The great Labour unrest: Rank-and-file movements and political change in the Durham coalfield 9781784997595

Table of contents :
Front matter
Dedication
Contents
List of tables and figures
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Map of the Durham coalfield, 1914
Historiographical introduction
Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide
The Eight Hours Act and the Eight Hours Agreement in the Durham coalfield
‘Not exactly the millennium’ The minimum wage campaign
‘A capitalistic piece of legislation’ The launch of the Durham Forward Movement and the syndicalists’ high tide?
‘Trade union questions were now political questions’ Defeats, victories and new strategies
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

The Great Labour Unrest

The Great Labour Unrest Rank-and-file movements and political change in the Durham coalfield

Lewis H. Mates

MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © Lewis H. Mates 2016 The right of Lewis H. Mates to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for

ISBN

978 0 7190 9068 4

hardback

First published 2016 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset by JCS Publishing Services Ltd, www.jcs-publishing.co.uk

For Lucy, Cerys and Shona

Contents

List of tables and figures viii Acknowledgements ix Abbreviations xi Map of the Durham coalfield, 1914 xiii 1 Historiographical introduction 2 Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 3 The Eight Hours Act and the Eight Hours Agreement in the Durham coalfield 4 ‘Not exactly the millennium’: the minimum wage campaign 5 ‘A capitalistic piece of legislation’: the launch of the Durham Forward Movement and the syndicalists’ high tide? 6 ‘Trade union questions were now political questions’: defeats, victories and new strategies 7 Conclusion

1 42 101 147 185 225 270

Bibliography 287 Index 304

Tables and figures

Tables 1 Stoppages in the Durham coalfield, 1901–1909 48 2 DMA agents in 1910 53 3 Durham coal companies, 1891–1913 60 4 Key Durham miner ILP activists 69 5 General election results in Durham mining constituencies, 1906–1910 129 Figures 1 Surfaceworkers break and sort the coal on the picking belts at St Hilda (colliery of rank-and-file leaders Jos Batey and Thomas Barron) (2897. Beamish: The Living Museum of the North) 2 A hand putter toils while a deputy looks on (8467. Beamish: The Living Museum of the North) 3 Twizell blacklisted colliery workers (joiners, carpenters, etc.). The ‘blacklist’ may relate to the 1912 minimum wage strike (11536. Beamish: The Living Museum of the North) 4 Crowd with draped (mourning) Alma banner seen outside the Newfield Inn, Pelton Lane Ends, possibly en route to the annual miners’ gala in 1912. Jack Lawson, lodge checkweighman, stands on the right wearing a straw boater (12280. Beamish: The Living Museum of the North) 5 Murton colliery strikers against the four-shift system collecting coal in March 1910 (12737. Beamish: The Living Museum of the North) 6 Hewer at work in north-west Durham (29631. Beamish: The Living Museum of the North)

145 145 145

146 146 146

Acknowledgements

I have incurred a massive number of debts in the course of researching and writing this book. First mention has to go to Kevin Davies, who has worked indefatigably sourcing excellent material from the region’s numerous local newspapers; his unceasing enthusiasm and zest for this project has been inspirational. His catchphrase, ‘Lewis, I’ve got some information for you...’ always preceded the revealing of some gem he had won from among the interminable columns of newsprint. Dave Douglass kindly, and very usefully, read and commented on the entire draft manuscript, and I would like to thank very much MUP’s anonymous reviewer for doing the same. Tony Mason and Polly Bentham at MUP have been tremendously patient, helpful and supportive, as has my copy-editor, Jessica Cuthbert-Smith. Gidon Cohen read Chapter 1, and has provided ongoing support and stimulating conversation, for which I am very grateful (even though there appears to be an informal ‘chocolate biscuit tax’ in force). Martin Pugh kindly commented on earlier incarnations of several aspects of this book, as did Keith Gildart, Peter Mates, Paul Smith, Rob Stradling and Marcel van der Linden. Ralph Darlington, Matt Perry, Alastair Reid and Andrew Thorpe all generously provided feedback and advice on the book proposal. Many of my peers, including Matthew Adams, Yann Béliard, Stefan Berger, Sam Davies, Jonathan Hyslop, Nathan Jun, Ruth Kinna (and the Anarchist Studies Network more generally) and Chris Wrigley also provided feedback at various conferences in Britain, France and South Africa where I presented on facets of the project. My gratitude goes to the organisers of the Ninth International Congress of Mining History (Johannesburg, April 2012) who invited me and generously part-funded my appearance. Thanks also to both the History Department and the School of Government and International Affairs of Durham University, who have also financially supported that and other conference trips in recent years. My colleagues at SGIA have been brilliant in providing a supportive and friendly working environment. I want to thank the staff of Beamish Museum, the British Library of Political and Economic Science, Darlington Public Library, Durham Public Library, Durham Record Office, Durham University Library, the Labour History Archive and Study Centre (Manchester), Newcastle Public Library, the North East England Mining Archive

x Acknowledgements and Research Centre, Northumberland Record Office, Palace Green Archive, Durham, and Tyne and Wear Archives Service, who have all been incredibly helpful, and particularly Sue Donnelly, Francis Gotto, Andrew Gray, Julian Harrop, Reg Hughes, Gill Parkes, Jonathon Sides and Judith Walton. I would also like to thank Kate Beeby (Ruskin College Library), Gail Chester (Colindale Newspaper Library) and Nancy Clements (University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries). Constance Bantman, Trevor Bark, Harry Barnes, Kath Connolly (Durham WEA), Martyn Everett, Jack Fletcher, Benjamin Franks, Robert Graham, Kath and John Grimshaw, Davy Hopper (DMA), Nick Heath, David Howell, Ken John, Ian McKay, Emmet O’Connor, Simon Oram, John Patten, Ray Physick, Alex Prichard, Dorothy Rand, Paul Simpson, Dave Temple, James Thompson, Don Watson, Chris Williams and Lucien van der Valt have all very kindly supplied valuable material, knowledge, advice and/or support. Naturally, the interpretation and any mistakes are my sole responsibility. While I only met the late Duncan Tanner once (in 2005), I was impressed by his warmth and generosity. I am certain that he would have taken my engagement with his work in the spirit in which it is intended: critical but respectful. Finally, I would like to thank Lucy for all her ongoing support and encouragement; she remains ‘one of the best’. I dedicate this book to her, and to our beautiful daughters, Cerys and Shona.

Abbreviations

In text BMA – British Medical Association CGT – Confédération Générale du Travail (Confederation of Labour) CLC – Central Labour College CPGB – Communist Party of Great Britain DCOA – Durham Coal Owners’ Association DFM – Durham Forward Movement DMA – Durham Miners’ Association DMFB – Durham Mining Federation Board DMRA – Durham Miners’ Reform Association DURM – Durham Unofficial Reform Movement ILP – Independent Labour Party ISEL – Industrial Syndicalist Education League ITWF – Irish Transport Workers’ Federation IWC – Institute for Workers’ Control IWGB – Industrial Workers of Great Britain IWW – Industrial Workers of the World JDB – Joint District Board (for the minimum wage) LRC – Labour Representation Committee MFGB – Miners’ Federation of Great Britain MWM – Minimum Wage Movement NMA – Northumberland Miners’ Association PLP – Parliamentary Labour Party SDF – Social Democratic Federation SLP – Socialist Labour Party SWMF – South Wales Miners’ Federation TUC – Trades Union Congress VPA – Voluntary Political Association WEA – Workers’ Educational Association

xii Abbreviations In references BLPES – British Library of Political and Economic Science DRO – Durham Record Office LHASC – Labour History Archive and Study Centre, Manchester NEEMARC – North East England Mining Archive and Research Centre NLD – National Library, Dublin NRO – Northumberland Record Office PGAD – Palace Green Archive, Durham TNA – The National Archives TWAS – Tyne and Wear Archives Service, Newcastle

Key to Map Durham County Constituencies A- Chester-le-Street B- Jarrow C- Houghton-le-Spring

D- North-west Durham E- Mid-Durham F- Barnard Castle

G- Bishop Auckland H- South-east Durham

1- Chopwell 2- High Spen 3- Greenside 4- Addison 5- Blaydon 6- Dunston 7- Swalwell 8- Marley Hill 9- Redheugh 10- Gateshead (single member constituency) 11- Felling 12- Usworth 13- Birtley 14- Ravensworth 15- Ouston 16- West Pelton (Alma, Twizell, Handen Hold collieries) 17- Pelton 18- Chester-le-Street (South Pelaw colliery) 19- Waldridge Fell 20- Beamish 21- Washington 22- Harraton 23- Heworth 24- Wardley (Follonsby) 25- Hebburn

26- Jarrow 27- South Shields (single member constituency; St Hilda colliery) 28- Harton 29- Marsden 30- Boldon 31- Wearmouth 32- Sunderland (double member constituency) 33- South Hylton 34- Ryhope 35- Lumley 6th 36- Seaham 37- Houghton-le-Spring 38- South Hetton 39- Murton 40- Shield Row 41- Stanley 42- Oxhill 43- Annfield Plain (Morrison colliery) 44- South Moor 45- Langley 46- Hamsteels 47- Consett 48- Sacriston 49- Sherburn

50- Bowburn 51- Croxdale 52- Brancepeth 53-Willington 54- Brandon 55- Durham City (single member constituency) 56- St Helen’s, Auckland 57- Evenwood (Randolph colliery) 58- Roddymoor 59- Hamsterley 60- Auckland Park 61- Spennymoor 62- Windlestone 63- Chilton 64- Adelaide 65- Seaham Harbour 66- Dawdon 67- Easington 68- Horden 69- Shotton 70- Wheatley Hill 71- Thornley 72- Wingate Grange 73- Kelloe (East Hetton colliery) 74- Trimdon

Map of the Durham coalfield, 1914

D

AN

L BER

UM

TH OR

4

N

3 1

6

9 10

7

2

11

8

A 20

41

15

17 19

16

42

43

B

18

21

32

33

34

22

C

35

36

37

48

45

NORTH SEA

31

44

D

29

30

14 13

40

28

26

24

23

12

47

27

25

5

39

65 66

38

46 67

52

E

54

51

53

58

68 71

50

72

G F

49

55

61

70

69

73 74

59 60 62 57

63

64

H

56 0

5

10 MILES

1 Historiographical introduction

This book offers a new perspective on the nature and significance of the political, social, and economic turmoil in Edwardian Britain, especially during the ‘Great Labour Unrest’, a period of particularly acute industrial unrest in the years immediately preceding the Great War. The next section provides a general introduction to the period, describing the relevant events, individuals, processes, ideas and institutions. The following two sections then deal with the various approaches and debates over the Great Labour Unrest and syndicalism and the rise of Labour. The fourth part grounds this particular study more firmly in the literature on mining and develops its rationale, while the fifth develops essential aspects of this book’s approach drawn from the preceding sections. The final part outlines the major arguments mounted. The Great Labour Unrest in outline The British Labour Party faced significant challenges in its first fifteen years of life. Its tentative birth, as the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) in 1900, was a remarkable success for the socialist advocates of independent workingclass representation in Parliament. Figures such as Scottish miners’ leader Keir Hardie, a founder of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in 1893 and one of the first independent Labour MPs (for West Ham in 1892), had long argued that any successful independent working-class party had to tap the resources and influence of the trade unions. The unions resisted at first, but a series of setbacks in the 1890s, including an employers’ counter-offensive and the defeat of the demand for an engineers’ eight-hour day in 1898, began transforming perspectives. On the initiative of the Railway Servants’ Union, 55.7% voted at the 1899 Trades Union Congress (TUC) to support the parliamentary initiative, allying trade unions with socialists. A welcome boost came in the wake of the July 1901 Taff Vale judgement, which rendered trade unions liable for damages incurred by their members while striking. Initially reluctant unions flocked to affiliate to the LRC after Taff Vale. By 1904, the LRC was known as the Labour Party and its secretary, Ramsay MacDonald, had

2

The Great Labour Unrest

forged a secret electoral pact with the Liberals. This ‘Lib-Lab pact’ ensured Labour candidates a free run in selected constituencies in the 1906 general election and the nascent party duly secured twenty-nine MPs. In 1908, the last of the largest trade unions, the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain (MFGB), voted to affiliate to Labour and the party’s parliamentary presence swelled to forty-five.1 The Liberals won a landslide majority in the 1906 general election. The party drew inspiration from ‘new liberalism’, advanced most notably by T.H. Green from the 1880s, which advocated (in stark contrast to classical liberalism) a positive, interventionist role for the State in bringing about individual emancipation. The new government soon established its reforming credentials by passing legislation like the Workmen’s Compensation Act (1906), and the Old Age Pensions Act (1908). These, and the reversal of Taff Vale (in the 1906 Trades Disputes Act), established liberalism as a renewed, radical political force, capable of recognising and addressing working-class material concerns and seeming to render the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), and its reformist ‘socialism’, superfluous. Apparently impotently trapped in the Liberal alliance, and struggling to differentiate themselves ideologically and programmatically from the larger party, some of Labour’s erstwhile keenest advocates began questioning whether the entire parliamentary strategy was ill-conceived. Tensions rose further when Victor Grayson won Colne Valley for ‘militant socialism’ at a by-election in July 1907. Grayson had stood against the wishes of the party and went on to cause it considerable embarrassment in Parliament. By 1908, Ben Tillett, the veteran dockers’ leader of the ‘new union’ struggles of the late 1880s and now a Labour MP, was already asking, ‘Is the Parliamentary Labour Party a failure?’ Tillett clearly thought so; he left Labour to join the Marxist Social Democratic Federation (SDF) (itself a founding, but very short-lived, affiliate to the LRC). The situation appeared to worsen for Labour, threatening in different ways the ties between the political and industrial sides of the Labour movement. The 1909 Osborne judgement meant trade unions could no longer directly fund the party from their coffers; instead individual trade union members had to ‘contract in’ in order to support Labour financially. This was not dealt with until the Trade Union Act (1913), which ensured that individual trade union members now had to ‘contract out’ of paying their union’s ‘political levy’. But the 1913 Act also demanded that every union hold a ballot of all members to establish their ‘political fund’. Still, while the voting margins varied considerably – as did turnout and the conditions in which the ballots were held – the memberships of only three of sixty-three unions actually voted against establishing a fund specifically for political purposes. Meanwhile, the Liberal government continued pursuing its reforming agenda with Lloyd George’s ‘People’s Budget’ (1909). Recalcitrance in the Conservative-dominated House of Lords resulted in two general elections in 1910 that the Liberals won, albeit at the cost of their commanding majority. The Lords dealt with, government reforms continued, with the National Insurance Act (1911) and Payment of MPs (1911). Labour’s small parliamentary grouping of



Historiographical introduction 3

rather varied ideologies and abilities seemed to be in no position to benefit from the Liberals’ problems; the party did not fare well in the 1910 general elections and the Liberals instead turned to the larger Irish Nationalists for parliamentary backing in pursuing their legislative programme. The promise of Home Rule for Ireland ensured continued support for the Liberals among Irish immigrants and their descendants in many significant industrial centres, hampering Labour’s development in places like Liverpool, Glasgow and the north-east of England. While the LRC had been born of trade union weakness, Tillett’s 1908 missive seemed prescient in the explosion in trade union growth and industrial militancy from around 1910. In the fifty-five months before the outbreak of the Great War, the initial phase of what became known as the Great Labour Unrest saw union membership almost double to over four million. With this came thousands of strikes on an unprecedented scale, with millions of working days lost. It hardly seemed to matter that Labour had secured the affiliation of more than 50% of British trade unionists (approximately 1.75 million) by 1912; industrial action was coming into its own, seeding further doubt about the utility and efficacy of Labour’s parliamentary project. In 1911, Tillett’s newly formed 250,000-strong Transport Workers’ Federation won a national strike. The railwaymen held a successful national strike the same year, and the London dockers struck in 1912. The MFGB demand for a minimum wage precipitated, in March 1912, the first truly national miners’ strike. With about one million participating, it was also the largest industrial dispute the world had seen. Thanks to this one strike, 1912 marked the peak of days lost to industrial action during the first phase of the Great Labour Unrest to August 1914. The threat to Labour’s parliamentary project was greater still as into this volatile mix came syndicalism: essentially revolutionary trade unionism.2 Syndicalists argued that the working class could win its demands by perfecting organisation, strategy and tactics in the industrial sphere. Syndicalists consequently posed a potential threat not only to established trade union bureaucracies, but also to the socialists of the ILP. National Labour leaders certainly took this threat seriously, with Ramsay MacDonald, Philip Snowden and the Fabians Sidney and Beatrice Webb all writing critiques of syndicalism.3 Indeed, the fears of many Labour leaders and activists that the extra-parliamentary and unofficial or even anti-official nature of a considerable proportion of the industrial unrest was undermining their parliamentary project seemed well justified. In Liverpool in 1911 prominent syndicalist Tom Mann (another veteran, like Tillett, of the ‘new union’ struggles) was invited to lead a local general strike that saw soldiers shoot dead two Liverpool workers. Mann had been an active syndicalist in Britain only since 1910, when he established the ‘Industrial Syndicalist Education League’ (ISEL). Immediately before this, he had visited comrades of the French syndicalist union, the Confédération Générale du Travail (Confederation of Labour, CGT).4 The French union was one of a number of influences, as syndicalism became the foremost revolutionary strategy across vast areas of the globe in the thirty years after the mid-1890s.

4

The Great Labour Unrest

A second important influence on British syndicalism was that of the American Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or ‘Wobblies’). American Marxist Daniel de Leon and his Socialist Labour Party (SLP) were significant in the IWW’s founding in 1905. De Leon advocated a two-pronged strategy of working-class action. In the industrial arena, revolutionaries should create ‘industrial unions’, meaning that every worker in a particular industry would belong to the same union. The industrial unions, adopting a militant ‘class war’ policy, would initially work alongside existing trade unions, until they were powerful enough to supplant them altogether, a strategy called ‘dual unionism’. Crucially, de Leon saw the industrial union as not only the means to organise workers to maximum industrial strength and class identity in the struggle against capitalism, but also the best way to administer and operate complex industrial societies after capitalism had been overcome. In the political arena, socialists should stand for election on a revolutionary ticket. If they won a majority in parliament, they would abolish the State. While de Leon’s strategy became enshrined in the IWW’s founding preamble, its opponents (who included anarchists) eventually emerged victorious in 1908 with an amended preamble that explicitly ruled out any IWW involvement in the political process. The result was two American IWWs: a de Leonist organisation based in Detroit (which soon faded) and the far larger Chicago-based IWW. This schism reverberated in Britain and throughout the rest of the syndicalist world. A third source of specific influence in mainland Britain came from Ireland, and particularly from James Connolly and Jim Larkin’s Irish Transport Workers’ Federation (ITWF), formed in 1908. Though not a revolutionary union, the ITWF contained syndicalist elements and Larkin hoped that it would become the organisational centre of a future industrial union. The bitter Dublin lockout of the ITWF in 1913 stimulated considerable solidarity in Britain. Three separate syndicalist strands developed in Britain, adopting different positions on the crucial issues of dual unionism and ‘political action’ (i.e. standing for elections) that altered over time. The longest-standing strand was represented by the (British) SLP, which ceded from the SDF in the so-called ‘Impossibilist Revolt’ of 1903 under the influence of Connolly (who was Scottish-born of Irish parentage).5 In 1909, the British SLP endorsed dual unionism. Strictly speaking, SLP activists self-defined as ‘industrial unionists’ and used the term ‘syndicalist’ pejoratively; they associated syndicalism with anarchism which, like de Leon, they spent considerable time attacking. The British SLP denounced the (self-defined) syndicalists operating within Mann’s ISEL umbrella organisation, as the latter were more critical of ‘political action’. Initially, the ISEL adopted a ‘bore from within’ strategy, focusing on reforming existing unions from the inside. It dropped this for dual unionism in 1913, precipitating a serious internal split. A third syndicalist strand developed along anarchist lines. Organised around Guy Aldred’s paper Herald of Revolt, it began as broadly dual unionist. A grouping that rejected this approach emerged with the Voice of Labour paper, launched in early 1914. For the anarchists, Mann’s rejection of political action was not firm



Historiographical introduction 5

enough. Anarchists also criticised the ISEL policy of amalgamating existing trade unions, which forced them to work with trade union leaders, even such unpalatable figures as the anti-socialist leader of the Seamen’s Union, Havelock Wilson. The effect of the ISEL amalgamation policy, anarchists argued, could only be the further concentrating of trade union power in a few hands, when power inside unions needed decentralising. Organised anarchism was strengthening after 1910; Leeds hosted the first national conference of British anarchists in many years in February 1912, though by no means were all anarchists convinced syndicalists. British syndicalism is defined here as the specific organisations, groupings, activists and ideas emerging after 1903 and diversifying significantly after 1908.6 This is not to deny that British syndicalists drew heavily from indigenous traditions and practices of militant workplace conflict, as well as from ideas and movements from across the globe. But explicit syndicalists of the early twentieth century advanced by various means specific detailed programmes that rendered their nascent movement considerable coherence, allying various pre-existing militant industrial practices and inclinations to an over-arching revolutionary goal that sought to generate coordinated action at not only the local, but also the (sub)regional, national and transnational levels. This firmly differentiated them from more amorphous, localised, spontaneous examples of rank-and-file direct action initiatives, antibureaucratic tactics, structures and concepts that predated them, and from which the syndicalists (and, of course, other trade unionist militants) inevitably drew. Activists operating as the ‘Unofficial Reform Committee of the South Wales Miners’ Federation’, under the rubric of the ISEL, were among the most significant of the pre-war British syndicalists. Their moment came with the Cambrian Combine dispute in the South Wales coalfield, in autumn 1910. The Cambrian Combine, formed in 1906, linked several separate, independent and fairly small Rhondda coal companies together, allowing them to regulate prices and wages in the coalfield. But the Combine’s aggressive approach antagonised Rhondda miners. They struck in September 1910 over conditions and wages, specifically piecework rates for coalface workers in ‘abnormal places’ where the coal seams were particularly difficult to work. At its peak 30,000 were involved and the dispute occasioned the infamous Tonypandy riots of November 1910. Though the strike was defeated, it spawned a movement in the coalfield for a national minimum wage and, in summer 1911, the South Wales miners sent ‘missionaries’ to other coalfields to agitate for national action on the issue. Syndicalists were influential during the Cambrian Combine dispute and in shaping the post-dispute response. They inaugurated a collaborative process involving hundreds of activists that resulted in The Miners’ Next Step, a propaganda pamphlet that, according to Henry Pelling, marked the ‘high water of syndicalist influence in British trade unionism’.7 Published in January 1912, just as the MFGB was about to vote on a national strike for the minimum wage, its first print run of 5,000 sold out within weeks. Aiming for the ‘elimination of the employer’, The Miners’ Next Step was a revolutionary document.8 But it was also pragmatic, suggesting

6

The Great Labour Unrest

various means (many of which fell short of full-scale striking) that the workforce could employ to make the mines unprofitable. By this stratagem – it argued – the miners could take over the industry, not via some form of state nationalisation but by direct workers’ control. For this, workers needed effective unions but, crucially, The Miners’ Next Step was clear that these would be achieved by reforming existing organisations. Continued adherence to this programme led the main South Wales miner syndicalists to split from the ISEL when it adopted dual unionism in 1913. Many of the document’s authors, like Marxist Noah Ablett, were educated at the trade union-sponsored Ruskin College in Oxford. Through their de Leoninfluenced organisation the Plebs’ League (the name was inspired by a de Leon pamphlet), the Marxists encouraged the founding of a revolutionary offshoot. Central Labour College (CLC) was eventually established in 1910 (initially in Oxford, before relocating to London), after a strike at Ruskin due to the lack of Marxist teaching on offer and the sacking of college principal Dennis Hird over the issue. While The Miners’ Next Step’s authors, and their supporters, had done much to bring about the miners’ national minimum wage strike, so Tom Mann’s arrest for reproducing ‘Don’t shoot!’ (a call for soldiers not to open fire on strikers) just as the Minimum Wage Bill was coming before Parliament further elevated syndicalism’s public profile. An apparently massive step forward for syndicalism came in June 1914 with the formation of the ‘Triple Alliance’ of the MFGB, railwaymen and Tillett’s Transport Workers’ Federation – unions organising workers in interrelated industries agreed to consult on disputes affecting any one of them with a view to facilitating solidarity of industrial action. This development appeared to endorse the credibility of syndicalist ideas of amalgamation and organisation within the unions and further threatened to sideline attempts at securing a viable trade union parliamentary presence through Labour. Indeed, in a struggle for dominance on the left, the Great Labour Unrest period seemed particularly favourable towards the syndicalists and their allies, placing those advocating a parliamentary route to (state) socialist salvation at a significant disadvantage. Great Labour Unrest and syndicalist literatures The Great Labour Unrest has a long-running historiography. In 1935 journalist George Dangerfield argued that the industrial unrest was one symptom of a terminal malaise that afflicted Edwardian Liberal Britain. Emphasising the influence of syndicalism, Dangerfield famously claimed that ‘the Great General Strike of 1914’ threatened by the nascent Triple Alliance was ‘forestalled by some bullets at Sarajevo’.9 Elie Halévy had already made similar claims, and labour movement activists G.D.H. Cole and Raymond Postgate broadly concurred in the later 1930s.10 After 1945 came incremental moves to revise these early claims. Roland Sires offered a referenced, qualified endorsement of Dangerfield, arguing that economic causes were paramount but that a non-continental definition of syndicalism, based



Historiographical introduction 7

on method rather than theory, was influential in Britain. The British version differed considerably from the theoretical, violent and revolutionary syndicalism of the French. Sires still regarded the Triple Alliance, combined with potential civil war in Ireland over Home Rule, as posing a serious threat.11 By the late 1950s, and writing in a context of relative economic stability and prosperity, the revisionist onslaught on the ‘Dangerfield thesis’ was underway. It was evident in the work of E.H. Phelps Brown, who regarded the unrest as the result of rapid inflation, low pay and unresponsive bargaining procedures. Yet Phelps Brown still agreed that the Triple Alliance’s formation necessarily foretold of industrial strife, a view shared by others.12 G.A. Phillips, closely associated with Hugh Clegg et al.’s influential ‘pluralist’ school of British industrial relations, challenged this view, arguing that the ‘“general strike of 1914” was “a mirage of historians” searching for a révolution manquée’.13 Other planks of the Dangerfield thesis came under sustained critical scrutiny; Henry Pelling argued that the workers’ revolts were quite separate from the other ‘revolts’ the Liberal government faced and that the Triple Alliance was neither a consequence of syndicalism nor a means of promoting it.14 Elsewhere, Pelling had already downplayed the influence of British syndicalism, while Standish Meacham’s essentially historiographical 1972 article suggested that the unrest was ‘the dying wail of a class [the working class] over whom the wave of progress is about to roll’.15 Yet, by the late 1960s, rank-and-file radicalisation within many trade unions, the proliferation of wildcat (unofficial) strikes and a growing disenchantment (articulated by a broadly defined ‘New Left’) with unions’ leaderships and roles in the post-war settlement was spawning greater interest in the antecedents of contemporary movements and ideas. This was already evident in the founding of the Institute for Workers’ Control (IWC) in 1964 under former coal miner Ken Coates and funded by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation (which Coates directed). In 1968, Coates co-edited a collection on Industrial Democracy in Great Britain. The preface to the 1970 Panther edition, more provocatively renamed Workers’ Control, showed, something of the traditions upon which today’s militants will have to draw. If they can do it in time, they can draw upon new worlds. But if they fail, or falter, then they will soon have to contend with authorities far more draconian, wielding powers far more savage, than have ever been thought possible in this sheltered land.16

Coates’ IWC conducted research and education work within trade unions, producing pamphlets critiquing models of nationalisation and promoting industrial democracy and workers’ control. IWC influence was blamed for industrial unrest in several contexts in the early 1970s, including in the Nottinghamshire coalfield (1970); its pamphlet demanding workers’ democracy for miners managed to antagonise both the miners’ leaders and the Coal Board.17

8

The Great Labour Unrest

The early 1970s thus heralded a second wave of serious, engaged (academic) interest in workers’ control, industrial unionism and syndicalism in Britain. Early accounts assigned considerably more attention to the emergence of the shop stewards’ movement during the Great War than they did to pre-war syndicalism, as the former more obviously fed into the Communist Party of Great Britain’s (CPGB) emergence after the war. Thus, the pre-war focus of Walter Kendall’s 1969 study of The Revolutionary Movement in Britain 1900–1921 was firmly on the SDF and the emergence of the British Socialist Party, paying scant attention to the SLP and almost none to the syndicalists. This reflected earlier pioneering specialist research by Chūshichi Tsuzuki (1956) and Branco Pribićević (1959).18 This soon changed; Pit Life in County Durham (1972) by Dave Douglass, a young coal miner from Wardley on South Tyneside, was emblematic. The result of research undertaken as a student of Raph Samuel at Ruskin College, and published as part of the pioneering History Workshop, it considered rank-and-file movements and workers’ control among Durham miners, including the SLP activist George Harvey.19 Harvey had been ‘rediscovered’; Coates’ edited collection Democracy in the Mines (1974) included an extract penned by Harvey in 1911. Indeed, the extent to which the historical interest in workers’ control and syndicalism was the direct result of an apparent renewed contemporary relevance was remarkable. The IWC publisher, Spokesman Books in Nottingham, republished both the ISEL newspapers in the mid-1970s. They were both edited by Geoff Brown, who also authored another Spokesman book on syndicalism in 1977.20 Brown’s work was not alone, as the later 1970s and early 1980s saw the publication of several studies of earlier revolutionary trade unionists, their ideas and movements. All took their subjects seriously and sympathetically. In 1976, Bob Holton published the first (and still only) book-length study of British Syndicalism (to 1914), looking to dispel popular myths. In considering the Great Labour Unrest period, Holton argued that the combination of an economic downturn in summer 1914 and a growing employer counter-offensive was fomenting increasingly hostile relations between capital and labour at the outbreak of war.21 A year after Holton, Ray Challinor published the first full-length study of the British SLP. Challinor’s controversial account (the debate centred on his treatment of the formation of the CPGB in 1920) broadly endorsed the SLP’s contemporary critical attitude towards its competitors among revolutionary trade unionists.22 Then, in 1978, British anarchism was accorded its first full-length study, authored by John Quail, a onetime member of Solidarity, a small revolutionary grouping formed in the 1960s and sympathetic to forms of anarchism.23 Dave Egan’s work of the same period brought a sharper focus on syndicalism in the South Wales Miners’ Federation (SWMF).24 Much of this research offered, in various ways, correctives to earlier authorities like Robin Page Arnot who, effectively the CPGB’s official historian, was dismissive of miners’ syndicalism.25 But the debates continued. In 1979, and in a context of growing trade union militancy, Eric Hobsbawm claimed that British syndicalism’s influence ‘was almost certainly much smaller than enthusiastic historians of the



Historiographical introduction 9

left have sometimes supposed’.26 Hobsbawm’s distaste for syndicalism – of a piece with his antipathy for anarchism, a re-emerging force on the British left in the 1960s that he struggled to grapple with – surely informed this claim.27 Indeed, Hobsbawm’s comments tallied with his study of Spanish anarcho-syndicalism, and claims that (following the ‘Leninist line’) it was the primitive product of essentially feudal social relations.28 While Jerome Mintz provided a convincing rebuttal of Hobsbawm’s treatment of Spanish anarchism, the debates about its impact in various parts of the globe continued.29 Indeed, Holton also countered claims that British syndicalism was insignificant compared to similar movements in much of continental Europe and the wider world. He argued that syndicalism’s achievements in many continental contexts had been exaggerated, and that the ‘limitations of the overseas syndicalist record suggest little justification for demoting the British movement to “inferior” status on comparative grounds’.30 Holton was certainly right to criticise ‘national stereotyping’ (evident also in claims of British New Left theorists like Perry Anderson and Tom Nairn) in relation to understandings of syndicalism, pointing out that Britain passed through periods of moderation and militancy, with syndicalism coinciding with an important example of the latter.31 Along with close examination of rank-and-file, syndicalist, anarchist and industrial unionist groupings, ideas and movements came studies of particular trade unions in the Great Labour Unrest, such as Joseph White’s work on the Lancashire textile workers. These studies did not necessarily claim that syndicalism played a pivotal role, however. White, for example, argued that the cotton workers’ industrial militancy of the period owed ‘little to syndicalism or revolutionary Marxism’.32 By contrast, James Cronin, James Hinton and Richard Price explored the links between their contemporary context and periods of industrial militancy decades earlier.33 Their inspiration was the ‘new labour history’, or ‘history from below’ of the 1960s; this constituted a ‘historiographic revolution’ inaugurated by the publication of E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class in 1963.34 Bob Holton was particularly inspired by Thompson’s seminal ‘Homage to Tom Maguire’ (1963), which argued for more research into specific contexts and the activists who operated within them in order to generate more robust understandings of complex phenomena.35 In ‘Peculiarities of the English’, Thompson brusquely rebutted the Anderson and Nairn thesis of a British exceptionalism in capitalist development resulting in a ‘supine’ working class. Thompson’s argument that the immediate pre-1914 period was one of precious few in the twentieth century when radicalism could flourish in the British context clearly resonated.36 However, some historians remained unconvinced that British labour history in the 1970s had really broken with its earlier focus on institutions. In 1979 Stuart Macintyre, reviewing, among others, Holton and Challinor’s books on syndicalism and the SLP, bemoaned the continued preference in labour history for the organisation and the institution. He called for a lowering of the barriers between labour history

10

The Great Labour Unrest

and, among others, social history in order to ‘breathe life into the institutional framework with which recent labour history has been mainly concerned’.37 Writing a decade later, however, and referring to much of the same literature as Macintyre, Jonathan Zeitlin identified the opposite problem. He noted a ‘marked shift’ away from an ‘institutional focus’ under the influence of ‘social history’.38 Zeitlin critiqued what he deemed ‘rank-and-filist’ approaches in labour history, which focused on particular periods of trade union militancy (such as 1910–1921) and the ‘minoritarian’ revolutionary movements that prospered during them. Identifying four essential claims of those operating in the rank-and-filist paradigm, Zeitlin offered four counter-claims; first, that no clear line could be drawn between trade union officials and the ‘rank and file’ and that they did not necessarily have conflicting interests. Instead, intra-union struggles were really between ‘rival factions of would-be leaders, each seeking to present themselves as the authentic spokesmen for the interests of their members’.39 Second, he claimed that union leaders did not curtail their members’ militancy as they were often more militant than their members. Third, he gave examples of fairly authoritarian unions demonstrating responsiveness to pressure from their members resulting in changes in union strategies and even in leading personnel. Finally, he argued that formal union organisation and central coordination were vital bulwarks of workers’ job control, rather than, as Price in particular had argued, major threats to it.40 None of the three respondents (Price, Cronin and Richard Hyman) recognised Zeitlin’s categorisation of their own work. Nor did they accept that they all shared ‘rank-and-filist’ assumptions, which, they claimed, caricatured and reduced a complex group of approaches. They complained that Zeitlin had not engaged with their substantive, empirical findings. They all, however, accepted aspects (albeit qualified) of Zeitlin’s four substantive claims which reminded Price (a self-proclaimed proponent of ‘workplace history’) of ‘statements from sociological textbooks which are so general as to be obviously true and hardly worth debating’.41 Finally, they claimed that Zeitlin desired a ‘conservative’ return to a narrowly confined labour history concerned solely with institutional relationships, represented by the work of Hugh Clegg et al. (Clegg’s second volume on British trade unions – also downplaying syndicalist influence – had recently been published.)42 Around the same time, these divisions were replicated in specific treatments of the coal industry, with Roy Church criticising aspects of Keith Burgess’ (another of Zeitlin’s ‘rank-and-filists’) earlier approach.43 Soon after, Church entered the ‘Edwardian crisis’ debate, re-ignited in the early 1980s by the reprinting of Dangerfield’s and Pelling’s works on the subject.44 Church used coal miners’ strike data to falsify the explanations of Alan O’Day and Zeitlin’s rank-and-filists, whom he bracketed together as they all suggested the inevitability of the Edwardian labour unrest, with various factors precipitating a crisis in British capitalism. Church rejected explanations based on macro-economic trends, material and working conditions and managerial strategies regarded as detrimental to workers. Indeed, he stressed the lack of contrast between an apparently tranquil



Historiographical introduction 11

late Victorian era and the strike-prone Edwardian period. While he offered no alternative general explanation, Church pointed out that the ‘traumas that may be identified in Edwardian England were mild by comparison with those which threatened the social equilibrium of Liberal South Wales. If we are to understand the origins of militancy in the coalfields then detailed comparative inter-regional research should be the historians’ next step’.45 Again, contemporary events informed the historiographical debates. As Cronin observed, the rank-and-filist debate came in the context of the supremacy of the Thatcher government and its New Right inspiration, apparent in the defeat of the unions (particularly the miners) which produced ‘a sense of pessimism and malaise as the sentimental accompaniment to many of the debates within labor history’.46 This malaise did not, however, prevent a trickle of research pursuing similar themes emerging in the early 1990s.47 Joseph White’s study appeared in a collection edited by Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe, who both provided or inspired much of the literature on international syndicalism during the 1990s in work that has recently become regarded as seminal.48 In 1998 van der Linden published an important piece on syndicalism in the British Labour History Review, which was followed in the next issue by Price’s attempt (paraphrasing Thompson) to rescue British syndicalism from the ‘enormous condescension’ of historians.49 Price and, soon after, David Howell, suggested the need for further research on the topic.50 Alongside this was the development of the approaches that Zeitlin favoured, exemplified in the work of Alastair Reid. In 2005 Reid discussed what he regarded as the ‘old’ and ‘new’ ‘paradigms in British labour history. The ‘old paradigm’ appeared to correspond broadly (but not entirely) to Zeitlin’s Marxist or Marxistinfluenced rank-and-filist school as it was ‘biased strongly towards a focus on the far left, on moments of rebellion and on explanations of why after all there had never been a revolution in Britain’.51 The ‘new’ ‘revisionist’ paradigm, firstly, shifted the focus ‘away from attempts to pin down the emergence of genuine “class struggle” towards a focus on diverse experiences among groups of working people’; secondly, highlighted ‘the importance of long-term continuities’ and thirdly, ‘has reminded us of the nature of the mainstream tradition of British trade unionism: basically moderate, but still capable of widespread and stubborn mobilization in defence of its own immediate interests’.52 Reid remarked: Trade unions have much deeper roots in British history and have remained more influential behind the scenes today than is often realised. Labour history is therefore still a very important field of study, both for a complete view of the country’s past and for a proper understanding of its present and future development.53

He applied this approach in two more recent works: a general history of British trade unions and a study of shipyard workers.54

12

The Great Labour Unrest

Reid’s ‘new paradigm’, rather like Zeitlin’s, made largely uncontroversial claims. Reid remarked, for instance, on ‘how much of the twentieth century British trade unions were either self-restrained or on the defensive’, something recognised explicitly by the inspiration for his ‘old paradigm’, E.P. Thompson, in the 1960s.55 This underscores a basic problem with this form of categorisation: the establishing of (falsely) firm walls of division between different approaches. In this case, branding the paradigms ‘old’ and ‘new’ creates a false chronology, implying the out-datedness of the ‘old’ and the ‘newness’ of the new. As suggested above, the debate – albeit perhaps better described as a periodic ‘dialogue of the deaf ’ – has been ongoing since the 1950s. Furthermore, if this two-paradigm model has any explanatory use, it is in conveying the long-standing difference between essentially top-down, institutional approaches and bottom-up, actor-based approaches to the history of labour, the latter influenced to varying degrees by Marxist historians, though not inevitably ‘Marxist’ in any meaningful sense themselves.56 While approaches bracketed under Reid’s ‘new’ paradigm certainly have been more prevalent since the 1990s, the new century has breathed fresh life into bottom-up approaches. A new generation of historians and industrial relations scholars are now revisiting the Great Labour Unrest period, including the role of syndicalism and other revolutionary ideas. This time interest has not been sparked, in contrast to the 1970s, by contemporary domestic conditions bearing apparent similarities with an earlier period of industrial conflict. Instead, as Constance Bantman and Dave Berry argue, global circumstances provide the context. The first is the late twentieth-century emergence of the anti-globalisation movement that deployed tactics from much earlier syndicalist and anarchist movements. Second, the climate instilled by the so-called ‘war on terror’ inaugurated by George W. Bush after the bombings of 11 September 2001 stimulated considerable debate about comparisons with earlier putative terrorists: the bombing outrages committed by self-styled anarchists apparently practising ‘propaganda by the deed’ during the late nineteenth century. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Soviet communism surely constitutes a third relevant development, spawning new interest in pre-communist, and more libertarian, revolutionary movements, activists and ideas. In tandem with contemporary responses to ‘globalisation’ has been the academic trend towards ‘transnational’ or ‘global’ history, resulting in new comparative methodologies in an effort to explore ‘the first modern globalisation’ and the ‘reasons for the international syndicalist outburst’.57 Historical biography, developed in the long-standing Dictionary of Labour Biography and ‘currently enjoying a revival’, is also crucial and lends itself well to examining the roles of activists in more informal as well as formal organisations – particularly pertinent given syndicalism’s reliance ‘on prominent activists and a tight organisational network’.58 Among this new wave of research the enduring influence of the ‘new labour history’ can be observed, though, as Bantman and Berry suggest, researchers are united by a shared set of questions rather than ‘any ideological preference or assumption’. Indeed, they suggest that this historiographical development derives from anarchist principles ‘which advocate individual or small-group action against large organisations’.59



Historiographical introduction 13

Bantman’s own work explores, among other things, the significant inspiration that British anarchists offered their French counterparts in the early twentieth century, challenging earlier depictions of an ephemeral British anarchist movement that achieved little or nothing.60 Others have researched the important role Britain played for émigré anarchists in this period.61 The renewed interest in British revolutionary movements, evident also in Kevin Morgan’s study of the life of one-time syndicalist A.A. Purcell, has been mirrored in new research on the role of syndicalism as a global revolutionary force of considerable significance in this period.62 Lucien van der Walt, for example, located his work on revolutionary politics in Cape Town as ‘part of a growing international interest in the history of anarchism and syndicalism’, one that goes well beyond the longer-running (and still very fruitful) interest in Spanish anarcho-syndicalism.63 Indeed, this growing interest is suggestive of a putative ‘anarchist turn’, evident too in the emergence and growth in recent years of the transnational Anarchist Studies Network.64 Marxist approaches do, however, remain. In Ralph Darlington’s sizeable body of work on syndicalism, which usually locates its British incarnation in the comparative transnational context, the analysis ‘derives from a revolutionary Marxist approach (within the tradition of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxembourg, Gramsci and the early congresses of the Communist International)’.65 This approach has, understandably, been criticised from anarchist perspectives. Ian McKay and others have argued that syndicalism’s theoretical and organisational origins were in anarchism rather than Marxism.66 Darlington has also revisited the ‘bureaucracy vs. rank-and-file’ debates, offering a refined version of Hyman’s earlier position.67 Overall, very many fascinating and hitherto unexplored aspects of the Great Labour Unrest in Britain have been the subject of exciting recent research; for instance, Yann Béliard’s work on the Hull labour movement and Matt Vaughan Wilson’s study of port communities.68 This recent efflorescence of research, which, while united in an inquisitive zest for the period cannot – in its diversity of approaches and themes – be characterised as a theoretical ‘school’, testifies to the considerable amount still to be uncovered about this fascinating period, one when the apparently established truths of politics were in flux and remarkably open to contestation and potential redefinition.69 It is clear that both ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ approaches continue to produce significant insights and that research deploying perspectives and best practice from both – recognising the importance of the institutional as well as the individual – can promote fertile dialogue between them while evading the potential pitfalls of aligning too closely with either. The ‘rise of Labour’ debates The subject matter of this book also builds on a second vast literature, which overlaps – but remains largely un-integrated – with research on the Great Labour Unrest and

14

The Great Labour Unrest

syndicalism. This is the ‘rise of Labour’ debate, the Labour Party’s supplanting of the Liberals in the early twentieth century, which became intensely contested terrain.70 Again, broadly speaking, two schools of thought emerged. The first (‘inevitabilist’ or ‘evolutionist’) approach was pioneered by Pelling and developed by, among others, Ross McKibbin in the 1970s. It emphasised the class-based nature of Labour’s appeal, developing from ‘a highly developed class-consciousness and intense class loyalties’ and evident in the integral role played by trade unions.71 It also highlighted the organisational strength of Labour’s nascent centralising machine before 1914, its distinctive ideological appeal and argued that the pre-1914 Labour vote was misleadingly low due to the vagaries of the Edwardian franchise.72 The second (‘revisionist’ or ‘accidentalist’) approach contended that it was only the terminal split in the Liberal Party during the Great War that allowed Labour to prevail.73 It emphasised the continued electoral weakness of Labour before August 1914, which underscored the continuing ability of both old and new liberalism (the latter evident in the Liberals’ radical reforming agenda) to attract the working class.74 The extent to which the pre-1914 franchise actually did discriminate against Labour constituted a significant sub-debate.75 A second revolved around aspects of the Liberal–Labour relationship, particularly the extent to which the ‘progressive alliance’ allowed the Liberals to contain the Labour threat and the degree to which it was breaking down before the Great War.76 Duncan Tanner’s Political Change and the Labour Party (1990) provided a subtle qualified endorsement of the revisionist approach. Tanner ambitiously explored the political dynamics of all Britain’s regions, paying close attention to their varying industrial bases. (Hitherto, regional or local studies had supported both sides of the debate).77 Tanner argued that by 1914 ‘Labour had not developed the ideological/political strength to support an expansionist strategy. It had not created a solid “class” vote, based on cultural unities which were common to workingclass voters in all areas. It had not even the uniform support of trade unionists.’78 Tanner also emphasised the ideological overlap between liberal and socialist as part of a wider project, progressed at this time by Eugenio Biagini, Alastair Reid, Jon Lawrence and others, to argue that Labour was ‘the major party of twentiethcentury radical liberalism’.79 They bemoaned the confusion that has arisen from Labour leaders’ ‘continual labelling of their [own] policies as “socialist” [given] the predominantly radical liberal nature of much of their substantive outlook’.80 While Tanner et al.’s approaches fall into Reid’s ‘new paradigm’, the two paradigms discussed above do not straightforwardly translate across to the ‘rise of Labour’ debates.81 Inevitabilists like Pelling and Laybourn played down the importance of syndicalism within the Great Labour Unrest as this detracted from arguments about the comparative strength of Labour as a political, parliamentary force.82 Tanner’s work became a seminal text in the birth of the ‘new political history’ which sought to rethink ‘the political’.83 It was the result of the increasing influence of postmodernism in British political history and particularly the so-called ‘linguistic turn’. Influenced by French post-structuralism, and pioneered in



