited most from the report. Legislation that followed the Commissions report, the 1842 Mines and Collieries Act, led to the exclusion of all women and girls from British mines and banned children under the age of ten from working underground.