proprietors and two hewers appointed by the men should be
set up for the purpose. They also object to a proposed scheme
for a Benefit Society : ' It has long been a favourite object
with the rich and opulent to desire and promote plans for
making the poor maintain the poor, and the funds of Benefit
Societies have generally been made to aid the poor rates, and
thereby relieve at the same time both the poor and the rich.
. . . We view therefore with some jealousy and suspicion
a recommendation lately submitted to us from the colliery
viewers, or some of them, to institute a general fund for the
relief of colliers, their widows and families, etc. We can
hardly hope that those who have refused to attend to our
complaints or make any reply to our just remonstrances, will
be prepared to lay aside all partiality and sinister views and

1 First Report of Commission for inquiring into employment of children in
mines and manufactures (Appendix, Part i.).

a H.O..V40. 19. s See A Candid Appeal.



30 THE SKILLED LABOURER, 1760-1832

interest themselves sincerely in the management and direc-
tion of a fund solely for our benefit. Besides, any plan pro-
posed for our benefit, to which we should be called on to con-
tribute, must be under our own special management and
direction.' 1

Lord Londonderry's alarm at the power of the Union was
unnecessary, for during the next few years the men lost ground
rather than gained it. In 1828 the 15s. a week guaranteed
them by the Bond was reduced to 14s., and in 1830 ' it was
withdrawn altogether by a section at least of the coal-owners,
with the result that in many collieries wages fell very low,
as low as 8s. or 10s. per week, owing to want of work.' 2

1 A Candid Appeal, pp. 4, 5. 5 Galloway, Annals, i. p. 465.



CHAPTER III

THE MINERS OF THE TYNE AND THE WEAR

The Strikes of 1831 and 1832

THE men, unable to improve their position by peaceful per-
suasion, determined to join battle with the coal-owners. On
February 26, 1831, about 10,000 pitmen l of the Tyne and
Wear met near Chester-le-Street and resolved to obtain
redress for their grievances, and on March 21 a mass meeting
of about twenty thousand persons, attended by the workers from
forty-seven collieries, was held on the Town Moor of Newcastle,
at which a policy was formulated. Amongst other things
the system of ' tommy-shops ' was condemned. To the Lord
Mayor of Newcastle, who had offered to act as mediator, they
sent on March 23 a letter detailing their grievances. 8 First
and foremost comes the three-days grievance, which we have
already described. ' An article in the bonds empowers the
Owners to limit the working days to only nine in the fortnight,
in which nine days we are allowed as much work as will yield
us 28s. at the prices for working which is mentioned hi the
bond ; but there is another article the former part of which
reads as follows : if through any accident happening the
engines or pits, rendering them unfit for working, or any other
cause, the pits be laid off work for more than three successive
days, we are to be paid 2s. 6d. per day, but not until we have
laid idle three successive days. But, sir, that clause in this
article which reads thus, or any other cause the pits be laid
off work, does, we think, destroy the virtue of the former
article : for if the owners chooseth to keep the coals and not
send them to market, they may assign it as a sufficient cause
for laying the pits off work for three days, and if we be set
to work upon the fourth, we have no claim of any allowance

1 In 1831 the Mayor of Newcastle estimated that the total number of pitmen
employed on the Tyne and the Wear was 30,000 to 40,000 (H.O., 52. 14).
Mr. Buddie before Lords' Committee on Coal Trade, 1829, gives 20,954 as the
number.

Tyne Mercury ', April 12, 1831.



32 THE SKILLED LABOURER, 1760-1832

for the loss of such time. . . .' * The second grievance was the
length of the hours worked by the boys : ' Again, another article
binds the boys to work fourteen hours from starting at the crane
and until ending at the same, which through the distances the
crane is underground, keeps the boys sometimes seventeen hours
from home, leaving them only seven or eight hours a day for
every other purpose of life.'

The third grievance was the system of colliery houses by
which the men and their families were dependent for shelter
on signing the bond, for if * we are not agreed for the ensuing
year, or if we be legally discharged from the colliery, the owners,
their agents or servants are empowered to enter such dwell-
ing, turn us with our families and furniture to the door, without
having recourse to the legal proceedings of the law.'

The fourth grievance was the system of fines already described.
* These measures we wish to have softened ' ; put in blunter
language, the men wished for protection from fraud, especially
with regard to false corves, for * if the corves be made ever so
much above their measurement, we are not allowed to have
them adjusted, so that we have to guess when there is a suffi-
cient quantity of coals in her, but if, when sent to bank, any
corf be deficient, we lose the price of that corf altogether.'