Historiographical introduction 15

Britain by Gareth Stedman Jones in the 1970s, the new political historians’ antireductionist ‘textual’ approaches rejected what they regarded as deterministic class-based sociological interpretations. Instead, they emphasised the constitutive role of language, an approach taken to the extreme (on the same terrain as Stedman Jones, nineteenth-century popular politics) by Patrick Joyce and James Vernon.84 An integral element of these approaches was the rejection of social class as an explanatory variable; Joyce remarked, for example, that ‘The socio-economic situation of workers emerges as so ambiguous and fractured that the very notion of class is questioned’.85 Similarly, Stedman Jones’ 1983 response to Hobsbawm’s 1978 lecture ‘The forward march of Labour halted?’ revealed the continued sociological determinism apparent in the latter’s approach and the gulf between it and the perspectives of historians influenced by post-structuralism.86 Understandings of class were coming under increasing scrutiny in other disciplines around the same time. In 1983, sociologist Barry Hindess, for instance, critiqued his own work of the early 1970s as deterministic.87 Writing from a sociological perspective in the later 1980s, Mike Savage was explicit: ‘There is no one “natural” way by which working-class interests manifest themselves in political action. The under-determination of political practice by social interests must be recognised.’88 Likewise, the ‘new political history’ challenged the notion that the British electoral system evolved through class-based polarisation to a twoparty system of capital and labour; the appearance of the Conservative and Labour parties to fit this model in the 1950s was regarded as aberrant. Critiquing ‘electoral sociology’, the ‘new political history’ suggested that political parties could create constituencies as much as they reflect them, and that there were many complex factors at work conditioning relations between parties and the electorate.89 The extent to which a sophisticated and very varied group of approaches reasserted agency in political processes remains contested, however. More recently, Paul Readman remarked that ‘The poststructuralist assault on older epistemological certainties is the crucial factor behind the tendency of much of today’s scholarship, whether theoretically aware or not, to eschew agency and causation in favour of the recovery and analysis of discursive forms’.90 Certainly, the implications of post-structuralism for historiography can be conservative, involving a return to traditional ‘high political’ history and its overriding concern with ‘national’ politicians.91 For others, however, the ‘new political history’ is regarded as (in Lawrence Black’s words) ‘restoring agency to party and political factors’, while Matthew Roberts’ enthusiastic discussion of the ‘new political history’ rejected the ‘linguistic determinism’ of its most ‘strident practitioners’ (Joyce and Vernon), as they ‘have come close to developing a view of politics that is virtually autonomous from society’, wherein ‘the creative powers of politicians and parties appear virtually unlimited, at least in terms of theoretical models, if not necessarily in their practice’.92 Another proponent of the ‘new political history’, Steve Fielding, wrote of the need to integrate structure and agency to explain political outcomes.93 This process in practice produces uneven results. Fielding has

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The Great Labour Unrest

thus accorded considerable agency to seemingly apathetic early post-1945 voters and 1950s Labour Party activists (who apparently drove ordinary voters away from the party), but considerably less to Labour (and New Labour) politicians in government, whose room for manoeuvre was, he claimed, seriously limited by various structural constraints.94 There remains, too, the question of novelty among the approaches of the less post-structural ‘new political historians’. Certainly, Fielding’s ‘new Labour history’ adjunct of the ‘new political history’ appeared to differ very little – in terms of focus and broad approaches – from its original namesake developed by E.P. Thompson et al. in the 1960s.95 In terms of the specific ‘rise of Labour’ debate, Tanner’s work came to dominate, though it received some critical reviews, particularly of some of its case studies. Keith Laybourn and Bill Lancaster both claimed that their own work (on Yorkshire and Leicestershire, respectively) suggesting pre-1914 Labour vitality had not been adequately factored in to Tanner’s analysis. Similarly, Stefan Berger argued that the experiences of some localities within regions (he used the example of the Rhondda in South Wales) did not square with Tanner’s treatment. Indeed, Both Berger and Laybourn asserted that Tanner’s own evidence did not support his case.96 Nevertheless, subsequent research has tended to endorse Tanner’s basic argument.97 Keith Laybourn’s continued advocacy of an ‘inevitabilist’ position is increasingly marginal; Liberal pre-1914 strength is now the general tenet.98 Thus, for example, Ian Packer’s study of electoral politics before 1914 found ‘little evidence that Labour was growing fast enough in popularity and organisation to imminently replace the Liberals as the major anti-Conservative force in British politics’.99 Matt Cole critiqued Laybourn’s claims about the weakness of West Yorkshire Liberals and Matthew Roberts also sided with the ‘revisionists’.100 Readman recently commented on the ‘general consensus’ that the pre-1914 Liberal Party ‘was not in terminal decline’, with authorities such as Ross McKibbin readjusting their perspectives this way in recent years.101 Others have cut across straightforward class-based explanations of political change in other ways. Martin Pugh emphasised the importance of Labour’s attempts to come to terms with working-class conservatism in explaining its eventual emergence, particularly in places such as Birmingham and Liverpool.102 John Fair’s study of the voting behaviour of Labour’s parliamentary representatives, building on Michael Child’s work, attempted to steer a middle path in the debate, but it necessarily operates at the level of high politics.103 There have been, however, a few recent contestations of this dominant interpretation. Declan McHugh’s study of the ‘progressive alliance’ in Manchester critiqued Tanner’s and Tony Adams’ later work, arguing that ‘even in this supposed heartland of the progressive alliance the relationship between the two parties was already problematic before 1914 and was unlikely to have survived much longer regardless of the impact of war’.104 Valerie Hall’s research on Northumberland miners’ political consciousness before 1914 supported the work of Neville Kirk and Savage (as opposed to that of Stedman



Historiographical introduction 17

Jones, Joyce and Biagini and Reid) and implied Labour strength in the coalfield before August 1914.105 Nevertheless, even after a quarter of a century, Tanner’s book remains integral to the debate, having tipped the balance – apparently decisively – towards the ‘revisionists’. Durham mining literature and rationale This book promotes a dialogue between the two literatures and the various approaches discussed above, examining and problematising the complex relations between structure and agency, the industrial and the political spheres, leaders and led, and reformists and revolutionaries. In doing so it focuses on the politics of the miners, and particularly the Durham Miners’ Association (DMA), especially during the pre-war Great Labour Unrest. The miners were crucial to events. Through the MFGB and its 550,000-strong membership (in 1908) they constituted the largest and best-organised trade union in Edwardian Britain. But, steeped in liberalism, the miners consequently provided a significant problem to Labour both before and after the MFGB eventually affiliated to the Labour Party in 1908. The miner MPs who then came into the party brought with them, for the most part, liberal values and a new raft of difficulties for Labour’s socialist activists. Arguably most problematic for Labour were the former Liberal miner MPs from the great northern coalfield – Northumberland (Thomas Burt and Charles Fenwick) and Durham (John Wilson). They represented the profundity with which liberalism had inculcated the northern miners’ ideology, in both economic and more strictly political terms. Durham was especially significant as it was the second-largest British coalfield at the time, with a firmly established, wellorganised union. After 1908 the DMA was second in size only to SWMF within the MFGB, exercising commensurate influence inside the federation, and, by connection, in the wider trade union movement and political world. The DMA’s superior finances, longevity and prestige made it arguably the foremost of the district miners’ unions and rendered its political allegiance a crucial prize for the nascent Labour Party (see Chapter 2). Remarkably, the Durham miners moved rapidly from an apparently firmly entrenched liberalism to playing the major role in electing one of the first Labour-run county councils in 1919. Durham was thus significant for two reasons: firstly, in terms of size, importance and influence on the national scene; secondly, as an extreme case study of a region that saw a considerable and rapid change in popular political allegiances. Consequently, this study has major implications for political change in the period more generally, as County Durham became, along with industrial Scotland and London, of central importance as one of the big building blocks of Labour’s inter-war emergence. In narrower terms of the politics of the MFGB, too, the ideological battle within the DMA was vital. It represented a potentially insuperable obstacle to achieving unanimity of action within the MFGB over the miners’ minimum wage from 1911.

18

The Great Labour Unrest

The tensions in the Durham coalfields (and in many others) were not simply between essentially Liberal leaders and socialist activists among the rank and file. There were also revolutionary activists and ideas in play, as well as widespread and often unfocused popular discontent. This emerged clearly in the campaigns for a miner’s minimum wage in this period and, arguably, in proliferating unofficial strikes and support for measures advocated by syndicalists. Writing about the Derbyshire miners, for instance, J.E. Williams argued that syndicalist influence was augmented after visits from Welsh syndicalist ‘missionaries’ and suggested that syndicalists operated in many British coalfields between 1910 and 1914, though much more research was necessary to determine their degree of influence.106 Given the importance of the Durham coalfield in Britain in political and socioeconomic terms, and the significance and complexity of the political processes at work in this period, there is remarkably little published on the subject. While researchers like Bob Holton and Roy Church and Quentin Outram differed markedly on the extent of syndicalist influence in the Durham coalfield, neither offered much empirical material to support their claims.107 Similarly, published studies of the SLP, anarchism and rank-and-file movements did very little to contextualise revolutionary politics in the wider left milieu in the Durham coalfield.108 Indeed, Durham is by no means unique in this respect; even in the comparatively wellstudied South Wales coalfield no published work provides a sustained exploration of the interplay between syndicalism and other left ideas and activists in this period of turmoil and flux, when historians of varying approaches have recognised that syndicalism became particularly appealing in at least some of Britain’s coalfields.109 Alan Campbell’s discussion of syndicalists and other revolutionaries in the Scottish coalfields is rather an exception, but still understandably underdeveloped in a work with broader themes and a longer chronology.110 Consequently, fully contextualising syndicalism in the Durham coalfield furthers understandings of the nature of British syndicalism more generally. The picture is little clearer in terms of the ILP’s role within the DMA; particularly in the rank-and-file movements around the minimum wage. Of the literature focusing on the northern coalfield (Durham and Northumberland), Robert Moore provided the most comprehensive (and yet still rather patchy) account of the ILP’s campaigns to 1910, though Edward Welbourne’s early (1923) book contains much useful material (to 1908), albeit blighted by an obvious pro-Wilson interpretation.111 Also of use are Norman Emery’s books and several unpublished theses.112 By contrast, Dave Douglass offered an impassioned discussion of lodge (local DMA branch) opposition to the DMA leadership in the late nineteenth century and the anger over the eight-hour day in 1910, though the ILP’s role as active agent is unexplored.113 David Howell provided the best account of the ILP at grassroots level, including in the Durham coalfield, but this finishes in 1906.114 More generally, the history of the minimum wage in Britain continues to excite academic interest.115 Notwithstanding John Treble’s work on the economics of the minimum wage in Durham, and the decent general accounts of the miners’



Historiographical introduction 19

minimum wage negotiations, the district campaigns to bring it about, the specifics of the minimum wage’s actual district operation, and the campaigns to influence this process in favour of the miners have all received little attention.116 Durham’s role was particularly significant for the success of any putative national strike action, given its considerable influence inside the MFGB and its traditional hostility to a miners’ minimum wage (see Chapter 2). Yet the published literature provides a rather partial and disjointed picture of the Durham coalfield’s rank-and-file movements around the minimum wage. ILP activist Jack Lawson’s autobiography contains a brief account of the campaign (from 1911) in which he was instrumental, but his treatment effectively ends with legislation on the issue in April 1912.117 Rather ironically (given the rank-and-filist debate discussed above), Hugh Clegg et al. provided the only (and necessarily cursory) published discussion of the minimum wage campaign in the coalfield after May 1912, when it became more formalised and began calling itself the Durham Forward Movement (DFM).118 Indeed, once again, there remains no in-depth study of the minimum wage campaigns – their tactical dilemmas, successes and failures – in any of the district unions during these years. This is surprising as the controversies they generated went far wider than the minimum wage itself; they fed into a debate within the labour movement over strategy and tactics, especially around attitudes towards the parliamentary system and, more specifically the Liberal government. These movements eventually precipitated, in spring 1912, the largest strike that Britain had hitherto seen, with its commensurate impact on understandings of the Great Labour Unrest. Duncan Tanner’s remains the essential work in terms of relating industrial/ regional developments directly to the ‘rise of Labour’ debates. Building on Roy Gregory’s study of the mining districts, Tanner emphasised the apparently firm grasp that economic liberalism retained on ordinary Durham miners as much as their full-time union leaders.119 Like Gregory, Tanner argued that Durham miners were relatively well remunerated and materially contented, and that their grievances were usually smoothed over by Durham’s advanced conciliation machinery. Ideology also played a major part in Tanner’s explanation; for Liberals it was liberatory, informing but not confining action and allowing them the flexibility to address miners’ material concerns effectively. For Labour activists, by contrast, ideology was either unsophisticated, essentially radical or liberal (as also suggested by Biagini and Reid) – and so not really socialist at all – or it acted as a barrier between them and those they hoped to galvanise. Hobbled by their unswerving commitment to the ILP’s ‘ethical socialism’, ILP activists were rendered, according to Tanner, distinct from the masses of ordinary workers and unable to find a language that would facilitate fruitful communication. In none of these forms did Labour ideology apparently adopt much of a class-combative character. Thus, while accepting that the Durham coalfield was one of the more ‘advanced’ areas in terms of Labour’s growth, Tanner still emphasised the party’s comparative weakness there before August 1914, with the period from 1910 depicted as one of setbacks and false starts for Labour activists as Liberals set the agenda, defeating

20

The Great Labour Unrest

Labour in three-way by-elections. According to this argument, on both the economic plane and the more narrowly defined political, Labour was still some considerable distance from a breakthrough in Durham by August 1914. Yet, Tanner’s account of political change in Durham was rather selective and partial. In fact, there was a remarkable disregard (for the most part) and misrepresentation (to a lesser degree) of the post-1910 rank-and-file movements, which drew mass support in the coalfield. The central importance of these movements and their relationships to political change (understood here as the transference of loyalties from Liberal to Labour Parties) after 1910 requires both recognition and sustained exploration Approaches Several aspects of this book’s approach, in the light of the literatures discussed above, require elaboration. There are two pivotal comparative elements. First is an exploration of how the ‘reformist’ ILP activists and the ‘revolutionary’ syndicalists interrelated, their rivalries and their common ground, in an endeavour to generate a dialogue between the literatures discussed above. This is essential if we are to understand fully the challenge to liberalism from the left, as these groupings and their activists were operating side-by-side in many industrial contexts, and to some extent in competition to focus and harness the same discontent. The book takes seriously the syndicalist challenge on its own terms (rather than considering it in the light of its later eclipse by the CPGB after the Russian Revolution), as it does the stubborn remnants of Liberal and Lib-Lab opinion among the DMA’s membership that continued to hold sway in some areas of the coalfield before the Great War. There is also a comparison between coalfields. Many comparative coalfield studies, including several transnational ones, have been published in recent years, often because nations ‘can be too big for comparison’.120 For this book, comparison is most fruitfully made within British borders, in seeking to limit the number of extra potential variables that a transnational comparative study would inevitably throw up (relating to greater cultural contrasts, for example). South Wales is the ideal comparator as both it and Durham were major exporting coalfields, sharing very similar socio-economic characteristics. Given this, it is surprising, too, that there have been very few published comparative studies of Durham and South Wales.121 South Wales was of especial significance as it was also where syndicalism was reckoned to have been strongest among Britain’s coalfields. Syndicalists helped formulate the minimum wage demand that emerged with renewed vigour after the defeat of the Cambrian Combine strike. To what extent did the South Wales miner ‘missionaries’ demands for direct action and the minimum wage feed into a Durham-based syndicalism? How much influence did syndicalists actually exert in the Durham coalfield in the period in comparison with their South Wales counterparts and is there even a way of reasonably measuring or gauging this influence? If syndicalism was less influential in Durham than in South Wales, why



Historiographical introduction 21

might this be? In addressing these questions, this book draws on the published and unpublished literature on South Wales, using the coalfield as a yardstick for gauging the relative success of Durham’s syndicalists. This comparison is not only revealing about Durham. The South Wales coalfield has also been the subject of some mythologising. Hywel Francis, particularly, wrote of an exceptional ‘proletarian internationalism’ that apparently developed exclusively among the South Wales miners and was manifest in the numbers of Welsh miners fighting against Franco in Spain during the civil war. Close comparison of the Durham and South Wales miners in this earlier period of militancy throws further light on these claims for South Wales’ exceptionalism.122 The second major feature of the approach is an emphasis on agency and locality. Concretely, the approach builds on David Howell’s emphasis on these in understanding the ILP’s role, development and impact in specific contexts.123 Generally speaking, since the 1990s, the emphasis of the ‘new political history’ on agency has tended to favour revisionist interpretations of Labour’s rise. But there is no reason why (re)asserting agency necessarily favours interpretations emphasising pre-war Labour weakness. The approach here, then, recognises the importance of agency, but always as understood through its interactions with structures, including specific socio-economic conditions that were more or less favourable to particular political discourses. Rejecting the need to ‘solve’ the structure and agency ‘problem’, this study recognises that, while human actors make history, the parameters of their capacity are set by a structured context in which they find themselves. It therefore looks to interrogate and explore the dynamic relationship between structure and agency.124 With this in mind, this book proposes that – given the apparent crisis among the parliamentary left and the growing industrial unrest after 1910 in Durham – the revolutionary trade unionists appeared to be well placed to make political capital. This chimes with Ralph Darlington’s recent work. His re-statement of the importance of the agitator in terms of industrial relations (and particularly strikes) demonstrated clearly that agency remains a crucial explanatory tool among Marxist approaches as much as among practitioners of the ‘new political history’, just as it was among the Thompson-influenced workplace history.125 The charge of ‘determinist’, often aimed at Marxists, only really sits with those drawing heavily from Louis Althusser. In the context of the British New Left these are Marxists like Perry Anderson, whom E.P. Thompson critiqued so powerfully (see above). The third essential aspect of the approach is an emphasis on the importance of ideology, understood here in line with Michael Freeden’s conception of providing a crucial framework for understanding the political world and empowering interventions in it.126 This sits readily with the ‘ideational turn’ in political science: to regard ideas as significant causal factors in political analysis, and coming in the wake of International Relations theorists’ failure – using rational choice models – to predict the end of the Cold War.127 This focused study allows for insights into the notoriously difficult to pin down (or crudely represented) nature of

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The Great Labour Unrest

local ILP activist ideology.128 Specifically, significant coalfield ILP activist Jack Lawson has been judged on the basis of his later career as a moderate within the labour movement, and this vital formative period of his political life has been left unexplored and misunderstood. This was not exclusive to Lawson, as several DMA full-time officials of the inter-war period have been characterised as coming from a ‘long line of traditionally moderate men thrown up by the Durham miners’ or as ‘Labourite’ but not ‘socialist’.129 The reality of these individuals’ changing ideologies is rather more multi-dimensional and interesting than this. This book is, then, in considerable part a study in applied ideology, the uses of propaganda and the deployment of rhetoric. In general, this case study demonstrates that, in seeking, rightly, to explore the debt British socialism owed to earlier currents of radicalism, the ‘new political history’ has gone too far in glossing over the new and distinctive aspects of the ideological complexion of important grassroots activists. Applying Tanner’s subtle approach to the liberalism among activists to the other ideologies at play in the Durham coalfield offers a means of better appreciating the complexities of individual activists’ ideologies that could differ considerably from any form of liberalism. In so doing, the approach accords all grassroots activists the right to be regarded as capable of developing their own sophisticated and multifaceted ideologies that could draw inspiration from many sources, revolutionary as well as radical and more moderate. The fourth key aspect is a recognition that institutions are crucial in explaining outcomes, that they, in important ways, necessarily shape and inform activism and activists and have distorting impacts in terms of representation and majority opinion. In terms of the latter, the Webbs’ faith that British unions’ oligarchical tendencies could be controlled by internal elected representative bodies seems rather ill founded in the case of the Durham miners.130 Indeed, Robert Michels’ study of the contemporaneous power dynamics in the German Social Democratic Party suggested some parallels with the DMA.131 In exploring the interplay of structure and agency, it is clear that the latter is conditioned to a greater or lesser extent by the institutions that actors use to make effective their politics; in other words, formal organisation of one type or another was vital to make ideology effective. Furthermore, the DMA was so large, influential and well established that it was the obvious major terrain within which (and for which) these competing ideologues fought. The book thus analyses the ways that political actors, operating through formal trade union (and other) organisations, interacted with structural/ contextual conditions in appealing to (apparently or potentially) discontented miners. Political processes cannot be fully grasped without appreciating how specific institutions mediate them. In so doing, the purpose is not to downplay the positive impact of trade unions in general but rather to examine what different sections of trade union members expected of their leaders and the extent to which their leaders appreciated and carried out their members’ wishes. This is, of course, necessarily closely related to the question of how effective trade unions were in reflecting and securing their members’ majority desires.132 The approach here



Historiographical introduction 23

thus chimes with concerns and concepts found in the ‘new institutionalism’.133 Yet this is not to echo Zeitlin’s earlier call for a return to institutions; research limited solely to the study of institutions (narrowly defined) and their leaders inevitably overlooks many potentially important explanatory variables. Moving on, the rank-and-filist debate discussed above suggests several other points of approach, most significantly a rejection of specific ‘models’. The first (and without accepting that ‘workplace history’ was actually guilty of this) is a rejection of a priori models of trade unions’ roles in capitalist societies. While all unions need, at some basic level, to represent their members’ interests, they can of course vary tremendously in terms of leaders, organisation, ideology, methods and longer-term aims. Properly factoring in a full and complex notion of syndicalism makes this selfevident. Dave Douglass, for example, has argued for the potentially revolutionary role that even mainstream trade unions engaged in struggle can begin to take on.134 Conversely, for revolutionaries such as Errico Malatesta, syndicalism by itself was neither necessary nor sufficient to bring about an anarchist society. Similarly, it is clear that intra-trade union struggles cannot invariably be reduced to either ‘bureaucracy vs. rank-and-file’ or ‘competing interest groups’ models in the longer term. Significantly, either model could ‘fit’, depending on the specific period and context. Indeed, in the context of Durham in 1910–1914, aspects of both models appeal. On one hand, the rank-and-file movements in Durham in this period remained firmly critical of, and in opposition to, the DMA’s ‘agents’ (full-time officials). But the movements were necessarily led and staffed by activists, almost invariably those with some sort of position within their lodge, or active members of a political organisation (or, very often, both). This aspect tallies with the model articulated in different ways by Zeitlin and Hyman (among others) that rank-and-file movements are constituted by a rival group of leaders, albeit (certainly in the case of the Durham movements) a grouping lacking the standing, powers and privileges of their opponents among the agents.135 (The growing complexities of this relationship are further explored in Chapter 5). This book’s usage of the term ‘rank-and-file movements’ does not imply an egalitarian, leaderless and homogenous union membership united in its militant opposition to a homogenous ‘conservative’ full-time leadership. There is certainly no automatic radical virtue possessed solely by the rank and file, and trade union memberships have shown themselves more conservative than their leaderships in certain contexts. Nor are rank-and-file movements necessarily democratic in terms of aims and methods, though, naturally, in order to gain any kind of purchase inside quasi-democratic institutions, they need to mobilise significant sections of ordinary members and, at the very least, to ensure that they do not antagonise them. Certainly, in examining the politics of the rank and file, it is necessary to remain wary of all claims about the representativeness of lodge elites among their memberships. In so doing, important contributions can be made to the very debates about representativeness of various opinions at the different levels of the institution.

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The Great Labour Unrest

Notwithstanding the problems that the term ‘rank-and-file movement’ can throw up, it is apposite for this book, as it does still convey (albeit crudely) a cleavage that did exist in this specific context between the DMA agents and a significant section of the union’s other members. Indeed, this book argues that the ideological and attitudinal gulf between some DMA agents and their supposed Labour Party comrades among the rank and file was one of the most significant cleavages of the period. There is even a case study (in Chapter 3) of an individual’s politics/ideology markedly altering after moving from rank-and-file activist to full-time official. Linked to this point is the need to reject notions of specific social/political groupings’ ‘objective’ interests; to, in Price’s words, ‘break away from a teleology that imposed a pre-determined view of how the working-class should proceed’.136 Indeed, interpretations according explanatory weight to agency necessarily privilege subjectivity; individual consciousness, and what forms and alters it, is fundamental. In this case, then, there is no need to establish the a priori objective interests of social actors either assuming cooperation (‘unitarist’) or conflict to be the natural state of relationships between workers and employers; this book details examples of social actors asserting both these perspectives. Instead, it is necessary to analyse the extent to which competing visions of the socio-political world informed the outlooks of individual Durham miners. In other words, whether the coal owners were the Durham miners’ ‘objective’ enemy or actually their social partners in a joint and mutually beneficial endeavour did not matter. Rather, consciousness was fundamental; how Durham miners responded to conflicting discourses about the nature and role of the coal owners, what variables conditioned this response and what the consequences were. This approach allows for discourse to be related firmly to the ‘material’ and anchored directly to concrete examples revealing facets of the labyrinthine battle of ideologies. If the major aim of the ‘linguistic turn’ was to render obsolete all forms of socially determinist historical explanation, then it was successful. But, as with many ideas located within postmodernism, while the preponderance of research conducted under its rubric has tended to highlight the conservative, gratuitous and fissiparous aspects of historical questions, the potential for more radical, liberatory explanations to emerge is not precluded. Political consciousness plays a major explanatory role, and consciousness is not invariably conservative, nor is it static, nor is it entirely unrelated to credible (if not always historically accurate) discourses about material conditions. In sum, a priori assumptions of the natural state of relations between trade unions and employers, or within trade unions – between leaders and led – can limit explanations. There is a wider point about the applicability of models. In terms of Zeitlin’s four substantive claims (listed above), none is clearly supported by this book’s case study; a clear and explanatorily useful line can be drawn between the agents and the rest of the DMA (although, naturally, this line does not explain everything); DMA agents were in no sense more militant than significant sections (often the majority) of the



Historiographical introduction 25

DMA’s membership; the agents’ intransigence – rather than susceptibility to pressure from their members – characterised this period, and agents were responsible for agreeing changes in work practice that did threaten aspects of miners’ job control (see Chapter 3). This is not, however, to argue that Zeitlin’s four claims were invariably wrong, only to demonstrate that evidence from specific contexts can be used to either support or refute them. This further suggests the necessity of avoiding a priori models, as they seem bound to force complex events and processes into historical straightjackets (albeit of varying sophistication). Theoretical models can be very useful, but not if they predetermine what the researcher sees and how they see it. Given this, there is no new theoretical paradigm of political processes within trade unions developed here; rather, the book offers a case study in the emergence of new group of potential trade union and Labour leaders embedded firmly in the defining structural contexts and historiographical battlegrounds. Another integral aspect of the Zeitlin/Reid critique is to question Marxistinfluenced researchers’ focus on particular periods of working-class militancy, and/or on unusually militant sections of workers, in search of the emergence of working-class consciousness, or, indeed, to locate, like Dangerfield, that elusive ‘revolutionary moment’. But, if this was ever the case, it is not so today; even Marxist-influenced historians like Dick Geary can now write about ‘the myth of the radical miner’.137 And, by the standards of British miners, those from Durham were not particularly militant ordinarily. Certainly, to understand complex sociopolitical phenomena, forensic examination of developments in specific industries, regions or localities is required. As demonstrated above, the case study approach is not the preserve of any particular school of thought in the historiography. In terms of periodisation, the criticism of studies of relatively short periods of time is well made, yet the ‘new paradigm’s’ focusing on long-term trends necessarily lends itself to interpretations emphasising continuity rather than change. There remains a case for more closely examining discrete periods, particularly those that do not appear to sustain narratives of essential continuity – periods when what appears to have been ‘normal’ or ‘usual’ is different. The excitement and immediacy of the period can be better conveyed; its dynamics explored in more depth; the intricacies and subtleties of the processes better teased out; the words, actions and dilemmas of individual activists, ordinarily passed over in a few lines in the wider histories (if they are mentioned at all) can be more fully conveyed and appreciated. Indeed, in framing a long-term study of militancy in the building trade, Price’s efforts to factor in ‘ordinary workers’ as historical agents ‘who were not leaders, union officials, or remarkable in any other way’ was rendered considerably more difficult.138 In these longer-term studies, the ‘ordinary worker’ can only necessarily appear largely or entirely in aggregate terms. In this context, Zeitlin’s criticism of Price’s unproblematised usage of the term ‘rank and file’ as a proxy for the ‘ordinary worker’ seems legitimate.139 Thus, there remains room for both long-term and more discretely focused studies (in chronological, thematic and spatial terms); both can further and deepen our understanding of the big

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The Great Labour Unrest

questions in history. This particular study only considers the first part of the Great Labour Unrest period, which is generally understood to have continued until 1921, with Black Friday and the miners’ lockout (and even, in some versions to have ended in 1926 with the defeat of the General Strike and the miners’ lockout of that year). It is quite clear, though, that the Great War changed the context markedly, with the revolutionary movement left in disarray and pacifism in the ILP offering a new outlet for the most pressing political concerns for revolutionaries. Then came the Russian Revolution, and the early post-war emergence of mass trade union militancy and direct action, and finally the CPGB, all altering the terrain dramatically. Therefore, the first part of the Great Labour Unrest retains its own integrity as a subject of study. The case study approach allows this study to draw on an exhaustive mining – excuse the pun – of a vast and hitherto barely utilised body of primary evidence. Bob Holton commented that exploration ‘of grassroots attitudes is difficult in areas like Durham, because any militant coalfield groups were not given access to union journals by conservative officials’.140 Holton’s solution was to deploy oral history to provide the voice of the period’s militants, but this necessarily offered a limited (in terms of numbers and types of activist and the actual evidence they were capable of providing) counterpoint to the material in official publications. In fact, other primary sources allow for insights into the rank-and-file organisations and activists, even when the internal records of these ‘unofficial’ movements have (understandably given their ephemeral nature) failed to find their way into any archival collection. Most pertinently, there are the highly detailed local press reports which, as still very little is digitised, have to be located painstakingly. Many local titles often carried verbatim the circulars of both the DMA leaders and their rank-and-file movement critics, as well as exchanges in the letters pages and reports of the speeches militants and moderates (again apparently verbatim, or very close to) delivered at the coalfield’s numerous mass meetings and conferences. The press reports of miners’ meetings that allowed journalists access often gave not only a total for lodge attendance, but named every lodge represented (upwards of fifty lodge names in some cases). That so much apparently unedited material was carried in the local/regional press is very likely related to the pragmatic concerns of editors, such as securing enough copy to fill the large pages of small typeface and ensuring that the diverse sections of the miner readership read sufficient views that reflected their own to continue buying (or at least reading) the paper. There may well even have been a genuine editorial desire to promote and further debate, though again this had obvious advantages in terms of maximising readership. In most cases, the actual political position of the individual newspaper concerned was abundantly evident in its editorial section, and in its wider treatment of events.141. Naturally, no source provides perfect evidence. Problems arise in the press reports when miners’ meetings voted to exclude journalists, which occurred frequently. When excluded, the media often responded with a more critical report



Historiographical introduction 27

of the particular event and its aims, with opinion and hearsay replacing detailed coverage of proceedings.142 In the strife of early 1910 (see Chapter 3) an agent condemned local press sensationalism and alarmism. A miner activist made more serious allegations: that the press was ‘directly telling lies’ and excluding or trivialising the opinions of important rank-and-file militants.143 While there was some substance to these allegations, it is also noteworthy that this very claim was reported in the self-same press! Accordingly, while care is required in usage of this source it remains clear that the often-serious problems related to reliance on more recent national newspapers as sources of events – painfully evident among many of the more popular modern British histories – are not apparent in the same way among the diverse local and regional Edwardian press. It seemed much less keen to create its own narrative, and much more comfortable in providing a pluralist forum for the exchange of many and varied opinions and perspectives.144 In strict methodological terms, content analysis of the texts has been rejected in this instance not least because it is not anticipated to yield results significant enough to justify the time required to identify and code all signifiers. Indeed, the method can limit possibilities in terms of exploring the subtleties of texts.145 Similarly, the more focused applications of discourse analysis, exploring language patterns and locating ‘intertextuality’ (whereby texts draw upon other texts, either explicitly or implicitly), have also not been employed, partly because the methodology still offers no rigorous defence against accusations of data cherrypicking to support a priori arguments, a common enough potential problem among more conventional historical methodology. Instead, these texts are approached with the concerns of discourse analysis in mind, as this offers a series of underlying principles allowing considerable room for manoeuvre. Particularly pertinent is discourse analysis’ focus on the discourse production of dominant elites (in this case the DMA agents), and the seeking in its radical forms (Marxist and critical approaches) to expose the nature and origins of such discourses. A good example of the latter is Norman Fairclough’s analysis of Thatcherism in New Labour’s discourse, with the aim of exposing its (in this case rather glaring) contradictions.146 Naturally, context is vital too; texts are thus interpreted not only in the terms of the languages deployed/idioms used, but also in relation to the specific platform they were uttered from – their social, cultural and political contexts allowing for the decoding of hidden meanings. As important as the nature of the languages used was, as much as can be gauged, the popular response to them. So, for instance, Chapter 5 explores the coded exchanges between rankand-file movement activists and DMA officials on public platforms from summer 1912, as well as the crowds’ reported responses (the local press even reported the words of hecklers from the crowd in some cases). Ultimately, a rigorously applied discourse analysis is not necessary to establish (likely) relationships between ideology, activities and concrete outcomes. A primary source base consisting of the regional/local, national, ILP, Labour and revolutionary press, institutional records of the ILP, central DMA and many of its lodges, and the papers of key

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The Great Labour Unrest

coalfield militants (and Ruskin College graduates) like Robert Shotton and Jack Lawson, allows the book to chart and analyse the battle of rhetoric and ideas played out in the press, DMA publications, at mass meetings and at the annual miners’ gala, conveying the intensity and vivacity of these clashes of principle, politics and personality. In sum, fairly conventional primary sources, if taken seriously and used critically, can be remarkably rich and revealing. Returning to the Zeitlin/Reid and, more sweepingly, postmodernist critiques, there remains the vexed question of ‘class’ identity and consciousness. This study is concerned not with locating a ‘unified class consciousness’, but rather with efforts to forge a cohesive and politically effective mineworker identity.147 This is to be expected because, as with the British working class as a whole, the lack of homogeneity among Durham’s mining workforce and the problems this brought for creating and maintaining solidarity has long been recognised (see Chapter 2).148 Hester Barron has most recently explored this theme, concluding that, notwithstanding multiple and potentially conflicting identities, a remarkable working-class solidarity was achieved in Durham during the 1926 lockout.149 Rob Lee was more circumspect, privileging 1926 as a rare moment when a Durham miner ‘workplace identity’ – Lee avoided the term ‘class identity’ – ‘perhaps, briefly’, emerged.150 Focused study of the Great Labour Unrest period throws light on these claims. Indeed, the events in the coalfield and DMA in this intense period themselves go a considerable way in explaining later solidarity. Certainly, ‘class’ – understood in the narrow sense as a solidaristic Durham mineworker identity in conscious opposition to the mine owners – was articulated powerfully and effectively before 1914. Whether ‘class’ emerged primarily as the product of language and culture, or to articulate a material reality (i.e. whether class preexisted its discursive expression) is an ontological question that is both difficult or impossible and also unnecessary to resolve. Overall then, as Dick Geary has shown in his insightful critical engagement with postmodern approaches, rejecting class-based sociological interpretations does not mean that ‘class’ retains no explanatory value.151 More recently, and in a similar vein, Selina Todd (again invoking E.P. Thompson, as well as Raphael Samuel) argued that class ‘offered a means of understanding the unequal distribution of power, but also a means by which people understood their daily lives and their place within society’.152 She criticised recent claims that Thatcherism destroyed class in Britain, arguing that such claims are based on ‘the misunderstanding that classes have an a priori existence, and that “class politics” is about the efforts of one static group to destroy another static group. In reality, struggle comes first’.153 Thus, class is a relationship, rather than an occupational identity: ‘Historians remain concerned with the operation of power and the endurance of inequality; and no concept other than class allows us to explore these in a historically sensitive manner.’154 The final major aspect of this study’s approach is the need, as much as possible, to integrate all the various potential causal factors to attempt, as McIntyre and many others have argued, to break down the barriers between different



Historiographical introduction 29

approaches within history (labour, political, social, economic) and, indeed, between disciplines.155 This point is illustrated by Martin Daunton’s criticism of mining histories that emphasised ‘the actions and ideology of the leadership, and a narrative of strikes’ in favour of understanding the underlying ‘social relationships of work’.156 Daunton’s penetrating work on the Durham coalfield was located firmly in the rubric of workplace history, and yet this remark, apparently critiquing institutional accounts, established an unhelpful barrier. As the events of 1910 in the Durham coalfield amply demonstrate, leadership ideologies, strikes and changing social relations at work were all inextricably intertwined. Thus, ‘politics’ cannot be understood without integrating the economic and the social. In 1910, the political (in this case the eight-hour day legislation), brought about changes in economic practices that in turn had serious social implications, especially for family life and the role of women in mining households (see Chapter 3). There remains considerable scope for research that can draw fruitfully from debates, literatures and approaches from all major perspectives in building a fuller and more persuasive picture of this fascinating, emotive and still remarkably under-explored period. There is still much to be said for pursuing research that shares many of workplace history’s themes, influences and focus in offering new insights into the ‘big question’ of why British labour developed the way it did.157 Yet, this endeavour can be in complete accordance with the shifting of the ‘political significance of British labour history from a search for breakthroughs to state socialism towards a recognition of the persistence of broadly liberal, or libertarian, attitudes’.158 This is certainly so if ‘liberal’ and ‘libertarian’ are taken to mean rather different things.159 The approach developed here factors in the institution and how it works; power, and how it operates; ideology; discourse; economic and social contexts; work processes and job control. Accepting that the forms of institution and organisation are important in explaining how actors operate under the influence of complex and changing ideological forms, social and economic contexts does not result in an ‘institutional history’; rather it offers a history of ideological contestation as mediated, in part, through the relevant institution(s), and necessarily located firmly in specific wider contexts. Argument The dominant understanding of the ‘rise of Labour’ downplays Labour’s distinctive ideological dimensions. It fails to recognise fully the diversity of the left’s challenge both in terms of ideology and in different and varying regional/industrial settings. It largely disregards the fierce, complex and prolonged debates within the industrial sphere, focusing instead on the outcomes of (usually) elections to Parliament. The Great Labour Unrest period is generally depicted as a time of retreat and defeat for Labour as a political force, as industrial action and particularly syndicalists, who broadly rejected political action, took centre stage. Examining the dynamics

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of change in a regionally and nationally significant trade union, operating in a vital industry in this crucial period, this book develops the following arguments. First, that liberalism’s ideological as well as political domination in the Durham coalfield was effectively challenged from the left in the years preceding the Great War and particularly during the Great Labour Unrest period. In the late nineteenth century, Durham miners’ representatives – their MPs and leading union officials – were Liberal, broadly endorsing the notion that the interests of miners and mine owners were congruent. Indeed, the Durham miners had seemed culturally (and, some argued, materially) especially prone to embracing deep-seated (Gladstonian) liberalism and extraordinarily resistant to attempts to dislodge it. Yet, by August 1914, liberalism among Durham miners was a significantly depleted – albeit not entirely defeated – force; ILP activists had begun colonising many of the most significant elected positions inside the union as well as outside it. Secondly, this book argues for the relevance of developments in the industrial sphere to politics; that this socialist challenge emerged initially and forcefully among rank-and-file movements within the DMA and was intimately related to fallout from the eighthour day legislation and subsequent minimum wage campaign, before percolating more into the political sphere. Election results (local and national) can tell only part of the story. Thirdly, the most effective and successful ideological challenge to liberalism came from those articulating a basic, aggressive, class-based rhetoric about demands relating to the minimum wage. The minimum wage was a mechanism that cut at the heart of the economic notions held sacrosanct by the DMA’s Liberal leaders and it served as a means of mounting and sustaining a mass rank-and-file movement in the coalfield. Those spearheading the movement were for the most part the youngest and least conciliatory of the ILP’s activists; they sought to draw the sharpest distinction between themselves and Liberals by arguing most clearly and vociferously that the interests of miners and mine owners did not coincide. In other words, they placed particular emphasis on the centrality of the conflict between capital and labour and specifically on the growing understanding of the profits coal owners were making while many of their workers continued to toil in difficult, dangerous and dirty conditions with scant recompense. This militant ideology defined a grouping of younger ILP activists markedly, not only from the Liberals leading the DMA but also from many of their party comrades of an earlier generation, as well as the more recent former Liberal recruits to the Labour Party. In Durham, the sources of the unrest demonstrated, perhaps even more than elsewhere, that the hitherto dominant liberal discourses seeking to reconcile the interests of capital and labour were becoming regarded by increasing numbers of (often younger) workers as self-defeatingly anachronistic before the outbreak of war. The generally younger rank-and-file movements’ leading activists had come to prominence largely from pre-1911 obscurity. Discourses proclaiming hostility towards mine owners, and the activists who expressed them, had made substantial and irrevocable advances by August 1914.



Historiographical introduction 31

Fourthly, in articulating their appeal in this way, Durham ILP miner activists took their cue from the syndicalist-inspired (and partially syndicalist-led) movement of South Wales. The potential for increasing influence for both the socialists and the syndicalists grew in a changing coal industry. Industrial concentration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had a radicalising effect; the presence of migratory workers and their impacts helped to dilute local loyalties to existing Liberal figures in the larger, newer concerns that, in terms of management styles, were often more prone to fostering conflict between workers and owners. These conditions lent themselves more readily to interpretation in terms of class conflict rather than through the traditional prisms of industrial harmony and coal owner-sponsored paternalism. But, in adopting syndicalist-sounding rhetoric and some syndicalist short-term aims, Durham ILP movement activists effectively occupied the political space where syndicalists might have prospered. They were consequently able to forestall the emergence of an indigenous Durham-based syndicalist movement sufficiently sizeable to challenge them. Notwithstanding this, it is necessary to appreciate the ideological complexity of the challenge to liberalism (itself also highly complex): to accept, on the one hand, that differences in means and ends did broadly divide the ILP from the syndicalists (nationalisation against workers’ control) but, on the other hand, that there remained considerable ideological heterogeneity within both the ILP and syndicalist camps and at any given time specific activists drew from complex combinations of concepts, tactics and strategies relevant to either or both groupings. In other words, none of these ideological positions represented entirely discrete and completely impermeable categories of political identity that activists and their groupings consciously and exclusively adhered to. In terms of the revolutionaries, it suggests that, while divided, and struggling in some respects to present a programme that could appeal successfully to specific salient aspects of popular sensibilities in the coalfield, Durham syndicalists nevertheless exercised immeasurably more influence than their small numbers suggested. Finally, there is a methodological argument: that, within the parameters of qualitative research methodologies, book-length discrete case studies remain essential to understanding the dynamics of complex processes that involve the altering political and social consciousnesses of masses of ‘ordinary’ people. These processes cannot be understood solely with reference to high politics and elite, national political actors, nor can they be adequately conveyed with only scant and rather selective attention paid towards the masses of rich primary material – often better suited to qualitative than quantitative analysis – at the disposal of the researcher. All these arguments are developed throughout the book, which adopts a broadly chronological approach, breaking into the exploration of particular themes at appropriate points throughout. Chapter 2 examines the essential contexts for events as they developed from 1910; exploring how ILP activists responded to changing political, social and economic circumstances to develop earlier (and

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comparatively smaller) campaigns and movements within the coalfield, and where their party stood by December 1909. The crisis of 1910 precipitated by the Eight Hours Agreement is dealt with in Chapter 3, while Chapter 4 analyses the (re)emergence of the minimum wage inside the DMA from summer 1911 to the end of the national coal strike in spring 1912. Chapters 5 and 6 both consider the more formalised DFM, established after the minimum wage was won; its campaigns, achievements and failures in both the industrial and political spheres and its relations with syndicalism and syndicalists in the coalfield, The conclusion not only brings together and re-casts the substantive arguments, it also looks forward, discussing aspects of the legacy of this tumultuous period. Notes 1 For a general history, see Pugh, M., Speak for Britain! A New History of the Labour Party (Bodley Head, 2010). 2 van der Linden, M., ‘Second thoughts on revolutionary syndicalism’, Labour History Review, 63:2 (1998), pp. 182–183. 3 See, for example, MacDonald, R., Syndicalism: A Critical Examination (Constable and Co., 1912). 4 See, Mann, T., ‘Forging the weapon’, in K. Coates and T. Topham (eds), Workers’ Control (Panther, 1970), pp. 27–28. 5 See Connolly, J., ‘Industrial unionism and constructive socialism’, in Coates and Topham (eds), Workers’ Control, pp. 10–14. 6 For convenience, then, the SLP is included in this definition even though, as stated above, it explicitly defined itself in vigorous terms against other syndicalists. 7 Pelling, H., A History of British Trade Unionism (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963), p. 140. 8 Unofficial Reform Committee of the SWMF, The Miners’ Next Step (1912); reprinted with introduction by Dave Douglass (Doncaster: Germinal and Phoenix Press, 1991), p. 30. 9 Dangerfield, G., The Strange Death of Liberal England (Serif, 1997), p. 320. 10 Halévy, E., A History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century Vol.6: The Rule of Democracy (Benn, 1952), pp. 450–459; Cole, G.D.H., and R. Postgate, The British Common People, 1746–1938 (Methuen and Co., 1961), pp. 429–434. 11 Sires, R.V., ‘Labor unrest, in England, 1910–1914’, Journal of Economic History, 15:3 (1955), pp. 246–266. 12 Phelps Brown, E.H., The Growth of Industrial Relations (Macmillan, 1959), pp. 330–331. 13 Phillips, G.A., ‘The triple industrial alliance in 1914’, Economic History Review, 24:1 (1971), p. 67; Clegg, H.A., A. Fox and A.F. Thompson, A History of British Trade Unions Since 1889 Vol. 1: 1889–1910 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964). 14 Pelling, H., ‘The Labour Unrest, 1911–1914’ in H. Pelling, Popular Politics and Society in Late Victorian Britain (Macmillan, 1968), pp. 147–164. 15 Meacham, S., ‘The sense of an impeding clash: English working-class unrest before the First World War’, American Historical Review, 77:5 (1972), p. 970; Pelling, British Trade Unionism, pp. 138–142.