Into the grievances connected with the ' tommy - shop '
system the men did not enter; probably they felt strong
enough to settle that question by themselves, on the lines of
the resolution passed at their meeting. It is important to
note that they did not actually threaten to strike, if their
demands were not granted ; they expressed their determina-
tion to refuse to be bound till they were satisfied, but were
willing to continue working unbound, whilst their original
plan was to send two delegates to London to state their case
before the House of Commons. As the Mayor of Newcastle
had offered to ' intercede ' for them, they turned to him first.

The result of the Mayor's mediation was that the coal-
owners passed certain resolutions on March 28. 2 They conceded
a twelve-hours day for boys at the crane, ignored the three-day
grievance, merely reiterating that a minimum of 28s. a fort-
night should be guaranteed as before, suggested that in future
the binding contract should be entered into in January, three
months before it took effect, so that the men should have time
to arrange about their houses if necessary, and refused to make
any concessions in the matter of fines or honest dealing ; the

1 Tyne Mercury, April 12, 1831. 2 Ibid,



MINERS OF THE TYNE AND THE WEAR 33

fines ' being a necessary protection to the owners against negli-
gence, or frauds.' No change in reference to the size of the
corves, they said, was required, since a measure existed at
the top of the pit. On the subject of the truck system they
passed the following curiously worded resolution : * That the
workmen be paid their wages in money as has hitherto been
the custom, and remain at liberty to supply themselves with
candles, gunpowder, and shop goods, wherever they may think
proper.' It is noteworthy that the Tyne Mercury, which
represented the views of the coal-owners, forgetting that the
week before it had denied the existence of any grievance on
the ground that such a system would be illegal, hailed this
abolition of * tommy-shops ' as an important concession.
Finally the coal-owners resolved not to carry on any colliery
after April 5 with unbound men. 1

In answer to this, the pitmen replied that the masters had
not met their point about the ' three-day ' grievance, and they
asked a question which showed that they had now raised
their minimum terms, * Is it unreasonable to ask for employ-
ment for eleven days in a fortnight at 3s. per day ? * 2 The
masters retorted by an ingenious denial of the three-day
grievance, showing that on paper it could not exist ; how-
ever, they practically conceded the men's demands, agreeing
that as there was some ambiguity in the wording, * the inten-
tions of the parties being the same,' the clause might be more
clearly expressed. 3 This point settled, the dispute was
narrowed down to two questions: (1) the demand for a 33s.
minimum a fortnight ; (2) fraudulent fines. On the first
question the coal-owners with bewildering logic affirmed in
the same breath, first that the men already made higher wages
than 33s. a fortnight, and could count on as much for the
ensuing year, and secondly that if the men were bound on
those terms only three-quarters of them would be engaged.
Further, comparisons were drawn with the wages of other
miners and those of other occupations. The fines they could
not dispense with, * but they may state that they are levied

1 The Mayor of Newcastle told Sir H. Ross, who was in command there, that
the coal-owners did not wish for an immediate settlement, but wanted the price
of coals enhanced and hence offered terms unlikely to be accepted. Ross wrote :
' . . . The terms they have offered to the pitmen are such as to be very beneficial
to themselves if accepted, and if rejected (which they will be) they will be well
content '(H.O., 40. 29).

8 Newcastle Chronicle, April 9. 3 Tyne Mercury, April 12,

C



34 THE SKILLED LABOURER, 1760-1832

unwillingly and with every proper discrimination and for-
bearance.' Again the men demanded protection from fraud ;
they asked not to be fined till the fault was shown before
witnesses on both sides, and to have ' the privilege of measur-
ing the Corves at any Time without previous Notice of their
Intention,' a demand which speaks for itself. 1