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16 Coates and Topham (eds), Workers’ Control, p. xvi. 17 (no named author), ‘Industrial democracy and national fuel policy: a miners’ programme’, IWC Pamphlet No. 8 (Nottingham: IWC, n.d.). 18 Tsuzuki, C., ‘The “Impossibilist Revolt” in Britain’, International Review of Social History, 1 (1956), pp. 377–397; Pribićević, B., The Shop Stewards’ Movement and Workers’ Control (Oxford: Blackwell, 1959). See also Hinton, J., The First Shop Stewards’ Movement (Allen and Unwin, 1973). 19 Douglass, D., The Wheel’s Still in Spin (ChristieBooks, 2009), pp. 80–115. See also Douglass, D., George Harvey: Pitman Bolshevik (Pelaw, Gateshead: Follonsby Miners’ Lodge Banner Association, 2011). 20 Brown, G. (ed.), The Industrial Syndicalist (Nottingham: Spokesman, 1974); Brown, G. (ed.), The Syndicalist (Nottingham: Spokesman, 1975); Brown, G., Sabotage! (Nottingham: Spokesman, 1977). 21 Holton, B., British Syndicalism 1900–1914: Myths and Realities (Pluto, 1976), pp. 198–199. 22 Challinor, R., The Origins of British Bolshevism (Croom Helm, 1977). 23 Quail, J., The Slow Burning Fuse: The Lost History of British Anarchists (Paladin, 1978). 24 Egan, D., ‘The Unofficial Reform Committee and the Miners’ Next Step’, Llafur 2:3 (1978), pp. 64–80. 25 Page Arnot, R., The Miners: Years of Struggle, 1889–1910 (Allen and Unwin, 1949), p. 327. 26 Hobsbawm, E., Workers: Worlds of Labor (New York: Pantheon, 1984), p. 273. 27 Hobsbawm, E., ‘Reflections on anarchism’, in E. Hobsbawm, Revolutionaries (Quartet Books, 1977), pp. 82–91. 28 Hobsbawm, E., Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1971), pp. 74–92. 29 Mintz, J., The Anarchists of Casas Viejas (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004). 30 Holton, British Syndicalism, pp. 22–23. 31 Holton, B., ‘Revolutionary syndicalism and the British Labour movement’, in W. Mommsen, and H. Husung (eds), The Development of Trade Unionism in Great Britain and Germany, 1880–1914 (Allen and Unwin, 1985), p. 267; Anderson, P., ‘Origins of the present crisis’, New Left Review, 1:23 (1964), pp. 26–53; Nairn, T., ‘The English working class’, New Left Review, 1:24 (1964), pp. 43–57. 32 White, J., The Limits of Trade Union Militancy: The Lancashire Textile Workers, 1910–1914 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978) p. 12. 33 Cronin, J., Industrial Conflict in Modern Britain (Croom Helm, 1979); Hinton, J., Labour and Socialism: A History of the British Labour Movement, 1867–1974 (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1983); Price, R., Labour in British Society: An Interpretative Survey (Routledge, 1986). 34 Price, R., ‘“What’s in a name?” Workplace history and “rank and filism”’, International Review of Social History, 34:1 (1989), p. 77; Hyman, R., ‘The sound of one hand clapping: a comment on the “rank and filism” debate’, International Review of Social History, 34:2 (1989), p. 310; Cronin, J.E., ‘The “rank-and-file” and the social history of the working class’, International Review of Social History, 34:1 (1989), p. 84. See also Davis, M., and K. Morgan (eds), ‘“Causes that were lost”? Fifty years of E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class as contemporary history’, Contemporary British History (special issue) 28:4 (2014).

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35 Thompson, E.P., ‘Homage to Tom Maguire’ in A. Briggs and J. Saville (eds), Essays in Labour History (Macmillan, 1960), pp. 276–316; Holton, R.J., ‘Syndicalism and its impact in Britain with particular reference to Merseyside, 1910–1914’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Sussex, 1971), p. 74. 36 Anderson, ‘Present Crisis’; Nairn, ‘English Working Class’; Thompson, E.P., ‘Peculiarities of the English’, Socialist Register, 2 (1965), pp. 311–362. 37 Macintyre, S., ‘Some recent labour history’, Historical Journal, 22:3 (1979), p. 730. 38 Zeitlin, J., ‘“Rank and filism” in British labour history: a critique’, International Review of Social History, 34:1 (1989), p. 42. 39 Zeitlin, ‘Rank and filism’, p. 53. 40 Zeitlin, ‘Rank and filism’, pp. 54–60. 41 Price, ‘Workplace history’, p. 74. 42 Clegg, H.A., A History of British Trade Unions since 1889 Vol. 2: 1911–1933 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), pp. 24–74. 43 Church, R.A., The History of the British Coal Industry Vol. 3: 1830–1913, Victorian Pre-Eminence (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1986), p. 711; Burgess, K., The Origins of British Industrial Relations: The Nineteenth Century Experience (Croom Helm, 1975). 44 Church, R., ‘Edwardian labour unrest and coalfield militancy, 1890–1914’, Historical Journal, 30:4 (1987), pp. 841–857. 45 Church, ‘Coalfield militancy’, p. 857. 46 Cronin, ‘Social history’, p. 78. 47 White, J., ‘Syndicalism in a mature industrial setting: the case of Great Britain’, in M. van der Linden and W. Thorpe (eds), Revolutionary Syndicalism: An International Perspective (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1990), pp. 101–117; White, J., Tom Mann (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991); Davies, D.K., ‘The influence of syndicalism, and industrial unionism, in the South Wales coalfield 1898–1921: a study in ideology and practice’(Ph.D. thesis, University of Wales, 1991). 48 van der Linden and Thorpe (eds), Revolutionary Syndicalism; Thorpe, W., ‘“The workers themselves”: revolutionary syndicalism and international labour, 1913–1922’ (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1989); Bantman C., and D. Berry, ‘Introduction’, in D. Berry and C. Bantman (eds), New Perspectives on Anarchism, Labour and Syndicalism (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), pp. 1–15. 49 van der Linden, M., ‘Second thoughts on revolutionary syndicalism’, Labour History Review, 63:2 (1998), pp. 182–196; Price, R., ‘Contextualising British syndicalism, c.1907–c.1920’, Labour History Review, 63:3 (1998), pp. 261–276. 50 Price, ‘Contextualising British syndicalism’, p. 261; Howell, D., ‘Taking syndicalism seriously’, Socialist History, 16 (2000), p. 27. 51 Reid, A.J., ‘A new paradigm for British labour history’, History Compass, 3:1 (2005), p. 2. 52 Reid, ‘New paradigm’, pp. 19–20. 53 Reid, ‘New paradigm’, p. 19. 54 Reid, A.J., United we Stand: A History of Britain’s Trade Unions (Allen Lane, 2004); Reid, A.J., The Tide of Democracy. Shipyard Workers and Social Relations in Britain, 1870–1950 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010). 55 Reid, ‘New paradigm’, p. 1; Thompson, ‘Peculiarities’. 56 For an example of a ‘bottom-up’ approach deployed in a different context see Cohen, G., and L.H. Mates, ‘Grassroots conservatism in post-war Britain: a view from the bottom-up’, History, 98:330 (2013), pp. 202–225. 57 Bantman and Berry, ‘Introduction’, p. 11.



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58 Bantman and Berry, ‘Introduction’, pp. 8–9; See, for example, Bantman, C., ‘The militant go-between: Emile Pouget’s transnational propaganda (1880–1914)’, Labour History Review, 74:3 (2009), pp. 274–287. 59 Bantman and Berry, ‘Introduction’, p. 8. 60 Bantman, C., ‘Internationalism without an International? Cross-Channel anarchist networks, 1880–1914’, in M. Rodríguez García (ed.). ‘Labour internationalism: different times, different faces’, special issue of Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, 84:4 (2006), pp. 961–981; Bantman, C., The French Anarchists in London, 1880–1914: Exile and Transnationalism in the First Globalisation (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013); Oliver, H., The International Anarchist Movement in Late Victorian London (Croom Helm, 1983), p. 152; Quail, Slow Burning Fuse, pp. 308–309; Marshall, P., Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism (Fontana Press, 1993), p. 491. 61 Di Paola, P., The Knights-Errant of Anarchy: London and the Italian Anarchist Diaspora 1880–1917 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013). 62 Morgan, K., Bolshevism, Syndicalism and the General Strike: The Lost Internationalist World of A.A. Purcell (Lawrence and Wishart, 2013). 63 van der Walt, L., ‘Anarchism and syndicalism in an African port city: the revolutionary traditions of Cape Town’s multiracial working class, 1904–1931’, Labor History, 52:2 (2011), p. 138; See also Hirsch S., and L. van der Walt, Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870–1940: The Praxis of National Liberation, Internationalism, and Social Revolution (Leiden: Brill, 2010); Smith, Á., Anarchism, Revolution and Reaction: Catalan Labour and the Crisis of the Spanish State, 18981923 (New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2007). 64 Kinna, R. (ed.), The Bloomsbury Companion to Anarchism (Continuum, 2012); Amster, R., A. DeLeon, L. Fernandez and A. Nocella II (eds), Contemporary Anarchist Studies: An Introductory Anthology of Anarchy in the Academy (Routledge, 2009); Newman, S., ‘The libertarian impulse’, Journal of Political Ideologies (special issue), 16:3 (2011). 65 Darlington, R., Syndicalism and the Transition to Communism. An International Comparative Analysis (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), p. 9. See also Darlington, R., The Political Trajectory of J.T. Murphy (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1998); Darlington, R., ‘British syndicalism and trade union officialdom’, Historical Journal of Industrial Relations, 25/26 (2008), pp. 103–140; Darlington, R., ‘Syndicalism and the influence of anarchism in France, Italy and Spain’, Anarchist Studies, 17:2 (2009), pp. 29–54; Darlington, R., ‘Re-evaluating syndicalist opposition to the First World War’, Labor History, 53:4 (2012), pp. 517–539; Darlington, R., ‘Syndicalism and strikes, leadership and influence: Britain, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, and the United States’, International Labor and Working-Class History, 83 (2013), pp. 37–53. 66 McKay, I., ‘Another view: syndicalism, anarchism and Marxism’ Anarchist Studies 20:1 (2012), pp. 89–105; van der Walt, L., and M. Schmidt, Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism Vol. 1: Counter-Power (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2009). 67 Darlington, R., and M. Upchurch, ‘A reappraisal of the rank-and-file/ bureaucracy debate’, Capital and Class, 36:1 (2012), pp. 73–91. 68 Béliard, Y., ‘From Gustav Schmidt to Gus Smith: a tale of Labour integration (Hull, 1878–1913)’, in D. Berry and C. Bantman (eds), New Perspectives on Anarchism, Labour and Syndicalism (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), pp. 44–60; Béliard, Y., ‘Imperial internationalism? Hull Labour’s support for South African trade-unionism on the eve of the Great War’, Labour History Review, 74:3 (2009), pp. 319–329; Vaughan Wilson, M., ‘The 1911 waterfront strikes in Glasgow:

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71 72

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74 75

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77 78 79 80 81

The Great Labour Unrest trade unions and rank-and-file militancy in the Labour Unrest of 1910–1914’, International Review of Social History, 53:2 (2008), pp. 261–292; Vaughan Wilson, M., ‘Trade unionism, militancy and port communities in early twentieth-century Britain’, in K. Cowman and I. Packer (eds), Radical Cultures and Local Identities (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), pp. 51–70. Price, ‘Contextualising British Syndicalism’, p. 263. For useful overviews see Laybourn, K., ‘The rise of Labour and decline of liberalism: the state of the debate’, History 80:259 (1995), pp. 207–226 and Roberts, M., Political Movements in Urban England, 1832–1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 128–160. The Welsh literature is well covered in Johnes, M., ‘For class and nation: dominant trends in the historiography of twentieth-century Wales’, History Compass 8:11 (2010), pp. 1257–1274. McKibbin, R., The Evolution of the Labour Party 1910–1924 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 243. See also Pelling, H., The Origins of the Labour Party (Macmillan, 1954); Pelling, Popular Politics. Thane, P., ‘The Labour Party and state welfare’, in K.D. Brown (ed.), The First Labour Party, 1906–1914 (Routledge, 1985), pp. 183–216; Wrigley, C., ‘Labour and the trade unions’, in Brown (ed.), The First Labour Party, pp. 129–157; Howkins, A., ‘Edwardian liberalism and industrial unrest’, History Workshop, 4 (1977), pp. 143–161; Powell, D., ‘The new liberalism and the rise of Labour, 1886–1906’, Historical Journal, 29 (1986), pp. 369–393. For example, Wilson, T., The Downfall of the Liberal Party 1914–1935 (Collins, 1966). Martin Pugh steered a middle path, claiming that ‘the seeds of Liberal decline, patently present before 1914, developed mightily’ during the conditions of 1914–18’. Pugh, M., The Making of Modern British Politics, 1867–1939 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982), p. 156. See Clarke, P.F., Lancashire and the New Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971). Matthew, H.C.G., R.I. McKibbin and J.A. Kay, ‘The franchise factor in the rise of the Labour Party’, English Historical Review, 91 (1976), pp. 723–752; Tanner, D., ‘The parliamentary electoral system, the “Fourth” Reform Act and the rise of Labour in England and Wales’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 134 (1983), pp. 205–219; Tanner, D., ‘Election, statistics, and the rise of the Labour Party 1906–1931’, Historical Journal, 34:4 (1991), pp. 893–908; Clarke, ‘The electoral position of the Liberal and Labour Parties’. Contrast, for example, Clarke, P.F., Lancashire and the New Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971) with Bernstein, G.L., ‘Liberalism and the progressive alliance in the constituencies, 1900–14: three case studies’, Historical Journal, 26:3 (1983), pp. 617–640. Contrast, for example, Thompson, P., Socialist, Liberals and Labour: The Struggle for London 1885–1914 (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967) with Clarke, Lancashire. Tanner, D., Political Change and the Labour Party 1900–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 317. Biagini, E., and A.J. Reid, ‘Currents of Radicalism, 1850–1914’, in E. Biagini and A.J. Reid (eds), Currents of Radicalism: Popular Radicalism, Organised Labour, and Party (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 18. Biagini and Reid, ‘Currents of radicalism’, p. 18. Reid, ‘New paradigm’, pp. 9–10.



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82 Pelling, British Trade Unionism, pp. 138–142; Laybourn, British Trade Unionism, p. 119. 83 Black, L., ‘What kind of people are you?’, in J. Callaghan, S. Fielding and S. Ludlam (eds), Interpreting the Labour Party (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), pp. 23–38; Roberts, Political Movements, passim. 84 Stedman Jones, G., ‘Rethinking Chartism’ (1974), republished in Stedman Jones, G., Languages of Class: Studies in English Working Class History, 1832–1982 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 90–178; Joyce, P., Visions of the People: Industrial England and the Question of Class, 1848–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Joyce, P., ‘The end of social history?’, Social History, 20:1 (1995), pp. 73–91; Vernon, J., Politics and the People (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). 85 Joyce, P., ‘A people and a class: industrial workers and the social order in nineteenthcentury England’, in M.L. Bush (ed.), Social Orders and Social Classes in Europe Since 1500: Studies in Social Stratification (Routledge, 2013), pp. 199–217, p. 205. 86 Hobsbawm, E., M. Jacques and F. Mulhern, The Forward March of Labour Halted? (New Left Books, 1981), pp. 1–19; Stedman Jones, G., ‘Why is the Labour Party in such a mess?’, in Stedman Jones, Languages of Class, pp. 239-256. See also Croll, A., ‘The impact of postmodernism on modern British social history’, Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts für die Geschichte der sozialen Bewegungen, 27 (2002), pp. 137–152 and the debate between Price and Joyce: Price, R., ‘The labour process and labour history’, Social History, 8:1 (1983), pp. 57–75; Joyce, P., ‘Labour, capital and compromise: a response to Richard Price’, Social History, 9:1 (1984), pp. 67–76; Price, R., ‘Conflict and cooperation: a reply to Patrick Joyce’, Social History, 9:2 (1984), pp. 217–224; Joyce, P., ‘Languages of reciprocity and conflict: a further response to Richard Price’, Social History, 9:2 (1984), pp. 225–231. 87 Hindess, B., The Decline of Working-Class Politics (MacGibbon and Kee, 1971); Hindess, B., Parliamentary Democracy and Socialist Politics (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983). 88 Savage, M., Dynamics of Working-Class Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 20. 89 Lawrence, J., and M. Taylor, ‘Introduction: electoral sociology and the historians’ in J. Lawrence and M. Taylor (eds), Party, State and Society: Electoral Behaviour in Britain since 1820 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997), pp. 1–26; Tanner, D., ‘Class voting and radical politics: the Liberal and Labour Parties, 1910–31’, in Lawrence and Taylor (eds), Party, State and Society, pp. 106–129; Stevens, C., ‘The electoral sociology of modern Britain reconsidered’, Contemporary British History, 13:1 (1999), pp. 62–94. 90 Readman, P., ‘The state of twentieth-century British political history’, Journal of Policy History, 21:3 (2009), p. 232. 91 Readman, ‘British political history’, p. 232. 92 Black, ‘What kind of people?’, p. 24; Roberts, Political Movements, p. 8. 93 Fielding, S., The Labour Party: Continuity and Change in the Making of ‘New’ Labour (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 13–16, 34–36. 94 Fielding, S., ‘What did “the people” want? The meaning of the 1945 general election’, Historical Journal 35:3 (1992), pp. 623–639; Fielding, S., N. Tiratsoo and P. Thompson, England Arise! The Labour Party and Popular Politics in the 1940s (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995); Fielding, S., ‘Activists against “affluence”: Labour Party culture during the “Golden Age”, c.1950–70’, Journal of

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99 100 101 102 103

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The Great Labour Unrest British Studies, 40:1 (2001), pp. 241–267; Hinton, J., ‘1945 and the apathy school’, History Workshop Journal, 43 (1997), pp. 266–273. Fielding, S., ‘“New” Labour and the “New” Labour history’ Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts für die Geschichte der sozialen Bewegungen, 27 (2002), pp. 35–50. Laybourn, ‘The rise of Labour’, p. 221; Lancaster, B., ‘The rise of Labour’, Labour History Review, 57:3 (1992), pp. 98–99; Berger, S., ‘The decline of liberalism and the rise of Labour: the regional approach’, Parliamentary History, 12:1 (1993), pp. 85–86. Lawrence and Taylor, ‘Introduction’, p. 17. Tanner’s more recent work on Labour in Wales also emphasised the party’s contingent early growth. See Tanner, D., and D. Hopkin, The Labour Party in Wales 1900–2000 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000). Laybourn, K., A Century of Labour: A History of the Labour Party, 1900–2000 (Stroud: Sutton, 2000). See for example Reid’s and Andrew Thorpe’s comments on this text: Reid, ‘New paradigm’, p. 22; Thorpe, A., ‘Centenary histories of the Labour Party’, History, 86:284 (2001), p. 527. Packer, I., ‘Contested ground: trends in British by-elections, 1911–1914’, Contemporary British History, 25:1 (2011), p. 170. Roberts, Political Movements, pp. 145–160; Cole, M., ‘The political starfish: West Yorkshire liberalism in the twentieth century’, Contemporary British History, 25:1 (2011), pp. 175–188. Readman, ‘British political history’, p. 226; McKibbin, R., Parties and People: England 1914–1951 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 1–32. Pugh, M., ‘The rise of Labour and the political culture of Conservatism, 1890–1945’, History, 87:288 (2002), pp. 514–537. Fair, J.D., ‘Labour’s rise and the Liberal demise: a quantitative perspective on the great debate, 1906–1918’, Albion, 34:1 (2002), pp. 58–73; Childs, M., ‘Labour grows up: the electoral system, political generations, and British politics, 1890–1929’, Twentieth Century British History, 6:2 (1995), pp. 123–144. McHugh, D., ‘Labour, Liberals and the progressive alliance in Manchester, 1900– 1914’, Northern History, 39:1 (2002), pp. 93–108; Adams, T., ‘Labour vanguard, Tory bastion or the triumph of new liberalism? Manchester politics to 1914 in comparative perspective’, Manchester Region History Review, 14 (2000), pp. 25–38. Hall, V.G., ‘The anatomy of a changing consciousness: the miners of Northumberland, 1898–1914’, Labour History Review, 66:2 (2001), pp. 165–186; Kirk, N., Change, Continuity and Class: Labour in British Society, 1850–1920 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998); Savage, M., and A. Miles, The Remaking of the British Working Class, 1840–1940 (Routledge, 1994); Belchem, J., and N. Kirk (eds), Languages of Labour (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997). (Stedman Jones, Joyce, Biagini and Reid are all referenced above). Williams, J.E. The Derbyshire Miners: A Study in Industrial and Social History (Allen and Unwin, 1962), pp. 393–441. See also, for example, Baylies, C.L., The History of the Yorkshire Miners, 1881–1918 (Routledge, 1993), pp. 367–397. Holton, British Syndicalism, p. 169; Church, R.A., and Q. Outram, Strikes and Solidarity: Coalfield Conflict in Britain, 1889–1966 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 62, 68. Challinor, British Bolshevism; Quail, Slow Burning Fuse; Pattison, G., ‘Anarchist influence in the Durham coalfield before 1914’, The Raven, 11 (3:3) (1990), pp. 239–243. Davies, thesis; Williams, C., Democratic Rhondda: Politics and Society, 1855–1951 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996).



Historiographical introduction 39

110 Campbell, A., The Scottish Miners, 1874–1939 Vol. 2: Trade Unions and Politics (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 137–141. 111 Moore, R., Pit-men, Preachers and Politics: The Effects of Methodism in a Durham Mining Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974); Welbourne, E., The Miners’ Unions of Northumberland and Durham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923). 112 Emery, N., The Coalminers of Durham (Stroud: Sutton, 1992); Emery, N., Banners of the Durham Coalfield (Stroud: Sutton, 1998); Emery, N., ‘Pease and Partners and the Deerness valley: aspects of the social and economic history of Waterhouses, Esh Winning and Ushaw Moor’ (MA thesis, Durham University, 1984); Marshall, C., ‘Levels of industrial militancy and the political radicalisation of the Durham miners, 1885– 1914’ (MA thesis, Durham University, 1976); Physick, R., ‘The Great Unrest, 1910–1914: an analysis of the strikes and the role played by the rank-and-file committees on Tyneside and Merseyside’ (MA thesis, Newcastle University, 1998); Walker, G., ‘George Harvey: the conflict between the ideology of industrial unionism and the practice of its principles in the Durham coalfield’ (MA thesis, Ruskin College, 1982); Webster, F., ‘The Durham miners: a sociological interpretation’(MA thesis, Durham University, 1974); Wilson, A.S., ‘The Consett Iron Company Limited: a case study in Victorian business history’ (MA thesis, Durham University, 1973); Mountford, C.E., ‘The history of John Bowes and Partners up to 1914’ (MA thesis, Durham University, 1967). 113 Douglass, D., Pit Life in County Durham: Rank-and-File Movements and Workers’ Control (Oxford: Ruskin College, 1972); Douglass, D., ‘The Durham Pitman’, in R. Samuel (ed.), Miners, Quarrymen and Salt Workers (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), pp. 205–296. 114 Howell, D., British Workers and the Independent Labour Party 1888–1906 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983), pp. 42–51. 115 Blackburn, S., ‘Must low pay always be with us? The origins of Britain’s minimum wage legislation’, Historical Studies in Industrial Relations, 23/24 (2007), pp. 61–101; Thompson, J., ‘Political economy, the labour movement and the minimum wage, 1880–1914’ in E.H.H. Green and D. Tanner (eds), The Strange Survival of Liberal England: Political Leaders, Moral Values and the Reception of Economic Debate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 62–88. 116 Treble, J.G., and S. Vicary, ‘Equity, efficiency and insurance: explaining the structure of miners’ wage payments in Victorian County Durham’, Economic Journal, 103:417 (1993), pp. 481–493; Treble, J.G., ‘Productivity and effort: the labor-supply decisions of late Victorian coalminers’, Journal of Economic History, 61:2 (2001), pp. 414–438; Treble, J.G., ‘Intertemporal substitution of effort: some empirical evidence’, Economica, new series, 70:280 (2003), pp. 584–585; Page Arnot, Years of Struggle, pp. 80–81; Clegg, British Trade Unions Vol. 2, pp. 45–52; Church and Outram, Strikes and Solidarity, pp. 113–131; McCormick, B.J., Industrial Relations in the Coal Industry (Macmillan, 1979); Church, British Coal Industry Vol. 3; Supple, B., The History of the British Coal Industry Vol. 4: The Political Economy of Decline, 1913–46 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987). 117 Lawson, J., A Man’s Life (Hodder and Stoughton, 1944). 118 Clegg, British Trade Unions Vol. 2, p. 47. 119 Gregory, R., The Miners and British Politics, 1906–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968); Tanner, Political Change. 120 Berger, S., ‘Introduction’, in S. Berger, A. Croll and N. Laporte (eds), Towards a Comparative History of Coalfield Societies (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), p. 1. See

40

121

122 123 124 125 126

127 128 129

130 131 132 133 134

The Great Labour Unrest Feldman, G.D., and K. Tenfelde (eds), Workers, Owners and Politics in Coal Mining: An International Comparison of Industrial Relations (Oxford: Berg, 1990); Gilbert, D., Class, Community, and Collective Action: Social Change in Two British Coalfields, 1850–1926 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992); Fagge, R., Power, Culture and Conflict in the Coalfields: West Virginia and South Wales, 1900–1922 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996); Laslett, J.H.M., Colliers across the Sea: A Comparative Study of Class Formation in Scotland and the American Midwest, 1830–1924 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000); Berger, S., ‘Working-class culture and the Labour movement in the South Wales and the Ruhr coalfields, 1850–2000: a comparison’, Llafur, 8 (2001), pp. 5–40; Berger, S., A. Croll and N. LaPorte (eds), Towards a Comparative History of Coalfield Societies (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005); James, L., The Politics of Identity and Civil Society in Britain and Germany: Miners in the Ruhr and South Wales, 1890–1926 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008). For exceptions see Daunton, M., ‘Miners’ houses: South Wales and the Great Northern Coalfield, 1880–1914’, International Review of Social History, 25:2 (1980), pp. 143–175; Daunton, M.J., ‘Down the pit: work in the Great Northern and South Wales coalfields, 1870–1914’, Economic History Review, 34:4 (1981), pp. 578–597; Mates, L.H., ‘Durham and South Wales miners and the Spanish Civil War’, Twentieth Century British History, 17:3 (2006), pp. 373–395. Francis, H., Miners Against Fascism: Wales and the Spanish Civil War (Lawrence and Wishart, 1984); Mates, ‘Durham and South Wales Miners’. Howell, British Workers. See also Cohen, G., ‘Myth, history and the Independent Labour Party’, in M. Worley (ed.), The Foundation of the British Labour Party: Identities, Cultures and Perspectives, 1900–39 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), pp. 95–112. Hay, C., Political Analysis: A Critical Introduction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp. 117–121, 253–254. Price, ‘Workplace history’, pp. 63–65; Darlington, R., ‘Agitator “theory” of strikes re-evaluated’, Labor History, 47:4 (2006), pp. 485–509. See Freeden, M., ‘The morphological analysis of ideology’, in M. Freeden, L.T. Sargent and M. Stears (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 115–137; Freeden, M., ‘Practising ideology and ideological practices’, Political Studies, 48:2 (2000), pp. 302–322; Freeden, M., Ideology: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Hay, Political Analysis, pp. 194–215, 257–259. Cohen, ‘Myth’, p. 108. The claims are about W.P. Richardson and James Robson (who himself was likened to Peter Lee) respectively. While they did converge ideologically in the inter-war period, all three were significant but very different activists pre-1914. Mason, A., ‘The miners’ unions of Northumberland and Durham, with special reference to the General Strike of 1926’ (Ph.D. thesis, Hull University, 1967), pp. 141 and 142. Zeitlin, ‘Rank and filism’, p. 46. Michels, R., Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy (Kitchener, Ontario: Batoche Books, 2001 [English trans. first pub. 1915]). Reid, ‘New paradigm’, p. 2. See Peters, B.G., Institutional Theory in Political Science (Continuum, 3rd edn, 2012); Lowndes, V., and M. Roberts, Why Institutions Matter (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), especially pp. 77–110. Douglass, D., All Power to the Imagination (Class War Federation, 1999).



Historiographical introduction 41

135 Zeitlin, ‘Rank and filism’, p. 53; Hyman, R., ‘The politics of workplace trade unionism: recent tendencies and some problems for theory’, Capital and Class, 8 (1979), pp. 54–67. 136 Price, ‘Workplace history’, p. 69. 137 Geary, D., ‘The myth of the radical miner’, in Berger, Croll, and LaPorte (eds), Coalfield Societies, pp. 43–64. 138 Price, ‘Workplace history’, p. 63. 139 Zeitlin, ‘Rank and filism’. See Price, R., Masters, Unions and Men: Work Control in Building and the Rise of Labour, 1830–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). 140 Holton, thesis, p. 605. 141 See Chapter 4 for examples of the local press scaremongering over syndicalism and the minimum wage strike. 142 See, for example, a brilliantly detailed report in Blaydon Courier, 19 October 1912; contrast this with a (hostile) report on a meeting that excluded the press in Durham Chronicle, 14 January 1910. 143 Durham Chronicle, 7, 21 January 1910; 30 September 1910. 144 For an example of the modern British media defining a discourse, see Colin Hay’s work on the Winter of Discontent. Hay, C., ‘Narrating Crisis: The discursive construction of the ‘winter of discontent’’, Sociology, 30:2 (1996), pp. 253–277; Hay, C., ‘The Winter of Discontent thirty years on’, Political Quarterly, 80:4 (2009), pp. 545–552; Hay, C., ‘Chronicles of a death foretold: the Winter of Discontent and construction of the crisis of British Keynesianism’, Parliamentary Affairs, 63:3 (2010), pp. 446–470. 145 See Krippendorff, K.H., Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology (Sage, 3rd edn, 2012). 146 Fairclough, N., New Labour, New Language? (Routledge, 2000). See also Fairclough, N., Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language (Routledge, 2nd edn, 2010); Gee, J., and M. Handford, The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis (Routledge, 2013). 147 Reid, ‘New paradigm’, p. 2. 148 See for example Daunton, ‘Down the pit’. 149 Barron, H., The 1926 Miners’ Lockout: Meanings of Community in the Durham Coalfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 150 Lee, R., The Church of England and the Durham Coalfield, 1810–1926: Clergymen, Capitalists and Colliers (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2007), p. 210. 151 Geary, D., ‘Labour history, the “linguistic turn” and postmodernism’, Contemporary European History, 9 (2000), pp. 445–462. 152 Todd, S., ‘Class, experience and Britain’s twentieth century’, Social History, 39:4 (2014), p. 493. 153 Todd, ‘Class’, p. 502. 154 Todd, ‘Class’, p. 506. 155 Macintyre, ‘Recent labour history’, pp. 721–730. 156 Daunton, ‘Down the pit’, p. 579. 157 Price, ‘Workplace history’, pp. 62–77. 158 Reid, ‘New paradigm’, p. 1. 159 Newman, ‘libertarian impulse’; Berry, D., R. Kinna, S. Pinta and A. Prichard (eds), Libertarian Socialism: Politics in Black and Red (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

2 Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide Liberalism, in both economic and political forms, had come to dominate the Durham coalfield in the late nineteenth century. Liberal economic notions that miners’ wages should be tied to the price of the coal they produced imbued the outlook of the DMA’s leaders and became institutionalised in the district wagebargaining machinery. After 1885, Durham mining constituencies increasingly returned Liberals, with the mining vote gradually spreading as the industry expanded eastwards towards the North Sea. The economic and political contexts rendered the DMA a very attractive but apparently unattainable prize for the coalfield’s socialist activists. This chapter first examines the economic contexts, before exploring the specific problems those desirous of forging a new political identity independent of the Liberals faced in the coalfield. It then considers the potential afforded in this apparently arid political landscape, before focusing on the period after the 1906 Liberal general election victory when it seemed as though the militants, and especially socialists (understood broadly) of the ILP, were emerging triumphant. Economic contexts Appreciating various integral aspects of the economic context, and especially how Durham’s mines operated, is essential to understanding events from 1910. Indeed, to invert Martin Daunton’s remark, understanding the underlying ‘social relationships of work’ is essential to making sense of the leaders’ actions and ideology, of strikes and of political developments in the coalfield.1 Economic liberalism had a firm grasp on Durham miners’ leaders from the very birth of the DMA in 1869. Its principles were soon embodied in the sliding-scale agreements of the 1870s that linked wages directly to the fluctuating prices that Durham coal fetched on the unpredictable international markets (rather than more stable domestic markets). At the turn of the century, about 80% of Durham coal was exported; linking wages to prices so intimately afforded the coal owners considerable flexibility, crucial in the highly competitive international markets. As a consequence, the Durham



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 43

owners were particularly resistant to any initiatives, such as the eight-hour day, that would restrict coal output in order to raise prices and ideally achieve wage stability – this would inevitably threaten the global market share.2 While Durham miners’ leaders endorsed the notion of allowing market prices to regulate wages, economic depression in the late 1880s rendered the sliding scale unpopular among miners. The Durham Conciliation Board, consisting of thirty-six members (eighteen coal owners’ and eighteen miners’ representatives), replaced the sliding scale, but it operated in essentially the same way, making wage awards only in relation to coal prices. Some of the more militant DMA members later noticed that in 1889, after the sliding scale (but before the Conciliation Board), the Durham miners won 20% in wage advances in six months, something they were not to repeat. (This had come with a coal boom; between January 1888 and February 1890, Durham coal more than doubled in price.) The first Durham Conciliation Board, which came into being in inauspicious circumstances after a bitter county-wide strike in 1892, was short-lived. Its first acts were to authorise two wage reductions totalling 10%. Its unpopularity among ordinary miners meant that in 1896 they voted (twice) to withdraw from it, and eventually did so. Yet, with rising prosperity, Durham miners voted very narrowly to reconstitute the Board in 1899.3 DMA general secretary John Wilson, the Board’s staunchest defender, welcomed this development, claiming that wages were 6.75% higher under the Board than they would have been under the old sliding scale. Similarly, DMA treasurer John Johnson deemed the Conciliation Board the best way to resolve disputes and only hoped that the new one was as ‘good’ as the predecessor they had ‘so foolishly’ abolished.4 Theoretically, any arguments could be used to advance or reduce wages in the Conciliation Board. In reality, between 1899 and 1910, wage awards ordinarily tracked coal prices, effectively at 6.25% above the final sliding-scale level. On occasion, however, wages did waver from this formula, and in both directions (i.e. at different times in favour of the miners and owners).5 This seemed to offend the miners’ leaders more as it was they who suggested, in May 1910, a new formula that would tie wages and coal prices closer together. In other words, the miners’ leaders wanted to make the Conciliation Board even more like the old sliding scale. This the owners rejected.6 The Conciliation Board’s wage awards came as percentages on a ‘basis’ rate. This basis was fixed in 1879, in the depths of a depression in coal prices. A specific basis was fixed for each of the numerous grades of Durham mineworker. At the top of the mineworkers’ hierarchy, which was integral to how the industry – and the DMA – functioned, were the hewers. They (usually) picked the coal at the face and loaded it into tubs, ordinarily on piecework rates. Theirs was the highest basis: 4s.2d. per shift. Married hewers were accorded two other privileges: free house coal and entitlement to a colliery-owned house or, if this was not available, to a rental allowance. Exactly how much this combined allowance was worth varied; one source in 1910 suggested the owners valued it at 5s. per week (3s. for the house, 2s. for coals); The Times, by contrast, claimed it was higher than this, with

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a ‘real’ value of much more than 1s. per shift (with most working eleven or twelve days a fortnight if the coal trade was buoyant). While, as Daunton has claimed, the Durham owners did not try to use their miners’ housing as a means of social control, many miners nevertheless resented the whole allowance and housing system, preferring instead simply more wages. A lodge attempt to dispense with colliery housing, to be replaced by a 12.5% wage advance, was, however, voted down by lodges in July 1904. Unmarried hewers continued to voice their anger at not being entitled to the same allowances as their married workmates, even though they performed exactly the same work.7 Being at the top of the hierarchy, hewers’ interests dominated negotiations over wages and conditions. This is partially explained by the career structure in Durham mines, whereby most younger underground miners could anticipate becoming hewers fairly early in their working lives. This was in marked contrast to coalfields such as South Wales where there was no such clear career progression to the best-paid jobs for younger miners, and has been offered as one reason for the greater industrial unrest in South Wales.8 Furthermore, there were far more hewers than any other class of underground Durham mineworker. In summer 1913, there were 51,740 Durham hewers, constituting 42% of the underground workforce. The second most numerous underground class were the 11,899 putters (10%) who transported the coal tubs underground from the coal face to the ‘flat’ (a larger storage area underground). Putters were classified as ‘boys’ (or ‘lads’) and were normally pieceworkers, who, in order to be paid accurately, used tokens to mark all the tubs they had ‘putted’. They, too, could be sub-divided. The threequarters of putters who used a pit pony were paid per score of tubs (twenty-one) they ‘putted’, while ‘hand putters’ (who pushed their tubs by hand) were paid per tub. The latter generally earned considerably more than the former. A second important grade of underground lad were the 8,400 ‘drivers’ (7%) who drove horses or ponies pulling tubs from the flat to the ‘landing’, adjacent to the pit shaft. In terms of numbers, next came 10,796 ‘stonemen’ (9%), a class of skilled adult workers. They were often elderly, performing on piecework rates an arduous task that included loading stones into tubs, though if married they were entitled to the same privileges as married hewers. Stonemen worked alongside similar numbers of ‘shifters’, who were ‘datal’ (day wage) workers, and also tended to be elderly and often poorly remunerated. Together they worked a night shift, building and maintaining tracks and pathways and repairing the airways to prepare the pit for the morning hewers’ shift.9 By way of illustrating the complexity and specialisation of the workforce, there were more than sixty-two classes of underground mineworkers in the Edwardian Durham coalfield.10 Of the thirty-five adult classes, only six usually earned piece rates, although they constituted 75% of adult underground workers. The remaining twenty-nine classes were datal men. There were more than twenty-eight classes of underground lad, constituting 27% of the underground workforce. Almost two-thirds (62%) of the boys underground were either putters or drivers whose



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 45

integral roles in transporting the coal gave them tremendous scope for causing disruption by striking.11 This complexity of roles was replicated above ground, with more than twentythree classes of Durham surfaceworker.12 Only in terms of gender was the Durham mining workforce relatively uncomplicated. In 1913, just forty-one women were employed in the Durham coalfield and none worked directly with coal. Women were employed as office cleaners, secretaries, working in the granaries and as charwomen. Like underground workers, surfaceworkers were also paid by percentages on the basis, but the 1879 Agreement that fixed the basis also instituted a differential, paying most grades of surfaceworkers 3% less than underground miners. An attempt to equalise this discrepancy failed in 1907. Many grades of surfaceworkers worked up to ten and a quarter hours per day, with wages (including the lodging allowance if applicable) amounting to around only 4s.4d. in 1912.13 Surfaceworkers were at the bottom of the Durham mineworker hierarchy. The exceptionally specialised (even in terms of Britain’s mineworkers) underground workforce meant that hewers, particularly, jealously patrolled the boundaries of their role, often very reluctant to perform tasks like ‘putting’ and occasionally angered when putters were allowed to encroach on their privileges and hew. In the early 1890s, the DMA demanded a clearer definition of working roles and customs, especially the demarcation between putters and hewers. The owners agreed formally, in April 1900, that hewers made to ‘put’ temporarily would be paid the hewer’s average. But this did not end hewers’ reluctance to ‘put’ – another reason for collieries remaining susceptible to putters’ strike action after 1900.14 A further contentious area was the encroachment on the hewers’ autonomy in the form of ‘hewing putters’. This intermediate class of boys – who hewed but also putted as required – emerged after 1884 as a consequence of a decreasing supply of putters. This role became more formalised and by 1910 the hewing putter typically hewed for six hours of an eight-hour shift. They were, however, accorded none of the married hewers’ privileges in terms of length of working day, rental allowance and house coals, nor the special payments hewers received when hewing stone. Also crucial to hewers’ sense of worth was their working hours, agreed at seven per shift in August 1890. This gave them, along with Northumberland miners, the shortest shifts of any British mineworker. In 1906, Durham hewers worked an average shift of six hours, forty-nine minutes, while their equivalents in Monmouth, South Wales, worked nine hours, fifty-seven minutes. Furthermore, Durham hewers exercised considerable job autonomy, enjoying the freedom to decide when to take a day off.15 Durham hewers’ working hours could be so short because they normally worked a two-shift system. Ordinarily, the hewers’ ‘fore shift’ would descend from the ‘bank’ (the pithead) at about 4 a.m., the ‘back shift’ at 10 a.m., usually relieving the fore shift at the coalface and then finishing at around 4 p.m. The seven-hour hewers’ working day (‘bank to bank’) comprised about five and a half hours actually at the coalface, with the rest taken up by travel to and from it (descending

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The Great Labour Unrest

and ascending the shaft and walking underground to and from the face). These two hewers’ shifts were served by one shift of putters and other workers who mostly transported the coal. They worked ten or eleven hours, descending at around 6 a.m., and ascending immediately before the hewers’ back shift.16 Before 1910, however, many of the most modern, largest collieries, often those closest to the North Sea coast, had introduced three-shift systems. This entailed three shifts of hewers supported by two shifts of putters and other coal-transporting workers. The third hewers’ shift was a night shift, ending around midnight. Seaham was the first colliery to introduce the three-shift system, in 1872. The Seaham miners lost a strike against it, and other larger collieries began adopting the system. A Durham delegate at MFGB conference in 1912 claimed that the three-shift system was often introduced in an underhanded manner; colliery managers would overstock the pit with workers, then close down a coal seam, saying they could only restart the now-unemployed men if the lodge agreed to a third shift. While the men were invariably hostile, and the union ordinarily prepared to spend heavily in supporting them, they would eventually accede, as unemployment and tramping for work was the unpalatable alternative. Undeniably the three-shift system threatened to negatively impact on hewers’ social and family life, though the DMA accepted night shifts provided they were used sparingly. While it became customary for new collieries to work three-shift systems, this process was not irreversible. In 1907, for example, Mainsforth colliery ended its night-shift working on the lodge’s request. The exact number of three-shift system collieries in Durham immediately before 1910 is unclear. John Wilson, and his agent colleagues, regularly claimed that nineteen collieries producing about 25% of all Durham’s coal worked three-shift systems, though the figure of fifteen or sixteen collieries was also given. The 1919 Sankey Commission was informed the figure was twenty-five, employing almost 24% of the county’s hewers.17 There tended, however, to be proportionately fewer hewers working the third shift. In March 1907, only up to 2,300 Durham hewers actually worked on the night shift, compared to about 8,300 who worked the first or second shifts in three-shift system collieries.18 While the three-shift system might have been the future, the events of 1910 revealed that the majority of hewers in twoshift collieries wanted to retain their less demanding shift pattern (see Chapter 3). Another area of contention that the three-shift system threw into sharp relief was the number of hours per day Durham mines drew coal. Given the understanding of the intimate relationship between coal prices and wages, miners were anxious to restrict output by placing limits on the amount of time that collieries could draw coal each day. This would prevent a flooding of the market that would in turn inevitably, they thought, mean reduced coal prices and thus lower wages. In 1890, the DMA and owners finally agreed on the long-disputed question of coal drawing for two-shift and three-shift collieries: ten and twenty hours per day respectively (the miners had requested fifteen hours for three-shift collieries). Immediately before 1910, however, some three-shift collieries had unlimited coaldrawing agreements in place.



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 47

Durham miners’ leaders were aided in their emphasis on conciliation and opposition to industrial action by two mechanisms that meant the coalfield had developed, by the end of the nineteenth century, some of the most advanced wage-bargaining machinery in Britain. This machinery emerged in response to the geological idiosyncrasies of Durham coal seams; as they varied widely in size and ease of working, so did miners’ piecework earnings. The first mechanism addressing this was the ‘County Average System’, established in 1872. The County Average was just that: the ascertained average earnings across the Durham coalfield. It was fixed by taking three fortnightly average earnings for all the men employed (including the old and infirm), and dividing it by the number of shifts worked. The system empowered a Joint Committee made up of coal owners’ and unions’ representatives to adjust price lists in any coal seam where average earnings were higher or lower than the county average by more than 5%, to bring them within this 5% limit. The Joint Committee thus dealt with the vast majority of specific local grievances. (Failing agreement, the disputed matter was referred to a mutually elected tribunal to be settled). In practice the County Average System did not always work well; academic studies showed that miners’ earnings could vary as much as 20% above or below the county average, rather than the 5% officially allowed for. Nevertheless, in dealing with the long-term (predictable) characteristics of changing coal seams, the County Average was relatively successful in avoiding numerous local difficulties (often stoppages) resulting from fixing or altering price lists in coalfields, such as occurred in South Wales.19 The Durham coalfield was almost unique in that, with ‘cavilling’ (an old practice, the origins of which remain obscure), it had a second mechanism to overcome problems arising from the short-term and unpredictable variations in coal seams that the County Average was too clumsy to address. Cavilling was a quarterly lottery whereby work places were allotted in order to distribute fairly the better and worse coal seams. It helped to maintain miners’ loyalty to the union, as well as being the main mechanism for workers to exercise considerable job control. A third provision alleviated the problems caused for hewers working in so-called ‘abnormal places’ – particularly small, stony, wet or otherwise difficult to work coal seams. The wages of those working in recognised ‘abnormal places’ were supplemented by an allowance usually called ‘consideration’, arbitrated by the Joint Committee.20 Cavilling, particularly, has been offered as another plank of the explanation for the relative lack of industrial militancy in the Durham coalfield.21 This certainly appears substantiated, at first glance at least. The last county-wide strike in Durham before 1910 had been in 1892, when the miners opposed the owners’ desire for a substantial reduction in wages. A bitter conflict lasted three months, with 92,000 on strike. With the owners upping their demands to a 13.5% reduction, a compromise of a 10% wage reduction was eventually reached on 1 June 1892 and the strike ended.22 By then, the DMA had expended all of its strike funds, though it had managed to avoid going into debt. Since then, however, the coalfield can hardly be said to have been strife-free, as indicated in Table 1.

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Table 1: Stoppages in the Durham coalfield, 1901–1909 Year

1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909

No. of No. days pits stoppages stopped 100 55 30 34 31 40 35 87 110

207.00 101.75 38.00 42.66 54.33 75.50 166.75 159.24 313.50

Avg. number workmen laid idle on each day (rounded up/down) 325 651 737 615 876 849 1,008 803 717

Total no. days lost

67,304 66,210 28,025 26,260 47,595 64,128 168,108 127,982 224,865

Source: DRO, NCB I/CO 86/596, ‘Annual return DCOA stoppages through disputes with men 1909’.

There were several major causes of localised strikes. A bitter ten-week strike at Washington Glebe colliery in 1909, for instance, was precipitated by grievances on two of the major issues. The dispute began on 2 April 1909 and involved 500 men and boys. The first grievance was a shortage of colliery housing which meant that many miners had to pay rents that were more than double their rental allowance. By the late 1890s, pressure had been building for the rental allowance to be raised, as there were cases of actual rent being three or four times this amount. Washington Glebe lodge claimed that only twenty-eight of eighty-eight colliery houses contained miners entitled to them, and that, while some had been waiting for four and a half years for their turn to take a colliery house, others (whom colliery officials called ‘special men’) had effectively jumped the queue. The same issue had provoked a bitter strike of 900 at Trimdon Grange in summer 1907 over the management’s refusal to implement a ‘houses in turns agreement’ of 1898. With central DMA support unforthcoming, the strikers still received considerable lodge support and won after a sixteen-week strike.23 The second issue at Washington Glebe was over ‘laid out’. This related to the amount of stone that came with the coal sent to the surface. Hewers were expected to ensure, when filling their tubs, that they did not mix too much stone with the coal. If they did, they were fined proportionately to the quantity of stone. In some cases the hewers would not be paid for the tub at all, even though the coal would still, of course, be sorted and sold. Washington Glebe argued these fines were very heavy and wanted them reduced, rather than to end the practice altogether. Around the same time, Usworth lodge was also in dispute over ‘laid out’. There,



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 49

a fixed fine of 3d. per ‘dirty’ tub was imposed, with the lodge protesting that the number of tubs undergoing ‘laid out’ was excessive.24 In general, the putters were a major source of industrial unrest. The decrease in the supply of putters from the mid-1880s began pushing up the average age at which they became hewers from eighteen to twenty-one. While still technically known as ‘boys’, many were actually young married men, and fathers. As such, the ‘old safeguard, that the putters were under the control of their parents, became yearly of less value’.25 Strikes among putters were often initiated with scant or no regard for the rules. Putters’ strikes were very often ‘unofficial’, meaning that they were not supported by the central DMA. Its rules (No. 51 and No. 52) stipulated that no lodge could strike without having first put its case before the DMA council or executive and that lodges failing to do this forfeited all claims to central union support. Unofficial strikes were thus a risky business. Absenting themselves without permission and without tendering the legally required fourteen days’ notice made these strikes illegal, and the lads opened themselves up to prosecution for damages for breach of contract under the Employers and Workmen Act (1875).26 Many cases went to court. The magistrates invariably imposed costs on those summonsed and, as in the case of fifty-six putters summonsed for illegally absenting themselves in a dispute at Heworth colliery, a default on fines and court costs led to imprisonment in September 1909. A similar fate befell batches of Washington miners after their protracted dispute in summer 1909.27 In many cases of putters’ strikes, the rest of a colliery’s workforce had little choice but also to cease work, regardless of whether they were in sympathy with the striking lads or not; hewers asked to ‘put’ often refused to do so. Though striking lads were by no means guaranteed solidarity from the rest of the lodge, it often did come, which could widen and deepen strikes. For example, a dispute at Lumley 6th began in September 1908 when putters, claiming that their ponies were overworked and so tired and inefficient (costing earnings), struck for a day. Forty-six were summonsed on 26 September 1908 and ordered to pay 9s.6d. each in damages and costs for illegal absence. When thirty-nine were then imprisoned for non-payment of fines on 23 December 1908, fellow putters at other Lambton-owned collieries also struck. Calls for solidarity from other grades of Lambton miners drew further support. Eventually, the dispute lasted until 2 January 1909 and involved 6,089 of Lambton’s 9,300 workforce, with over 19,000 working days lost.28 Obstacles Notwithstanding this industrial disharmony, the ILP – established nationally in 1893 and posing a new, organised and nominally socialist challenge to the Liberal hegemony inside the DMA – faced several substantial obstacles in the coalfield. The first of these was the cultural supremacy of Methodism among Durham miners, which underlay the dominant economic and political orthodoxies of

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the coalfield. Robert Moore’s historical sociology, focusing on the Deerness valley region of Durham and collieries operated by Darlington-based Pease and Partners, argued that Methodism informed the relations between miners and coal owners in Durham. It fostered paternalism among owners, individualism (rather than collectivism) among miners, and the widely and deeply held notion of shared interests between masters and men. Methodism thus ‘reinforced a faith in the operation of the market. Industrial relations were seen as a series of compromises within the market context, involving degrees of reciprocity which were reinforced by the paternalistic outlook and actions of owners and managers’.29 A fascinating example of this paternalism as articulated by a major Durham coal owner was offered by the Earl of Durham in 1908: I am not inimical to the interests of the miners ... my family has been for generations connected with the coal trade, and we have employed tens of thousands of men during that period. While that has tended to develop the district it has been done with mutual good will and respect between employer and employed. I like the men, and I think I can say without a blush that they like me. At any rate, I know they show a touching loyalty, though often a mistaken one, by backing my colours on the turf. I have been with them during a sad disaster in one of my own collieries, and amongst the managers and agents and all persons connected with the pit there was deep sorrow at the calamity. None of us thought of the cost at the time or of the laying idle of the pit, and there was a general feeling of goodwill and sympathy amongst all classes. I have had further experience of them, because I have known what their conduct has been during a prolonged strike which cost me thousands of pounds. They cut off my agent’s gas supply, and then they told him they were extremely sorry to put him to such personal inconvenience. They refused to allow me to pump water out of a pit and thus deprived their own wives and children of a wholesome water supply. When the distress was very great, and when every day of the strike was costing me large sums of money, they sent a deputation to ask me to head a subscription list to maintain the families of those who were out on strike. How can I help liking such men?30

On the miner’s side, John Wilson, who had worked both as a merchant seaman and in American mines before returning to Durham in 1867, epitomised this phenomenon. By then in his early thirties, Wilson recanted his life of heavy drinking and gambling for Primitive Methodism, becoming a teetotal Sunday school teacher. Primitive Methodism had emerged from Wesleyan Methodism in the early 1800s as an attempt to revert to an ‘original’, pure form of Wesley’s teachings, rejecting the influence of Anglicanism by re-asserting simplicity in buildings and liturgy, emphasising the role of the laity and, fundamentally, stressing the political implications of the Methodist creed promoting a focus on the working class and the poor. After his conversion, Wilson soon became a union



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 51

activist and began rising through the ranks of DMA agents (full-time officials). He was elected general treasurer in 1882 and reached the top post of general secretary in 1896, aged almost sixty. In terms of the explicit relationships between Durham miners and liberalism, Wilson’s career is suggestive, his case cited by many when exploring the relations between the working class and liberalism in later nineteenth-century Britain.31 Wilson’s own ideals were based on liberty, equality and fraternity, his postconversion passion for self-education and enthusiasm for Gladstone’s politics are abundantly clear in his autobiography. In all these aspects Wilson trod a wellworn path of political development.32 Many undergoing conversion experiences developed a heightened political awareness that nurtured engagement in social and political, as well as religious, activities in their communities. This afforded them the energy and courage to behave in ways they had not considered before their conversion, such as, for instance, becoming educators in their chapel’s Sunday school.33 After the extension of household suffrage in the Third Reform Act (1884), Wilson became one of the first working-class MPs, winning the mining-dominated Houghton-le-Spring constituency in 1885. Though defeated in 1886, he won Mid-Durham (on the death of William Crawford, a second miner’s leader) in 1890 on a Home Rule platform. He held the seat subsequently, being unopposed in 1906. Wilson was thus emblematic in a more practical way: in terms of miners’ direct and successful involvement in local Liberal politics. By 1885, the DMA had already established its Political Reform Association, in response to fears that the Conservatives would increase the national debt and thereby damage the coal industry.34 Agitating for an extension of the franchise, and holding its delegate meetings in the Durham miners’ own hall, the Reform Association was, for Biagini, the ‘embodiment of the pitmen’s “home made” liberalism’.35 After 1885, the miners agreed to pay a £500 salary to its prospective Liberal MPs (who were endorsed by the Reform Association); the union then autonomously reserved three Durham constituencies for them (Mid-Durham, Houghton-le-Spring and Bishop Auckland), only later informing the relevant Liberal constituency associations, who duly accepted the arrangement. The associations agreed to field no other Liberal candidates in the three constituencies, with the miners reciprocating by accepting Liberal candidates in the other Durham constituencies.36 Biagini emphasised the ‘politics of place’, particularly referring to areas like Durham, where the Liberal caucus was heavily infiltrated by the locally dominant miners’ union.37 Given the miners’ local control, there seemed to be no apparent need for an independent Labour Party, a point echoed by others.38 The developments of the 1880s built on earlier foundations. Jonathan Spain has argued that in the 1870s the Liberals were regarded favourably by Durham miners’ leaders (and other trade unionists) as the architects of the ‘final settlement’ of the major issues in trade union law.39 In terms of the historiography, there is some common ground between individual Marxists and the ‘new political history’. This is evident in Eugenio

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Biagini’s remark that working-class Liberals provided a good illustration of E.P. Thompson’s ‘peculiarities of the English’ and more particularly Thompson’s assertion that a considerable part of the history of the labour movement and the left in Britain should be read with the centrality of nonconformity in mind. So close was the correlation between nonconformity and popular liberalism that, according to Biagini, prototypes of the Thompsonian model of the nonconformist radical worker abounded wherever the Liberal Party was electorally strong.40 Other Marxist approaches have offered different emphases in terms of the relation between newly enfranchised Durham miners and liberalism. Richard Price, for example, emphasised coercion, writing of the mining and iron masters of the north-east who, in the late 1860s, ‘literally marched their newly enfranchised workers to the election polls’.41 Huw Beynon, by contrast, in suggesting that Patrick Joyce had overemphasised the non-class elements of popular culture in Victorian England, pointed to Joyce’s ‘quite meagre’ interpretation of John Wilson. Wilson’s account of his life, according to Beynon, provided evidence of the enormous tensions that built up between the accommodating role played by the DMA and other ‘powerful understandings’ among the miners.42 As Table 2 shows, Methodism was crucial to all the DMA agents’ liberalism in the decade before 1910. Samuel Galbraith had a conversion experience similar to Wilson’s. In August 1874, he claimed that, after a night at the pub, a voice told him to devote himself to ‘other things’. He soon developed a long-term association with the Methodist New Connexion, formed as a breakaway from Wesleyan Methodism in 1797 in order to re-assert the power of the laity. In 1885, he married a Primitive Methodist. Of the five DMA agents in 1910, only Thomas Cann, who had been a Sunday school teacher, saw his connections with the Church fade (in the years immediately before his death in 1924).43 Others have developed Robert Moore’s approach. Huw Beynon and Terry Austrin argued that it was only with the miners’ lockout of 1926 that the ‘politics of patronage’, underscored by Methodist paternalism, gave way to the ‘circumstances of class’.44 A practical example of paternalism came in the form of the Aged Mine Workers’ Homes Association, to which some coal owners donated. Speaking at New Kyo in November 1912, for instance, John Wilson praised the colliery’s owners, who recently had donated £1,000 to the homes scheme.45 In the same speech Wilson affirmed his belief that employers and employed had mutual interests. This was a common refrain from Wilson on political platforms and through his ‘monthly circular’ to all DMA members. While Methodism was important in explaining this life-long attitude, Wilson had also been influenced by Bishop Westcott, who had intervened in the 1892 strike. In promoting a vision of a ‘permanent accord between capital and labour’, Westcott organised weekly meetings that brought Wilson into contact with coal owners to discuss societal problems.46 Traditionally, the Webbs, and, more recently, historians like Eric Hobsbawm, argued that Liberal trade union leaders of this period had completely succumbed to the dominant ideology of the times – one that, naturally, served capitalist class interests.



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 53

Table 2: DMA agents in 1910 (in order of seniority) Surname

Christian name

Year born

Place of birth

Wilson

John

1837

Hartlepool General secretary (1896)

Primitive Methodist

Johnson

John

1850

Benton, Financial Newcastle secretary (1896)

Primitive Methodist

Cann

Thomas Henry

1838

Cornwall

DMA treasurer (1896)

Primitive Methodist

House

William

1854

County Durham (miner) Ireland (émigré)

President (1900)

Primitive Methodist

Galbraith Samuel

1853

DMA Religion position in 1910

Other remarks

Orphaned in 1849; hewer by 1853; merchant seaman (1856–1860); worked Pennsylvania and Illinois mines (1864–1867); Miners’ National Association Midlands organiser (1878–1882); DMA general treasurer (1882); DMA financial secretary (1890) Lay preacher (1878); brother of a Primitive Methodist minster (Hexham); Liberal MP for Gateshead (1904–1910) Worked Cleveland ironstone mines; then Michigan iron ore mines (1882); to Durham (1888); imprisoned for conspiracy during 1892 strike

Joint Methodist; committee ‘New agent Connexion’ (1900)

Source: The Times, 30 December 1910; 25 March 1915; Durham Chronicle, 15 March 1907; 6 January 1911; 26 March 1915; Mason, ‘Cann’; Mason and Saville, ‘Galbraith’; Mason, ‘Johnson’; ‘Espinasse, ‘Wilson’; Mason, ‘Wilson’; Saville, ‘House’.

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Challenging this perspective in the 1960s, R.V. Clements argued that trade unionists, rather than becoming ideologically subordinate, had maintained their independent views, especially on economics. Eugenio Biagini offered a third interpretation: that classical economics was useful to trade union strategies and interests.47 Biagini discussed the ideas promulgated in the influential mass-circulation newspapers of the time, as well as regional newspapers like Joseph Cowen’s Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, that, read by north-east miners (among others), ‘offered an interpretation of industrial relations which made arbitration and conciliation the only logical consequences of rational social behaviour’.48 This interpretation conceptualised society as divided into two: a privileged few among the landed and financial aristocracy and the ‘productive’ classes, which, crucially, included both employers and employed. Both sections of the productive classes were regarded jointly as ‘capitalist producers’, labour being considered a commodity that its possessor could sell to the highest bidder in the market. Conciliation and arbitration served to harmonise productive efforts, restoring an apparently ‘natural’ order of interests. Both employers and employed thus had an interest in maximising the profits of industry and a right in sharing them.49 This latter aspect was particularly significant in that it held potential, even within a popular liberal political economy, for serious disputes with employers over precisely what share of industry’s profits labour should receive, and how this share should be determined. Wilson (and the other agents) consequently represented the second major obstacle to the socialist challenge in the Durham coalfield. He was a dominant leader; according to Edward Welbourne, Wilson’s strength of personality and ‘sheer force of character’ secured the loyalty and obedience of his followers.50 But why was Wilson so powerful? His longevity certainly helped him, as did his track record for the miners. It was widely known that he had been victimised for his union work in the 1870s. By 1910 Wilson was the last remaining DMA founder member, continuing to enjoy an elevated status and regarded as having served the Durham miners well in the past, irrespective of his more recent record. Though he was getting old, bouts of illness did not seem to bring even a slight loosening of his grip on the organisation. Indeed, the institutional sources of Wilson’s power were many. Wilson’s credibility was undoubtedly underscored because the DMA was in some respects democratic. Wilson, and the other four agents (two more agent positions were created between 1911 and 1913) sat on the executive along with another nine (rising to twelve in 1912) lodge representatives for one-year terms, with half of the lodge representatives being replaced every six months. (No lodge member of the executive could stand for election to it again for a year afterwards). The executive dealt with day-to-day business, but bi-monthly DMA councils were (theoretically at least) the DMA’s main decision-making body. DMA council meetings voted on motions put by both the executive and lodges. The last council meeting of each year was the annual meeting, and this took ordinary council business as well as overseeing the election of all agents. While Wilson failed to secure a rulebook change making all agents permanent in 1893, their annual re-election was,



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 55

for a number of reasons, ordinarily a formality. Annual council also voted on amendments to the DMA’s rulebook and standing orders. Lodges had first to vote annually in favour of altering the DMA’s rulebook in principle; if they did not, no rule changes could be tabled for that annual meeting. The lodges also elected, after 1908, DMA representatives for the Durham Mining Federation Board (DMFB), and delegates to the TUC, Labour Party, and all international conferences.51 Considerable power resided at the top of the DMA. The executive could, and often did, decide to not let lodge resolutions appear at council meetings, for example (albeit always legitimated, no matter how spuriously, by the union’s rulebook). The executive, in turn, was controlled by the agents, all in the thrall of Wilson, a very canny operator. Wilson’s years of experience allowed him to wield skilfully his general secretary’s substantial powers. His well-honed rhetorical and debating skills were able to defuse or deflect the most vigorous of challenges, rendering him dominant in the executive and DMA council. He was also adept at manipulating the rules and steamrollering opposition. Furthermore, he had in the form of his ‘monthly circular’ a personal mouthpiece funded by the DMA, and he could call on substantial financial backing whereas his opponents had to raise their own funds.52 Wilson was also the beneficiary of the enthusiastic and unstinting support of local newspapers like the Durham Chronicle, the self-styled ‘miner’s friend’.53 There was certainly no need to resort to a ‘form of conspiracy theory’ – an accusation Roy Church aimed at Keith Burgess’ critical analysis of Wilson’s firm hold on the DMA – to suggest that those in positions of power in quasi-democratic organisations could find many means to subvert decision-making processes if it suited them.54 Wilson’s dominance of the DMA was a good case in point. Another feature of DMA organisation benefited Wilson (and his liberal approach) considerably. The votes for agents, lodge executive members and other DMA representatives, on all issues raised at DMA council were exercised by lodges. Full individual ballots of all DMA members were rare and only came when, for instance, the DMA voted on affiliation to the MFGB, or for a county-wide strike. After 1884 lodges exercised between one and six votes each for this purpose, accorded proportionately to their memberships; any lodge with 750 members or more possessed the maximum six votes. This arrangement made no allowance for the ever-growing modern collieries and, by 1912, the DMA’s fiftieth largest lodge (with 791 members) exercised the same six votes as the largest lodge, over three times its size.55 The biggest lodges often tended to be more industrially militant and the most susceptible to ILP influence. The ILP was therefore particularly (and increasingly) disadvantaged in terms of voting strength inside the DMA. All this notwithstanding, Wilson clearly continued to represent an important strand of Liberal Durham lodge opinion, albeit (as will be seen) one declining significantly in size, vigour and influence throughout our period. The Durham ILP faced a number of further obstacles in terms of organising campaigns to advance its aims. On a general level, there was the complex and specialised Durham mineworkers’ hierarchy, with specific grades of worker and

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The Great Labour Unrest

shift patterns differing not only between Durham coal companies and individual collieries but even sometimes at different coalfaces in the same pit (discussed above). Durham mineworkers appeared potentially difficult to unite and fairly easy to divide, as the Eight Hours Agreement and then the Minimum Wage Board were to demonstrate to varying degrees after 1909 (see Chapters 3–6). As problematic for an organisation attempting to promote united action on the political as well as industrial planes was a rather parochial cultural tendency among Durham lodges, manifest in a widespread disinclination to involvement in their local trades councils, ordinarily organised around larger towns that contained significant non-miner working populations. Ideally composed of delegates from all the trade unions represented among a given locality’s workforce, trades councils aimed to coordinate trade unionists not only in industrial matters but also in promoting efforts at achieving representation for labour (i.e. not necessarily the Labour Party/ILP). While individual miner activists, like agent John Johnson, were actively involved in trades councils, lodges often remained aloof. Consett Trades Council’s specific appeal for miners’ involvement in November 1911 was rather more typical of the problems trades councils faced in securing such participation, a characteristic still observable in the 1930s. Inter-union disputes – like, for example, one in the Bishop Auckland area that involved DMA members replacing local striking Musicians’ Union members in 1910 – also appeared to belie the notion of a solidaristic organised working class (though lodge demands for support to locked-out boilermakers, manifest in a £300 DMA grant in the same period, suggested otherwise).56 Still, these considerations meant that forging a strong and unified identity that was militant (in the industrial sense) and ‘socialist’ (or at least pro-independence from the Liberals), which identified the coal owners clearly and unequivocally as a class with different interests to those of all Durham mineworkers (regardless of their particular grade, status and place of work), was no straightforward task. Durham also presented the ILP with major and rather specific problems in terms of advocating two of the main planks of its national programme: the eight-hour day and the minimum wage. For the ILP, both of these would be achieved through joint action organised in the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). A third ILP aim was thus to persuade the DMA to join the MFGB. But a statutory eight-hour day in the Durham coalfield threatened to either increase hewers’ hours or force the generally highly unpopular three-shift system on all of the county’s collieries. Neither would be countenanced by hewers in two-shift system collieries, though the eight-hour day stood to benefit the putters and other classes working ten or more hours, supposing that they could maintain their piecework wage levels. Yet, as most of the putters rightly anticipated being hewers for most of their adult working lives, they stood to gain little with the eight-hour day in the short-term and much more potentially to lose in the future. Thus two DMA individual ballots saw very little support for the eight-hour day. In 1892 Durham miners voted 28,217 to 12,684 (69%) against the measure. In June 1903, the vote was 30,841 to 12,889 against (71%).57 This feeling, and the threat



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 57

of unemployment, or of swamping the market with coal that new shift systems implied, meant Durham miners’ leaders vigorously opposed the eight-hour day. Inside Parliament, Wilson joined forces with coal owner James Joicey in speaking against the miners’ Eight-Hours Bill in 1893. Outside Parliament, Wilson argued that if other miners’ districts were as well organised as Durham, there would be no need for legislation through ‘political action’.58 The lodges of the handful of modern collieries that already worked three-shift systems, naturally, saw much less reason to stay out of the MFGB and tended to lead the campaign for affiliation. They argued that the eight-hour day was a small price to pay to affiliate to an organisation that was far better equipped to win what was also the ILP’s second demand; the minimum wage. But here, too, the ILP faced problems. The county’s pre-existing wage-bargaining machinery seemed to obviate some of the need for a minimum wage. Durham’s County Average System acted, theoretically at least, as a minimum wage for every class of worker in Durham’s mines. This was not, however, an individual minimum as the County Average aimed at equalising ‘earnings across seams, not across individual workers’.59 Interestingly, the Durham coalfield actually had (briefly) experienced an individual minimum wage in the late 1870s. This ended when the coal owners demanded (further) wage reductions and a new sliding scale, agreed after they defeated a six-week strike. Subsequently, Durham leaders, and especially Wilson, consistently and successfully resisted demands for a new minimum before 1910, arguing that it was an ‘evil’ that provoked many local disputes. That the minimum wage might drive the smaller, older collieries concentrated in the south and west of the county (often with thinner, or almost worked-out coal seams) out of business was also a major concern. For a generation, the opposition to these policies held sway, making Durham’s involvement in the MFGB in the early 1890s short-lived and controversial. The DMA refused to support a national MFGB strike in 1893, helping to ensure that the action failed and that the DMA’s short affiliation to the Federation abruptly ended. While it voted to re-affiliate to the MFGB only three years later, mistrust still characterised relations. During negotiations in 1897, it became abundantly clear once again that the DMA could not affiliate to the Federation while still opposing its eight-hour day policy.60 Potential Nevertheless, the changing context of the Durham coalfield at the beginning of the twentieth century offered the socialists new possibilities. First, the coal industry in Durham, as elsewhere, had been evolving. Increasingly large and powerful coal companies (like the combines in South Wales) had emerged, heralding a generation of super-rich and powerful ‘coal kings’. By 1913, coal production in Durham was ‘for the most part in the hands of a few large and important companies or private individuals’.61 Foremost among these was the Joicey family, who began with one

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The Great Labour Unrest

small concern, when James Joicey left his profession as a schoolmaster and, with a partner, started to mine coal around Beamish and Tanfield. Joicey died in 1863, with his nephew and namesake taking over. The company was registered in 1886 but remained a private, family-run concern. By 1913, James Joicey & Co., Ltd, worked the coal under about 6,000 acres of Durham in twelve collieries employing around 6,000. They were all well connected by the North-Eastern Railway, allowing transport of coal directly to Dunston Staithes on south Tyneside, or to Tyne Dock further downriver. About 60% of the coal was exported to the continent, with the London gas companies taking a considerable proportion of the rest (western Durham coal was bituminous and therefore excellent for gas-making and coking, as well as for manufacturing and smithy work). The company’s total output of 1.79m tons in 1913 placed it among the top six Durham Coal Owners’ Association (DCOA) members in terms of coal production. Joicey also operated several older collieries, including Alma and Twizell, with lower productive capacities as they dated back to a time when an output of 200 to 300 tons of coal daily was considered very substantial. With their larger seams generally worked out, modernisation in these collieries was curtailed by the narrowness of their main shafts, rendering them more expensive to operate: ‘to extract a layer of coal, say, 2ft. in thickness, involves much expense in removing a quantity of stone in order to give room for the miner to carry on his work – considerations which scarcely arise when a 6ft. seam has to be dealt with’.62 By 1913, however, Joicey also owned a second, even larger Durham coal company. In 1896, he bought out the Earl of Durham’s collieries, steamers and plant for £1m. In 1911, this same concern, Lambton Collieries, merged with another Durham coal company. The new Lambton and Hetton Coal Company Ltd. operated eighteen collieries producing coke, fireclay, bricks and tiles (as well as coal). It employed 16,800 men and boys with an annual wage bill (excluding officials) of £1.18m. It, too, had its own infrastructure: private railways to Sunderland, staithes on the river Wear for disembarking coal onto its own fleet of seven steamers (13,000 tons in total) with about 50% of its total coal output going abroad. The amalgamation allowed Lambton Collieries to consolidate its long-standing position as the single biggest coal producer in Durham (with 4.12m tons produced in 1913, 1.69m more than its closest competitor, Harton Coal Company). Joicey’s power was political as well as economic. He was Liberal MP for the mining-dominated Chester-le-Street constituency between 1885 and 1906 (when he received a peerage). In Parliament, Joicey remained an implacable and vocal opponent of the miners’ eight-hour day; in 1893 he argued that if the State did decide to legislate in the coal industry, it would have to do the same for up to 60% of all British industry. An advocate of extreme laissez-faire, Joicey naturally also opposed ‘socialistic’ workmen’s compensation legislation. It was not only Joicey’s interests that benefited from amalgamations. In 1911, North Bitchburn Coal Company Ltd became a major player with its absorption of the Thrislington Coal Company Ltd. Similarly, Pease and Partners Ltd absorbed South Durham Coal Company in 1903 (its coal output leapt from 1.37m to 1.75m tons per annum as a



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 59

result). Sir Joseph Pease was a member of an influential Darlington Quaker family and Liberal MP for South Durham (re-organised as Barnard Castle in 1885) from 1865 to 1903, with interests in ironstone mining, wool, banking, railways and locomotive manufacturing as well as coal.63 Sir Christopher (later Baron) Furness was a third significant Liberal politician and mine owner in the region. He was MP for the Hartlepools in 1891–1895 and 1900–1910, and owned, from 1899, the Weardale Steel, Coal and Coke Company Ltd (the ninth largest Durham coal producer in 1913) as well interests in other smaller coal companies, including Wingate and Easington Collieries. Most of his extensive business interests were in shipping and shipbuilding, however; he was also one of the largest proprietors of the North Mail, a Liberal halfpenny daily, based in Newcastle. Furness became well known for a co-partnership scheme he initiated in October 1908. His West Hartlepool shipyards’ employees became limited co-partners, allowing them shares in the company paid for by a 5% deduction from their wages. The arrangement saw the creation of a works council comprising equal representation of the men and management, with the sides agreeing not to strike or to initiate a lockout respectively. According to The Times, the experiment was a success: the co-partners’ shares, guaranteed a 4% return, actually returned 9% over the year. This still did not prevent the co-partners from voting 598 to 492 to discontinue the scheme in April 1910, though advocates for co-partnership schemes in collieries emerged during debates over the minimum wage from 1911.64 After 1900, the larger Durham coal companies continued developing the richer coal seams on the county’s east coast, aided by newer engineering technologies. Londonderry collieries, for instance, began sinking two shafts for their new Dawdon colliery in August 1899. The presence of sand and considerable quantities of water in the geology of east Durham made this a very challenging undertaking. In April 1903 contractors deployed the ‘Pœtsch freezing process’, a ‘triumph of engineering as effective as it is novel’ that froze the water in the ground around the shafts.65 Once through the now-frozen sand, the operation was very quick, and by August 1907 engineers had reached the ‘Hutton’ seam, 1,572 feet down and a very generous (particularly for Durham) 5 feet, 10 inches thick. The whole process cost Londonderry a total of £10,000. The area was soon to have 1,000 new colliery houses, to accommodate the new workforce.66 Dawdon began producing coal in spring 1908; when fully operational, it was expected to produce 4,000–5,000 tons of coal daily (the jump in Londonderry’s coal output from 1.48m to 1.64m tons between 1908 and 1909 owed much to Dawdon coming into operation). This output was remarkable. In April 1907, Dean and Chapter colliery, itself a new concern, drew 3,408 tons of coal ‘to bank’ in ten hours’ working, a new record not only in the northern coalfield but for the whole of Britain, beating the previous record by over 100 tons. Its opening boosted Bolckow, Vaughan and Company Ltd’s output from 2.39m to 2.73m tons in 1906, briefly putting it second behind Lambton in terms of DCOA affiliates’ coal production. Another large Durham concern, Wearmouth Coal Company Ltd, saw its output jump from 0.79m

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to 0.95m tons in 1902 with the opening of its new Hylton colliery. Horden colliery was a fourth example of these new, more productive collieries. In summer 1907 it was drawing 1,500 tons of coal per day from two pits with an expected daily output to reach 3,500 tons when fully operational. By 1913 its parent company, formed in 1900 to acquire 16,000 acres of leasehold coal royalties at a cost of £95,000, ranked tenth among DCOA members in terms of coal produced (1.32m tons that year). Other collieries, such as Ouston Winning (Birtley), underwent improvements in this period. In 1907, it had fitted a new winding engine, and new pithead gear and pulleys capable of dealing with increased coal output from a new seam, facilitated by a widened shaft to allow for two ‘cages’. New technology was also boosting production. The regional Inspector of Mines attributed an increase of 1.45m tons of coal dug in 1906 over 1905 in the south Durham district (consisting of about 130 collieries) to the proliferation of coal-cutting machines – 132 in total (seventy-seven running on compressed air, a further fifty-five electric-powered), twenty-seven of these had come into service that year. Development and modernisation continued into the Great Labour Unrest period. Lambton collieries were among the pioneers in the use of electricity in mining; by 1913 it was used almost everywhere in their collieries for hauling, pumping, coal cutting and lighting. Their Lumley New Winning pit (begun in April 1908) ran entirely on electricity (even ‘winding’); unusually, it was a ‘smokeless’ working colliery. As larger collieries were being opened, so smaller ones were coming to the end of their lives. In January 1908, for example, Elvet colliery in Durham City (located where the university’s science site now stands) closed, as it was exhausted.67 The significance of the developments in the Durham coal industry since 1900 should not be overstated, however. Already by 1891, a fairly small group of coal companies – Bolckow Vaughan, Consett Iron Company, Harton Coal Company, John Bowes and Partners, Pease and Partners, Weardale Steel, Coal and Coke Company, South Hetton Coal Company, the Joicey and Londonderry concerns – had emerged as the dominant players in Durham coal. This is illustrated in Table 3. Table 3: Durham coal companies, 1891–1913 Year

1891 1900 1910 1913

Number of DCOA coal companies producing more than 0.5m tons each 18 19 22 23

Total Durham coalfield coal output (million tons) 19.23 21.74 30.27 32.90

Source: Mountford, ‘John Bowes and Partners’, pp. xi–xxi.

DCOA output as % of total Durham coalfield output 50.0% 47.0% 57.5% 58.3%



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 61

As can be seen, after 1900 the number of major DCOA coal producers (0.5m tons or more) grew, and with it their percentage of total Durham coal production. This was due in part to amalgamations but, with a few exceptions, the dominant companies in 1891 remained so over twenty years later; sixteen of the twenty-three major DCOA companies in 1913 also appeared in the 1891 list. Still, they were certainly developing the bulk of the new, larger and more profitable collieries in this period (as well as acquiring others) and, in the process, accumulated the largest profits and paid out the most generously to their shareholders. Coal company dividends exploded in the boom years at the turn of the century. In April 1889 Durham gas coal fetched between 8s.6d. and 9s. per ton; this rose to as high as 19s. per ton by January 1900. In light of this, Consett Iron Company, employing about 6,000 miners and 4,000 in its iron works, paid a 50% dividend in both 1900 and 1901 and an average 34% dividend annually between 1902 and 1906. Similarly, in 1901, North Brancepeth Coal Company made almost £100,000 profit (very close to its capital) and issued a 75% dividend, paying 33.3% annually thereafter. Incredibly, Sir Hugh Bell’s coal company paid dividends of 150% and 100% in 1899 and 1900!68 Of the nine public coal companies in Durham (all among those producing over 0.5m tons per annum by 1913) a total capital investment of £5.75m paid £7.88m in dividends and £3.69m in visible or secret reserves between 1897 and 1910. In other words, in thirteen years these companies paid back oneand-a-half times the initial capital investment, with £0.75m left to further that investment. Paying an average 18.75% dividend between 1900 and 1907, these nine public companies between them owned about one-quarter of Durham’s collieries, and, because they contained many of the newer, more profitable concerns, employed about one-third of Durham’s miners.69 Highly significant in terms of sources of potential discontent for miners was a developing awareness of these companies’ profits and dividends – an awareness energetically (if sporadically) fostered by growing numbers of lodge activists, particularly from the turn of the century (see below). Potentially significant political implications came with the gradual erosion of the paternalism that had served to reduce industrial conflict in the coalfield in the later nineteenth century (the 1892 strike notwithstanding). In 1900, for instance, Weardale Iron and Coal Company, converting from a private to a limited company, announced that it would discontinue a number of its workers’ privileges (including small pensions and allowing widows of those killed in their collieries to stay in their company-owned houses). They justified this action as serving the interests of the company’s 4,000 shareholders. A more aggressive response to miners’ ‘indiscipline’ was evident in, for example, several of the larger coal companies’ (particularly Lambton Collieries) eagerness to pursue damages from their errant workers through the courts for absenting themselves without permission (usually striking without giving requisite notice), as well as various attempts at ‘defrauding’ the owners by, for instance, using false tokens.70 Specific innovations that came

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with a modernising industry also generated disquiet among sections of miners with concerns for their safety. In December 1910, for example, Marsden lodge wanted the DMA agents to ask the owners to stop using electric coal cutters, and to use their influence with the government to pass a law prohibiting the use of electricity in mines for driving any machinery.71 In terms of paternalism, the cultural differences between the newer and older collieries were evident to Jack Lawson, who remarked on the stark contrast as he moved from the bustle of the large, modern colliery at Boldon with no social relations between managers and miners to the smaller, more settled community at West Pelton where lodge officials and managers addressed each other by their Christian names and there was more industrial harmony.72 Even in the Peasedominated Deerness valley, paternalist social relations were coming under serious pressure from the 1880s, with employers’ anti-unionist policies and later insistence on wage reductions precipitating violent and bitter local strikes .73 Indeed, localised strikes, and the 1892 county-wide strike, when the DMA agents temporarily lost control of a membership that rejected their calls to avoid industrial action, revealed that even paternalism and a dominant ethos of conciliation and cooperation could not invariably preclude outright direct and brutal conflict. The tendencies towards fostering more combative relations between masters and men in Durham collieries in the 1890s and 1900s surely offered the militants greater possibilities for advancing a more aggressive politics, in place of the Liberals’ emphasis on shared interests and cooperation. The putative success of such a politics depended, naturally, partly on how the socialists framed their discourse, and on their choice of organisational forms and specific programmatic demands. While the newer collieries often experienced particularly fraught industrial relations, the picture remained complex. Paternalism continued to define, to an extent, even some of the larger coal companies’ behaviour; it was manifest in owners’ support for the Aged Mine Workers’ Homes Association as well as in continued investment in social facilities for miners, even in the newest concerns. For instance, the owners of the new Horden colliery spent £7,500 on a new social club offering its workers various leisure activities. The modern collieries could also adopt other progressive methods. Usworth colliery, for example, instituted its own minimum wage system whereby wages were made up to 1d. below the county average from 1902. The system worked with very little trouble (according to lodge officials) and apparently only added less than 2d. to the cost of each ton of coal produced in 1912, though the coal owners saw things rather differently (see Chapter 4). The Usworth minimum wage also failed to pacify the particularly strike-prone lads among the colliery’s workforce (see Chapter 3).74 Notwithstanding the industrial conflict of the 1880s, the three Pease collieries of Waterhouses, Ushaw Moor and Esh Winning (none of which ranked among the largest 30% of DMA lodges in 1912) were absent from the major political and industrial flashpoints in the Great Labour Unrest period.75 Conversely, as Lawson himself discovered, the relative industrial harmony of



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 63

many of the smaller, longer-established collieries did not automatically indicate barren ground for socialists. A second major contextual feature that potentially aided the socialists was the itinerant nature of much of the coalfield workforce. In the mid-nineteenth century, immigration had been the defining force in Durham, with significant population movements into the coalfield. Between 1851 and 1881, approximately 30% of the growth in County Durham’s population was the result of net immigration (about 150,000 people). The immigrants’ differing religions and cultures naturally altered the complexion of the Durham mining workforce, though the extent to which their status as, on occasion, brought-in strike breakers made integration problematic is contested. Jack Lawson (himself from a Cumbrian family) wrote that his pit village, Boldon, was typical of how ‘Durham had become a sort of social melting- pot’, there could be heard among its inhabitants Lancashire, Cumberland, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Cornish, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Northumbrian and Durham accents.76 By 1911, perhaps 37% of the north-east’s population were born outside England or were children of migrants. The Irish dominated this influx numerically; in 1851 Northumberland and Durham had the fourth highest percentage of Irish-born in their populations in Britain.77 The emergence of a strong, localised vote desiring Home Rule for Ireland played a key role in Durham elections in the Edwardian period. Net immigration halted in the 1880s. The decade after 1901 saw a net loss of 35,000 in the Durham population, about the same as the total of the two previous decades. Thus, by 1911, approximately 70,000 people had left the county since 1881, emigrating to the United States, Canada, South Africa and elsewhere. Emigration was one of the likely causes of the shortage of juvenile labour from the mid-1880s that caused the putters’ age to rise and helped to worsen industrial relations.78 Emigration also had an impact back in Durham; many of the miners’ leaders, both Liberal (Wilson and Cann) and Labour (Peter Lee), had experienced working abroad. Peter Lee was a Durham-born miner who emigrated in 1886, aged twenty-two, to work in mines in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Indiana before returning to Durham a year later. In the US Lee became a miners’ spokesperson, an experience that explained his involvement in his Durham lodge on his return. In 1896, Lee emigrated briefly for a second time, working in South African goldmines for eighteen months.79 Of equal relevance in the post-1881 period was the local migration of mining families of the great northern coalfield between older and newer collieries that, in opening up larger coal seams, offered the prospect of greater earnings. Will Lawther’s experience was typical. When he was born in 1889, Lawther’s mining family lived in the Northumberland pit village of Choppington. They moved to Barrington in 1898, then to Westerhope (both in Northumberland) in 1904. A year later the family were on the move again, this time south to Chopwell in the Durham coalfield, which, as a new colliery, offered bright prospects.80 The Chopwell migrant mining workforce experienced a turnover in population of

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around 30% annually; this contrasted with a workforce turnover of 15 to 20% annually in the smaller, longer-established collieries.81 During the 1926 lockout, Chopwell’s militancy was blamed on this immigrant workforce, though Rob Lee remarked that the ‘militant identities’ of collieries like Chopwell ‘were not weakened by the fact that faces and individuals were constantly changing’.82 In fact, high population turnover, far from presenting an obstacle to militancy, actually helped to fortify left-wing ideas in pit villages like Chopwell. The Lawther family itself was an important example, with the young Will, already an experienced ILP activist, moving into an environment where he met many more like-minded miners. They entered a community with few rooted attachments to the locality, a rather fluid identity – one that those coming in could help to shape.83 Increasing proportions of Durham’s population were born in the county by 1914, but there remained considerable local workforce mobility, only a small fraction of which could register in a census return (given the decade between each one). High population mobility had significant consequences for the culture and politics of the localities most affected by it, as well as for the possibilities for individual miners of securing the franchise. The sheer strength of trade unionism in Durham also presented the ILP with an opportunity. The DMA ranked, in terms of longevity, prestige, size and wealth below no other British trade union. Indeed, in July 1904 the Durham Chronicle dubbed the DMA the ‘strongest trade union in the world’.84 The DMA’s dominance of Durham mining trade unionism meant it dwarfed the three very much smaller unions organising specific grades of mineworker: the Durham cokemen’s, mechanics’, and enginemen’s unions. The three smaller unions organised what were usually surface-working miners. The enginemen, for instance, managed winding, hauling and pumping engines; most of these were on the surface, but some collieries installed hauling and pumping engines underground. (All four Durham mining unions coordinated action through the DMFB, founded in 1878). The DMA and the Northumberland miners were the only district miners’ unions to organise most of the very many remaining grades of surfaceworkers (but not, much to the annoyance of Marsden lodge, the pick-sharpeners).85 In total, surfaceworkers were a sizeable grouping, constituting just over a fifth (21.4%) of the Durham mining workforce in this period.86 They also, by December 1913, apparently provided no greater problem to recruit and retain than did underground workers: one DMA representative estimated (perhaps a little optimistically) that at that time no more than 1% of Durham surfaceworkers remained outside the union.87 Overall, DMA membership was growing steadily and inexorably in this period, from 64,563 in 1899 to 100,412 in 1909.88 Part of this growth was in tandem with a still-growing Durham mining workforce. Even with net emigration from the coalfield, the Durham coal industry’s workforce grew by an average of about 3,700 every year between 1900 and 1909. This was the result of the naturally growing population and was absorbed into the coal industry through intensifying methods and the opening of larger collieries with more labour-intensive shift patterns. This



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 65

process was augmented after 1910 with the implementation of three-shift systems across most of Durham’s collieries (see Chapter 3). The DMA also intensified its grip on this growing workforce. Mining union density was 71% in 1900; by 1910, this figure was around 80% (by which time it was likely that the hewers were near 100% organised).89 A measure of the selfconfidence of the union can be seen in the efforts lodges took to get ‘non-unionists’ to join. In summer 1897, for example, Ouston miners struck over the manager’s employment of non-union men. There was a sustained anti-non-unionist message from DMA agents throughout this period; this was backed up with lodge threats to strike if non-unionists or unfinancial members (those who were not up-to-date with their subscriptions) did not either join or pay their arrears. In 1907, for instance, at least nine lodges handed in their notices to strike on the question, including some that ordinarily enjoyed harmonious industrial relations. In the event, few ended up actually striking. At Ravensworth, for example, all non-unionists joined within six weeks, adding 120 men and twenty-eight boys to the lodge membership and bringing in £35 in extra subscriptions. This nonunionist campaign appears to have intensified after 1910, with the August 1913 DMA council meeting instructing all members to help their lodges get all workers into the association, by conducting strike ballots on the question if necessary. In early 1914, Chopwell lodge even asked the agents to get the coal owners to refuse all men and lads wage rises if they were not DMA members. The effects of this campaign were evident by 1913, when the DMA organised around 90% of Durham miners. Factoring in the three smaller Durham mining unions, the county’s mining workforce was close to 100% unionised.90 This last figure – perhaps rather baldly – illustrates a vital point about the nature of studies of institutions, particularly undermining the notion that researchers need to focus away from the institution in order to appreciate the experience of the ‘ordinary’ worker and their culture (discussed in Chapter 1). The case of the Durham miners in this period nicely demonstrates the artificial nature of the supposed separateness of the culture (the ‘social experience’) and the institution. The DMA’s own culture and practices, from the ‘crakeman’ (who would advertise meetings of the lodge by walking through the village sounding a loud rattle) to the lodge meeting, constituted an integral part of Durham mining culture. Indeed, this culture cannot be fully studied without seeing how it produces institutions and how they then serve to shape and inform it. Every eligible Durham miner had some form of relationship with the institution of the union; the (vast) majority by 1913 regularly paid their dues, almost certainly with varying degrees of alacrity or reluctance. A small proportion of these members were active in their lodges (see below). An equally small percentage fell behind with their dues for various reasons; a similar number remained stubbornly outside the union, albeit periodically succumbing to intense pressure (the threat of a strike). But they all necessarily formed some kind of relationship with an institution that was fundamental to how their colliery operated, to their

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individual experience of work, as well as defining important aspects of their wider social life. With the DMA’s growing membership came increasing funds. The 1892 strike had left the coffers empty, but there were no more official county-wide strikes before 1910, and the level of localised official disputes that required central DMA financial support remained low. In 1906, for instance, the DMA spent just £22 3s. on supporting lodges on strike which was ‘very pleasing ...’ to the agents. The equivalent 1907 figure was over fifteen times greater (£333 18s.9d.), but the agents still regarded this as minimal when compared with their total spending of £103,603 for the year.91 By 1911 the DMA had accumulated funds totalling almost £0.5m. Certainly, the DMA’s size, prestige, influence (regionally and within the MFGB and wider national political scene) and finances truly made it a prize worth winning from liberalism. There were indications, too, of forces among the lodges that the ILP might be able to harness in its cause. Dave Douglass has explored the tendency of some DMA lodges to undertake ‘unofficial’ industrial action in the later nineteenth century and the ways in which lodges involved in unofficial action necessarily came into conflict with the DMA’s central leadership. 92 There were glimpses, too, that some activists influential in the lodges held far more radical ideas in terms of what was both desirable and possible. While his exclusive sympathy with the DMA leadership (and particularly Wilson) rendered Edward Welbourne’s account the polar opposite to Douglass’, even he wrote that, during the 1892 strike, ‘The men in the progressive lodges of the north-east [of the Durham coalfield] were calling for revolutionary action, and were casting out hints of a design to seize the pits, restart the machinery, and work the coal for themselves’.93 The official central DMA records of the early twentieth century reveal little evidence of similar revolutionary lodge plans. Perhaps the closest was Chopwell lodge’s defeated motion to DMA council in October 1906 deeming it ‘advisable to commence a cooperative system of working collieries’.94 Nevertheless, the tendency for certain lodges to clash with the leadership appeared to be growing again, as unofficial strikes began increasing from 1907. By late December 1908, the DMA executive felt compelled to issue a circular urging lodges to go through the correct channels, and arguing that the executive had to enforce the DMA’s rules even though doing so necessarily brought it into conflict with lodges striking unofficially. That these pleas had not worked was evident in similarly worded executive circulars on unofficial strikes issued in February and August 1909. And these still did not prevent ‘the strike epidemic’ from continuing into September. Apparently undeterred, the executive issued yet another anti-unofficial strike circular in November 1909.95 (Only two months later, there exploded the most widespread and serious spate of unofficial strikes the Durham coalfield had experienced in a generation; see Chapter 3.) If the ILP could find ways of marshalling this discontent with the miners’ leadership as well as the coal owners, it stood to reap tremendous benefits. Furthermore, there were cultural reasons for the ILP to be encouraged for, cheek-



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 67

by-jowl with the parochialism and grassroots inter-union rivalry (discussed above) was a strong internationalist facet of the DMA. This was undoubtedly informed by the numbers of Durham miners who had spent time working in far-flung mines across the world. Between 1903 and 1906, for example, the DMA made solidarity grants of £1,000 each to German and then French miners, with another £500 sent to miners in the Transvaal.96 While, as discussed above, the central DMA machinery seemed stacked against an organised challenge to the dominant liberalism, lodge politics offered the ILP opportunities to seek elected positions, using them as a launch pad for mounting efforts to influence central DMA decision-making. All Durham collieries had a lodge attached (sometimes two lodges if the collieries were very big; occasionally one lodge served a number of small collieries). All lodges elected at least three officials to lead them. Usually these were a chairperson or president, a secretary and a treasurer, though many lodges divided the secretary’s post into two, and some elected deputies for some or all of their officials. Some lodges elected, at sixmonthly intervals, literally dozens of activists for positions of various importance, from lodge delegate (to the DMA council, for instance, and normally mandated on most votes rather than awarded a ‘free hand’) to crakemen.97 The main lodge officials occupied positions of considerable responsibility and influence and were in some cases remunerated accordingly. In Chopwell lodge, for example, for a short period the secretary’s position involved dealing with colliery compensation claims, finances, agreements and correspondence, and came with a salary paid by the lodge that was close to the county average. Unsurprisingly, there was considerable interest in the election for the post, in which 700 lodge members participated and which saw Frank McKay, who held ‘advanced political and social views’, but who kept himself separate from ‘cliques and political parties’, elected.98 The Chopwell full-time secretaryship was an unusual and demanding job; by summer 1911 McKay had resigned the post due to over-work and it was subsequently divided into several part-time posts once again.99 Nevertheless, the officials of many lodges still received some form of remuneration for their important (part-time) work. Another crucial full-time post was that of checkweighman, who ensured that the miners were paid correctly for all the coal they hewed and transported; they literally checked the weight of the coal mined, as it arrived at the surface in tubs. Checkweighmen were elected by a ballot of all lodge members, and the successful candidate was remunerated by the lodge – in order to avoid the possibility of the colliery managers putting pressure on them – at a rate around the county average. To be elected checkweighman was a significant achievement demonstrating a very high degree of trust in the candidate from ordinary miners.100 Being a checkweighman was also a position from which an activist could ‘do effective work for the elevation of the miners’.101 Checkweighmen and lodge officials (some checkweighmen also held a lodge official position) were invariably the leading figures in the trade union politics of their collieries. Their local standing

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usually privileged them in terms of nominations to elected DMA positions on the executive, and as representatives for the union. The Chopwell example above was significant for a second reason as it was emblematic of a wider process of the democratisation of lodge politics in the Edwardian era. A ballot of Chopwell’s full membership had chosen its lodge officials, which was a new innovation. Traditionally, lodge officials had been chosen by a show of hands at a meeting. That this more democratic method could help young ILP activists get onto the lodge committee was evident in the case of Will Lawther, who claimed to have been one of the first to benefit from a full ballot when elected as Chopwell lodge delegate.102 The extent to which this practice was spreading is difficult to gauge, but by August 1914 six-monthly full lodge membership ballots elected officials in Marsden and in at least eight other lodges.103 These more democratic lodges tended to be larger and therefore – potentially at least – more influential inside the DMA, and were concentrated in the northern and eastern areas of the coalfield. They were also where the ILP was often strong anyway, so it is highly likely that this process was brought about – or at the least supported by – its influence. Democratisation also seemed to enhance and embed the control of ILP activists within these specific lodges. More generally, Durham lodge politics have been rather maligned by some commentators. Tony Mason, for instance, remarked that lodge meetings were held in pubs, ‘when they were held at all’, implying a culture of insobriety, apathy, disengagement and unaccountability.104 The empirical evidence does not support this caricature, which parrots the contemporaneous view of the selfrighteous teetotal miner activist.105 Traditionally, pubs often made convenient meeting places in the absence of other options. Furthermore, certainly by 1910, increasing numbers of lodges were building their own purpose-designed halls for all their business (and some leisure) activities, though such efforts were necessarily expensive and often required the aid of central DMA. For example, central DMA made loans to Horden (£2,000) and Marsden (£1,200) lodges for their building projects in June 1911. (Central DMA loans for this purpose were not always forthcoming; see Chapter 4).106 Claims about the low levels of involvement in the day-to-day running of lodges held some truth, however (see Chapter 6). It is nevertheless abundantly clear from the records of moderate and militant, small and large lodges alike that a core of activists regularly devoted a significant proportion of their scant leisure time (normally unremunerated save for out-of-pocket expenses) to ensuring that Durham lodges ran their diverse and demanding schedule of regular business effectively. While the extent to which the newer collieries adopted more democratic internal decision-making methods is unclear, such methods often correlated with more abrasive dimensions to colliery industrial relations, which necessarily placed further pressure on DMA agents’ conciliatory methods. Dawdon lodge, for instance, struck over the provision of colliery housing (the usual problem of some occupants apparently not being made to wait their turn) in January 1909.107



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 69 Agency: ILP activists and activities (to 1905)

Agency was crucial, too. In testing conditions, the ILP needed dedicated, intelligent activists rooted in their lodges and communities to capitalise on the promising features of their changing context and the possibilities afforded them for advancing their politics. Durham ILP attracted a number of such individuals, born in the three decades after 1860, and rising to positions of official prominence within their lodges. By the late 1890s, many were starting to get elected by the lodges to the DMA executive as well (see Table 4). Table 4: Key Durham miner ILP activists (in age order) Name

Year Place of born birth

Checkweigh- Lodge man? official?