For several weeks the dispute went on and the pits lay idle ; 2
eleven magistrates not connected with the coal trade offered
their services as mediators without success, an offer deprecated
by the Tyne Mercury 3 as ' liable to produce an impression on un-
educated men that their complaints are well founded and must
be attended to.' In vain Lord Londonderry offered 30s. a fort-
night to his pitmen, asking that the fines should ' be left to
his honour, and that of his agents.' 4 ' I conceived my colliers,'
he wrote afterwards 5 ' were really attached to the family and
their old establishment. I tried by addressing them (as well
as Lady Londonderry) to work upon their sense of justice and
regret as well as their affections.' At last both sides agreed
to a minimum of 30s. a fortnight, and the fines remained the
only point at issue. The Tyne Mercury 6 made the novel but
unfruitful suggestion that they should be used for a fund for
the education of the pitmen's children. Ultimately towards
the end of May it was decided that the several collieries should
treat separately with their own men. Lord Londonderry
started concessions ; 7 other coal-owners followed suit, and
by the middle of June all the pits were at work again. 8 The

1 Newcastle Chronicle, April 16. 2 See H.O., 52. 12, and 52, 14.

3 April 12.

* Newcastle Chronicle, May 14. Lord Londonderry was criticised by the
Tyne Mercury (April 12) for joining with two other J.P.'s in issuing a warning
to the pitmen against assembling, acting violently, and deterring others from
working: 'it is not very decorous of the Marquis of Londonderry to put his
name as a magistrate to such a notice, when he is himself interested as a coal-
owner.' B Newcastle Chronicle, June II.

6 May 3. 7 H.O., 52. 14, and 40. 29.

8 The Duke of Northumberland wrote to the H.O. on May 26 that work had
been resumed ' the occupiers having made their own terms respectively with
the' refractory workmen, and thereby departed from the Union which they had
recently established in their own defence ; whilst the original and imposing
Union of the Pitmen is in full authority and force. In many cases new covenants
have been made upon fair and tenable principles, abrogating some hard and
indefensible customs and giving an advance of wages upon an average of IQ
per cent. In some cases a precipitate and absolute concession has been made to
the demands of the pitmen more I apprehend in the eagerness of mercantile
zeal than from any positive and impending intimidation ' (H.O., 52. 14).



MINERS OF THE TYNE AND THE WEAR 35

Tyne Mercury 1 - thus summed up the result of the negotiations :
' Though it be true that the owners of each particular colliery
have made the best terms they could for their own concern,
it is quite clear that the servants have triumphed over their
masters in the struggle.' The men in fact had won a twelve-
hours day for the boys and for the inferior grades of labour,
had raised their own guaranteed minimum Is. a week, and had
secured themselves against a system of fraud. For a few
months there was peace.

The hero of the fight was Thomas Hepburn, a pitman at
Hetton Colliery. The Union which had won the victory is
commonly called Hepburn's Union, for he was its moving
spirit, but it was not till August of this year (1831) that he was
appointed a paid organiser to visit the different collieries. 2
Hepburn's watchwords which he reiterated to his followers at
every meeting, with almost wearisome emphasis, were modera-
tion and abstention from violence. On their orderly behaviour
public sympathy depended, and public sympathy was an
important factor, especially when it took the form of credit
allowed by tradespeople to pitmen earning no wages. During
the 1831 strike Hepburn was on the whole successful in en-
forcing orderly conduct ; some machinery indeed was destroyed
at Blyth, Bedlington, and at Jesmond Dene, and soldiers
were called out to protect the pits when blacklegs were work-
ing, but considering that 17,000 men were idle, and for the
most part hungry, the absence of serious outrage was remark-
able. Hepburn was a politician and he took a prominent part
in the Reform agitation, speaking both at the dinner of the
Northumberland Political Union in September, and at the
great meeting in October on Newcastle Town Moor when
50,000 persons gathered together to demand Reform. The
pitmen themselves, in all the pride of their recent victories,
met in August at their usual meeting place, Boldon Fell,
to the number of 10,000 or 12,000, and resolved to send a
loyal address to the King ' thanking him for his beneficent
attention to the wants of his people, for the Reform Bill, and
for the support he had given to his ministers.' 3 The address
which was dispatched to Lord Melbourne was signed by
11,561 workmen from fifty-seven collieries.