Central DMA

Whiteley, Sam Robson, James

1849

Brandon A (1885) Broompark (1890); Bear Park (1900–1911)

On executive On executive (from 1897)

1860 County Durham

Ryhope (1900 on)

Ryhope lodge committee (1879); secretary (1887)

Lee, Peter

1864 County Durham

Wheatley On Hill delegate executive

Barren, Robert

1864

Wingate (1893); Wheatley Hill (1902 on) Cornsay (1890)

Gilliland, James

1866 County Durham

Lintz Green colliery, Burnopfield (1897– 1907) Ouston E (Birtley) (1912 on)

On executive On executive (from 1901)

Public bodies

Broompark RDC (1894); Durham Board of Guardians (1898); County Council (1901) Ryhope Parish Council (1893); Sunderland RDC (1904); County Council (1901) Easington RDC (1907); County Council (1909)

On executive (from 1897)

Richardson, 1862 County Robert Durham

Cornsay Secretary (1890)

Particular Labour/ILP work

1907–1912; full-time Labour agent for Chesterle-Street constituency

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Name

Year Place of born birth

Checkweigh- Lodge man? official?

Batey, Joseph

1867 Northum- St Hilda berland (1897 on)

Richardson, 1868 County Thomas Durham

Washington (1894–1910)

Herriotts, John

1874 South Wales (miner)

Binchester (before closing in 1908); then Windlestone

Swan, John

1877 County Durham (father engineer)

East Howle (1904– 1912); Delight Pit, Dipton (1912 on)

St Hilda (South Shields) lodge president (1888), lodge secretary (1892)

Central DMA

Particular Labour/ILP work

Public bodies

On executive (from 1901)

South Shields Board of Guardians (1894); South Shields Borough Council (1896) On Key role in Washington executive establishing School (from Durham ILP Board 1898); branches; (1890); second in Durham and Usworth DMA agent NorthumParish elections. berland’s Council 1897 and representa(1894–1896); 1900 tive to ILP Chester-leNational Street Rural Administra- District tive Council Council (1906); part- (1894 time Labour –1910); agent for ChesterChesterle-Street le-Street Board of constituency Guardians; (before 1907); County Labour Council MP for (1904) Whitehaven (from 1910) On Joined ILP County executive in 1890s; Council very active (1907) in south of County Durham On Secretary of Annfield executive Dipton ILP Plain Urban (from (from 1904) District 1909) Council (1907)

Source: BLPES, ILP 12/1/1, Reports of 1905 (pp. 59–78) and 1906 ILP annual conferences (pp. 6–7, 76–87); The Times, 7 December 1910; 8 September 1934; Blaydon Courier, 13 July 1912; Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 26 July 1912; Durham Chronicle, 26 July 1901; 26 April 1907; 3, 10, 17 May 1907; 7 June 1907; 20 September 1907; 22



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 71

July 1910; 13, 27 January 1911; 3 February 1911; 24 March 1911; 8 September 1911; 12 April 1912; 20 March 1914; Saville, ‘House’; Bellamy and Mason, ‘Lee’; Mason and Nield, ‘Batey’; Potts and Saville, ‘Richardson’; Saville, ‘Herriotts’; Bellamy and ‘Espinasse, ‘Swan’; Mason, ‘Gilliland’; Bellamy and ‘Espinasse, ‘Richardson’.

As well as advancing inside the DMA, many of these ILP activists also began winning elections to public office. By the early 1890s various institutions of local government, including county councils, urban and rural district councils (with powers over planning, housing and education), parish councils, school boards and boards of Poor Law guardians (providing support for the sick, very poor and unemployed), all offered potential for advancement and influence. In practice, all except school boards and perhaps parish councils were difficult for ILP activists to secure election to in this period, but there still developed certain ILP local government strongholds. These included, unsurprisingly, Chester-le-Street Rural District Council, covering an overwhelmingly mining area with the ILP influential among local lodges. Elections to it returned five ILP miners in 1904 and 1907, and six in 1910. (The much less mining-oriented area covered by Durham Rural District Council, by contrast, yielded one definite miner ILP councillor in the whole period before 1914). Similarly, in 1913, the ILP endorsed nine of the total of thirteen miner candidates for Chester-le-Street Urban District Council; seven of the ILP members were returned, with one of their number, Eli Cook, elected chair. Progress was slower, however, in Durham County Council. In 1901, James Robson and Robert Richardson became two of only three Labour or socialist county councillors (the third was J.W. Taylor, secretary of the Durham Mechanics’ Association), of a total of seventeen miners’ representatives on it. Still, 1904 saw an improvement with twentyone miners’ representatives returned, including at least five ILP activists.108 Four more, younger ILP activists were to become particularly significant in different ways to events after 1910. The first was W.P. Richardson (born 1873), the younger brother of Thomas who, in August 1885, started work in the same mine that their father had been killed in (along with forty others) only five months earlier. He was the driver of a pony that was the only living thing to survive the explosion. Elected secretary of Usworth lodge in 1898, W.P. Richardson helped to form Usworth ILP branch in 1902 and was chair of Gateshead ILP district by 1910. As a lodge official, W.P. Richardson became an early expert on the minimum wage, implemented in his colliery in 1902.109 The remaining three activists all availed themselves of the new opportunity to expand their educational horizons provided by Ruskin College and, after 1910, at the Ruskin breakaway, the CLC. The first was Jack Lawson. Born in 1881 at Whitehaven, to a miner, he moved with his parents to Boldon colliery, Durham, in 1890. He started work aged twelve as a ‘trapper’ boy (operating safety trap doors underground), eventually working at all the main jobs underground. By 1905, Lawson was assistant checkweighman at Boldon and an ILP member; he was soon lodge delegate. He had already undertaken evening classes and, in

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1906, and after six weeks of a correspondence course, he was offered a six-month residency at Ruskin. With the help of his parents and friend Canon William Moore Ede (a dean at Worcester Cathedral from July 1908), Lawson managed to secure sponsorship, eventually spending eighteen months in Oxford. This honed Lawson’s rhetorical skills; he even represented the college in a debate at the Oxford Union over relations between the industrial classes.110 Another Durham miner studying at Ruskin at the same time as Lawson was George Harvey, a hewer at Handen Hold colliery, which was, like Alma and Twizell, situated in West Pelton and also owned by Joicey. (In contrast to the other two collieries, though, Handen Hold Old Pit was worked with very modern machinery and drew some 4,300 tons of coal daily).111 Four years Lawson’s junior, Harvey had, like Lawson, spent his early political life as a moderate ILP member. While both came into contact with more revolutionary ideas at Ruskin, Harvey’s radicalisation, probably under the influence of Marxist tutors W.W. Craik and Noah Ablett, took him away from the ILP and towards the de Leonite SLP (Ruskin tutor Noah Ablett’s political affiliation at that time).112 By contrast, Lawson became more deeply involved in ILP/Labour politics on his return to the Durham coalfield, evident when he became election agent for Pete Curran, Labour candidate for Jarrow in the January 1910 general election.113 However, Lawson certainly made lasting friendships with Ruskin students of a more revolutionary political bent and they must have had some influence on his politics before the Great War. While he was not at the college in 1909 when the student strike was on, Lawson was not entirely antagonistic towards it. He condemned the students’ choice to strike, but, reading between the lines in his correspondence, it seems that he favoured a reopening of an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the strike and even the reinstating of the principal Dennis Hird, whose forced resignation Lawson regarded as a mistake.114 Lawson and Harvey’s time at Ruskin coincided with a significant (but not, it transpired, irreversible) decision in the DMA. In January 1907, DMA council endorsed an executive proposal that the union fund up to four Ruskin students annually. Prospective candidates for the DMA scholarships had to be aged between twenty-one and thirty-four and display a desire for the improvement of their fellows. By August 1907, the executive was poised to choose from twenty-eight nominees, sending the lucky four to Ruskin for one year from that month. The costs of £52 board per student per year were to be shared, with the DMA paying £25 per year and the college supplying the rest. This was keenly taken up. In 1909, for example, the DMA’s expenditure included the full £100 to Ruskin College. A rule change in December 1909, however, ended this central DMA funding.115 The most significant Durham miner CLC student of the period was Will Lawther. Four years Harvey’s junior, Lawther had also begun his political life in the ILP. In 1911, Lawther’s trade union activities brought him into contact with George Davison. From a humble background, Davison had become a civil servant and then a pioneer of photography and Kodak shareholder. Davison’s alleged lack of business acumen helped force his resignation from the Kodak board in



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 73

1912, but his political activities were likely to have proved more damaging to his career. A disciple of the anarchist Peter Kropotkin, Davison, a millionaire, funded a variety of revolutionary projects including the nascent CLC in 1910. Lawther himself was writing enthusiastically about the CLC from late 1910 and, aided by funding from his lodge and family, he attended the college for an academic year from October 1911, with thirty other students. At the CLC, Lawther received a largely Marxist education.116 Ablett’s role – Lawther later deemed him ‘the greatest of all pre-war Marxists’ – was probably crucial; Ablett’s own politics had changed since he had taught Harvey at Ruskin in 1908.117 By late 1911, Ablett had rejected the SLP’s dual unionism and gravitated towards Mann’s less doctrinaire, but more ‘anti-political’ syndicalism.118 Education in Ruskin or the CLC enabled these Durham miners to come into contact with novel ideologies that influenced them to greater or lesser extents. While this form of education afforded those who experienced it the opportunity to choose careers away from the mines – an issue that sparked some heated debate among northern miners – Lawson used his Ruskin contacts as referees for elected positions in the industry on his return to the coalfield.119 Lawson’s ‘good ability, industry and perseverance’ rendered him an ideal candidate for a ‘responsible’ position, and he was duly elected checkweighman at Alma colliery, near Chesterle-Street in 1910, after unsuccessfully standing for the post in collieries like Horden in 1909.120 This was quite an achievement; Lawson was the only nominee from outside Alma colliery permitted to go into the first ballot, and he won the final ballot with a majority of seventy-five out of a total vote of 135. More significantly, Lawson was very young to be a checkweighman; he had effectively leap-frogged many older men to the position.121 Being educated away from the Durham coalfield was clearly integral to the political development of these three activists. Nevertheless, the importance of this specific and rare educational experience should not be overstated. Several other Durham miners who also attended Ruskin in this period did not become especially prominent in union and local party politics on their return; conversely, many other activists did not need to attend Ruskin to assume leading positions in the coalfield’s movements and conflicts. A specific aspect of Lawther’s ILP activity affords a route into another important area of debate. Lawther recalled a Chopwell ILP indoor meeting at which two local miners, Vipond Hardy and Harry Bolton, both ‘sincere members of their chapel and opposed to us’, attended.122 After some close questioning of the ILP speakers, both Methodists readily joined the party. In fact, Methodism was usually as significant to ILP miner activists as it was to their Liberal counterparts (of the ILP activists named above, only Robert Richardson was an Anglican). James Gilliland, the Richardson brothers Jack Lawson and Peter Lee were all Methodist lay preachers. In exactly the same way as the Liberal DMA agents, the influence of specific forms of Methodist belief also varied among the ILP members. Robson, for instance, was of the Methodist New Connexion, while the majority were, or became, Primitive Methodists. Lawson and Lee (about whom Lawson later

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wrote a biography), shared an experience with political foes like John Wilson and Galbraith in that they all underwent some form of Damascene conversion, rejecting their earlier lives of heavy drinking and gambling (in Lee’s case; Lawson was always teetotal). Lee’s conversion was complete by 1897, when he was aged about thirty-three. Lawson’s came around 1901, aged about twenty, when he became, like Harry Bolton, a Wesleyan Methodist. Thus Peter Lee, for example, could happily second a DMA resolution at the annual gala moved by the agent Galbraith condemning gambling and drinking as ‘evils’ and urging miners to think more and drink less. A Methodist desire for self-improvement was manifest in a passion for education for most of these activists, who, having ordinarily begun work aged twelve or younger, became voracious readers, pursuing some form of continuing education in their scant spare time.123 James Gilliland’s Primitive Methodism, for instance, made his plea for education ‘a central theme of his early political demands’.124 How did these ILP activists’ religion affect their politics? The relations between nonconformism and socialism were certainly complex. On a theoretical level, radical forms of Methodism more compatible with, or formally advocating, types of socialism emerged in this period; for example, Primitive Methodist R.J. Campbell’s ‘new theology’, or the ideas of the Welsh Christian socialist Hugh Price Hughes, which emerged from Wesleyan Methodism in the late nineteenth century. More radical again was the contemporary Christian socialist S.E. Keeble (who opposed the Lib-Lab pact, for instance).125 On an individual level the complexities of relations between the various strands of Methodism and socialist politics proliferated, yet it seems likely that the ideas of Campbell, Price Hughes and/or Keeble had been directly influential in terms of some individual activists’ ideology. Henry Bolton, for example, developed a friendship with Price Hughes, though the extent of the latter’s personal influence on Bolton can only be speculated.126 Similarly, Thomas Richardson became a close friend of Campbell, who, in May 1908, drew a crowd of several thousand to a service he led in Bishop Auckland; the turnout was such that several other services with Campbell were organised in the locality. This work completed, Richardson then took Campbell to address an ILP mass meeting.127 In Lawson’s case, religious conversion came at around the same time – precision is difficult as Lawson’s autobiography is unclear – as he began to read socialist literature. His becoming a lay preacher immediately preceded his joining the ILP in 1904, aged twenty-three.128 However, several commentators have claimed that this religious base necessarily meant Lawson’s politics were always moderate. Joyce Bellamy and David Martin deemed Lawson ‘a good example of the reformist and constitutionally minded working man without militant attitudes, whose approach to social questions could indeed be justly said to owe more to Methodism than to Marxism’.129 Similarly, Duncan Bythell claimed that ‘Lawson’s socialism was always more sentimental than scientific’, being based on pragmatism, patriotism, and moderation.130 Yet, as is demonstrated in later chapters, Lawson’s politics in the Great Labour Unrest period were rather more



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radical, aggressive and complex than these claims, based only on Lawson’s later and better documented career, suggest. Lawther’s two Chopwell Methodist converts, while both becoming significant local socialist activists, responded rather differently to their erstwhile religion in light of their political conversions. Bolton maintained his Methodism, but it did not dim his newfound socialist fervour – quite the opposite. In 1919, for instance, and after supporting conscientious objectors during the Great War, Bolton persuaded visiting revolutionary organiser, atheist and Labour college tutor T.A. Jackson to talk on ‘Isaiah the Bolshevik’ to his local Methodist Brotherhood grouping.131 Bolton became a significant coalfield radical in the inter-war period and Will Lawther’s right-hand man in organising the area during the 1926 General Strike and miners’ lockout. He remained entirely supportive of the Soviet Union, briefly joining the CPGB in 1928 and attacking the DMA during the Second World War over its aid to Finland after the Soviet Union’s invasion. Yet Bolton also remained a staunch practising Methodist throughout his life, retaining conservative social values that sat uneasily with his brand of socialist politics.132 In sum, the various strands of Methodism informed in different ways the ideologies of both the Liberal miners’ agents and their ILP rivals in this period. The ILP/Labour activists who were Wesleyans were just as likely to be ‘socialist’ in a radical way as were those who aligned with the New Connexion or Primitive Methodism. Furthermore, posing the stark dichotomy of Methodism or Marxism does scant justice to the highly complex relationships between ideology and religion as they were reconciled, or not, in the political formations of individual activists. Finally, it is noteworthy that religious belief did not inform the politics of all the ILP Durham miner activists of this period. Vipond Hardy, Lawther’s other ILP convert (and in stark contrast to Bolton), rejected his religion and became a militant atheist, using his intimate knowledge of the Bible to debate with his believer comrades.133 Other than that, John Herriotts had no strong religious affiliations for most of his life, while Will Lawther, whose family all ‘went to chapel as a matter of course’, also rejected religion early in life.134 These cases were, of course, unusual; the vast majority of even the younger, more militant socialists retained strongly held religious beliefs, rendering them, and their politics, to some extent immune to scaremongering claims made by Liberal agents of the threat posed by atheistic socialism (see below). Overall, the ways and the extent to which individuals’ Methodism affected their socialism were immensely varied and need to be studied, as much as the evidence allows, on a case-by-case basis. It is facile to attempt to read the specifics of individuals’ understanding of socialism from knowledge of their Methodist beliefs and practice.135 As well as energetically organising ILP branches and addressing ILP meetings, these activists produced some brilliant written propaganda, much of which revolved around the minimum wage. Batey, for example, while a member of the DMA executive, condemned the Durham wages system and argued for a minimum wage in a 1904 pamphlet.136 Thomas Richardson, working with Newcastle-based

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accountant John Walbank (they had gone to school together), pointed to the massive profits being made by the major Durham coal companies in a pamphlet of 1909. This work first appeared as a series of articles in the Northern Echo, a Darlington-based regional newspaper, in 1908.137 Indeed, the local press offered ILP activists a significant propaganda outlet, regularly reprinting verbatim their circulars and reporting their meetings, often including details of speeches given. Langley Moor ILP branch, for instance, proclaimed in 1907 that the Durham Chronicle was on its side (and in spite of its bias towards Wilson’s position). Similarly, ILP activist George Jaques – a Primitive Methodist checkweighman, president of South Pelaw lodge, near Chester-le-Street, and involved in the ILP from the late 1890s – also dubbed the Durham Chronicle ‘the pitman’s paper’.138 This made particular sense in Jaques’ case as for many years the newspaper published his letters debating local issues such as sanitation, housing and the DMA’s rulebook, as well as national issues like nationalisation and the eight-hour day.139 The older core of these activists soon became central to the ILP’s work inside the DMA. In June 1898, Batey, John Storey of Birtley (who converted to the ILP from the Liberals around 1894 and had worked in America) and Robert Richardson were among the speakers at a lodge-organised meeting at Usworth.140 They discussed themes that would become very familiar in subsequent years. Most important was wages, with demands for a 15% raise to keep pace with rising coal prices. Batey called for a minimum wage. Second, the meeting criticised the DMA’s organisation, which was regarded as considerably behind the times ‘seeing the gigantic advance made on the side of capital’.141 These activists wanted more power over their union representatives, including on the DMFB. By spring 1900, ILP lodge activities were evolving into a full-blown rank-andfile movement. Six months earlier, the radicals had failed to prevent the revival of the Conciliation Board. With the agents’ full support, reintroduction was endorsed by a very narrow vote of 20,149 to 19,569.142 In March 1900, twenty-seven lodges met at the invitation of Marsden (in South Shields). As coal prices were growing to record levels, these lodges now demanded a 20% wages advance, as well as the raising of the 1879 basis by 20%. The meeting condemned the Conciliation Board, a ‘peace at any price institution’ that had agreed low wage advances, and sought a DMA ballot on its abolition.143 Finally, the meeting also proposed the abolition of the DMA executive’s power to keep lodge motions off the council agenda. By August 1900, the nascent organisation was calling itself the Durham Miners’ Reform Association (DMRA). It had by then also evolved a way of introducing the minimum wage firmly into its demands; Batey proposed that the basis of all classes of miners’ wages be raised ‘and the same to be a minimum’.144 This and other DMRA demands, including the need to address the inadequate house rent allowance, were reiterated at Thornley in May 1901.145 The DMRA had, however, moderated its demands by March 1901. Its meeting at Hamsteels, Quebec, made no mention of the minimum wage or reforming the



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DMA, but instead agreed to demand annual holidays. It also agreed to try to change the Conciliation Board’s rules, rather than abolish it outright.146 Throughout this period, the movement remained fairly small. While several lodges were new to involvement in 1901, and thirty-seven lodges were present at at least one of its mass meetings, attendance still remained at between only eleven and fifteen lodges at any one meeting. The boom year for wages was 1900: by November they were 6% above their previous highest point. But they soon began to fall again, and the DMRA’s public activity seemed to reflect these vicissitudes. Nevertheless, the DMRA had allowed for individuals like Batey, its leading figure, to come to the forefront among Durham rank-and-file activists. With a power base in St Hilda lodge – as an official from 1888, and checkweighman from 1897 – Batey was first elected onto the DMA executive in 1901. The DMRA was the public face of the ILP-led movement. Its mass meetings passed resolutions committing lodges to pursuing the movement’s agenda inside the DMA. With wages beginning to fall fast in 1901 (by 12% by April) unofficial strikes increased rapidly. As Welbourne and David Howell pointed out, anger at declining wages provided a particularly favourable context for the ILP (though in 1907, and from 1911 wages failing to keep pace with rising coal prices also created favourable conditions for ILP-led rank-and-file movements).147 The clamour grew for the protection that affiliation to the MFGB appeared to offer. Lodges began to pursue the DMRA agenda more concertedly inside the DMA, proposing affiliation to the Miners’ Federation at council meetings. The slump also made the argument for a minimum wage more salient again, and in June and September 1901 DMA council endorsed Hamsteels lodge motions calling for an increase in the basis wage (to 5s. for hewers), that would also constitute the minimum wage. The agents refused to act on this, however, and other ILP initiatives foundered without lodge approval. A Washington lodge effort to secure DMA affiliation to the LRC was defeated that August, and the assault on the Conciliation Board, initiated by Wardley lodge, also faltered inside the DMA. In autumn 1902 Wilson rebuffed another request that miners’ MPs should join the independent Labour MPs, including Keir Hardie.148 In 1900, Wilson had simply ignored the formation of the LRC in his monthly circular.149 Yet Wilson seemed to be struggling against the tide, not least when the radical lodges hit upon another means of imposing their political will on the DMA: by altering the union’s rulebook. At the December 1902 annual meeting, rules were added or amended that allowed DMA support for ‘Labour candidates’ (Rule 3, Object 8), DMA affiliation to the MFGB (Rule 3, Object 10, albeit only after receiving the ‘approval of Council or County’), a ‘living wage for all workers in and about the mines’, and an eight-hour day (Rule 3, Object 11). While Wilson was chastened by this experience, these new rules altered very little concretely, and overstated the ILP’s strength; the lodges were still compelled to submit motions on the self-same issues for the endorsement of DMA council in subsequent years.150 This endorsement often proved elusive: there were repeated defeats for proposals

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(from Hebburn, Houghton and Spen lodges) to join the MFGB and to affiliate to the LRC (from Washington and Spen lodges) between 1903 and 1905. In April 1904, several lodges, led by Batey’s St Hilda, failed to get DMA council to commit to the minimum wage (on Batey’s new formula of 30% above the 1879 basis). A proposal to abolish the Conciliation Board was defeated in June 1904 but in September the ILP appeared to have won a significant victory. A St Hilda motion linked the Conciliation Board and minimum wage issues together, calling for the termination of: the present Conciliation Board, unless the Owners agree to a minimum wage of not less than 50% [note the further increase in demand] upon the 1879 basis; and the Owners also agree to an investigation by a small committee of representatives of Miners and Owners into the scale which regulates wages with prices ... for the purpose of ascertaining whether the present relationship is fair and proper.151

Although it was passed by DMA council, Wilson still found room for procrastination in the apparent implications of its wording. The potential impact of the support for ‘Labour candidates’ (1902) rule change was also subverted, by lodges as much as Wilson. In February 1904 Hobson, a radical lodge, stated that this rule meant that John Johnson could not, as he intended, stand as a Liberal candidate in Gateshead at the forthcoming general election. Wilson disagreed, arguing that the rule required an increase in ‘labour’ representation and that this could come through the Liberal Party. Hobson lodge proposed that if Johnson did run as a Liberal he should receive no DMA election funding or MP’s maintenance allowance and be asked to resign as agent if elected to Parliament. But this was defeated by lodge vote at DMA council. A follow-up Hobson motion aiming to clarify the thorny issue of DMA parliamentary candidates running independent of Liberal and Conservative parties was ruled ‘Out of Order’ in June 1904.152 Perhaps incensed by this, in 1905 the radical lodges began to pursue their internal reform agenda, to alter the DMA’s machinery in order to better control the agents. They advanced several specific proposals. For instance, in February 1905, Hobson lodge suggested that the executive be prevented from making any agreements with the coal owners until they were submitted to all union members for approval (this was defeated). At the same meeting, Chopwell wanted the executive to disqualify any individuals who were assisted onto the executive itself or the Conciliation Board by ‘pre-organised cliques’. There were attempts to regulate the numbers sent on DMA delegations, and to change how delegations were chosen, in order to empower lodges. Wilson countered by securing, in December 1905, support for his recommendation that there be no rule changing unless lodges expressed a desire explicitly to do so in a vote in the June preceding an annual meeting. This new rule gifted Wilson yet another means of stifling lodge discontent.153



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Though ILP initiatives were largely curbed inside the DMA, an indication of the party’s growing influence in the coalfield was the increasing numbers of socialist speakers among the four invited to the Durham miners’ annual gala, when around 100,000 miners and their families flocked to the racecourse in Durham City one Saturday every July. Speakers at the gala’s two platforms were required to address a formal motion penned by the executive. The audience’s endorsement, demonstrated verbally or by a show of hands, was then sought and anticipated. Crucially, lodges proposed the names of prospective speakers for the miners’ ‘big meeting’ and then voted for four to be invited. (After 1909, the names of the most popular eight candidates went before a second lodge ballot). This measure of influence was a crude one, however, as lodge ‘slip votes’ were inevitably skewed increasingly against the larger and generally more radical lodges (see above). Furthermore, as the Durham Chronicle suggested in July 1904, there was a degree of conservatism in these choices as the same speakers were often chosen year after year, before the practice of disbarring speakers who had appeared the year before was instituted after 1908.154 Finally, it was apparently ‘widely thought’ that lodge officials decided which gala speakers to vote for, as there was little wider interest in the question.155 Nevertheless, the four most popular speakers still afforded some approximation of the political complexion of the DMA’s membership at any given time, though they did not invariably all actually appear at the gala. (If any among the top four could not attend, an individual voted among the next four would be invited in their place). Before the 1890s, there were isolated cases of non-Liberal radicals invited to speak; the anarchist Peter Kropotkin in 1882 and trade unionist and SDF activist Annie Besant in 1884, for example. The first regular ‘labour’ speaker was John Burns, a veteran of the new unionism dockers’ struggles of the late1880s and an SDF pioneer who appeared in the 1894 and 1895 galas.156 But Burns’ apparent impact paled in comparison with that of the incendiary Tom Mann, who spoke at his first gala in July 1897. A young Mann had worked in a pit before becoming a skilled engineer, union activist and socialist, working as a paid SDF organiser in the Newcastle area in 1887. After achieving national standing as a labour organiser during the 1889 dock strike, Mann led the dockers’ union and joined the ILP.157 By 1897, Mann had long been an advocate of the eight-hour day, and it was not surprising that he used his first gala appearance to attack the DMA agents for their opposition to it, and thereby ‘backing up the capitalistic forces of the country’.158 Mann was back again in 1898, once more the main draw for the crowd and again attacking the Durham leaders, this time for refusing to join the MFGB as well as for allowing surfaceworkers and boys to work more than eight hours a day. The scene was repeated in 1899 and 1900.159 In 1901, Mann increased the friction by attacking Wilson and Johnson by name for voting against the eight-hour day at an international conference in London. The platform chairperson, DMA agent William House, reprimanded Mann, to which the audience reacted with loud

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uproar. Mann defended himself, claiming, ‘It was perfectly understood that he should not be there if the officials [DMA agents] could prevent him (hear, hear)’.160 House pointed out that Wilson had been mandated by the DMA to vote against the eight-hour day. A small mercy, perhaps, for Wilson was that Mann emigrated to New Zealand in late 1901. The more amenable John Burns replaced him as independent Labour’s main representative speaker at the galas of 1902, 1903 and 1904.161 Thus, the 1904 gala motion’s assertion of classic economic liberalism, that cycles of boom and depression were ‘beyond the control of men’, remained uncontested from the official platforms.162 The year 1905, however, saw the main ILP leaders, including Keir Hardie and Phillip Snowden, appearing on the gala platform for the first time, along with Will Crooks MP and local Labour men Arthur Henderson and J.W. Taylor. The political tensions among the gala crowd, so evidently keen when Tom Mann had been speaking, resurfaced with renewed vigour. By then there were also several ILP activists present on the gala platform, individuals like Batey, Robson, Lee and Robert Richardson, in their capacity as DMA executive members. Furthermore, the ILP also had official permission to use the gala platform for its own meeting after the main event. Chairing this post-gala ILP meeting, Thomas Richardson announced that, while stimulating interest in the Durham ILP ‘had been very uphill work indeed’, that he could address such a large gathering made it worthwhile. According to Richardson, the men and women in the County Durham party’s ‘large numbers of branches’ all ‘counted for something in their immediate districts in so far as intelligence and moral worth was concerned’.163 The Durham ILP’s high tide? (1906–1909) The modest local electoral advances for Labour to 1904 were mirrored by limited parliamentary progress. Most notably, Arthur Henderson won Barnard Castle in a 1903 by-election. In the 1906 general election, Labour or independent Labour representatives contested four of the twelve seats containing significant populations of Durham miners (10% or more). Henderson held Barnard Castle (30% mining population) and J.W. Taylor took Chester-le-Street (50% mining) from the Liberals (it was Joicey’s old seat). In Jarrow (20% mining) and two-seat Sunderland (10% mining) Labour was defeated in straight fights with Liberals, who, in total, won ten of the twelve seats.164 A further boost came in the Jarrow by-election, prompted by the incumbent Liberal (and shipping magnate) Sir Charles Mark Palmer standing down. Pete Curran, the Labour candidate, won the seat in a three-way contest in July 1907. The Conservatives, who came second, claimed that the Irish Nationalist candidate took the large Catholic vote, while the ‘colliery districts’ went Labour.165 Aided by the appointment of Matt Simm as regional organiser in 1905, the ILP was in rude health by 1907. The Chester-le-Street constituency, which included not only the ILP-dominated lodges in the immediate environs of the eponymous



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 81

market town, but also those such as Chopwell in the north-west, was a particular party stronghold. There are, however, no reliable figures available for ILP membership in the Durham coalfield specifically, in part because it constituted a section of a larger ILP organisational region. The number of Durham coalfield ILP branches reached over 100 by 1914, but these differed markedly in size and activity levels, both of which could fluctuate considerably even over short periods of time.166 The sometimes dramatically altering status of individual ILP branches was evidence of their reliance in many cases on the energies of a handful of individuals (or sometimes just one). Nevertheless, there is evidence of ILP organisation and activity in 1907, with regular branch discussions, as well as open-air public meetings held throughout the county. Matt Simm was often an invited speaker (the topics of meetings tended to be on some aspect of socialism) and he opened new branches in Edmondsley (June) and Stanley (August), with New Brancepeth expected to host a new branch in the near future.167 Naturally, there were places where the ILP was not making such rapid progress. A local ILP activist remarked bitterly in autumn 1907 that ‘the working men of Willington like whisky better than principles’.168 This was particularly curious as, in April 1907, Willington ILP had been in celebratory mood over its local election successes. Indeed, in the 1907 county council elections, the ILP became the majority force among the elected miners’ contingent, although the Liberals still controlled the council and the vast majority of ILP seats were in uncontested wards.169 More important ILP activists of a younger generation, including Herriotts, Swan and Lee, now sat on public bodies. The year 1907 also saw public conflict between Liberals and Labour intensify at the miners’ gala, with considerable crowd disorder and heckling from supporters of both sides. Phillip Snowden criticised the Liberal government over pensions and inaction on the obstructive House of Lords, concluding that he could not support the gala’s formal motion congratulating the government on its achievements. Embarrassingly for the Liberal DMA agents, when the motion was put to the crowd, only ‘a few hands’ went up in support, with ‘a number’ held up against it. This forced the platform chairperson to appeal to the audience to carry the ‘despised’ resolution!170 Such was the controversy that the DMA executive ended the practice of producing a motion for the gala crowd to endorse. This move appeared to have worked in 1908, as the gala, meeting at a time of slump in the coal trade (and with Henderson and Snowden invited speakers once again), was a far more sedate affair. Another rule change, excluding lodges from electing speakers who had attended the previous year, came into effect for 1909.171 This was presumably aimed at limiting the appearances of the increasingly irritating (for the agents) Snowden and Hardie, though of course it also impacted on other nonLabour gala regulars, like maverick seamen’s union leader Havelock Wilson. Even then, almost half the gala speaker nominees for 1909 were still from the left. The rule change also served to throw up some new gala speakers, including at least one who promised to be as, or more, troublesome. This was the unorthodox socialist

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Victor Grayson, whose candidature at Colne Valley parliamentary by-election, which he won in 1907, had been opposed by the national ILP but endorsed by his local branch.172 In 1909, Grayson became the first of a new breed of Durham gala speaker. Inside the DMA, the radical lodges maintained their democratising agenda. They registered displeasure of the Liberal agents in other ways, too. In April 1906, Hobson lodge led opposition to a suggested DMA testimonial for John Wilson, though its proposal that a majority should vote to decide the sum offered him was rejected. In December 1908, East Stanley proposed (unsuccessfully) a reduction in the agents’ wages by £10 per annum, and a year later Bearpark suggested various rule changes to empower the lodges over the executive. The executive simply ruled them all ‘Out of Order’.173 These initiatives seemed ill-coordinated and rather scattergun which, coming up against a steadfast executive, suggests at least part of the reason for their failure. The two main prongs of the ILP’s challenge to economic liberalism – abolition of the Conciliation Board, and introduction of the minimum wage – were both pursued with renewed vigour after 1906. That year several lodge attempts to pass motions to abolish the Conciliation Board were voted down in DMA council or ruled ‘Out of Order’ by the executive. In December 1906, however, Washington Glebe’s motion seeking its abolition got onto the agenda and was carried. In 1907, the pressure on the Conciliation Board continued, but the minimum wage demand also re-emerged more strongly as ILP activists spearheaded a new campaign. Similar to its turn-of-the-century predecessor, the context was the Conciliation Board’s failure to award the miners their requested wage advance (they were awarded 3.75% after requesting 5% in February 1907), despite a coal price boom.174 This coincided with a national initiative, as a conference in London (including MFGB-affiliated and non-affiliated districts like Durham) agreed to campaign for a single national basis rate for wages, regarded as the first step in bringing all miners into the Federation. Durham ILP activists Jos Batey and Thomas Richardson were present, clashing with Lib-Lab representatives from the Northumberland Miners’ Association (NMA). Northumberland official William Straker remarked that he did not want ‘war’ with the coal owners. Richardson responded that if conference’s aims were to be effected, ‘like it or not’, it meant war.175 A week later, on 18 February, Batey, speaking at Tantobie, called for the abolition of the Conciliation Board, which had awarded Durham the lowest advances of all the coal districts since November 1906. Batey’s lodge, St Hilda, argued in a circular to all Durham lodges that a boom in the coal trade meant ‘a boom in profits’.176 The circular invited the coal owners to show the DMFB their books, so that the miners might know exactly what rising coal prices meant for profits. The new Durham campaign was officially launched on Saturday 6 April 1907, in the same place as – twenty-eight years and a day previously – Waldridge Fell miners had met to initiate a six-week strike in a failed attempt to prevent the



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old basis from being decreased by 10%. Specifically, the campaign demanded an increase of 30% in the 1879 basis for all classes (which for hewers meant a new basis of 5s.8d.). Theoretically, all Durham’s miner leaders were now supporting the national campaign on the issue.177 The campaign soon began in earnest; there was a conference (of eleven lodges) in Birtley in mid-May and mass meetings on two consecutive Saturdays in June. There were twenty-five DMA lodges, and mechanics, cokemen and enginemen’s lodges also represented at West Stanley, while 3,000 attended the June mass meeting in Birtley.178 Speaking there, ILP activist John Storey claimed that profits on the miners’ labour were ‘vastly greater’ than twenty years previously and that it was ‘high time’ workers received a greater share. Batey went further, arguing that the 30% larger basis they were demanding should also be the minimum wage.179 That DMA council had passed a Morrison motion for a minimum wage fixed at 30% above the 1879 basis as early as 26 January 1907 lent their position significant weight. In late June and July, a Durham ILP delegation was holding meetings around the coalfield to report back on a second national miners’ conference on the campaign. Yet, while there were further apparently well-attended meetings in South Hetton and Wheatley Hill in autumn 1907, the campaign appeared to be running out of steam by the summer.180 Some were critical of the agents’ apparent lack of interest in the campaign. Wilson himself had admitted that the problem of the MFGB’s minimum wage ‘could be got over’, implying he was open to being convinced of it.181 But this did not prompt his active involvement in the 1907 campaign. A speaker at the campaign’s West Stanley meeting in June complained about the agents’ absence when ‘they had such an important question to discuss that day’.182 Not everyone blamed the agents, however. The Craghead lodge representative maintained confidence in their leaders, claiming that the campaign’s real problem was ‘apathy’ in the lodges.183 Tensions within the DMA were evident at the gala in July 1907, when Batey delivered a rousing speech on the campaign’s demands. The response of the platform chair, House, about the need for Batey to be ‘consistent and let them have the fireworks at the right time and place’ revealed the agents’ unease about the campaign.184 The gala was particularly awkward for Wilson, who bore the brunt of his audience’s anger over the low wage advances and who felt compelled to offer a defence of the Conciliation Board. The miners’ leaders’ apparent inactivity on the Conciliation Board had drawn the ire of the campaign’s more militant section. At the Birtley meeting, Thomas Richardson deplored the ‘almost entire absence of driving power’ on the Conciliation Board. The ‘rank and file of the movement’, Richardson argued, needed to assert its ‘independence of thought and action’ and develop a ‘forward policy’ to take full advantage of the prosperity, before the trade cycle took it for another decade.185 As a member of the Conciliation Board, Richardson found himself in a rather invidious position, one which Batey was to share when he too was elected to the Board later that year.186 Worse still, the campaign itself was divided over what

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to do about the Conciliation Board. One faction proposed merely amending its functioning. But this was at odds with what DMA council had actually democratically agreed in December 1906 (and this before the disappointing wages advance of February 1907). The younger militants, like Thomas Neville (checkweighman at Bewicke Main, Birtley), argued that the miners ‘could not hope for better times until the selling price of coal was regulated by wages, and not wages by the selling price of coal’, thereby inverting the Conciliation Board’s modus operandi and agents’ economic liberalism.187 By the summer, however, attacks on the Conciliation Board had ceased. A 7.5% advance in August 1907 meant wages had increased by 12.5% since the beginning of 1906. They advanced again by 6.25% in November 1907. This must have dampened enthusiasm for the Conciliation Board’s abolition and it was staunchly defended, unsurprisingly, by Wilson (arguing after the May 1907 advance that wages were at least 8.75% higher than they would have been under the old sliding scale). The voting on the Washington Glebe Conciliation Board motion in December 1906 was fairly even (255 for abolition, 220 against and 154 abstentions). Wilson claimed this gave no clear mandate for action and orchestrated a second ballot, cunningly splitting the voting by offering a third option – amendment of the Conciliation Board. This third option, as Wilson must have hoped, received the most votes (350 to 154 for abolition and only 15 to retain the Board). But even then Wilson did not act, and the Conciliation Board continued as before, entirely unchanged. Finally, the rank-and-file campaign also lost focus in summer 1907, as the Trimdon Grange dispute over housing (discussed above) rose rapidly up the campaign’s agenda, to some extent deflecting it from its frontal attack on economic liberalism. This also helped to further alienate the agents from the campaign, as Trimdon lodge was in conflict with them, evident in the 1907 gala crowd’s anger towards Wilson.188 The leadership of the 1907 movement was much as it had been at the turn of the century, with Batey, Thomas Richardson, Storey and Robert Richardson all still prominent. But new ILP activists had emerged as rank-and-file leaders too, people like James Gilliland and Thomas Neville. Peter Lee emerged later in the campaign, as it turned towards more domestic concerns (miners’ housing). In general, the 1907 campaign was short-lived; its fairly sporadic meetings did not occupy many column inches in the local press. It suffered from a confused relationship with the DMA’s leaders, who theoretically supported it, as well as with its own activists who were often sitting on bodies like the Conciliation Board and the DMA executive with which it voiced (some) dissatisfaction. It seemed unable to galvanise fully the substantial lodge support evident in the vote that had passed the 30% wage demand before the campaign even started. Yet, the 1907 campaign was to serve as a useful dry-run for the larger and more militant rank-and-file movements after 1910. Furthermore, the Conciliation Board soon came back under fire again, as 1909 saw another concerted assault on it through DMA council. Felling’s motion to abolish it was, however, defeated in May’s council meeting. This allowed the