To understand the events of 1832 it is necessary to consider

1 May 31. 2 Sykes, Local Records, ii. p. 308.

3 Sykes, Local Records ; ii. p. 308 ; Newcastle Chronicle, August 20 ; Tyne
Mercury, August 23.



36 THE SKILLED LABOURER, 1760-1832

the position of the coal-owners and their outlook on life. They
had been beaten and they dreaded the future. As early as
June 21, 1831, the perils of their position were put very ably
by an anonymous writer, under the pseudonym of * Vindex,'
in the Tyne Mercury. The men, he reasoned, by the very-
orderliness of their conduct, had shown themselves to be
powerful antagonists. * Their minds were bent upon the
attainment of certain rights which they esteemed due to them,
and during a season of abject poverty and great distress they
have maintained those rights more by arguments and reason-
ings, than by tumults or disorders.' The delegates, he urged,
had been chosen with ' infinite discrimination,' and their
appeals to the public distinguished by art and ability. The
coal-owners, on the other hand, had played an ignominious
part : if the prosperity of the coal trade was not to pass away
they must rouse themselves and ' resist the exorbitant demands
of the pitmen. If the spirit of intimidation ever stalked abroad,
and if revolt was ever brewing, it is now.' x

The coal-owners, moreover, had lost something more sub-
stantial than prestige. During the year that followed April
1831 their profits fell, partly, no doubt, in consequence of the
strike ; partly, if unkind critics are to be trusted, in con-
sequence of the new Coal Act, under which London coals were
sold by weight and not by measure. 2 By the use of false
bottoms in the boats masters had often packed on a boat,
supposed to carry 21 or 22 tons, as many as 27 to 30, thus
cheating the pitmen, the canal companies, and also the royalty
owners. 3 Another cause of diminished profits was the stricter
supervision of the men's corves or baskets. A writer who gave
the men's version of affairs in the Newcastle Chronicle of January
7, 1882, estimated that by the ' adjustment of corves ' after the
strike, from three to four keels a day less were frequently
wrought in a colliery: in other words, formerly ' the men were
frequently cheated out of three or four keels a day.' This
means, of course, that the men by working at the same piece
rates could now make the required sum in a shorter time.

With the object apparently of distributing the work equally
over different days and amongst the different workers, the

1 Compare H.O., 40. 29 (H. Morton Lambton to General Bouverie on June
8, 1831) : '. . . the business of mining cannot be carried on for a great length
of time if the men remain in the present state of insubordination.'

2 I & 2 William IV. c. Ixxvi.

8 Tyne Mercury, January 10, 1832, quoting from Birmingham Journal.



MINERS OF THE TYNE AND THE WEAR 37

Union laid down a rule that no hewer should make more than
4s. a day. 1 On this the coal-owners seized as a serious grievance,
attributing their losses largely to this diminished output.
They stated boldly that two-thirds of the hewers made their
4s. in six hours, a statement vehemently denied by the men.
Since the guaranteed minimum was 80s. for eleven days, and
the owners admitted that eight hours was the customary day
for a hewer, the statement on the face of it seems improbable.
However this might be, many of the coal-owners believed that
the men had passed that ' limit beyond which wages cannot
be raised, because beyond it the employment of labour ceases
to be profitable.' 2 The pitmen, wrote Mr. James Losh, a pro-
minent colliery owner, on January 28, 3 have forced from their
employers higher wages for shorter hours, consequently many
collieries have made no profit, and many masters will soon
cease employing men at all unless the men show a more
reasonable spirit. Mr. Losh who represented, so to speak, the
reasoning faculty on the employers' side, basing his arguments
on large generalisations of political economy and on quotations
from Holy Scripture, never wearied in assuring the pitmen
that their own and their masters' interests were inseparably
united, the masters being presumably the only judges of those
interests. Comparisons with the wages of other occupations
in the district and elsewhere fortified the belief that the pit-
men were overpaid, and that by the law of supply and demand
their remuneration must be reduced ; thus we find Mr. Losh
pointing out 4 that sailors and fishermen are worse paid for
more dangerous occupations, lead, tin, and copper miners paid
only half as much for as dangerous work, whilst the lot of
South-country agricultural labourers should make the pitmen
thankful for the many blessings they enjoy. Even the coal
miners at Bilston were said to make only 8s. 7d. a week when
rent was deducted. 5

Apart from these theoretical considerations the natural
man in the employer was tempted by the supply of cheap
labour available from the neighbouring lead mines, where 7s.
or 8s. a week was the usual wage for men, who, if not engaged
in precisely similar tasks, were at any rate working under-
ground. Indeed the masters soon persuaded themselves
that it was a positive charity to give these distressed lead

1 H.O., 52. 14. 2 Tyne Mercury, May 31, 1831.

* Newcastle Chronicle. 4 Newcastle Chronicle, April 23, 1831.

6 Times , December 9, quoted in Tyne Mercury, December 27, 1831.



38 THE SKILLED LABOURER, 1760-1832

miners work, and the objections of the pitmen to this course
were ' a heartless combination against their industrious but
starving fellow creatures.' l ' How absurd it is,' wrote Mr.
Losh, 2 ' to attempt to hinder men who are working for 8s. or
9s. per week, from removing thirty or forty miles, to places
where they can earn, with less labour, more than twice that
sum. I will only add,' he went on, summing up the position
with obvious sincerity, ' that whoever advises the pitmen
to seek for unreasonable wages far above the average of the
district in which they live, or in any way to interfere with the
property or controul the operations of their employers, must
be very ignorant or very wicked ; and I think one may safely
conclude that they can neither be good Christians nor honest
men, who act themselves, or advise others to act, contrary to
the scripture rule of " doing unto others as you wish they
should do unto you." '

In the autumn of 1831 the cholera came creeping on towards
the North of England from Russia. About the end of October
it appeared in Sunderland, from December till March of the next
year it devastated Newcastle, Gateshead, North Shields, and the
neighbouring colliery villages. * It raged principally amongst
the lower orders whose dissolute habits and poverty rendered
them speedy victims to its direful attacks, most of them only
surviving a few hours.' 3 At Newbum-on-Tyne out of a popu-
lation of 550, 424 persons were attacked, of whom 57 died.
Public subscriptions were opened for the relief of the sufferers ; *
but in spite of this the epidemic proved a severe drain on
the resources of the young Union, and left it without any
reserve funds to face the next conflict with the masters. By
March 1832 no less than 10,000 had been paid out by the
Union for the relief of the sick and destitute ; in Hetton
alone 700 was subscribed by the men for the relief of the
sick. 5

Meanwhile trouble of another sort was brewing. At Callerton,
Coxlodge, and Waldridge lead miners were imported and the

1 ' Publicola' in Tyne Mercury, December 13, 1831.

2 Newcastle Chronicle, January 28, 1832.

3 Sykes, Local Records, ii. p. 323.

4 To the Sunderland Fund Lord Londonderry sent ^100 with ' a very feel-
ing letter,' Lord Durham .100 and noo tons of coal. 'Such philanthropy,'
wrote the Tyne Mercury, December 20, 1831, 'better becomes their rank than
the brightest coronets they can boast.'

6 See account of Union Meeting of March 3 in Newcastle Chronicle, March
10, 1832.



MINERS OF THE TYNE AND THE WEAR 39

pitmen refused to work with them ; at Waldridge the angry
coal miners stopped the engine and endangered the lives of the
lead miners working below. The Union had nothing to do
with any of these affairs ; indeed at Waldridge the delegates
did their best to prevent mischief, and the Union sided with
the masters in the original matter of dispute : the refusal of
the pitmen, in defiance of their bond, to accept the prices fixed
for a new seam. The Union's policy was clearly stated by
Hepburn : ' It was wrong for men to combine and prevent
others from working, when they had got work in a legal manner.
. . . By the articles into which they had lately entered, though
they bound themselves to the maintenance and support of
each other, they could not hinder any one from working with
them.' l Again he urged strongly that when once the bond
was entered into it must be kept, and whoever broke it would
be punished. 2 The law indeed provided penalties, and various
pitmen from the above-mentioned collieries were sent to prison
for three months' hard labour because they had deserted their
work.

The case of Coxlodge was particularly hard. By an oral
agreement at the binding time, it was arranged that as
more workmen had been bound than could be employed at
Coxlodge, the surplus men from Coxlodge should go to Gos-
forth (a less profitable pit for the workers), but that they should
have the first claim if extra labour was required at Coxlodge. 3
In defiance of this understanding, when extra labour was
wanted at Coxlodge, the owner imported low-paid lead miners.
The pitmen already employed at Coxlodge, finding their remon-
strances ignored, struck work. Some were sent to prison, the
rest had their indentures cancelled, and soldiers were called
in to evict them from their houses. When the doors of
their cottages had been nailed up, they at last appealed to
the Union. Delegates from that body made an investiga-
tion and passed the following unheroic resolution : ' That the
dispute having terminated in a manner highly prejudicial to
the men, and in a way which cannot but be also injurious
to the masters, a deputation from this meeting be appointed
to wait on the Rev. Mr. Brandling, the owner, to solicit him to
continue to employ those men who may be willing to remain.' 4