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executive (essentially Wilson) to rule ‘Out of Order’ no fewer than thirty-five lodge motions calling for the same thing six weeks later.189 The campaign for the eight-hour day continued to struggle inside the DMA after the Liberal general election landslide of February 1906. An East Tanfield proposal to hold a ballot on the eight-hour day was defeated later that month, just two days after the new government’s Coal Mines Bill (also called the Eight Hours Bill) received its first reading in Parliament. The same fate met the same proposal (this time from Hebburn lodge), put to October’s council meeting. In Parliament, Wilson spoke against the measure in February.190 In May 1906, he again opposed the Bill in Parliament as the miners ‘dreaded a revolution in the conditions of labour which would lead to a dislocation of the trade in the two Northern counties’.191 While claiming that he did not speak for the owners, Wilson did quote approvingly a circular from the North of England United Coal Trade Association, ‘which put the case very fairly, showing how the mines in these counties would be specially affected by the provisions of the Bill’. Wilson was concerned that its solution of two shifts of hewers (each served by a separate shift of boys and other workmen, all employed for eight hours from bank to bank) would be unworkable as there was an insufficient supply of workers aged under fourteen coming into mining to fill the two boys’ shifts. True to his ideology, he also complained that the Bill ‘would only enforce the workmen’s point of view, while that of the owners was left out altogether’.192 In general, Wilson opposed the interference of the Commons when men had the power to combine. He argued that the matter be left to the unions, pointing out that in the last three years the DMA had negotiated a reduction in the working hours of 1,000 Durham boys and was presently in discussion with the owners over reducing the working hours of boys aged under sixteen to eight per shift.193 Accordingly, Wilson condemned Hardie’s and Snowden’s calls from the gala platform for Durham to support the Eight Hours Bill in July 1906.194 He then provided evidence to a Commons departmental committee in March 1907, claiming that the law would herald ‘turmoil and conflict’.195 The Commons committee reported that various factors could militate against the damaging economic effects of a shorter working day, including improvements in labour efficiency, the use of more machinery, more multiple shift systems and an increase in outside labour flowing into the collieries. An immediate advance in prices, wages and the demand for labour were anticipated to be the legislation’s inevitable consequences. Wilson claimed this vindicated his request for ‘elasticity’ in the legislation. In September 1907, Wilson again criticised the Eight Hours Bill, claiming that anything having an impact on coal production could strengthen the hands of Durham’s foreign coal competitors. Problematically for miners seeking to present a united front, the Bill also splintered Durham mining union solidarity as the 2,500-strong Durham enginemen’s union’s early support for it divided the DMFB.196 As in 1893, Wilson found himself making similar arguments to the Durham coal owners Lord Londonderry and the Earl of Durham. In their case against the Bill,

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they firstly argued that the hewers would have to work eight hours a shift under the Act (an increase of eighty minutes or more per shift). If the hewers did not consent to this lengthening of their working day, then their wages would have to be reduced. The owners claimed that they could not afford otherwise. Londonderry complained that the Bill would curtail the freedom of adult miners to choose the hours they worked each day. Worse still, he also argued that the legislation would force the owners to institute the three-shift system, with its exceedingly unpopular night shift, across the board. (This was an unwelcome development, as far as the miners were concerned, away from the Coal Trade Association’s demand for a modified two-shift system). The putters and other lads who stood to gain in terms of reduced shift length (from ten to eight hours), apparently neither needed nor wanted ‘humanitarian’ intervention. They were apparently neither overworked nor ill-treated. They were happy working longer hours and were well remunerated; the October and November 1908 return to the Coal Trade Association in Newcastle showed eighteen-year-old putters earning between 17s.1d. and 36s.2d. per week. The lads were healthy, strong, proud, independent and capable of taking care of themselves. ‘These putters’, Londonderry remarked, ‘if they do not agree with the prices given, will not hesitate to come to those who employ them and inform them that they will leave the pit idle unless they are given a minimum wage of 5s. a day.’197 They worked ‘only’ a fifty-two-hour week and their task was much less arduous than the hewers’. ‘These youths sit on the limbers, and their ponies do the rest’, the Earl of Durham remarked, adding that the lads were better off working ten hours a day for five years ‘serving an apprenticeship’ as, when they became hewers, their working day was much shorter. Offered a shorter working day, they would in any case only waste their extra ‘time in the open air ... I may tell the House that when above ground they spend most of their time playing football and cricket.’198 According to the coal owners, an eight-hour day for putters meant they would earn less, but their health would not be improved by a reduction of one or two hours work per day, nor would mine safety be improved. Londonderry averred that he would ‘give every shilling I have in the world if I thought it would prevent the loss of the life of a single man in my pit’.199 Indeed, he claimed that safety would be jeopardised by the eight-hour day, which would encourage them to hurry the windings (transporting miners up and down the mine shaft). Overall, of the approximately 95,000 Durham miners in 1908, 44,000 were hewers who stood to have their working day increased. Only 22,000 were putters or other lads who would have it decreased. Taken together, the Bill would have the effect of increasing the average working day in Durham collieries. Coal output was also expected to suffer; the Earl of Durham reported that the manager of one of the most important collieries in Durham anticipated a full 20% reduction in output. He also pointed to the outrage of Yorkshire and Derbyshire coal owners that the north-east districts had been given an extra six months to adjust to the Act. In this time they were expected to produce cheaper coal and steal market share from those districts implementing the Act earlier. Increasing



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 87

costs and lower output would increase the price of coal by almost 20%. This in turn would damage all the other myriad industries dependent on coal, as well as the coal industry itself, which was also highly dependent on the fuel. Furthermore, a higher coal price would have a negative impact on British coal’s competitiveness in the international market, allowing coal from Germany, France and Belgium to take global market share. The legislation entailed massive disruption to the long-established and efficient working patterns in Durham, the value of which the government’s own departmental committee had recognised explicitly. Both Durham coal owner peers warned that the ‘revolution’ the eight-hour day entailed would cause considerable turmoil and dissatisfaction at the least, and could even provoke a general strike in Durham.200 Replying for the government, Lord Lucas noted that the current Durham twoshift system collieries had hewers working a total of fourteen hours and putters for ten, leaving four hours each day when the collieries were working but no coal was being transported underground. Citing a mining expert, Lucas pointed out that two shorter shifts of putters would transport more coal and consequently increase overall coal output by 10%. In terms of hours worked and safety, Lucas, accepting that it was difficult to find conclusive evidence, nevertheless pointed to the longer hours and far higher percentage of accidents in South Wales collieries when compared to Durham’s shorter working hours and far lower accident rate. The Earl of Crewe rejected claims about increased costs to consumers and pointed out that many collieries had spent large sums of money to improve winding and hauling arrangements in preparation for the Bill becoming law.201 They might also have pointed out that the three-shift system would inevitably increase coal production. The Durham owners were, however, correct to predict that turmoil was to come. Perhaps surprisingly, Durham’s socialist miners were by no means unanimous in their responses to the legislation. ILP activist Richard Hunter (Littletown) pointed out that surfaceworkers were excluded. As the Act would only benefit the lads and stood to take much from the hewers, so Hunter urged the northern miners to act with their Labour representatives in Parliament to amend it. Similarly, George Jaques commented on those excluded, pointing to the Bill’s lack of clarity. He also highlighted the problems arising for those finishing their shifts: they could easily be delayed underground (waiting for ‘sets’ of coal tubs to pass, for instance) and be fined if out late. Alternatively, they might, if they miscalculated or were unlucky, get out ten minutes early and be liable to dismissal. Jaques ‘and many more’ had long advocated the eight-hour day, but never the lengthening of any working hours and he would not support any measure that promised to do just this. He was, however, convinced by several essays written for a competition that working hours in Durham could be reduced to eight while leaving those already working fewer hours as they were. Non-aligned socialist Frank McKay authored one of these apparent solutions, arguing that there was no need to change from the traditional two-shift system in order to reduce working hours.202 Jaques himself

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would develop his own proposed modified two-shift system in 1910. Other socialists, however, took a different tack. Willington ILP, for example, staged a debate; ‘Should Durham miners support the eight-hour day?’ in August 1907. The Rev. David Pughe, a Wesleyan Methodist and branch activist, argued in the affirmative, that shorter shifts would allow the lads more time for education and self-improvement. ILP miner Robert Barren countered that the Durham miners did not believe in going to Parliament to have their hours re-adjusted – ‘They believed in doing it for themselves’ – and that an Act of Parliament would merely lengthen most miners’ hours.203 By the time of the July 1908 gala, Durham miners had had to accept the inevitable. House was upbeat, claiming that the predictions of ‘all kinds of dreadful things’ that the Act would bring, including the ruination of the coal trade, were ‘bluff, cant and humbug’.204 The miners must resist any attempt to increase hewers’ hours, he asserted. Wilson advised the crowd to trust their agents, ‘who would see that they did not suffer in consequence’.205 In December 1908, Wilson called for compromise and conciliation over the Act’s operation. Yet the agents ignored calls to consult with lodges over how the Act might be implemented in the most advantageous way for their members, with disastrous consequences (see Chapter 3) .206 The complexities of the eight-hour day notwithstanding, there had emerged, from the late 1890s, an ILP-led ‘radical’ lodge alliance within the DMA. Among the most active in this informal arrangement were many of the coalfield’s largest lodges, from Chopwell in the north-west of the coalfield, along the south Tyneside collieries (Heworth, Felling and Wardley) to Marsden and St Hilda in South Shields, then those to their south at Boldon and Washington, Usworth and Wingate. The alliance grew inexorably with the developing coal industry strengthening it; the lodges of new collieries along the North Sea coast like Dawdon, Horden, and Easington (when it became operational from 1911) were soon controlled by militants – ordinarily identifiable ILP activists – and quickly became integral to this alliance.207 It seemed that with each new colliery that opened after 1900 – Dean and Chapter was a significant, partial, exception – the balance within the DMA tipped further away from the Liberal agents and towards the socialist activists. Before 1907, the radical lodge alliance was influential enough to place pressure on the agents but it did not have the clout to effect significant change inside the DMA. On the eight-hour day, the alliance had required the State to enforce change that it never seemed likely to win majority support for in Durham. This changed, however, with its first major success arriving in late 1907, when DMA members voted to join the MFGB. This development had appeared inconceivable only a few months earlier: in March 1907, Hedley Hope lodge’s motion to join the MFGB was apparently defeated by such a majority on a hand count that no formal lodge vote was taken. Yet, by October there had been a remarkable turnaround, with Durham lodges supporting, for the first time, holding a full membership ballot over affiliating to the MFGB. The ballot result was announced in early December: 47,986 in favour to 18,963 against, a creditable 5:2 majority, with two lodges



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 89

abstaining.208 The NMA had voted the same way a year previously. Now there was certainty that the eight-hour day was coming, the main reason the northern miners’ unions had for estrangement from an institution with a good track record for its members had disappeared. The vote suggests that individual Durham miners were, on this issue, perhaps more progressively inclined than many of their lodge leaders; by July 1909 Durham lodges were already unanimously supporting (on a full membership ballot) proposed MFGB solidarity strike action with the Scottish miners against wage reductions.209 Joining the MFGB promised to tip the balance decisively in another of the socialists’ struggles; orienting the DMA firmly towards the Labour Party and away from the Liberals. Again, efforts to effect this through the DMA before 1907 had proved, at best, inconclusive. Roddymoor and Dunston lodges both failed to secure DMA affiliation to the LRC at DMA council in April and October 1906.210 In September 1906, the agents offered their thoughts on this contentious issue to the press. Wilson was adamant that ‘the majority of Durham miners are not socialists’ and that, as a ‘democratic’ body, the DMA ‘must be ruled by the wishes of the majority’. He also remarked that there were many in the LRC who were not socialists and that Hardie was ‘not an overwhelming power’ in the party. Johnson claimed that, ‘so far as socialism means a negation of religious belief. ... it would be a peril to the nation’. He was ‘not afraid of socialism ... every belief that does not possess vitality and is not based on truth and justice must inevitably perish’. Cann echoed Wilson, saying he would be sorry if the DMA were ‘captured’ by the socialists, but ‘that is not likely to happen without a struggle’. Like Johnson, he mentioned the case of a few ‘advanced men’ and the ‘religious question’: ‘It would indeed be a disaster if the county were in the hands of men with atheistical tendencies.’ House, by contrast, declared himself a socialist but, curiously, added that ‘under present conditions it would not be reasonable nor right for trade union funds to be used for socialistic propaganda’.211 This apparent confidence about the socialists’ comparative weakness in the DMA was soon to be shaken, as lodges voted in the December 1906 annual meeting in favour of changing the DMA’s Rule 3, Object 8. This came at the suggestion of Lintz Green lodge and passed, only after considerable debate, by a majority of fifty-six.212 The amended rule committed the union ‘to support Labour candidates, independent of any political parties’.213 Gregory regarded this as a victory for advocates of independent labour representation and a consequent defeat for Wilson, even though it still did not firmly commit the union to positive and exclusive support for the Labour Party itself.214 It certainly did throw doubt on the DMA MPs who were Liberals, however, including John Johnson. The DMA informed Gateshead Liberal Association that Johnson would not be allowed to cooperate with them at the next general election. In response, Gateshead Liberals decided to choose their own candidate for the seat. The Liberal-supporting Durham Chronicle, fearing that a three-way contest would hand Gateshead to the Conservatives, argued that the Liberals should only reject Johnson, a ‘good friend’, if the MFGB affiliated to Labour.215

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MFGB affiliation to Labour was not long in coming, as the Federation invited its affiliates to vote on the issue in early 1908. But the December 1906 DMA rule change came to haunt its architects. The Northumberland miners duly voted in favour in May 1908, and Wilson’s Lib-Lab MP counterpart in Northumberland, Thomas Burt, subsequently stated his intention to stand down at the next election, rather than stand as a Labour candidate.216 The same choice apparently faced Wilson. Eternally guileful, Wilson claimed that he would have held the Durham members’ ballot on affiliation but doing so would contravene the DMA rule stipulating that the union’s candidates were to be supported independent of political parties.217 In early July 1908, Wilson managed to get lodges to vote for an executive motion to leave ‘the facts connected with the vote of the federation re joining the LRC [sic.] and the construction of the rules’ to the executive itself.218 Accepting the dominant Wilson’s argument, the executive then ruled out holding the ballot on affiliation to Labour. This did not prevent the former radical Liberal agent, William House, from converting to Labour, but it did render Wilson’s own status as a DMA MP who refused to take the Labour whip highly ambiguous, just as he had wanted. In difficult circumstances, Wilson had managed to engineer a situation of confusion, placing himself in a relatively strong position.219 Lodges still voted, on an executive initiative, to provide financial support to the Labour MP for Chester-le-Street, J.W. Taylor, after the ending of the present Parliament. But they also seemed reluctant to assert themselves more in party political matters inside the DMA. So, in July 1909, for instance, the lodges rejected Chopwell’s idea of expressing their opinions on increasing the union’s parliamentary candidates for the upcoming general election.220 Nevertheless, the DMA’s opaque constitutional position remained unsatisfactory for the ILP lodges. At the December 1909 annual meeting, lodges supported, after considerable discussion, a Bearpark proposal to alter Rule 3, Object 8, once more – for the DMA to run parliamentary candidates exclusively ‘in conformity with the rules and constitution of the Labour Party’.221 There now appeared to be no room for equivocation on the issue and it precipitated an ‘interesting and delicate situation’ for Wilson, the individual most affected by the change.222 Wilson himself was in no doubt over the implications of the rule change, but he remained defiant, voicing three objections: first, that he could not refuse to stand on a Liberal platform as he had been a Liberal all his life; second, he refused to be bound to support all official Labour candidates regardless of their character and, third, he rejected the required pledge of ‘good conduct’, as he felt that he had displayed forty years of such already. Wilson consequently refused to sign a declaration that he would abide by the new rule and asked the DMFB to pay his election expenses nevertheless, as it always had. He announced his intention to stand again for MidDurham, brazenly anticipating another walk-over in the constituency and ‘no opposition from any quarter’.223



Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 91 Conclusion

The January 1909 executive elections saw ILP activists Batey, Robson, Swan, Storey and John Peacock all elected. William Palmer, hitherto a fixture on the executive and a well-respected negotiator with a strong local support base, unexpectedly failed to get elected, apparently because he remained a Liberal.224 This and the December 1909 rule change taken in isolation suggested that the tide was running fast away from Wilson and that the ILP was on the verge of a breakthrough. And yet Wilson’s continued defiance – in a position from which he could not be dislodged – suggested that Labour still had some way to go to replace the liberalism he embodied in the coalfield with an ideology that firmly rejected liberal economic notions and the politics that accompanied them. Indeed, the relative successes of the socialists in getting the DMA into the fold of the MFGB brought their own problems. With the apparent conversion to Labour of former Liberal agents like House, the more moderate elements within the Labour Party were strengthened. This development merely complicated further the ideological and generational division within the Labour challenge to liberalism in the coalfield as an older generation of ILP activists, including people like Robson and Batey, were being joined by 1910 by a younger generation of emerging grassroots leaders. This included activists like Jack Lawson, who were far less likely to have come to the ‘socialism’ and the ILP through liberalism. The younger generation were soon to be presented with opportunities where a more militant and aggressive stance offered possibilities for the advancement of their politics and themselves. Another level of complexity came with a fourth, and even (slightly) younger grouping of ILP activists who, like George Harvey, had moved (or would move) more firmly towards explicit revolutionary politics. In the fallout of the political, industrial and social upheaval in the coalfield in 1910, the syndicalists, too, were presented with opportunities to further their political projects. Notes 1 Daunton, M.J., ‘Down the pit: work in the Great Northern and South Wales coalfields, 1870–1914’, Economic History Review, 34:4 (1981), p. 579. 2 Durham Chronicle, 28 July 1899; Emy, H.V., Liberals, Radicals and Social Politics 1892–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), p. 56. 3 Rowe, J.W.F., Wages in the Coal Industry (P.S. King, 1923), pp. 40, 42; Jevons, H.S., The British Coal Trade (Trowbridge: Redwood Press, 1969), pp. 354–364; Welbourne, E., The Miners’ Unions of Northumberland and Durham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923) pp. 165–166, 170–176, 190–191, 293–303; Wilson, J., A History of the Durham Miners’ Association, 1870–1904 (Durham: J.H. Veitch and Sons, 1907), pp. 132–159, 178, 202–203, 297–316; Clegg, H.A., A. Fox and A.F. Thompson, A History of British Trade Unions since 1889 Vol. 1: 1889–1910 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), pp. 19–20, 23, 103–104.

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4 Durham Chronicle, 28 July 1899. 5 For various graphs depicting Conciliation Board awards related to the old sliding scale in this period, see appendices in Metcalfe, G.H., ‘History of the Durham Miners’ Association, 1869–1915’ (Durham: unpublished typescript, 1947). 6 Durham Record Office (DRO), D/DMA 82, Conciliation Board, 24 December 1909; 4 January 1910 (special meeting); 6 May 1910; Rowe, Wages, p. 40. 7 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 30 July 1904; The Times, 17, 20 May 1912; 19 July 1912; Durham Chronicle, 14 June 1907; 11 November 1910; Daunton, M., ‘Miners’ houses: South Wales and the Great Northern Coalfield, 1880–1914’, International Review of Social History, 25:2 (1980), pp. 143–175. 8 Daunton, ‘Down the pit’. 9 DRO, NCB1/CO/86 668, ‘Return as to houses or rent and coals’, August 1913; Durham Chronicle, 8 September 1911; Evening Chronicle, 27 May 1912; Welbourne, Miners’ Unions, pp. 243–247; Rowe, Wages, p. 56; Douglass, D., Pit Talk in County Durham: A Glossary of Miners’ Talk Together with Memories of Wardley Colliery Pit Songs and Pilking, History Workshop Pamphlet No. 10 (Oxford: Ruskin College, 1973), p. 35. 10 Norman Emery’s thesis provides an excellent discussion of the work of various grades of Durham miners, both above and below ground: Emery, N., ‘Pease and Partners and the Deerness valley: aspects of the social and economic history of Waterhouses, Esh Winning and Ushaw Moor’ (MA thesis, Durham University, 1984), pp. 81–101. 11 DRO, NCB1/CO/86 668, ‘Return as to houses or rent and coals’, August 1913. 12 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/641, ‘Houses, rent and coals, married and single men all classes above and below ground’, April 1912. 13 Report of HM Inspector of Mines for the Northern Division, 1913 (Harrison and Sons., 1914), p. 6; Durham Chronicle, 16 August 1907; 22 April 1910; 29 March 1912. 14 Welbourne, Miners’ Unions, pp. 257–258, 304. 15 The Times, 23 May 1907; Durham Chronicle, 6 September 1907; 17 June 1910; Welbourne, Miners’ Unions, pp. 231–232. 16 Welbourne, Miners’ Unions, pp. 243–247; 258–259. 17 Northumberland Record Office (NRO), 759/B/6, MFGB special conference, 6 April 1912; Annual conference, 1–4 October 1912; Coal Industry Commission, Reports and Minutes of Evidence on the First Stage of the Inquiry Vol. 1 (HMSO, 1919), Q.7434; Blaydon Courier, 14 October 1911; Durham Chronicle, 7 June 1907; 12 January 1912; 11 April 1913; 2 May 1913; Wilson, History, p. 57; Welbourne, Miners’ Unions, pp. 153–154, 247. 18 Miners’ Eight Hour Day Committee, Final Report Part II (HMSO, 1907), p. 164. 19 Durham Chronicle, 17 February 1911; NRO, 759/B/6, MFGB special conference, 20, 22, 23 March 1912, pp. 38–39; Rowe, Wages, pp. 72–73; Treble, J.G., and S. Vicary, ‘Equity, efficiency and insurance: explaining the structure of miners’ wage payments in Victorian County Durham’, Economic Journal, 103:417 (1993), pp. 481–493; Bowley A.L., and M. H. Hogg, ‘Wages and production in a Durham Colliery’, Economica, 9 (1923), pp. 229–235; Treble, J.G., ‘Intertemporal substitution of effort: some empirical evidence’, Economica, new series, 70:280 (2003), pp. 584–585; Treble, J.G., ‘Productivity and effort: the labor-supply decisions of late Victorian coalminers’, Journal of Economic History, 61:2 (2001), p. 417. 20 House of Lords Debates, 27 March 1912, vol. 11, cols 684–691. 21 Greenwell, G.C., A Glossary of Terms Used in the Coal Trade of Northumberland and Durham (Newcastle: Bemrose and Sons, 3 edn, 1888) e-book at www.dmm.org.uk/



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books/terms.htm (accessed 4 July 2015); Treble, ‘Productivity and effort’, p. 417; Treble and Vicary, ‘Equity’, p. 492; Rowe, Wages, pp. 58, 147; Clegg, H.A., A History of British Trade Unions since 1889, Vol. 2: 1911–1933 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), p. 448. Welbourne, Miners’ Unions, p. 269–285. Durham Chronicle, 24 May 1901; 24 May 1907; 21, 28 June 1907; 30 August 1907; 13, 27 September 1907; 9 April 1909; 11 March 1910; Welbourne, Miners’ Unions, p. 299. Durham Chronicle, 9 April 1909; 9 September 1910. Welbourne, Miners’ Unions, pp. 220–221. See also Church, R.A., The History of the British Coal Industry Vol. 3: 1830–1913, Victorian Pre-Eminence (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1986), p. 713; Daunton, M., ‘The export coalfields: South Wales and North-Eastern England, 1870-1917’, in R.W. Sturgess, ed., Pitmen, Viewers and Coalmasters: Essays on North East Coalmining in the Nineteenth Century (Newcastle: NELHS, 1986), p. 148. See Smith, P., ‘Unions “naked and unprotected at the altar of the common law”. Inducement of breach of contract of employment: South Wales Miners’ Federation and Others v. Glamorgan Coal Co. and Others [1905]’, Historical Studies in Industrial Relations, 35 (2014), pp. 33–61. Evening Chronicle, 5, 6, 12, 19, 25, 31 August 1909; 4 September 1909 Durham Chronicle, 12 July 1907; 18 October 1907; 10 September 1909; 1 January 1909. ‘Report on strikes and lock-outs and on Conciliation and Arbitration Boards in the United Kingdom in 1913’ (HMSO, 1914), pp. 78–79B; The Times, 24 December 1908; Durham Chronicle, 1 January 1909. Moore, R., Pit-Men, Preachers and Politics: The Effects of Methodism in a Durham Mining Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), p. 168. See also Jaffe, J.A., ‘The “Chiliasm of despair” reconsidered: revivalism and working-class agitation in County Durham’, Journal of British Studies, 28 (1989), pp. 23–42. House of Lords Debates, 15 December 1908, vol. 198, col. 1516. Biagini, E., Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform: Popular Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860–1880 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 33; Joyce, P., ‘A people and a class: industrial workers and the social order in nineteenthcentury England’, in M.L. Bush (ed.), Social Orders and Social Classes in Europe since 1500: Studies in Social Stratification (Routledge, 2013), p. 207. Wilson, J., Memories of a Labour Leader: The Autobiography of John Wilson, JP, MP (Caliban Books, 1980 [first published 1910], pp. 80, 207–219. Biagini, Liberty, pp. 15, 32. Wilson, Memories, pp. 238–243; Biagini, Liberty, p. 127. Biagini, Liberty, p. 331. Wilson, History, pp. 193–197, Biagini, Liberty, p. 364. Biagini, Liberty, pp. 313–368. Lawrence, J., ‘Popular politics and the limitations of party: Wolverhampton, 1867– 1900’, in E.F. Biagini and A.J. Reid (eds), Currents of Radicalism: Popular Radicalism, Organised Labour, and Party (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 84. Spain, J., ‘Trade unionists, Gladstonian liberals and the labour law reforms of 1875’, in Biagini and Reid (eds), Currents of Radicalism, pp. 109–133. Biagini, Liberty, p. 15. Price, R., ‘Britain’, in M. van der Linden and J. Rojahn (eds), The Formation of Labour Movements, 1870–1914: An International Perspective (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1990), p. 20. Beynon, H., ‘Class and historical explanation’, in Bush (ed.), Social Orders, p. 241.

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43 The Times, 30 December 1910; 25 March 1915; Durham Chronicle, 15 March 1907; 6 January 1911; 26 March 1915; Mason, V., ‘Cann, Thomas’; Mason, A., and J. Saville, ‘Galbraith, Samuel’; Mason, A., ‘Johnson, John’; ‘Espinasse, M., ‘Wilson, John’ all in J. Bellamy and J. Saville (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 1 (Macmillan, 1972), pp. 68–69, 126–128, 197–198, 348–350; Saville, J., ‘House, William’ in J.M. Bellamy and J. Saville (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 2 (Palgrave Macmillan, 1974), pp. 185–187; Mason, T., ‘Wilson, John’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online (accessed 4 July 2015). 44 Beynon, H., and T. Austrin, Masters and Servants: Class and Patronage in the Making of a Labour Organisation (Rivers Oram Press, 1994) p. 348. 45 Durham Chronicle, 22 November 1912. 46 Welbourne, Miners’ Unions, pp. 286–287. 47 Clements, R.V., ‘British trade unions and popular political economy, 1850–1875’, Economic History Review, new series, 14 (1961–1962), pp. 93–104; Biagini, E., ‘British trade unions and popular political economy, 1860–1880, Historical Journal, 30:4 (1987), pp. 811–840. 48 Biagini, ‘Trade unions’, pp. 833–834. 49 Biagini, ‘Trade unions’, pp. 833–834. 50 Welbourne, Miners’ Unions, p. 286. 51 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 5 September 1908; 3 July 1909; Webster, F., ‘The Durham miners: a sociological interpretation’ (MA thesis, Durham University, 1974), p. 222. 52 Howell, D., British Workers and the Independent Labour Party 1888–1906 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983), p. 45; Marshall, C., ‘Levels of industrial militancy and the political radicalisation of the Durham miners, 1885– 1914’ (MA thesis, Durham University, 1976), pp. 311–313. 53 See, for example, the editorial in Durham Chronicle, 2 August 1907. 54 Church, British Coal Industry, p. 711. 55 Marshall, thesis, pp. 105, 151. 56 Blaydon Courier, 11 November 1911; Durham Chronicle, 18 November 1910; 2, 16 December 1910; Mason, ‘Johnson’; Mates, L.H., The Spanish Civil War and the British Left: Political Activism and the Popular Front (I.B. Tauris, 2007), pp. 71–72. 57 Miners’ Eight Hour Day Committee, Final Report Part II, p. 164. 58 House of Commons Debates, 3 May 1893, vol. 11, cols 1851–1858;1895, 1900. 59 Treble, ‘Productivity’, p. 427. 60 Welbourne, Miners’ Unions, pp. 185–186, 191, 193, 206–207, 213, 223, 289–301; Wilson, History, pp. 132–159, 164. 61 The Times, 1 December 1913. 62 The Times, 1 December 1913. 63 The Times, 1 December 1913; Jevons, Coal Trade, p. 318; Emy, ‘Liberals’, pp. 55, 99; Mountford, C.E., ‘The history of John Bowes and Partners up to 1914’ (MA thesis, Durham University, 1967), pp. xi–xxi. 64 The Times, 11 November 1912; Mountford, ‘John Bowes’, pp. xi–xxi. 65 (un-named author), ‘The Pœtsch freezing process in mining operations’, Science, 14:343 (30 August 1889), pp. 142–143. 66 House of Lords Debates, 15 December 1908, vol. 198, cols 1481–1498, 1510–1525; Durham Chronicle, 17 May 1907; 16 August 1907. 67 Report of HM Inspector of Mines for the South Durham District, 1906 (Harrison and Sons, 1907); Durham Chronicle, 12, 19 April 1907; 7 June 1907; 12 July 1907;



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68 69

70

71 72 73 74 75

76 77

78 79 80

16 August 1907; 11 October 1907; 6 December 1907; 1 January 1909; Jevons, Coal Trade, p. 318. Evening Chronicle, 1 March 1912. Durham Chronicle, 17 August 1900; 21 June 1907; 20 December 1907; 3 July 1908; 8 January 1909; The Times, 10 August 1904; 1 December 1913; Evening Chronicle, 1 March 1912; Richardson, T., and J.A. Walbank, Profits and Wages in the Durham Coal Trade, 1898–1908 (Darlington: Northern Echo, 1908), p. 12; Lawson, J., A Minimum Wage for Miners: Answer to Critics in the Durham Coal Fields (ILP Publication Department, National Labour Press, 1912), p. 9; Wilson, A.S., ‘The Consett Iron Company Limited: a case study in Victorian business history’ (MA thesis, Durham University, 1973), table II.4; Emery, N., Banners of the Durham Coalfield (Stroud: Sutton, 1998), p. 165. For detailed discussion of these themes in the Scottish coalfields see Campbell, A., The Scottish Miners, 1874–1939 Vol. 1: Industry, Work, and Community (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000). Durham Chronicle, 9 February 1900; 6 September 1907; 21 June 1907; 12 July 1907; 16 August 1907; 27 September 1907; 18 October 1907; 8 November 1907; 1 January 1909. DRO, D/DMA 327/2, Marsden lodge, joint meetings, 18, 26 December 1910. Lawson, J., A Man’s Life (Hodder and Stoughton, 1944), pp. 113–114. Moore, Pit-Men, pp. 89–92, 188; Emery, thesis, pp. 109–113. Evening Chronicle, 27 February 1912; Durham Chronicle, 17 April 1926. DRO, D/DMA 12b, DMA membership by lodge (1912); Durham Chronicle, 12 July 1907; 12 April 1912. Lawson, Man’s Life, p. 36. Mess, H.A., Industrial Tyneside: A Social Survey (Benn, 1928), p. 30; Byrne, D., ‘Immigrants and the formation of the north-eastern industrial working class’, Bulletin of the North-East Group for the Study of Labour History, 30 (1996), pp. 29–36; Colls, R., The Pitmen of the Northern Coalfield: Work, Culture, and Protest, 1790–1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, new edition, 1989), p. 123; Cooter, R.J., ‘The Irish in County Durham and Newcastle’ (MA thesis, Durham University, 1972); Cooter, R., When Paddy Met Geordie: The Irish in County Durham and Newcastle, 1840-1880 (Sunderland: Sunderland University Press, 2005); Neal, F., ‘English–Irish conflict in the north-east of England’, in P. Buckland and J. Belchem (eds), The Irish in the British Labour Party (Liverpool: Liverpool University, 1993), pp. 519–585; Neal, F., ‘The foundations of the Irish settlement in Newcastle upon Tyne: the evidence in the 1851 census’, Immigrants and Minorities, 18:2/3 (1999), pp. 71–93; Scott, C., ‘A comparative re-examination of Anglo-Irish relations in nineteenth century Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle-upon-Tyne’ (Ph.D. thesis, Durham University, 1998). See also Sill, M., ‘Mid-nineteenth century labour mobility: the case of the coal miners of Hetton-le-Hole, Co. Durham’, Local Population Studies, 22 (1979), pp. 44–50; Sill, M., ‘East Durham: mining colonisation and the genesis of the colliery landscape, 1770–1851’ (Ph.D. thesis, Durham University, 1982); Quinn, V., ‘Willington: a study of the industrialization of a Durham mining village 1840–1914’ (MA thesis, Durham University, 1990). Mess, Industrial Tyneside, p. 33; Welbourne, Miners’ Unions, pp. 220–221. Bellamy, J., and V. Mason, ‘Lee, Peter’, in Bellamy and Saville (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 2, pp. 230–233. Newcastle Journal, 9 March 1955.

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81 Turnbull, L., Chopwell’s Story (Gateshead: Gateshead council, 1978), n.p.n.; Marshall, thesis, pp. 306–309, 333. 82 Lee, R., The Church of England and the Durham Coalfield, 1810–1926: Clergymen, Capitalists and Colliers (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2007), p. 210. See Mates, L.H., ‘From revolutionary to reactionary: the life of Will Lawther’ (MA thesis, Newcastle University, 1996), pp. 14–20, 37–40. 83 Wilson, ‘Consett Iron Company’, pp. 175–180; Turnbull, Chopwell’s Story, n.p.n. 84 Durham Chronicle, 29 July 1904. 85 Miners’ Eight Hour Day Committee, Final Report Part II, p. 164; NRO, 759/B/6, MFGB annual conference, 1–4 October 1912, p. 67; DRO, D/DMA 327/2, Marsden lodge, joint meetings, 12 March 1911; 7 May 1911; Durham Chronicle, 5 April 1912. 86 Report of HM Inspector of Mines, 1913, p. 6. 87 NRO, 759/B/7, MFGB special conference, 10–11 December 1913, p. 79. 88 DRO, D/DMA 11, Wilson’s monthly circular, February 1910; Durham Chronicle, 3 August 1900. 89 Mitchell, B.R., Economic Development of the British Coal Industry, 1800–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 188; Clegg et al., British Trade Unions Vol. 1, pp. 467–468. 90 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 30 August 1913; 7 February 1914; North East England Mining Archive and Research Centre (NEEMARC), NUMDA/1/6/38, Wilson’s monthly circular, July 1913; Durham Chronicle, 30 July 1897; 28 July 1899; 22 February 1907; 12, 19 April 1907; 17, 31 May 1907; 7, 14 June 1907; 26 July 1907; 2 August 1907; 3 October 1913; Mitchell, British Coal Industry, p. 188. 91 Durham Chronicle, 2 August 1907; 24 July 1908. 92 Douglass, D., ‘The Durham pitman’, in R. Samuel (ed.), Miners, Quarrymen and Salt Workers (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), pp. 205–296. 93 Welbourne, Miners’ Unions, p. 283. 94 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 6 October 1906. 95 Durham Chronicle, 1 January 1909; 10 September 1909; Marshall, thesis, pp. 81–82. 96 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 11 February 1905; Durham Chronicle, 4 August 1905; 3 August 1906; 24 July 1908. 97 See, for example, DRO, D/X 1118/2, Washington Glebe lodge minutes, 29 July 1912–27 October 1915. 98 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 28 June 1910. 99 Evening Chronicle, 9 August 1912; 14 December 1912. 100 Beynon and Austrin, Masters and Servants, p. 353. 101 Palace Green Archive, Durham (PGAD), LAW 2/1/6, William Moore Ede letter (and reference) to Jack Lawson, 13 January 1909. 102 Newcastle Journal, 11 March 1955. 103 Newcastle Journal, 11 March 1955; Durham Chronicle, 1 July 1910; 5 August 1910; 9, 16 June 1911; 8, 15 September 1911; 13 September 1912; 27 December 1912; 13 March 1914. 104 Bellamy and Mason, ‘Lee’. 105 Durham Chronicle, 26 August 1910. 106 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 24 June 1911; annual meeting, 16, 23, 26 and 27 December 1911. 107 Durham Chronicle, 15 January 1909. 108 BLPES, ILP 12/1/1, reports of 1905 (pp. 69–78) and 1906 ILP annual conferences (pp. 76–87); Durham Chronicle, 15 March 1907; 18 March 1910; 27 January 1911; 24



109

110 111

112 113

114 115 116

117 118 119 120 121 122 123

124 125

126 127 128

Structures, agents and the ILP’s high tide 97 March 1911; 14 March 1913; Marshall, thesis, pp. 118, 125–147, 153–155, 173–192, F1–F3. Evening Chronicle, 27 February 1912; Durham Chronicle, 8 September 1911; 12 April 1912; 17 April 1926; Martin, D., and J. Saville, ‘Richardson, William Pallister’, in J. Bellamy and J. Saville (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 3 (Macmillan, 1976), pp. 153–155; Marshall, thesis, F4. Blaydon Courier, 7 January 1911; Durham Chronicle, 1 January 1909. The Times, 1 December 1913. The miners consistently used the (mis)spelling ‘Handon Hold’ in their internal records and on lodge banners, though the correct spelling, and that used by Joicey, was Handen Hold. This book retains the miners’ spelling for references to the lodge, and the correct spelling (Handen Hold) for references to the colliery itself. Challinor, R., The Origins of British Bolshevism (Croom Helm, 1977), p. 116. The Times, 4 August 1965; Lawson, Man’s Life, pp. 74, 95–111, 116–120; Bellamy J., and D.E. Martin, ‘Lawson, John James’, in Bellamy and Saville (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 2, pp. 27–30; Bythell, D., ‘Lawson, Jack’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online. PGAD, LAW 2/1/7, C.S. Buxton (Ruskin) letters to Jack Lawson, 1 April 1909; 5 May 1909. DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 26 January 1907; annual meeting, 20 December 1909; Durham Chronicle, 2 August 1907; 19 August 1910. Blaydon Courier, 19 November 1910; 26 August 1911; Mates, L.H., ‘The syndicalist challenge in the Durham coalfield before 1914’, in D. Berry, R. Kinna, S. Pinta and A. Prichard (eds), Libertarian Socialism: Politics in Black and Red (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 62–63. Holton, B., British Syndicalism 1900–1914: Myths and Realities (Pluto, 1976), p. 169. Newcastle Journal, 17 March 1955; Smith, R., ‘Obituary article: Sir William Lawther’, Bulletin of the North-East Group for the Study of Labour History, 10 (1976), p. 29. See, for example, the letters to the editor in the Durham Chronicle, 15 May 1908. PGAD, LAW 2/1/5, Dennis Hird reference for Lawson, 26 August 1908. PGAD, LAW 2/1/6, William Moore Ede letter (and reference) to Jack Lawson, 13 January 1909; Blaydon Courier, 7 January 1911. Newcastle Journal, 15 March 1955. The Times, 8 September 1934; 17 June 1935; Blaydon Courier, 7 January 1911; Durham Chronicle, 4 August 1905; 27 January 1911; 17 April 1926; Lawson, Man’s Life, pp. 48–50; Mason, A., ‘Gilliland, James’; Bellamy J., and M. ‘Espinasse, ‘Richardson, Thomas’, both in J.M. Bellamy and J. Saville (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 4 (Macmillan, 1979), pp. 82–83, 146–147; Mason, ‘Lee’; Mason, A., and B. Nield, ‘Batey, Joseph’, in Bellamy and Saville (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 2, pp. 31–33; Saville, ‘House’; Saville, J., ‘Herriotts, John’, in Bellamy and Saville (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 3, pp. 101–102. Marshall, thesis, F13–F14. Moore, Pit-Men, pp. 58–59; Oldstone-Moore, C., Hugh Price Hughes: Founder of a New Methodism, Conscience of a New Nonconformity (Cardiff: University of Wales Press 1999); Norman, E.R. (ed.), The Victorian Christian Socialists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Blaydon Courier, 13 March 1953. Marshall, thesis, pp. 284–285. Lawson, Man’s Life, pp. 74–75.

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129 Bellamy and Martin, ‘Lawson’, p. 29. 130 Bythell, ‘Lawson’, n.p.n. 131 Jackson, T.A., Solo Trumpet: Some Memories of Socialist Agitation and Propaganda (Lawrence and Wishart, 1953), pp. 157–161. 132 Blaydon Courier, 13 March 1953; Mates, thesis, passim; Mates, L.H., and J. Fletcher, ‘Bolton, Harry’, in K. Gildart and D. Howell (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 14 (Palgrave, forthcoming). 133 Pattison, G., ‘Anarchist influence in the Durham coalfield before 1914’, The Raven, 11 (3:3) (July–September 1990), pp. 239–243 Turnbull, Chopwell’s Story, n.p.n. 134 Newcastle Journal, 8 March 1955; Durham Chronicle, 20 March 1914. 135 See also Moore, Pitmen, pp. 168–177; Marshall, thesis, pp. 285–286. 136 Batey, J., Durham Miners’ Wages: The Present System Condemned; the Need for a Minimum Wage (South Shields: E. Sword, 1904). 137 Northern Echo, 4, 5, 6 February, 1908; Richardson and Walbank, Durham Coal Trade; Martin and Saville, ‘William Pallister Richardson’, p. 153; Bellamy and ‘Espinasse, ‘Thomas Richardson’. 138 Durham Chronicle, 6 July 1906; 16 August 1907; 27 January 1911; Marshall, thesis, F23–F24. 139 See, for example, Jaques’ letters in Durham Chronicle, 9 February 1900; 10 August 1906; 12 July 1907; 9 September 1910. 140 Durham Chronicle, 29 July 1904; 13 January 1911; 3 February 1911. 141 Durham Chronicle, 17 June 1898. 142 Webster, ‘Durham miners’, p. 227. 143 Durham Chronicle, 30 March 1900. 144 Durham Chronicle, 17 August 1900. 145 Durham Chronicle, 24 May 1901. 146 Durham Chronicle, 15 March 1901. 147 Welbourne, Miners’ Unions, pp. 303–304; Howell, British Workers, p. 46. 148 Webster, ‘Durham miners’, pp. 227–228, 245; Welbourne, Miners’ Unions, pp. 305–307. 149 Shepherd, J., ‘Labour and parliament: the Lib-Labs, as the first working class MPs, 1885–1906’, in Biagini and Reid (eds), Currents of Radicalism, pp. 187–213, p. 208. 150 Webster, ‘Durham miners’, pp. 228–229, 246. 151 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 11 April 1903; 20 June 1903; 26 September 1903; 9 April 1904; 4 June 1904; 24 September 1904; 5 April 1905; 5 August 1905; annual meeting, 23 December 1905. 152 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 13 February 1904; 4 June 1904. 153 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 11 February 1905; 5 April 1905; annual meeting, 23 December 1905. 154 Durham Chronicle, 29 July 1904. 155 Durham Chronicle, 29 March 1907. 156 Durham Chronicle, 6 July 1882; 10 July 1884; 26 July 1894; 1 August 1895. 157 Wrigley, C., ‘Tom Mann’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online; Mann, T., Tom Mann’s Memoirs: With a Preface by Ken Coates (MacGibbon and Kee, 1967), pp. 46–47; Tsuzuki, C., Tom Mann, 1856–1941: The Challenges of Labour (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 26–28. 158 Durham Chronicle, 30 July 1897. 159 Durham Chronicle, 22 July 1898; 28 July 1899; 3 August 1900. 160 Durham Chronicle, 26 July 1901. 161 Durham Chronicle, 31 July 1902; 23 July 1903.



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162 Durham Chronicle, 29 July 1904. 163 Durham Chronicle, 4 August 1905. 164 From data in Field, W., British Electoral Data, 1885–1949, computer file (Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive), November 2007. SN: 5673; Gregory, R., The Miners and British Politics, 1906–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 96. 165 Durham Chronicle, 24, 31 May 1907; 7, 21 June 1907; 12 July 1907. 166 Durham Chronicle, 25 February 1910; Howell, British Workers, pp. 45–49; Marshall, thesis, pp. 194–198. 167 Durham Chronicle, 15 March 1907; 31 May 1907; 7, 28 June 1907; 26 July 1907; 16, 30 August 1907; 6 September 1907; 25 October 1907; 29 November 1907. 168 Durham Chronicle, 1 November 1907. 169 Durham Chronicle, 22 February 1907; 1, 8, 15, 29 March 1907; 19 April 1907; Marshall, thesis, pp. 174–175. 170 Durham Chronicle, 2 August 1907. 171 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 5 September 1908; annual meeting, 20 December 1909. 172 Durham Chronicle, 24 July 1908; 30 July 1909; Webster, ‘Durham miners’, p. 251; Morgan, K.O. Labour People: Leaders And Lieutenants, Hardie to Kinnock (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 64–68. 173 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 21 April 1906; annual meetings 12 December 1908 and 20 December 1909; Marshall, thesis, C3. 174 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 16 June 1906; 1 December 1906; Durham Chronicle, 10 May 1907. 175 Durham Chronicle, 22 March 1907. 176 Durham Chronicle, 5 April 1907. 177 Durham Chronicle, 22 February 1907; 5, 12 April 1907. 178 Durham Chronicle, 24, 31 May 1907; 14 June 1907. 179 Durham Chronicle, 14 June 1907. 180 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 26 January 1907; Durham Chronicle, 28 June 1907; 19 July 1907; 13 September 1907; 4 October 1907. 181 Miners’ Eight Hour Day Committee, Final Report Part II, p. 164. 182 Durham Chronicle, 14 June 1907. 183 Durham Chronicle, 14 June 1907. 184 Durham Chronicle, 2 August 1907. 185 Durham Chronicle, 21 June 1907. 186 Durham Chronicle, 9 August 1907; 15 November 1907. 187 Durham Chronicle, 12 April 1907. 188 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 1 December 1906; 20 September 1907; 4 October 1907; Durham Chronicle, 7, 21 June 1907; 9 August 1907; 15 November 1907; Webster, ‘Durham miners’, p. 231. 189 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 1 May 1909; Durham Chronicle, 28 September 1906; 16 November 1906; 12 April 1907; Marshall, thesis, pp. 80–81, 316. 190 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 24 February 1906; 6 October 1906; House of Commons Debates, 22 February 1906; vol. 152, col. 526. 191 House of Commons Debates, 11 May 1906, vol. 157, cols 49–57. 192 House of Commons Debates, 11 May 1906, vol. 157, cols 49–57. 193 House of Commons Debates, 11 May 1906, vol. 157, cols 49–57. 194 Durham Chronicle, 3 August 1906.

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195 Durham Chronicle, 29 March 1907; House of Commons Debates, 17 April 1907, vol. 172, col. 1008; Miners’ Eight Hour Day Committee, Final Report Part II, Qs 14211–14432 (Cann’s evidence is at Qs 14433–14486). 196 Miners’ Eight Hour Day Committee, Final Report Part II, p. 164; The Times, 23 May 1907; Durham Chronicle, 24 May 1907; 7 June 1907; 12, 26 July 1907; 9 August 1907; 6 September 1907. 197 House of Lords Debates, 15 December 1908, vol. 198, col. 1487. 198 House of Lords Debates, 15 December 1908, vol. 198, col. 1514. 199 House of Lords Debates, 15 December 1908, vol. 198, col. 1485. 200 House of Lords Debates, 15 December 1908, vol. 198, cols 1481–1498, 1510–1525. 201 House of Lords Debates, 15 December 1908, vol. 198, cols 1493–1501, 1516–1528. 202 Durham Chronicle, 17 May 1907; 30 August 1907; 30 May 1913. 203 Durham Chronicle, 23 August 1907. 204 Durham Chronicle, 24 July 1908. 205 Durham Chronicle, 24 July 1908. 206 Durham Chronicle, 1 January 1909; 9 April 1909. 207 Barnes, H., ‘Easington Colliery: growth of a community, 1911–1919’, North-East History, 43 (2012), pp. 76–94. 208 Waterhouses colliery workers, with a Liberal-dominated lodge, were among the few to vote against MFGB affiliation. Durham Chronicle, 29 November 1907. 209 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 23 March 1907; 12 October 1907; Miners’ Eight Hour Day Committee, Final Report Part II, p. 164; Durham Chronicle, 29 March 1907; 18 October 1907; 22, 29 November 1907; 6, 13 December 1907; 30 July 1909; Welbourne, Miners’ Unions, pp. 308–309; Clegg et.al., Trade Unions Vol. 1, p. 327. 210 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 21 April 1906; 6 October 1906. 211 Durham Chronicle, 28 September 1906. 212 DRO, D/DMA 322/9, Usworth lodge minutes, ‘Rules of the Durham Miners’ Association (revised January 1907) [loose in the minute book]; Emery, thesis, p. 121. 213 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA annual meeting, 15 and 22 December 1906 (my emphasis). 214 Gregory, Miners, p. 73. 215 Durham Chronicle, 13 December 1907. 216 Durham Chronicle, 15 May 1908; Satre, L.J., Thomas Burt, Miners’ MP: The Great Conciliator (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1999), p. 16. 217 Webster, ‘Durham miners’, p. 251. 218 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 4 July 1908. 219 Saville, ‘House’, p. 186. 220 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 5 September 1908; 3 July 1909. 221 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA annual meeting, 20 December 1909. 222 Durham Chronicle, 17 December 1909. 223 Durham Chronicle, 17 December 1909. 224 Metcalfe, ‘History’, pp. 450–451.

3 The Eight Hours Act and the Eight Hours Agreement in the Durham coalfield The New Year of 1910 was neither peaceful nor prosperous for very many Durham miners, who found themselves embroiled in a bitter, complex and confused unofficial dispute about their working conditions and control of their union. The strife resulted from anger at the negative pecuniary and social implications of the miners’ eight-hour day as applied in the coalfield in the form of the Eight Hours Agreement (hereafter simply ‘the Agreement’). In the massive backlash against the Agreement’s terms, the DMA found itself divided between leaders and lodges, constitutional and militant remedies, and even saw miners exchanging blows with fellow miners as well as the police as the conflict deepened and intensified. The solidarity and integrity of the DMA was severely tested. This situation presented the ILP, an advocate of the eight-hour day, with serious difficulties. Indeed, the strikes of early 1910 heralded – in the Durham coalfield as elsewhere – a period of industrial unrest that potentially brought problems for Labour more widely. As it developed, the turmoil threw increasing doubt on Labour’s parliamentary road to salvation and, in some important respects, appeared to support syndicalist claims that the organised working class should and could achieve its goals through action in the industrial sphere. For Duncan Tanner, 1910 was a year of defeat for the ILP in Durham, inaugurating a period of retreat before the outbreak of war.1 In testing his claim, this chapter assesses the causes and initial consequences of the 1910 unrest. Origins of the 1910 dispute The miners’ eight-hour day was enshrined in law in the Liberal government’s Coal Mines Act (1908) (usually dubbed the ‘Eight Hours Act’ by Durham miners). This stipulated that no miner should work underground for more than eight hours in any twenty-four. The Act did not, however, institute a true eight-hour bank-to-bank shift. Instead, it established a normal underground working day of eight hours, plus one hour ‘winding time’ (the time taken to travel from the bank to the underground workplace and back). It also allowed for manager to require underground miners to

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work an extra sixty hours during a year. Surfaceworkers, who worked long hours in Durham, were excluded from the Act. It came into effect in Durham on 1 January 1910; this was later than in the other coal districts, to provide more time for owners and miners to come to an agreement over its implementation. The Durham coal owners had argued that the legislation would negatively impact on their mines’ competitiveness – crucial in the cutthroat international coal markets – unless changes in working patterns were adopted (see Chapter 2). The owners and miners eventually signed an agreement on 13 December 1909. Before its specifics were released, the miners’ leaders trumpeted their successes in terms of the concessions they had not made. There was to be no increase in hewers’ hours, or in the shift lengths of deputies (who oversaw underground work), stonemen, shifters and other grades of worker currently working fewer than eight hours. Saturday’s shorter working day had been preserved. The men and lads who worked ten-hour shifts or longer would not experience a reduction in wages proportionate to their reduced working hours, nor would they have to work the extra sixty hours per year the Act provided for. Finally, there were guarantees that most of these grades of worker would be retained. Wilson congratulated the DMA executive on its efforts and the Durham Chronicle reassured its miner readers that they, like the owners, would be happy with the Agreement when it came into force. When the full terms of the Agreement were finally publicised, however, between 20 December and Christmas Eve 1910, it quickly became clear that many miners were very far from happy. Lodge-organised emergency protest meetings were soon proliferating; twenty-six lodges protesting at the Agreement met at Annfield Plain on 27 December, for example. The same number protested at a Thornley lodge organised meeting on New Year’s Day 1910, a day that saw many similar angry meetings across the county.2 There were multiple sources of discontent. First, the Agreement lifted the rule that coal could be drawn for only ten hours in every twenty-four in the majority of Durham pits. This effectively meant that there were now no agreed limitations at all on coal drawing. Outraged miners pointed out that their forebears had fought hard for decades to reduce the hours of coal drawing from eleven to ten.3 ILP activist Sam Whiteley (Brandon) claimed that he had not seen a worse agreement in his fifty years of mining; unlimited coal-drawing time meant that the ‘birthright’ of the county had been sold, he claimed.4 Many expressed the long-held belief that more coal on the market meant its price would inevitably fall, with wages following close behind. One miner predicted that unlimited drawing time would raise coal production by 60%, with wages decreasing proportionately.5 There was a second serious consequence. Unlimited coal drawing necessitated, as far as most coal owners were concerned, a move away from the two-shift systems (of hewers) worked by around three-quarters of Durham miners to three-shift systems. The owners regarded the three-shift system as the easiest way of maintaining profitability while simultaneously preserving the hewers’ cherished shorter working day (see Chapter 2). The introduction of a third night shift of hewers, as well as a



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second shift of putters and other transit hands promised a deleterious impact on the social lives of most miners and their womenfolk. Eli Cook (secretary of Handon Hold lodge) claimed that under the three-shift system some miners’ mothers would have to prepare meals on ten occasions on each working day (at 5.45 a.m., 7, 8.15, 10, 11, 12, 2.30 p.m., 4, 10 and 11 p.m.). Consequently, Handon Hold lodge did not intend to restart work on the new three-shift system. Similarly, SLP activist George Harvey gave an example of a family with four working underground on different shifts: the repairer – the father – worked 9.45 p.m. to 5.45 a.m.; a hewer, 4 a.m. to 11 a.m.; a putter, 5.45 a.m. to 2 p.m. and a driver, 1 p.m. to 9.15 p.m. The following week all except the repairer might be on different shift times (the hewer had three different possible shift times). The three-shift system’s night shift affected not only the hewers’ social life, but threatened the education of younger miners, who, if working the second putters’ shift, would have no time after work ended at 9 p.m. to study or attend evening classes.6 The Agreement spawned other grievances for specific grades of mineworker. It seemed to degrade the hewers’ cherished status by allowing managers to impose stonework and shifting work on the hewer. This, in turn, threatened to throw large numbers of older shifters onto what several deemed the ‘scrapheap’. Furthermore, a three-shift system left less time for repairs to hewing places. This was particularly important where the coal seams were thin. In these cases, stonemen were required to ‘take up the bottom’ to give sufficient height to allow the hewer to bring his tub as near to the coal face as possible, making it easier to fill and thus increasing his, and his putters’, earning possibilities.7 There was also a significant safety element to objections. With the three-shift system mines working more hours in each day, there was less time for them to ventilate, for the dust to settle. This, according to critics, made them more susceptible to explosions. That the three-shift system mines were always hot and stuffy made them more difficult to work in. Owing to the extra haulage work necessitated, there was an inclination to put off repairs to underground roadways until the weekends. Repairing could not be done at night, so there was a tendency for fewer – and more shoddy – repairs, making travelling underground more dangerous and difficult. Consequently, breakdowns that limited output could become numerous. The older the colliery, the greater these problems often loomed. A local coroner, reporting on an inquest at the county hospital in March 1911, suggested that, among other threats to miners’ safety in the pit, the Agreement caused undesirable and potentially very dangerous haste among miners at the end of their shifts. As well as these problems, some sceptical lodge leaders simply did not believe that the owners would respect the favourable elements of the Agreement. This included the possibility that the owners would try to increase the hours of those working less than eight, even though the Agreement apparently ruled this out.8 Finally, considerable ire was directed at the architects of this Agreement who had apparently been on their ‘side’: the miners’ own agents and executive. As problematic was the process; the executive had made no effort to consult with

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lodges through the DMA council, even though it had had at least six months to do so. Hetton provided one of an avalanche of lodge protest resolutions and circulars reported in the local press, attacking the executive’s lack of consultation. Many lodges suggested that a county-wide discussion formalised at a special council meeting would have resulted in a more acceptable Agreement. Indeed, that the Agreement had been formulated at county level at all became an issue. A Dawdon representative claimed that his lodge might have made better arrangements with the manager over the eight-hour day had its hands not been tied by the executive’s signing of the Agreement. Some lodges, like Harraton, and local miners’ leaders demanded that the whole executive should resign. Pelton Fell lodge called a conference to take steps to compel the agents’ and executive’s resignation.9 The agents and, to a lesser extent, lodge-elected members of the executive, defended the Agreement stoutly in a series of circulars and appearances at meetings (often organised by angry lodges), arguing that striking would probably have secured worse terms, not better. William House claimed he had not expected to win half of the concessions the Agreement contained and predicted that the miners would prize it within six months. But attempts at defending the Agreement invariably provoked a hostile reception. For instance, agents John Johnson and Thomas Cann were heckled incessantly at a meeting of Consett Iron Company collieries on 1 January 1910. Johnson, who claimed that the advantageous Agreement would not have been obtained had the executive consulted the lodges, threatened to go home if his audience would not give him a hearing. After they did, an overwhelming majority of the meeting deemed Johnson’s explanation unsatisfactory. The executive’s emphasis on having successfully defended the hewers’ comparatively short working hours had little traction. A protester pointed out that Wilson had been told in Parliament that miners currently working shorter shifts would be not legally obliged to work the full eight hours. Similarly unconvincing (for irate miners) was House’s point that Durham had been the only place in Europe with a restriction on drawing coal until they agreed to ending it (and that doing so would not increase coal output significantly). Whiteley argued that the only reason other coal districts did not need to limit drawing time was because they only worked one shift every twenty-four hours.10 House’s ‘silver lining’ in the Agreement seemed rather tarnished.11 Nevertheless, it was clear from the outset that lodge solidarity was incomplete. Firstly, many larger collieries like Seaham, East Hetton and Marsden already worked a three-shift system, and were consequently unlikely to be greatly affected. Part of House’s defence of the Agreement was that 30,000–40,000 miners already operated the night shift without demur in Durham. Second, in some collieries, such as South Garesfield, the management did not demand a third hewers’ shift. They implemented a modified system involving two shifts of hewers supported by two overlapping shifts of ‘lads’, working eight- instead of ten-hour days. This could be, according to the owners, an expensive option and required specific conditions to make it practicable. Another solution was evident in John Pit, Felling colliery,



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which retained two shifts of hewers but added a third, ‘tub-loading’ shift, with coal drawing for twelve hours daily. The tub-loaders worked a night shift, ensuring that empty coal tubs were prepared and in position to begin immediate coal drawing at the start of the following morning’s shift. No third hewers’ shift meant there was no strike at John Pit.12 Some other lodges did not resent the imposition of intensified working patterns, moving from two- to three-shift systems apparently smoothly. Among these was Clara Vale lodge, which unanimously conveyed its ‘hearty congratulations’ to the executive on negotiating the Agreement.13 Similarly, Brancepeth No 2 lodge unanimously supported the executive as the ‘lads rejoice at the beneficial change in their working time’.14 Brancepeth colliery putters had been compensated and lads were even to be paid a full shift for their Saturday three-quarter shift. At Heworth, various piece rates (‘prices’) were raised to compensate workers over possible lost wages, and some grades of worker were promoted to make up the shortfall in hewers. Industrial peace was not, however, guaranteed by the absence of a third hewers’ shift. While South Hetton colliery adopted a modified two-shift system, it still engaged in long-lasting solidarity strike action (see below). Similarly, Ushaw Moor colliery was not required to work the three-shift system, but it still protested against the Agreement (though it did not strike).15 Overall, the agents’ optimism was not obviously justified when the new working arrangements came into force on 1 January 1910. Indeed, several collieries that were reported as having attempted to cooperate with management to implement changes were soon experiencing problems related to the Agreement. One of these, Beamish Air (Joicey), went on to strike for twenty-two days; only seven collieries struck for longer in that period.16 Course of the Eight Hours Agreement dispute, January–April 1910 The Eight Hours Agreement certainly had a massive impact on working patterns. As many as 125 Durham collieries began working a new three-shift system on 1 January 1910. While 76.5% of hewers had worked a two-shift system in 1909, now 85.5% of them were subject to the three-shift system. Only around thirtyfive, generally smaller, collieries retained modified two-shift systems. Mass protest meetings and strikes erupted all over the coalfield. In total, 118 collieries experienced some kind of stoppage related to the Agreement. It precipitated almost one-third of the 1910 disputes among DCOA-affiliated companies (101 out of 329), involving 85,000 miners and making up a colossal 83% of the total working days lost in strikes that year (1.24m out of 1.49m).17 In total, the government estimated that 1.28m working days were lost in Durham due to the Agreement.18 There had been too little time for lodges to discuss the Agreement and then, if needed, organise a ballot and give fourteen days’ notice to strike before new arrangements came into force. This made very many of the strikes illegal, and it was surely no accident that perhaps a week passed before lodges became appraised

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of the Agreement’s contents. The illegal strikes were also unofficial meaning there would be no access to central DMA strike funds. This still did not prevent seventytwo lodges from seeking retrospective strike allowance from central DMA.19 While the aggregate figures indicate the overall scale of the unrest, individual lodge responses to having to return to work under the Agreement varied widely. Lodges like Dean and Chapter, which had voted very narrowly against the Agreement (577 to 561), simply did not go to work in protest on Monday 3 January 1910. Others, like Elemore colliery, worked that day but were laid idle by disputes on the Tuesday. A third grouping, including East Stanley, worked the new three-shift system ‘under protest’.20 Most of the lodges serving Birtley Iron Company collieries responded initially like this, though they then went on strike against their new three-shift system. One of their number, Ravensworth lodge, suggested an alternative two-shift pattern to the management, who ignored it.21 Likewise, Chopwell trialled the three-shift system for a week, before concluding the Agreement was ‘rotten to the core’.22 Collieries like Tanfield Lea (Joicey) simply tried to ignore management diktats and continued working their old two-shift system regardless. The Tanfield miners were soon sent home. In these cases the management had no legal right to lock out their workforce without giving fourteen days’ notice. Oxhill miners also went to work on their old two-shift system and struck when asked to work the new three-shift system. At a conference of Joicey collieries on Wednesday 5 January, Oxhill moved the unanimous resolution asking all Durham lodges to strike to abolish the three-shift system. While Oxhill itself was still on strike two weeks later, disputes in many other collieries were short-lived, ranging between a third of a day and two days only. Bowden Close, for example, the only colliery idle in the Willington district on Monday 3 January (as it objected to unlimited coal-drawing time) resumed work the next day.23 Saturday 8 January saw a rash of protest meetings. The day began with more localised meetings. There were, for instance, eighteen local lodges represented at a mass meeting of over 5,000 at Hetton-le-Hole. The meeting’s ‘Hetton resolution’ to strike against the Agreement as a protest against the executive for not calling a special council meeting to consult on the question was broadcast throughout the coalfield. A mass meeting of the Birtley Iron Company collieries (except Ouston E, as it was already back working) strongly protested against the three-shift system and called the county out against it. A mass meeting of West Pelton district lodges the same morning had over 1,000 present and later the same day there was a larger conference at Chester-le-Street with seventy lodges represented and others sending in their opinions.24 The protest meetings were witness to the divisions that remained among miners opposed to the Agreement. These arose over two aspects of ‘constitutionality’, the first of which related to the executive’s actions. Eli Cook, for example, claimed that the executive had strayed from forty years of practice in not referring the Agreement to lodges for approval. No consultation meant that the agents had no mandate,



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so the miners should not accept the Agreement, Cook argued. In response to a question from the audience, Cook was forced to admit that he himself, when an executive member, had signed a circular on unofficial strikes knowing that he had no power to do so. Similarly, John Reece (Morrison lodge) had argued some days before that the executive’s action was ‘illegal’, as the DMA council governed the Association. On the other side of the debate, John Jeffrey (Hobson lodge), claimed that when his lodge’s 1905 motion that the executive should refer all agreements to DMA council for endorsement was defeated in a vote, lodges effectively empowered the executive to behave as it had (see Chapter 2). Likewise, a Craghead delegate – whose own colliery was then working under protest – claimed that the executive had been making decisions without first referring them to DMA council for years. A Handon Hold delegate, by contrast, argued that the 1905 Hobson motion had not been mentioned again until Christmas Day 1909, and that the miners should not be bound by lodges’ (in)actions in 1905.25 The second issue debated was whether to adopt ‘unconstitutional’ methods to fight the Agreement. At the Chester-le-Street protest meeting, the Craghead delegate opposed dismissing the agents and claimed that those advocating more extreme methods were undermining moves for constitutional redress. Twizell lodge adopted a similar position, as did Hobson, whose delegate emphasised the need to remedy grievances constitutionally because ‘they were not fighting the owners but their own brethren’.26 Most found this argument unpersuasive: the Hobson amendment to this effect only received five votes (from seventy), and the meeting endorsed Hetton lodge’s call for strike action. Nevertheless, the meeting’s chair remarked on the lack of unanimity at the conference and adjourned it. Even Cook, speaking at Pelton in favour of striking, hoped that the ‘young men’ would not use ‘brute force’ to disrupt working collieries, but rather maintain their ‘constitutional agitation’.27 By contrast, the Alma delegate argued at the same meeting that, as they ‘were fighting millionaires’, if they stayed out on strike, their children would starve. He suggested they all return to work, get putters’ wages up, and then try to have the Eight Hours Act repealed (rather than the Agreement annulled).28 The Chester-le-Street protesters reconvened in Durham on Wednesday 12 January, now with delegates from ninety dissatisfied lodges present (twenty more than the previous meeting). The meeting’s deputation asking the agents for a special council meeting on the Agreement was rebuffed, provoking considerable indignation. Then, after protracted and at times lively proceedings, the conference agreed to ask the whole county to strike immediately in protest until the question was settled. It resolved to circularise all lodges, asking that they ‘fall in’ with its pro-strike position and agree to hold mass meetings throughout Durham. Again, though, there remained a minority position against a strike; some delegates favoured returning to work and undermining the Agreement by other means. The argument that if Durham district agreed on this second line of action, the MFGB would support it carried considerable weight. But did this conference represent majority opinion inside the DMA? The meeting’s organisers claimed that more

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than 50,000 (over half the DMA’s full membership) were represented, but, with the disproportionate allocation of votes to lodges, the margins were very slight. In spite of the pressure, the executive steadfastly refused to call a special council meeting on the Agreement, which animated further protest meetings calling for one, and for the agents and executive to resign.29 Of the ninety collieries present at the 12 January protest conference, fifty-one were idle, apparently in protest at the three-shift system, and the remaining thirtynine were working ‘under protest’ or working their fourteen days’ strike notices.30 In reality, many of the local strikes were not in direct protest at the three-shift system in principle, but rather arose from practical disagreements over exactly how it should be operated. Many of these disputes revolved around the putters, who were among the few beneficiaries of the Agreement, as their working day was cut by one-sixth (though they were now generally expected to work shifts as well). Offered assurances in the Agreement that their piecework earnings would amount to about the same in eight hours as they had in ten, in practice putters had to negotiate acceptable new prices in each colliery. In some collieries, this negotiation process went smoothly. Washington Glebe putters, for instance, were advanced a score price of 6d., while at Tursdale there was apparently satisfaction when management offered a 2½d. advance, even though the lodge had requested 3d. Elsewhere, negotiations were more complex. Ouston E lodge had agreed fairly quickly to the three-shift system and its putters were initially offered 2d. extra per score. The lodge requested 3d., was offered this, but then doubled its demand to 6d. per score. Yet even when putters’ potential grievances were allayed with increased score prices, this did not necessarily preclude consternation at the three-shift system itself. The owners of New Brancepeth, for example, offered a permanent score advance of 2½d. irrespective of county changes, which was agreed by the putters. But the lodge still voted 200 to 89 against the three-shift system. The DMA executive, however, claimed that most of the Durham collieries’ early problems and stoppages, like that at East Hetton, were due to putters not agreeing new prices. Trimdon Grange offered a second example: while accepting a new three-shift system, the colliery remained idle because of continuing concerns over bad (hard to work) seams, and a lack of agreement on putters’ prices.31 In other collieries, negotiations were even more fraught. Thornley lodge, opposed to the three-shift system, had only been back at work for one day when the putters, dissatisfied with the 3d. advance, laid the colliery idle again. They eventually voted to resume work on Wednesday 26 January under the new three-shift system, but the putters struck again on Friday 4 February, complaining they had been underpaid. Wheatley Hill, adjacent to Thornley and owned by the same company (Weardale), had agreed to the three-shift system. Yet it too experienced brief trouble over the putters’ score price, as did Cornsay. In the cases of Wheatley Hill and Thornley, the putters’ strikes did not lay the collieries idle, as hewers did the ‘putting’. In some collieries, initial goodwill turned to anger over putters’ reduced earning power.



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In Croxdale colliery, putters unanimously refused to continue working the threeshift system as they claimed to be earning 50% less than under the old system. The lodge eventually returned to work on Monday 17 January, grudgingly accepting the original management offer on score price advances.32 Problems over putters’ pay continued into February. Later that month, Heworth putters tendered fourteen days’ notice to strike over their low earnings since the Agreement came into force, even though neither the central DMA, nor the lodge’s own hewers supported them. There followed a short dispute in late March over the Heworth lads’ hours in the new shift pattern. The second (‘night shift’) of putters in three-shift system pits were a particular source of unrest. At Kelloe, for instance, putters struck in May 1910 over demands for extra ‘waiting-on’ money for working the new night shift. Similarly, night-shift putters at collieries like Houghton, Croxdale and Usworth seemed particularly prone to striking.33 As well as score prices, there was the issue of the pit ponies that three-quarters of putters worked with. Many collieries worked their ponies for the two putters’ shifts daily, meaning a pony’s working day was sixteen or more hours, stable to stable. Overworked ponies reduced the earning potential of both the pieceworking putters and the hewers. In order to keep their jobs, the putters might feel compelled to beat their tired ponies, which could end in a summons for cruelty and a hefty fine or even gaol. The same predicament faced the drivers. On 5 January, the 2,000-strong Houghton colliery struck over overworked ponies. The lodge claimed that management had not brought in sufficient ponies to work their new three-shift system (which the miners had accepted). By 7 January, putters’ score prices were a second reason to stay on strike. The lodge became involved in the county protest meetings and requested a reversion to a two-shift system. This was refused, though the management did grant 1d. more per score and agreed that putters cavilled with new, untrained, ponies would be paid by the shift, so their earnings would not suffer. The lodge voted unanimously to return, resuming work on 26 January. Similarly, in May 1910, Washington Glebe putters struck over tired ponies. Foresight could obviate this problem. In, for example, Hetton and Elemore collieries, the management brought in extra horses and ponies to facilitate a smooth transition to the three-shift system.34 Nevertheless, the new pressures on piecework earnings meant that some putters sought other means to fatten their pay packets. In 1910, local law courts heard numerous cases relating to allegations of putters defrauding mine owners (and their fellow putters) by claiming for tubs they had not ‘put’. This was done easily enough by substituting tokens on full coal tubs before they went to the surface. A Sherburn Hill putter, for instance, was found guilty in September 1910 of replacing the tokens on two tubs ‘put’ in the earlier shift, thereby falsely claiming 3d. In this case, the deputy admitted that putters struggled to earn enough money in the colliery.35 The new shift system also altered various individual colliery customs, potentially threatening the status of younger hewers. This also caused strikes, as

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it had at the Lambton-owned collieries at Philadelphia (in Durham). Employing over 1,000 miners, the management attempted to alter a custom whereby putters automatically became hewers when they reached the age of twenty-one. The managers wanted to raise this age to twenty-five, essentially demoting (in terms of wages and status) all younger hewers to putters. The colliery needed more putters working the second shift of their new three-shift system to help the hewers be as productive as possible. This also meant that more, older, hewers would be brought in from ‘outside’, to which the lodge also objected.36 Another means of engendering more flexibility in the workforce demanded by the three-shift system was by increasing the number of hewing putters. While this category had existed since 1884 (see Chapter 2), they became more prevalent after January 1910. The creation of hewing putters again altered the timescale of career progression in the pit, raising the age that putters could become hewers (see Chapter 2). This issue prompted, for example, the threat of a strike at Lumley 3rd and 6th pits in April 1910. While the threat remained just that on this occasion, there had been a stoppage in Lumley 6th only the previous month, costing 2,022 working days over the men’s demand that four hewing putters should be allowed to hew.37 This was still a minor issue, however, restricted to a few collieries. By 1913, hewing putters (and the even rarer ‘putting hewers’) still only constituted less than 1% of the total Durham underground workforce.38 Finally (and unlike the putters), several other grades of underground mineworkers had not been accorded an eight-hour day. Marsden lodge asked management for ‘pump’ lads’ nine-and-a-half-hour shifts to be reduced to eight. These claims could also precipitate strikes. Usworth colliery, for instance, was idle on 3 January 1910 with onsetters (who operated the cages at the bottom of the pit shaft) claiming a (reduced) eight-hour shift. While these kinds of disputes were most numerous in the early weeks of the Agreement, they continued sporadically into 1911 and beyond. The Agreement had created a new cluster of potential flash points from which industrial militancy could ignite. The majority of grievances were voiced by putters or drivers and generally related to alleged underpayments. Whether they actually laid the collieries idle or not (which generally depended on whether hewers were prepared to ‘put’), there was a stream of prosecutions of lads for absenting themselves from work without the requisite fourteen days’ notice.39 By the time the Chester-le-Street protesters had reconvened on 12 January, however, the mass unofficial revolt was already petering out. Twenty-three collieries resumed work on Monday 10 January, and at least five more joined them the next day. On 14 January, Randolph lodge rescinded a resolution of censure on the executive and instead asserted that the Agreement was the best achievable. The same day, the coal owners claimed that the coalfield was up to 68% of normal production. In the following week, at least nineteen collieries resumed working, including the hitherto recalcitrant Dean and Chapter. By now even the protesters admitted that around 80% of Durham collieries were working the Agreement, with various negotiated local modifications. While the protest



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meetings continued, they were on a smaller scale. Nineteen lodges represented by over 1,000 met at Meadowfield on 17 January, for example. The speakers there recognised the dilemma for those lodges still striking – whether to fight on or return to work under protest – some strikers had no fires in their grates and hungry children to feed. The meeting’s unanimous resolution suggested that those lodges returning to work could use their influence to get the whole DMA out on strike against the Agreement. Lodges like Brandon, Washington Glebe and even the moderate Andrews’ House returned to work under protest, pending the outcome of discussions at the DMA council meeting of Saturday 22 January.40 At the same time as this weakening in resolve, there came an alarming development in the agitation, which, with the impeding general election, flooded into the mainstream political sphere, simultaneously taking on a more violent form. There had been warning signs. In mid-December 1909, William House was criticised for shirking on the Agreement in order to further his prospects of a parliamentary career. Similarly, lodges like Derwent (Medomsley) attacked the agents for spending time on their general election campaigns to the detriment of their members’ needs. Derwent lodge followed up this criticism by urging miners in constituencies where agents were standing to think seriously before voting. While there were strong sentiments, lodge hostility to agents’ parliamentary ambitions was not total. John Armstrong (Alma lodge), for instance, announced to a protest meeting that, in spite of his disagreements with the agents, he would still work for the re-election of John Johnson at Gateshead.41 It is not known if Armstrong was true to his word. Certainly, thousands of his fellow miners were rather more combative. On 17 January up to 10,000 miners from South Moor, Tanfield Lea, Annfield Plain and Stanley marched on Gateshead parading the town’s streets, chanting slogans in opposition to Johnson (now standing for Labour) and supporting his Liberal rival. En route, a breakaway of up to 400 miners attacked Marley Hill colliery (which was working), looting and smashing windows for about an hour before moving on. Marching home from Gateshead, another group of protesters attacked a colliery in Birtley, only to be surprised by a contingent of 100 police and men employed by the Birtley Iron Company waiting for them. Fierce fighting and serious injuries were the inevitable result, as these riots foreshadowed the more sustained and (in)famous incidents in Tonypandy, in the South Wales coalfield later the same year.42 The repercussions were serious. Johnson lost his seat by a considerable margin, polling behind the victorious Liberal and a Liberal Unionist candidate. The local press suggested that the miners’ demonstrations had had a significant impact on the result. (The Conservatives were clear that the regional Irish electorate had voted for Home Rule, and, consequently, the Liberals). Standing as a Labour candidate in Bishop Auckland, William House also faced hostile crowds as he electioneered. Of the agents, House had become particularly (negatively) associated with the Agreement; he had first announced its details and was arguably its single most vocal champion. Like Johnson, House polled behind both the Conservatives and

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the winning Liberal. The third DMA agent standing in January 1910 was John Wilson himself. He was re-elected as a Lib-Lab without a contest, but had also managed, somehow, to avoid being the target of most of the opprobrium over the Agreement. By contrast, Labour incumbents untainted by the Agreement in Barnard Castle (Henderson) and Chester-le-Street (Taylor) increased their votes and held their seats in January 1910, although Curran could not hold onto the Jarrow seat he had won in the 1907 by-election. In the aftermath, the South Moor miners’ leader Robert Neal vigorously defended himself from the agents’ claims that he was a mob leader, the protesters maintaining their verbal attacks on the executive for still refusing to organise a DMA special council meeting to debate the Agreement. In the absence of executive action, Pelton Fell lodge circularised all lodges, advising those on strike to return to work while it would conduct an unofficial ballot of all lodges over whether to strike against the Agreement. It requested other lodges not to intervene, as considerable confusion had been caused by too many taking similar actions simultaneously.43 The latest Pelton Fell initiative came a few days before the regular DMA council was scheduled to meet. When it did so, extra police were deployed to patrol North Road outside the DMA offices, though rumours of impending trouble turned out to be ill-founded. The most controversial agenda item was the motion (by Dean and Chapter, Ouston, Morrison and Louisa lodges) calling on the agents and other executive members who signed the Agreement to resign. After two days of intense debate there was a majority vote of only six (338 to 344) against the motion. The agents and executive had escaped humiliation by the narrowest of margins. They responded by holding a ‘slip vote’ of lodges on the issue.44 Two days later, the most serious rioting of the unrest broke out at Horden. On the evening of Wednesday 26 January, polling day in South-East Durham constituency, Horden miners attacked the colliery manager’s residence. Serious disturbances continued the next day, with the miners’ social club looted and burnt to the ground. The club had been built by the colliery owners in 1908, so this was a graphic symbol of the extent to which paternalism appeared to be breaking down in the locality. Elsewhere, however, paternalism did outlast the 1910 strife. In October 1910, for example, Wilson opened a miners’ institute funded by Priestman collieries at Axwell Park, using the occasion to pronounce that Durham remained the furthest advanced of the coalfield districts in terms of good relations between masters and men. At Horden in January, however, the situation was rather different. It was one of four Durham collieries (along with Shotton, Murton and South Hetton) on strike against a four-shift system. Naturally, this was even more disruptive to miners’ lives, as it meant that four shifts of hewers would be served by three shifts of putters. The hewers’ timetable for the Polka pit main seam of Murton colliery, for instance, entailed four shifts of seven hours, thirtyfive minutes each (including ‘winding time’). These were the fore shift (4 a.m. to 11.35 a.m.), the back shift (9.10 a.m. to 4.45 p.m.), the middle shift (2.20 p.m. to 9.55 p.m.) and the night shift (7.30 p.m. to 3.05 a.m.).45 As can be seen, the hewers’



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shifts overlapped by 145 minutes each, except the night and fore shifts. There was less than an hour in every twenty-four when there were no hewers in the pit. By the time of the Horden riots, there had already been trouble at Murton, one of the largest collieries in Durham with almost 4,000 men and lads and, along with Horden and Shotton, on unofficial strike (and consequently receiving no central DMA support) since 1 January. On Thursday 13 January, a handful of police had managed to prevent a crowd of up to 700 from raiding the colliery coal heaps. A week later, more coal raiding provoked violent disturbances between the police and the crowd, with several involved sustaining serious injuries. Before 1910, Murton colliery contained several individual pits working either two-shift or three-shift systems. With the Agreement, the management added an extra shift to all their pits, effectively forcing those already on a three-shift system to work four hewers’ shifts. Murton lodge refused to accept this, though it did agree to an expansion of the three-shift system. The lodge’s argument that Seaham, Ryhope and Silksworth collieries, all comparable to Murton, continued working under their pre-1910 threeshift systems was to no avail. The lodge claimed that accepting the four-shift system at Murton meant it would be forced upon other Durham collieries. On Friday 21 January, two DMA agents (Wilson and Johnson) met with the management, but Murton miners rejected their advice to trial the four-shift system for three months. The agents then suggested that the Murton men return to work until the end of March. They could then formally request DMA council to take whatever action they wanted on the issue. In early April, the ILP-led Usworth lodge also advised Murton to return to work and then secure the formal support of the DMA.46 In spite of this, Murton voted to continue the strike, sending delegations requesting the support of other lodges, as the struggle of its members against poverty – especially for those with big families – was intensifying. South Hetton lodge offered more than financial support. Though it retained a two-shift system – the colliery was owned by the same company, and had about half the workforce of Murton – South Hetton nevertheless came out on strike in sympathy with Murton in mid-January. Murton’s wider appeals for support seemed to have been effective initially, with many lodges that had fought the three-shift system, like Boldon, making sizeable grants and levying their members to make ongoing fortnightly donations to relief efforts. Support also came from the wider community: workmen’s clubs, the co-op, the local football team, farmers, clergymen and store owners. Lodge records also suggest that there was widespread solidarity support. Marsden, for instance, invited the Shotton men to send carts that their lodge members would use to collect bread, made cash donations, organised collections at the colliery, and levied their members a total of £50. The records of six other DMA lodges all show financial donations and a degree of political support inside the DMA for the campaign against the four-shift system.47 Notwithstanding this solidarity, miners resisting the four-shift system were becoming increasingly isolated, as collieries striking against the three-shift system continued returning to work. This move away from rebellion was also evident

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in the lodge slip vote over the agents’ resignation, announced on 12 February; it was 426 to 253, a majority of 173, or about 2:1 for keeping the agents, a dramatic improvement on the 22 January vote. The result seemed to confirm the agents’ belief that, if the full consequences of their wholesale resignation were appreciated, many lodges would change their minds. Exactly what the agents themselves claimed the ‘full consequences’ were remains obscure. Certainly, after the event, Wilson wrote that no situation as serious had arisen in the history of the DMA, and he pointed to the apparent paradox of lodges electing agents (at the 1909 annual meeting) and then, very soon after, claiming that they were not fit to hold their positions. (This was rather disingenuous, as the Agreement’s details had only been widely publicised after the 1909 DMA annual meeting.) The Durham Chronicle, however, had suggested that removing the entire DMA leadership would entail a complete change of direction for the union, including the rejection of their compromise policy. It also claimed that a ‘general strike’ against the Agreement would ensue, which would in turn damage the Durham coal trade for years to come. All this would be particularly unfortunate, it remarked, as coal prices were rising and prosperity was returning to the coalfield.48 Indeed, the Durham Chronicle played its part in bringing about its favoured outcome: the agents’ survival. It warned against a revolution in the DMA by precipitating an unprecedented crisis situation, arguing that the agents, who signed the Agreement in good faith, were doing a good job.49 Of the closer 22 January result, it claimed that some delegates had voted for the agents’ resignation because their preferred option, a less serious vote of censure, was not available in the motion. The Durham Chronicle further claimed that a majority of thirteen collieries supported the agents on 22 January, but that the actual vote was narrower as more of the larger collieries (with greater voting powers) were against them. Certainly, and surely as the agents had anticipated, the cooling-off period after 22 January meant the second lodge vote was conducted when the indignation over the Agreement had abated to some degree.50 Had all the lodges involved in stoppages due to the Agreement voted against the agents in this second ballot, their forced resignation would have been confirmed in dramatic style. As it was, at least forty-one of the lodges involved in stoppages of more than two days voted to keep the agents. The vast majority of these had seen the least serious stoppages. Langley Park, for example, was idle briefly in early January before going back to work ‘under protest’. It was represented at an early protest conference, but reversed (for no given reason) a decision to vote for the agents’ resignation, casting its (maximum) six votes in their favour in February 1910. (This did not, however, prevent Langley Park’s long-running opposition to the three-shift system itself.) There were a few exceptions to this rule from collieries that had been on strike for longer periods, like Littleburn and Swalwell. Murton also fell into this category. Its clear stance that it had no grievance with the three-shift system, or with the Agreement per se was consistent with its support for the agents in this vote. As the dispute at Murton dragged on into late February



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and beyond, however, lodge feeling began to move more strongly against the union leadership. Furthermore, Murton was exceptional, as the three other antifour-shift system lodges all voted against the agents in February. On the other hand, Deaf Hill lodge, which had agreed to operate the new three-shift system without stoppages, still voted for the agents’ resignation.51 In total, sixty-eight lodges voted for their leaders’ resignation in February 1910.52 This included seventeen lodges with the largest six votes, many of which were underrepresented in the DMA council. Interpretation of the vote was rendered more complicated as technically it called for the resignation of the entire executive too. Half of the lodge-elected executive members who had signed the Agreement had already left it (in December 1909) at the end of their terms. They had been replaced by lodge representatives who had had nothing to do with the Agreement, but who, rather unjustly, still faced having to stand down. Indeed, many of those who did sign the Agreement were leading ILP activists and their being implicated must also have discouraged some lodges for voting in favour of the motion (see below). With the agents’ positions now apparently strengthened, the disgruntled sections of Durham lodges finally secured the special council meeting on the Agreement that they had been asking for since late December 1909. Wilson still warned beforehand against the ‘dangers of discord, want of discipline’ and failure to obey the DMA’s rules and constitution. Urging unity, he claimed they would achieve nothing if ‘we meet in a state of excitation’.53 The special council considered whether to strike against the Agreement. After a long debate (the details of which went unreported), a substantial majority voted against striking but in favour of amending the Agreement. Eight substantive amendments were duly proposed, to the effect that there could be no more than three hewers’ and two putters’ shifts and no more than eighteen hours of coal drawing daily at any colliery. This would effectively eliminate the four-shift system and the ‘three-shifts plus’ systems of Shotton and Horden (see below). Twoshift-system collieries should continue to draw coal in conformity with the 1890 ‘Ten Hour Agreement’. Other suggestions addressed specific grievances in the Agreement, including eliminating the provision compelling hewers to do stone work that they did not do before 1910, limiting the length of repairing shifts at weekends to seven hours, shorter hewers’ and putters’ Saturday shifts and getting onsetters’ hours reduced to eight.54 Remarkably, however, there was no proposal aimed at addressing the unpopular three-shift system in collieries that had adopted it in or after January 1910. Unsurprisingly, Wilson welcomed this decision; though many thought the Agreement ‘obnoxious’, a resolution to abolish it would have meant a ‘real crisis’, he remarked.55 Two days later, an ordinary DMA council meeting considered the second main issue; the demand for strike (or lockout) pay for lodges involved in stoppages against the Agreement.56 Pressure had been growing on the executive from lodges like Oxhill for the DMA to pay out. An executive circular explained that any payment of strike allowances would contravene DMA rules. Thanks to a court decision of 1898,

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the rulebook did not allow DMA council retrospectively to render ‘unconstitutional’ action by the lodges ‘constitutional’ (and thereby grant its funds). The lodges had not chosen to alter this rule at an annual meeting, and the executive was ‘duty bound’ to apply the rules; that large numbers of lodges were claiming payment did not alter the principle. Morrison lodge offered a potential solution. It had announced in early January 1910 that, should its members not receive DMA strike relief, it would bring a test case in the county court, effectively suing the DMA treasurer. DMA council agreed to this idea, with the central union coffers to bear both sides’ legal expenses and with both parties retaining the right to appeal any decision at a higher court. This was the same arrangement as for the test case on the same issue fronted by Washington lodge (after it struck against executive advice and was refused central strike pay), which resulted in the legal ruling of 1898.57 By now, however, resolve against the four-shift system was also breaking down. Only two days after the 12 March special council meeting, Shotton became the first of the four remaining lodges on strike (against the four-shift system) to return to work; it had been on strike for 65.3 days (totalling 103,423.33 individual shifts lost). Shotton lodge agreed terms that included a ‘three-and-a-half shift system’: three shifts of hewers and three shifts of putters. This extra putters’ shift was a tub-loading shift of hewing putters. Their remuneration had been the major stumbling block in negotiations until a compromise was engineered. As it was expected to be about a month before the colliery was fully operational again, relief was still needed.58 The 12 March council meeting finally disabused Murton lodge of the notion that the central DMA would support them. Nevertheless, the lodge still voted 640 to 893 against accepting the four-shift system on 22 March (with over 600 abstentions). Going into its twelfth week of strike Murton lodge issued, along with South Hetton, a circular asking Durham lodges if they were in favour of a continuation of the dispute and, if so, what support they could offer. The two lodges needed greater support than they had received hitherto.59 The lodge response to this renewed appeal varied. Marsden did what was asked, placing its first regular levies on its members to support the striking lodges (totalling £12 fortnightly). Others, like Langley Park and Washington Glebe maintained the regular levies that they had already established. Trimdon Grange lodge did likewise; it unanimously called for the striking lodges to ‘stand out’ against the four-shift system and also suggested that the striking lodges’ officials should call an unofficial countywide lodge delegate conference on the issue, effectively bypassing the DMA executive. However, a third group, including Hamsteels and Hylton lodges, did not support this new call, despite having donated before to the strikers.60 This mixed response was insufficient to prolong the strike indefinitely. A mass meeting at Murton on 6 April decided to resume work under protest, accepting a fourth hewers’ shift until the Agreement was altered or amended. The lodge’s demands regarding pay and specific working hours of various grades being met, work restarted on 20 April after almost four months’ stoppage (totalling sixty-eight working days and 247,500.5 individual shifts lost). On the same date, a crowded



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meeting at Horden also decided to restart work. Horden lodge agreed to the same alteration to the existing three-shift system as Shotton, with a new third shift of hewing putters working from 7.15 p.m. to 3 a.m. to overlap with the third hewers’ (night) shift. After the hewers ceased work, the lads would hew and ‘put’ their own coal. Here, too, management granted concessions: the hewing putters would receive an advance, and those working in this third shift who were previously hewers would receive 2s.6d. ‘setting on’ money by way of compensation for their decline in status. South Hetton, initially on strike in sympathy with Murton, had since developed its own dispute with management. The two sides also met on 6 April and the lodge soon returned to work, after 59.5 days on strike (totalling 71,280 individual shifts lost).61 Why had the four-shift system strikes failed? John Thompson (Marsden lodge secretary) was clear that hunger, rather than ‘wisdom’ had won. He found it ‘regrettable’ that ‘we have coolly looked on and allowed men at the collieries effected to be starved into submission’.62 The central DMA should have financially supported the strikers, he argued, an analysis shared by the two lodges’ officials. The informal solidarity support from other DMA lodges, and other sections of their communities, had been impressive. Indeed, even after the strikes were over, lodges like Marsden and Hylton provided assistance to those imprisoned over the Horden riots and their families. This came in the form of funds and also a petition calling for a reduction of the rioters’ prison terms. Marsden’s support continued until March 1911. Nevertheless, it was inadequate to maintain the strike in the longer term. On the other side, there were no such conditions attached to providing mutual aid. The Durham coal owners operated successfully a mutual agreement whereby compensation payments were made via the DCOA to the owners of any collieries laid idle in these disputes, based on their average daily output.63 Longer-term impacts; industrial, social and political Considerable bitterness among the workforce of many Durham collieries was one of the legacies of the defeat of the strikes against the three- and four-shift systems. There began at Murton, less than a month after restarting work, a series of minor disputes over putters and hewers claiming underpayment. On 11 June, 237 Murton putters appeared in court, summonsed over losses incurred during these latest strikes. But faith in the DMA itself did not seem to have been shaken in Murton’s case. Remarkably, in July 1910, Murton and South Hetton lodges expressed their trust that the DMA would still help to end the four-shift system. Murton’s faith in industrial action was also not obviously damaged. Later the same month (July), Murton contacted the DMA about balloting for a strike over their local grievances (though nothing eventuated).64 Overall, while the Agreement had benefited the putters in one key respect (shorter working hours), it created new problems (their actual remuneration) that fed their long-standing proclivity to industrial militancy.65

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On the other hand, the proliferation of the three-shift system tended to create jobs. In 1910, 5,598 more were employed in the South Durham coalfield than in 1909, an increase approaching 6%. HM Inspector of Mines attributed this largely to the three-shift system, though disputes over it were also given as the major reason that coal output in the district was down by 1.69m tons that year, the first decrease in the district. It was potentially as significant that many collieries adopting a new three-shift system, like Bearpark, required an extra checkweighman. This offered further opportunities for advancement within the lodge for both militant and moderate activists alike. But the new night shift also brought practical problems for activists, disrupting lodge business. Lodges like Washington Glebe had to make various contingency arrangements if several of their lodge officials were working the night shift simultaneously.66 The three-shift system’s job-creating ability was obvious when some collieries reverted to two-shift systems. In August 1911, for instance, 320 miners of various grades at Thrislington colliery were laid off when it re-adopted a two-shift system. By then, other collieries had already returned to two-shift systems; Adelaide colliery’s month’s trial of a modified two-shift system in April 1911 apparently had proven satisfactory for all. As early as July 1910, Bowburn colliery reverted to a two-shift system, a change not attributed to pressure from the workforce, as it had not lost a single shift in stoppages after moving over to the three-shift system in January 1910. In this case, the change was due to the colliery’s unsuitability for working more than two hewers’ shifts. Some generally older, smaller collieries were more prone to problems arising in moving the coal underground, with threeshift systems leaving too little time to effect the necessary extra underground repairs and maintenance they needed.67 By October 1911, ILP activist John Storey estimated that at least sixty Durham collieries operated two-shift systems; he gave one example that retained the same number of workers as before 1910 but drew 100 tons less coal a day. Wilson put this figure a little higher in April 1912, saying that 133 of approximately 200 Durham collieries worked the three-shift system.68 Knowledge that some collieries either retained, or reverted to, two-shift systems caused ongoing resentment for those who were not as lucky. George Jaques wrote about his three-shift system colliery, South Pelaw, and the two-shift-system collieries adjoining it to the south and west (Pelton Fell and Waldridge Fell, which was a small, old pit and by late 1910 was already closed, laying off just over 100 workers). Drawing from earlier miners’ suggested solutions (discussed in Chapter 2), Jaques’ system, adumbrated in April 1910, involved two seven-hour hewers’ shifts, along with two eight-hour shifts of lads and datal adults and one seven-hour shift of tub-loaders. This proposed ‘two-and-a-half-shift system’ (my terminology) made considerable concessions to the owners as it allowed coal drawing for fifteen or sixteen hours per day (up to an extra six hours daily compared to the old twoshift system). Jaques claimed that this system, which could be trialled for nine or twelve months, would retain all South Pelaw’s current workforce and could just as easily be applied in most Durham collieries. By January 1911 Jaques was arguing



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that all the miners knew that the Agreement could be worked as well under his suggested shift pattern as under the three-shift system.69 Miners elsewhere in the county resisted the threatened proliferation of the four-shift system. In early September 1910, seven lodges of the Bolckow Collieries Federation Joint Board, in the south of the coalfield, met to discuss a call to submit fourteen days’ strike notice. Among the miners’ grievances was the fear that the owners planned to introduce the four-shift system into some Bolckow collieries.70 At a second protest meeting held in Bishop Auckland on 17 September, Adamson, the Gurney Pit delegate, remarked that the Eight Hours Act ‘was looked upon by the men as a “Dreadnought” in their favour, but the Agreement had turned out to be for the employers a “Dreadnought” destroyer’.71 The majority of the meeting indicated, by a show of hands, that they favoured the two-shift system. Inside the DMA disgruntled lodges sustained attempts to get their officials to act against the Agreement’s worst excesses. The owners, however, seemed ill-disposed to compromise. Lord Durham condemned the north-east miners, and the government, as ‘reckless and feckless’ over the Eight Hours Act in midFebruary 1910, and the owners told DMA agents on 5 April that they could accept no amendments to the Agreement.72 Lodges disregarded the owners’ statement and attempted to get the next DMA council, on 21 May 1910, both to reaffirm the March DMA council’s decision to seek the Agreement’s amendment and, more radically, to compel the executive to renegotiate the whole eight-hours question with the owners, and to submit findings back to the council. The chairperson ruled both motions ‘Out of Order’ as no motion agreed by DMA council could be reopened for at least three months. This bought the DMA agents some time, but that was all. By 20 October 1910 they were again meeting with the owners to seek amendment of the three-shift system. The owners delayed replying until 3 January 1911. Then they demanded the miners agree to a full eight-hour working day for hewers before they would negotiate any limits on coal drawing, as they claimed that any output restriction meant an effective increase in labour costs.73 Some lodges were, understandably, getting impatient. In January 1911, an Ouston E lodge circular claimed that the owners were drawing out discussions as this prolonged the three- and four-shift systems. It proposed a reversion to the pre-January 1910 shift systems but to compensate the owners with unlimited coal-drawing time. The lodge submitted a motion to the February 1911 DMA council asking for a ballot on whether the Agreement should continue, suggesting they request MFGB support if the vote was in the negative. While several lodges welcomed the initiative, it was ruled ‘Out of Order’. The lodge complained that the executive had acted unconstitutionally and urged delegates to demand a hearing for their motion. An executive circular countered by discussing the ongoing delicate negotiations and remarking that the miners’ latest counter-proposals were awaiting a reply from the owners. It emphasised the need for unity and mutuality in a very difficult situation and promised a further statement at the council meeting itself.74

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The DMA’s new terms accepted more of the changes inaugurated in January 1910 and signified a further step towards compromise, though they still wanted limits on shift patterns and hours of coal drawing. The owners replied on 3 April 1911, reiterating their earlier position that there could be no amendment of the Agreement without acceptance of longer hours for hewers, though they would discuss specific causes of friction. While the owners did not accept that the four-shift system caused great hardship, they nevertheless agreed, firstly, that there would be no fourth shift implemented in pre-January 1910 two-shift system collieries and, secondly, to other limits on the size of the fourth shift.75 The DMA held a special council on 8 April 1911 for a ‘free and full discussion’ on the owners’ latest offer. After the meeting, the executive promised to ascertain the will of union members through the lodges. Wilson recognised the very strong bitter feeling against continuation of the three- and four-shift systems and promised that the executive would present its findings and proposals to lodges for a ballot vote (i.e. a vote of all individual DMA members).76 This did not satisfy Hamsteels lodge, which was under the impression that lodge votes on two issues around the Agreement had been constitutionally decided on at the meeting. On 19 April it agreed to write to the DMA central office asking why they had not been sent the requisite voting slips.77 As the DMA executive now (apparently) had much more information on the special hardships facing miners working the new shift patterns, it decided once again to request their annulment, duly meeting with the owners for further negotiations. By June 1911, with talks ongoing, the ballot over strike action on the issue remained deferred.78 Ouston E lodge’s prediction (of January 1911) that the owners would prolong any discussions seemed to be vindicated. Yet the agents, too, were in no hurry for the ballot on strike action, which was not held until late in 1911. By then, however, the growing demand for a strike over the minimum wage was supplanting the Agreement as the major cause for the militant section of the union’s rank and file (see Chapter 4). The other ongoing dispute related to the Agreement was internal: the Morrison test case over lodge claims for strike allowance. From the outset, the arrangement established represented, at best, a partial victory for the lodges, especially Morrison. Its original idea was to bring a test case before Judge O’Connor at Consett County Court to achieve a legal standpoint on the Agreement itself. The March 1910 DMA council meeting focused on the much narrower question of the legal interpretation of the DMA’s rules on strike pay; the legitimacy of the Agreement itself, and the legality of the executive signing it, were apparently no longer issues.79 This suited Wilson, who was quick to depict the lodges’ claim for strike allowance as a dispute between lodges and the Association’s rulebook, rather than the executive. The test case would, Wilson claimed, settle this ‘unpleasant difference’.80 Wilson’s optimism was unfounded. A Morrison circular of July 1910 insisted that the test case be about the executive’s legal right to sign the Agreement, as a way of establishing the right of miners to receive strike allowance. This stance was understandable – Washington had lost its test case on this very issue in 1898



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– but rather problematic. In the same month, Consett County Court heard a test case of three employees of Oxhill colliery suing Joicey Coal Company for lost earnings over the three-shift system. The prosecutor, Mr Atherley-Jones, claimed that, in signing the Agreement, the DMA executive had arrogated itself duties outside its province. Presiding, Judge O’Connor ruled for the defence, having ‘no doubt’ that the DMA executive had the power to draw up such agreements. In so ruling, Morrison’s chosen judge had apparently just found against them as well. (Incidentally, Oxhill lodge’s appeal to other lodges for funds to mount their test case seemed to have yielded little financial support).81 By mid-September 1910, Morrison lodge and the executive were in deadlock over how to proceed. The seventy-two lodges claiming DMA strike relief (totalling around £100,000) met at Murton in October 1910. With almost full attendance (108 delegates), they unanimously supported the Morrison case. Frustration with how the executive was handling the test case was soon manifest, with Addison lodge calling for the agents to resign in November 1910. (After the four collieries opposing the four-shift system, Addison was the next most disrupted colliery, with thirty-five days on strike over the Agreement, and also the recipient of lodge financial support). Addison’s motion to DMA council asked that all lodge delegates have a free hand. If the executive failed to justify its actions over the test case, and to undertake to provide no further obstacles to it, Addison suggested that all lodges support its motion for the agents’ resignation. In response, the council chairperson simply ruled Addison’s motion ‘Out of Order’, a ruling eventually carried by a large delegate majority. The test case saga dragged on for another six months, with both sides still unable to agree on what it would actually ‘test’. Morrison held several lodge conferences, but the deadlock could not be broken. By summer 1911, lodge enthusiasm for the test case was declining, if Marsden lodge’s new-found indifference was representative. While lodges like Hamsteels and Hylton were still represented at a Morrison-organised conference on the test case in June 1911, it was quietly dropped after that.82 The Eight Hours Agreement imbroglio had profound outcomes for the DMA’s leadership. Their standing was undoubtedly damaged by the Agreement, particularly their failure to take the issue to DMA council before signing, and their subsequent inability, first to appreciate, and then to mitigate any of its damaging consequences. Of the agents, Wilson himself was spared the most uncomfortable moments, but he rightly recognised that those who demonstrated against Johnson in Gateshead in January 1910 were directing their anger at all the agents. Indeed, that Johnson had taken the early brunt did not prevent disgruntled lodges like Oxhill from planning to circularise all lodges with a call specifically for Wilson’s resignation in July 1910. By this time, of course, the agents had already survived two lodge votes on whether they should resign, and it is debatable whether a call for specifically the agents’ resignations only (and not those of ILP lodge activists on the executive, half of whom after January 1910 had had nothing to do with the Agreement anyway) would have produced a different result.83

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Certainly, resentment towards the agents remained. At the July 1910 annual gala Wilson was continually interrupted by hecklers referring to the Agreement and three-shift system; all he could do was advise his audience to trust in their leaders and attempt to reassure them that his members’ good was his first consideration. All the agents speaking at the gala were subject to similar treatment.84 William House suffered the most. He defended the Agreement because the good ‘outweighed the evil in his opinion. (heckle: “We did not get a chance to express our opinion” and “hear, hear.”) ... They could no longer be taunted with working their boys inhumanly long hours. (heckle: “What about the night shift?” and “What about the wives?”)’85 Wilson’s subsequent claim that the ‘dirt throwers’ had failed to mar the gala sounded hollow, as there was an obvious corrosive undercurrent to the event.86 After Johnson died (December 1910), the fury over the Agreement became attached even more firmly to House; he had invariably presided over the DMA council meetings that discussed the issue and, as at the 1910 gala, he remained the most vocal agent in defending the Agreement.87 House would discover to his cost in 1913 how bitter the feeling remained towards the Agreement and his role in creating and defending it (see Chapter 6). After Addison’s abortive attempt to force the executive’s resignation in November 1910, all the agents (unusually) found candidates contesting their positions at the DMA annual meeting in December 1910. While these included leading lodge critics like Neal (South Moor) and Reece (Morrison), all the challengers were defeated by large majorities. None received more than sixty votes out of the 680 plus distributed between the lodges. With so many candidates challenging the agents, the protest votes were split. Nevertheless, after Johnson’s death, Galbraith and Cann were both shuffled up the agents’ career ladder, endorsed by very large majorities in January 1911.88 That the agents had survived these challenges to their leadership might suggest their staying power. But the first vote on their leadership in January 1910, particularly, dealt Wilson’s credibility a swingeing blow, his hold on authority shaken significantly. His standing among his miner critics did not seem to be boosted by Durham University awarding him an honorary degree in summer 1910. Indeed, for revolutionary activists like George Harvey it was but further proof that Wilson was a bosses’ stooge (see below and Chapter 5).89 Wilson’s liberal economics, particularly the notion of shared interests on both sides of industry, was also coming under increasing strain in 1910. The owners were not inclined to compromise over legislation that they resented. A Joicey Coal Company and Newcastle and Gateshead Chamber of Commerce report on the Eight Hours Act argued in May 1910 that legislation of its kind always tended to increase production costs and anticipated that working arrangements would be a source of ‘difficulty’ for many years.90 And, as discussed above, the owners’ refusal to concede anything to the DMA after the Agreement was signed, to ensure that there were no further additions to production costs, also made Wilson’s leadership look weak and ineffective.



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The January 1910 disputes coincided with a considerable wages reduction (6.25%). Miners enraged at the award argued that coal prices had not fallen sufficiently to justify it. While the owners had requested a 10% reduction, Wilson had argued for no change; William House claimed that the Conciliation Board had not reduced wages on the same coal prices three months earlier. The Conciliation Board umpire in 1909 had been Lord Collins. The new umpire in January 1910 was Lord MacDonnell. He was appointed by Winston Churchill at the Board of Trade, as the owners and miners had been unable to agree on Collins’ replacement.91 Durham revolutionary George Harvey alleged that the owners had deliberately refused to compromise in order to get the Board of Trade involved and that, with MacDonnell’s first award, ‘evidently Mr. Churchill appointed the right person’ (for the owners).92 Harvey also claimed that MacDonnell’s reduction allowed the owners to recoup losses incurred from reductions in the lads’ working day. There was deadlock again when the Conciliation Board next met, in May. MacDonnell was once more called in, awarding a wages advance of 2.25% when Wilson had asked for 5%. In August, the Conciliation Board agreed to make no change to wages, but in November it again could not agree on wages, or on who was to replace MacDonnell, whose time as umpire had expired. The Board of Trade had to intervene once again.93 For Wilson, this was not how conciliation was supposed to be. In March 1911, he complained that the three deadlocks of 1910 made it a ‘record year’ in terms of the arbitration of Durham wage claims, and that the conflict involved in repeated arbitrations was not in the spirit of conciliation. Arbitration did not foster the amiability between the two parties that was essential to making the coal industry profitable. Wilson remarked that ‘the men want more wages and the owners more profits’ and that ‘we need a principle to ensure equitable relations and to avoid the necessity of these repeated contentions’.94 This was the essence of Wilson’s position and laid bare its frailty. Certainly, when the owners would not compromise, it placed Wilson’s emphasis on conciliation, his oftstated claim that there were shared interests on both sides of the coal industry, under considerable critical scrutiny. More problems arose for Wilson when the Conciliation Board met in late March 1911. He agreed to a wage reduction of 2.5%, and that this would not be revised until August 1911. Lodges complained that, in agreeing a wage freeze, their representatives were not doing their jobs properly. Wilson had to defend his actions.95 Nevertheless, this experience of conciliation did not alter Wilson’s outlook. Speaking in July 1911, he claimed that much of the unrest in the industrial world was because ‘they had not treated each other as human beings’. ‘They should allow the capitalists to look after their own interests and the men should look after theirs,’ he remarked, paraphrasing Jesus. ‘He did not envy the man who, by word or suggestion, tried to create difference between employer and employee.’96 A matter of two weeks later, the Conciliation Board cut wages by another 2.5%, taking them to 138.75% of the basis, their lowest point since January 1910 and 6.25% below their August 1909 level.97

124

The Great Labour Unrest Impacts on the ILP and the syndicalists

Wilson was fortunate that his main political opponents inside the DMA, the ILP, were also struggling with the complexities of the situation thrown up by the Eight Hours Act and Agreement. The eight-hour day was a long-standing ILP flagship policy, yet the Agreement to enact the legislation had brought tremendous strife and fury, and little obvious benefit to the coalfield. The lads’ shorter working day was to a large extent obviated by the knowledge that most of them would go on to work as hewers (with shorter hours) anyway; and new shift work for lads meant those finishing late actually lost out in terms being able to take evening classes, even though they worked two hours less each day. This negative impact, by connection, placed pressure on the ILP’s other cherished achievement of recent years – Durham’s affiliation to the Miners’ Federation. In January 1910, William House, addressing the crisis, seemed to blame the MFGB. He remarked that Durham miners knew when they joined the Federation that this meant helping get the eight-hour day made law, knowing full well the problems this would bring them. A Durham Chronicle editorial made a similar observation, as a way of criticising the DMA’s entry into the MFGB. Some lodge leaders also agreed. James Davidson (South Pelaw lodge secretary) attacked those who had argued to join the MFGB and who were now incensed at the Agreement; these windbags should be got rid of, and not the agents who had done their best, he argued.98 John Storey voiced the opinion of some miners that the imposition of the three-shift system was designed to make the Eight Hours Act ‘stink in the nostrils of our men’ in order to build pressure to have the Act repealed or, at the very least, to make the MFGB ‘objectionable to us’.99 That most of the lodge-elected representatives on the executive who signed the Agreement were prominent ILP activists was a major problem for the party. Of these, John Swan was perhaps on his own among them in publicly defending the Agreement in its very early days. At an angry meeting at West Stanley in late December 1909, Swan argued that the executive had done its best. Heckled at every word, Swan’s was a hopeless struggle, and only a handful voted with him against the motion’s condemnation of the Agreement.100 Others, like Jos Batey – ordinarily a prominent voice in the local press – seem to have kept a much lower profile. John Thompson, another official (like Batey) of a South Shields colliery lodge and an executive signatory of the Agreement who often corresponded in the press, remained silent until April 1910. Then Thompson attacked the four-shift (and ‘three-shift plus’) systems, claiming that there was nothing in the Agreement that permitted them.101 A fourth example was James Robson, checkweighman at Bearpark. In January 1910, the secretary of Bearpark lodge, responding to rumours that Robson had clashed with the lodge over the Agreement, stated that Robson had ‘never stood better with our men than at the present time, through the stand he has taken during these trying times’.102 Some party activists offered public support for the Agreement’s signatories. Andrew Temple, for example, defended the executive’s signing of the Agreement as



The Eight Hours Act and the Eight Hours Agreement 125

it had acted, on custom and precedent, in what it thought was in the best interests of miners. Speaking as a Twizell lodge representative at a protest meeting, he had also pointed to the implications of the failed 1905 Hobson motion, which effectively gave the executive free reign to sign the Agreement without lodge consultation.103 Temple need not have worried. The personal standing of the lodge representatives among the executive Agreement signatories did not appear to suffer. Most were re-elected to the executive as soon as they could be (after a twelve-month gap).104 Indeed, remarkably, only one of the nine lodge-elected executive members who signed the Agreement did not appear in the forty-strong long-list for the agent elections (to replace Johnson) in early 1911 (and the individual concerned was not a significant ILP activist). On seeing this long-list, some lodge activists were aghast. Thomas Barron of St Hilda lodge appealed in the press for miners not to vote for any candidate who had signed the Agreement. But he was aware that the voting system was ‘against us’ as lodges would decide who to vote for on a show of hands at one meeting. Barron was certain that an individual ballot of rank-and-file DMA members would ensure that no signatory to the Agreement became the new agent.105 In the event, Barron’s fear was justified: James Robson, an Agreement signatory, topped three separate lodge ballots for the position, beating Thomas Richardson MP in the final vote, with Batey polling third. Richardson had twice come second in agent elections (1897 and 1900) and was the favourite. He was also, ironically, the only candidate in the top three who had not signed the Eight Hours Agreement. But before the final two-way vote, Robson attacked, pointing out that if Richardson were elected, he would be ‘dual working’, for the ILP and for the DMA; this when Richardson had been a strong critic of agents also serving as MPs. Richardson, who had been elected MP for Whitehaven in 1910, responded that they were contesting a minor agent position, and that he could undertake union work without violating the party constitution. His declaration that he would support a DMA rule change to eliminate ‘dual office-holding’ in the union did not spare Richardson from defeat, most likely because he was already an MP. The top three candidates were all significant local ILP leaders; reports on Robson and his ILP branch, Bearpark, appeared in the ILP’s Northern Democrat.106 This explained why radical lodges like Washington Glebe shifted their allegiance in the final vote from Batey to Robson. Yet, Robson’s victory turned out to be a blow to the ILP; his vitriolic circulars against Richardson emphasised the party’s separateness from the DMA. They suggested that Robson was already repositioning himself politically away from the ILP and towards a more moderate stance, in anticipation of becoming an agent.107 Certainly (as will be seen), Robson remained a staunch advocate of independent Labour representation, but he also became a vociferous adversary of the emerging new generation of ILP activists in the coalfield, even though they were, ostensibly, comrades in the same party. Even outside the elite group of ILP members representing lodges on the DMA executive, very few important Durham ILP activists seemed willing to attempt a constructive public response to the 1910 crisis. Several, like Sam Whiteley, Cook,

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The Great Labour Unrest

Jeffrey (Hobson) and John Adair (Littleburn lodge secretary and checkweighman from September 1912), had given voice to the anger of their lodge memberships over the Agreement, but made no obvious attempt to defend the principle of the eighthour day at all.108 George Jaques was an exception. In October 1910, inspired by the NMA asking their owners to abolish the three-shift system, and the experiment at Bowburn colliery (which had recently reverted to a two-shift system) Jaques remarked on general ‘apathy’ from the leaders on this issue, expressing the hope that ‘some of our able local men who so distinguished themselves in bygone days will again rouse themselves from their lethargy’ and get the miners to ‘shake themselves free from the shackles of tyranny’.109 Yet even Jaques, a regular correspondent to the regional press on mining matters, did not pronounce publicly on the Agreement until late April 1910, outlining his alternative shift system (which he continued to publicise into 1911; see above). The apparent de facto embargo on the question was reflected in ILP branch activities too. They avoided the Agreement and the three-shift system as subjects for their public meetings in 1910, instead dealing with topics like safety in the mines, the Poor Law Commission, the Lords crisis, the Osborne judgement and old age pensions.110 Generally, it was left to the national ILP leaders to make the case for the Act. Indeed, it was ironic that the gala’s invited speakers – a clean sweep of Labour MPs – were much more supportive of the agents in 1910 than they had been in previous years. Keir Hardie, for instance, urged the gala crowd to be patient over the eight-hour day, suggesting that, with ‘the strength of their organisation and their officials there was no doubt they would end the three-shift system in the end’.111 Hardie was glad that the women were being discussed (in relation to the Agreement) and urged the crowd, if they wanted to help the women, to help them get the vote. He also reminded his audience that the Eight Hours Act had reduced the working hours of everyone in the South Wales mines. The direct impact of the crisis on the Durham ILP’s membership and organisational structure is difficult to determine. Murton ILP branch’s apparent disappearance after 1910 – it was reformed in June 1912 – may well have been related directly to disenchantment over the ILP’s eight-hour day policy, given that the Agreement inaugurated Murton’s four-shift system and a long, defeated strike. Yet a causal relationship in Murton’s case is far from established. Equally, fallout from 1910 does not necessarily offer an explanation for Langley Moor ILP branch’s apparent disappearance between 1909 and its re-founding in 1911. Indeed, many ILP branches experienced rather precarious lives; even the apparently wellorganised and highly active Chester-le-Street branch, located in the most significant Labour stronghold in the county, had to be re-founded in November 1911, having been active as recently as the same May. While early 1910 may well have represented an organisational lull for the ILP, it did not stop the party founding new coalfield branches, like those at Hamsterley and Westwood, later the same year.112 A clearer and significant effect of the crisis was to pull apart the alliance of radical lodges that had been coalescing before 1910 (see Chapter 2). The rupture



The Eight Hours Act and the Eight Hours Agreement 127

was to some extent between the largest, pre-1910 three-shift lodges and those organising smaller collieries that were more likely to have been required to make the transition from two-shift to three-shift systems in January 1910. Yet, lodges, too, responded in complex and diverse ways. This process was most evident among the largest lodges that had tended to be, before 1910, at the forefront of most of the socialists’ campaigns inside the DMA. These included lodges like Seaham and Ryhope, on Durham’s eastern seaboard, which already worked three-shift systems before 1910. They did not experience severe industrial unrest in January 1910, nor did they protest at the Agreement. Even larger radical lodges like Harton, Heworth, Hebburn and Chopwell, which had experienced industrial strife as a result of the Agreement, or protested against it, still voted to retain the agents and executive (Hebburn even nominated all incumbent agents for their positions at the 1910 DMA annual meeting).113 Marsden lodge, one of the most significant of the pre-1910 radical alliance, was another prime example. It came to satisfactory working arrangements by late 1909, ironing out problems relating to the shifts of specific grades of workers in early January 1910. It was not represented at protest conferences and did not strike, and, like Seaham and Ryhope, it endorsed the agents in the February 1910 ‘no confidence’ vote. At the same time, though, Marsden did support discussion of the Agreement at DMA council, seeking amendments of it to ensure no more than fifteen hours’ coal drawing daily and that hewers’ hours could never exceed seven, bank to bank. Marsden also supported DMA pay for lodges striking against the three-shift system and opposed the four-shift system politically and financially, endorsing Ouston E’s (ILP activist James Gilliland’s lodge) efforts to secure a special council meeting to discuss the Agreement in January 1911. Marsden’s loyalty to the DMA leadership, however, was again manifest at the December 1911 annual meeting, when it nominated all the incumbent agents for re-election. In October 1911, Marsden was one of only twenty-nine lodges to vote against scrapping the three-shift system. Somewhat problematically for ILP activists attempting to find an acceptable solution to the eight-hours conundrum, Marsden regarded Jaques’ proposed ‘two-and-a-half ’ shift system as worse than the three-shift system that it already worked, presumably because it required more hewing putters, likely necessitating a downgrading of younger hewers’ status. Marsden’s maximum six votes on DMA council were joined by those of several other radical alliance lodges: Ryhope, Seaham and Usworth, along with Hylton, Felling and Randolph (Evenwood) (with five votes each) and Lumley 3rd (with four votes) (see Chapter 4).114 While Marsden was at least consistent on the issue, internal records reveal the conflicting approaches towards the three-shift system in many of the radical lodges. Usworth’s (W.P. Richardson’s lodge) October 1911 vote against the threeshift system suggested a change of heart. It had been idle sporadically due to demands of specific grades of workers and local grievances, resuming work under protest, pending the 22 January DMA council’s decisions. But, like Marsden, it still backed the agents in February 1910. Hylton lodge’s October 1911 vote seemed

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The Great Labour Unrest

rather more strange again, given that it worked the three-shift system under protest, argued for the DMA to strike on the issue, supported the Agreement’s abolition in March 1910 and continued to back demands for lodge strike pay. Furthermore, Hylton cast its (then six) votes in favour of the agents’ resignation in February 1910 and took the rare step of nominating mostly South Moor lodge officials to stand against the agents in the December 1910 annual meeting.115 On the other hand, some other radical lodges were more obviously consistent. Hamsteels, which did not even have a three-shift system imposed (though there were short putter strikes in February 1910), cast its three votes for the agents’ resignation in February 1910 and supported the Morrison and Oxhill test cases. Trouble did come at Hamsteels in August when the owners imposed a second shift on ‘pay Saturday’ that the lodge opposed; 500 began working their notices before the lodge belatedly agreed to accept the new arrangements. Hamsteels still voted against the three-shift system in October 1911. Similarly consistent was Washington Glebe, albeit perhaps with more immediate good reason as it was on strike for about two weeks after 5 January against its new three-shift system. It protested against the Agreement and cast its three votes in favour of the agents’ resignation. It supported the Morrison test case, tried to negotiate the abolition of the night shift in its colliery in January 1911 and voted against the Agreement in October 1911.116 In addition to causing fractures in the radical lodge alliance, the events of 1910 did not help the wider cause of independent Labour representation in County Durham. The direct impact of the turmoil on the January 1910 general election is discussed above. Before January 1910, Labour held five mining (or part-mining) constituencies in Durham (Gateshead, Jarrow, Chester-le-Street, Barnard Castle and Sunderland) and contested a sixth (Bishop Auckland). After the December 1910 general election, Labour had recorded a net loss of two MPs to the Liberals (in Gateshead and Jarrow). Furthermore, Wilson’s continued presence in Parliament, twice returned unopposed in Mid-Durham as a Lib-Lab and still refusing to sign the Labour Party constitution, continued to confuse the issue regarding the DMA’s official relationship with Labour and the Liberals. Indeed, The Times suggested that, after January 1910, Wilson should be regarded simply as a Liberal MP.117 The county council elections also brought setbacks for the ILP. But, while the Agreement apparently ‘played no small part’ in keenly fought elections, its impact was mixed.118 Among the nine unopposed miners’ candidates were Robson and Foster, two of the Agreement’s executive signatories, as well as several other leading ILP activists. Seven miners of the eighteen contesting elections topped their polls. This was an improvement on 1907, and included important ILP activists like Peter Lee (Thornley). The defeat of the incumbent miner Robert Barren (Esh Winning) by a publican was a significant blow, in part attributed to false claims that Barren had signed the Agreement. But the strong local Catholic vote, Barren’s opponents’ local connections, the complacency of Barren’s own supporters and that he had left the area to run the Aged Mine Workers’ Homes Association were all also offered as explanations for his defeat. A second notable result was the defeat of



The Eight Hours Act and the Eight Hours Agreement 129

Table 5: General election results in Durham mining constituencies, 1906–1910

Gateshead

10+

10+

0

0

0

0

0 13,145

0

0

0

0

0 15,724

Dec. 1910

18,361

4,827

8,998

0

0

0

0

0

0 13,825

Other

Durham, City

20+

0 0

Ind. Con.

Jarrow

30+

9,146

Ind. Lab.

Durham, South-East

30+

3,999

5,227 10,497

Lib. Un.

Bishop Auckland

30+

16,384 18,361

Lib-Lab

Barnard Castle

50

1906 Jan. 1910

Labour

Chester-leStreet

56

Liberal

Houghtonle-Spring

60+

Conservative

Durham, Mid

61

Election

Electorate

Name Durham, North-West

% Mining vote

Votes

1906

0

0

0

0

-1

0

0

0

0

-1

Jan. 1910 Dec. 1910

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

-1 -1

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

-1 -1

0

1906

15,711

Jan. 1910

17,504

Dec. 1910

0

9,429

0

0

3,639

0

0

0 13,068

4,382 10,393

0

0

0

0

0

0 14,775

0

-1

0

0

0

0

0

0

4,660

1906

20,910

4,985

Jan. 1910

23,906

6,891

Dec. 1910

0

0

-1

0

0

0 8,085

0

0 17,730

0 12,684

0

0

0

0

0 19,575

-1

0

0

0

0

0

-1 9,428

0

1906

11,617

3,888

0

5,540

0

0

0

0

0

Jan. 1910

12,212

0

0

6,096

0

4,646

0

0

0 10,742

Dec. 1910

12,212

0

0

5,868

0

4,423

0

0

0 10,291

1906

12,790

3,056

7,430

0

0

0

0

0

0 10,486

Jan. 1910

14,552

3,841

5,391

3,579

0

0

0

0

0 12,811

Dec. 1910

14,552

3,519

4,531

3,993

0

0

0

0

0 12,043

1906

0

0

0

0

0

-1

0

0

0

Jan. 1910

18,880

0

9,298

0

0

6,860

0

0

0 16,158

Dec. 1910

18,880

7,021

8,203

0

0

0

0

0

0 15,224

-1

1906

17,023

0

8,047

5,093

0

0

0

0

0 13,140

Jan. 1910

18,292

4,668

4,885

4,818

0

0

0

0

0 14,371

Dec. 1910

18,292

5,097

4,986

4,892

0

0

0

0

0 14,975

1906

2,580

0

0

0

0

1,313

0

0

880

1,313

Jan. 1910

0

0

0

0

0

-1

0

0

0

-1

0

0

1,313

0

0

0

2,190

0 9,651

5,126

0

0

0 14,777

Dec. 1910

2,601

0

877

1906

18,614

0

0

Jan. 1910

19,138

0

6,800

3,572

0

6,323

0

0

0 16,695

Dec. 1910

19,138

5,608

8,763

0

0

0

0

0

0 14,371

130

1906

27,650

7,049

7,457

7,132

0

0

0

0

0 21,638

Jan. 1910

27,610

6,199

6,010

5,655

0

0

0 6,214

0 24,078

27,610 10,325

6,357

5,740

0

0

0

0 22,422

Other

Ind. Lab.

Lib. Un.

10+

Lib-Lab

Dec. 1910 South Shields

Labour

Election

Ind. Con.

Liberal

10+

Conservative

% Mining vote

Electorate

Name Sunderland (2 seats)

The Great Labour Unrest

Votes

0

1906

18,106

3,431

9,717

0

0

0

0

0

0 13,148

Jan. 1910

18,320

0

9,090

0

0

4,854

0

0

0 13,944

Dec. 1910

0

0

-1

0

0

0

0

0

0

Source: From data in Field, W., ‘British Electoral Data, 1885–1949’ computer file (Colchester: UK Data Archive, November 2007), SN: 5673; Gregory, The Miners and British Politics, p. 96. Notes: A ‘mining constituency’ is defined as one where miners constituted at least 10% of the electorate. Bold figures indicate the successful candidate; 1 indicates the party of MPs whose seats were uncontested.

the well-respected ILP activist Sam Whiteley. This was the outcome of a complex nomination dispute that found two radical miners contesting the same seat, with John Adair emerging triumphant over the mining engineer incumbent. Both Whiteley and Adair had spoken out against the Agreement, but Adair was also the younger man, this election representing in microcosm a development to be seen more clearly in the rank-and-file movements from 1911.119 Another rather worrying development for Labour in Durham was the Conservatives’ attempts to make political capital out of the Eight Hours Act in Parliament. In March 1910, Arthur Fell MP (Conservative, Great Yarmouth) asked the government to repeal the Act with respect to Northumberland and Durham. Churchill refused; the implications of any reversion were great and most people, including the coal owners, did not regard forcing the lads (putters and drivers) to return to ten-hour shifts as practicable.120 Nevertheless, the Act was still open to amendment if the government would permit it, which at least offered a practical reason why it was worth having more Durham miners representing their own kind in Parliament and attempting to intervene on these very issues. (The Conservatives themselves would try this tactic again in April 1914; see Chapter 6.) Other developments in 1910, however, revealed that ILP activists had a wider battle still to fight regarding political action – that of convincing Durham miners to support the idea of having more parliamentary candidates. In January 1910, the lodges rejected a call for more MFGB-sponsored Labour candidates in Durham, with the executive arguing that lodges would carry the financial burden. The

-1



The Eight Hours Act and the Eight Hours Agreement 131

issue of funding had become particularly acute in the wake of the 1909 Osborne judgement, though it had not prevented the DMFB from paying its candidates’ election expenses in January 1910. The DMA (along with some other MFGB districts) continued collecting for their parliamentary funds until an injunction was taken out to prevent them, which finally happened in November 1910. This was potentially serious for the DMFB as it had two MPs (Wilson and Taylor) and two political agents (in Chester-le-Street and Bishop Auckland constituencies) to maintain.121 There was a wider threat too. The Osborne judgement offered a potential boon to the syndicalists as it both demonstrated the Labour Party’s parliamentary weakness (its inability to reverse Osborne), and debilitated the party further in terms of reducing potential funding sources. It seemed to throw the initiative towards industrial movements that eschewed the parliamentary route. Noah Ablett’s famous refrain that it was ‘foolish to swim the river to fill the bucket on the other side’ took on more apparent relevance.122 The DMFB response came in January 1911 when it formed a Voluntary Political Association (VPA) to collect voluntary contributions of 1s. per member per year for its political fund. The VPA’s central organisation was a politically varied affair with Robson the chairperson (just before he won the agent position), DMA agent Cann the secretary and W.B. Charlton (a colliery mechanics’ official) its treasurer. Batey was among three more activists on its organising committee. The organisers trusted that ‘our members will give voluntarily so their aspirations for Labour representation are not checked’, though this of course could mean representatives of ‘labour’ rather than specifically the Labour Party.123 They also suggested that each colliery establish its own local VPA organisation to perform the collecting role, comprising representatives of all trade unions in the mines and entirely independent of the lodge. The lodge response to this initiative was, again, confused. Morrison lodge discussed a motion not to establish a colliery VPA as there were already three active political organisations in the local (Annfield Plain) district – the three major parties. This was defeated, and the lodge did then establish its own committee, partly staffed by lodge officials. The lodges whose records remain adopted differing attitudes. Hamsteels behaved as Morrison, by forming a local VPA. Marsden voted the idea of forming a local VPA ‘Off the Board’ by 20 to 15 and nothing more was heard of it. The initial interest of two other lodges came to nothing, while the detailed lodge minutes of Oxhill and Langley Park record nothing about the initiative at all.124 Given the evidence, G.H. Metcalfe’s depiction of the VPA as a ‘safety valve’ incentivising the continued quest for political power over industrial and keeping the Durham miners away from syndicalism seems fanciful in the extreme.125 The response instead suggested that many lodges were simply not particularly concerned about their political representation. Indeed, this apparent apathy seemed to have been felt to some extent even by those leading the initiative. Few public meetings about the VPA were reported in the press, and only one set of

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lodge minutes recorded a representative visiting the lodge to talk on the subject. This suggested antipathy to the ‘political’ and implied that the industrial route advocated by the syndicalists could chime with popular feeling in the lodges. Yet there were other explanations for comparative indifference. First, leading figures, including Wilson and the main VPA campaigners, were confident that Osborne would not stand for very long. Lodges continued funding candidates at local elections in any case and found ways round the other funding obstacles too. By 1912, both DMFB constituency agents were being paid through both the ILP and the MFGB’s election expenses, as well as by the VPA itself. Finally, this issue arose at a time of considerable turmoil in the coalfields, politically speaking. So, for example, an ILP meeting in Stanley in February 1911 heard Thomas Richardson demand the complete reversal of Osborne. But he spent much more time talking about recent colliery disasters and the impending legislation on safety in the mines. He then talked in detailed and prescient terms about the need for a miners’ minimum wage.126 While the apparent unconcern about the VPA could have been for several quite varied reasons, it remains clear that the ILP’s quest for political power did not preclude a simultaneous desire to expand and exert industrial power among its activists. For those seeking more revolutionary, industry-focused, solutions to miners’ grievances, the foment in the Durham coalfield in 1910 certainly appeared a conducive environment; all the more so considering the ILP’s immediate problems. Indeed, comparison can be drawn with the Cambrian Combine dispute in South Wales, which began in September 1910. It, too, was related to the Liberals’ Eight Hours Act, when the reduction in miners’ working hours accentuated declining productivity. Crucially, though ending in defeat, the dispute generated a wider interest in syndicalism; at least three syndicalists served on the Cambrian Combine strike committee, two of whom were subsequently elected to the SWMF executive Committee in 1911.127 There was considerable financial support from Durham for their striking Welsh comrades as well. The central DMA provided a grant of £2,000 in December 1910, and many lodges proffered extra support. Marsden, for instance, endorsed the central DMA grant but also made five separate donations of its own between December 1910 and July 1911. Similarly, the smaller and much more moderate Andrew’s House lodge voted for the DMA grant in late 1910 and made its own donation to the South Wales miners of 5s. in January 1911.128 Not all radical lodges, however, provided evidence of firm support.129 There were, of course, significant differences between the South Wales and Durham disputes. The latter was never official, and it lacked the longevity and intensity of the Cambrian Combine dispute. Nevertheless, at least two of Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe’s criteria for syndicalism to succeed – the general growth of a radical mood and changes of labour processes – were evident in Durham in 1910.130 Indeed, the two were intimately linked as a belligerent and radical mood among sections of the rank and file was provoked partly by the imposition of the three-shift system. In this case, and contrary to Zeitlin



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(see Chapter 1), full-time DMA leaders were responsible for agreeing changes in work practices that did threaten aspects of miners’ job control.131 And the vitriol directed towards the DMA leadership, as well as the widespread and militant unofficial action, were very encouraging from a syndicalist perspective. Surely cognisant of events in the coalfield, Phillip Snowden observed on gala day 1910 the increasing tendency in trade unions for members to attack their leaders, warning that if this ‘spirit of irresponsibility and anarchy’ continued, it would destroy trade unionism.132 Similarly, Wilson warned of the dangers of a lack of discipline, unconstitutional behaviour and an ‘unhealthy disregard for rule and procedure’.133 This disregard for the rules was not only evident between the lodges and the central DMA. It also existed at lodge level, between sections of union members and lodge officials, and was manifest in proliferations of localised disputes. Just one example was the rash of strikes at Usworth colliery between 1910 and summer 1911. In 1910, there were twenty-six separate disputes at Usworth, with October the only strike-free month at the colliery that year.134 At least fifteen of these disputes were directly caused by putters (costing 17,808 shifts lost, or 65% of the total lost in disputes in Usworth in 1910). The vast majority of the rest of Usworth disputes in 1910 were precipitated by drivers or datal hands, and relatively small numbers could stop the colliery working; fifty-two striking putters did so on 22 April 1910, for example.135 These disputes had three crucial features. Firstly, they were intensely solidaristic, certainly between putters and other grades of lads and ordinarily with adult underground miners. Indeed, they could be provoked by an individual grievance. For example, in late August 1910, the Usworth night-shift putters (and others) struck over an allegation that one of their number had been underpaid. Over 1,500 workers were idle for the best part of a week for what the management regarded as a trivial matter. An attempt to remedy the grievance was stymied as the lad whose case it was did not attend the meeting. There were similar strikes on 28 February 1911 (forty-eight putters left work over an individual claiming to have been underpaid for one shift) and 1 May 1911 (sixty-eight struck over a datal lad claiming an extra shift’s pay per week for working in the wet). Wider issues, naturally, also provoked these disputes; on 1 and 4–6 July 1910, for instance, putters struck over deductions from their wages for losing the tokens that were used to mark their tubs.136 Secondly, the strikes occurred spontaneously, with lads calling impromptu meetings on the pit heap before (and often instead of) descending to work, in order to discuss grievances with their fellow workers. This necessarily meant that the lads bypassed the lodge machinery altogether, a source of consternation for lodge officials, who then sought to become involved to resolve disputes that almost invariably impacted on all the colliery’s miners. Usworth lodge officials’ continual assurances to the management that the putters would use ‘constitutional’ channels by acting through their lodge to redress grievances were repeatedly shown to be

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valueless. That management refused to deal with the putters unless they went through the lodge also seemed to make no difference.137 Thirdly, as these strikes were spontaneous, they were inevitably illegal and also not subject to central DMA support. Furthermore, the owners regularly took the offenders to court, invariably securing damages for their losses. Yet, even as groups of putters were going through the courts, the same kinds of disputes were occurring repeatedly. For example, in March 1911, at the same time as 151 were summonsed for absenting themselves from Usworth colliery on various dates in September 1910, another putters’ strike at the colliery was entering its second week. This time, however, the colliery was not idle as the hewers had – unusually – agreed to do the ‘putting’.138 And, though an extreme case, Usworth putters (and other lads) were by no means unique. Thirtythree Derwent colliery putters, for instance, were successfully prosecuted for absenting themselves from work on 16 September 1910 after the manager refused to meet them regarding claims that two of their number had been short paid (they had struck rather than take their grievance to the lodge).139 Indeed, a DMA circular of May 1910 claimed that in the previous six months, putters had caused a massive 120 stoppages across the coalfield.140 Putting was regarded as particularly onerous, and syndicalists could draw hope and inspiration from putters’ widespread militant solidarity, spontaneous democratic organising and willingness to defy lodge officials as well as the colliery management and the State (in the law courts). As has been seen (in Chapter 2), this phenomenon predated syndicalism, but it nevertheless suggests that there was a hardcore in many collieries, particularly of younger miners, who could well be receptive to syndicalist ideas, methods and, possibly, even ultimate aims. Certainly, the turmoil of 1910 provided considerable copy for George Harvey in the SLP’s paper, the Socialist. First of all, it proffered an opportunity to attack the coal owners, and particularly their profit margins. In March 1910, Harvey cited a Joicey letter to The Times in 1901, showing, with Board of Trade figures, that the British coal trade’s profits had grown from £162,000 in 1887 to £40.275m in 1900. (Interestingly, Joicey had used the same figures in 1901 to argue that over the whole period 1886–1900 the capital invested in coal had yielded a 6.11% return per annum, which was, he thought, a modest return on capital invested in a highly speculative industry).141 In terms of the Eight Hours Agreement, Harvey’s message was simple: ‘THE MEN HAD BEEN COMPLETELY SOLD’ by leaders who had no mandate and had spent too much time ‘hobnobbing’ with the owners.142 His case against the Agreement was fairly standard, though he placed unusual emphasis on the practical and safety aspects of extended coal-drawing time. Harvey regarded the coal owners’ renewed interest in organising rescue brigades of miners in case of explosions as evidence that they were alert to the increased dangers in already dangerous mines brought about by implementing the three-shift system. Interestingly, however, part of Harvey’s case against the Agreement chimed with more mainstream trade union understandings. In February 1910, Harvey



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wrote that ‘miners’ wages are affected by the selling price of coal, and restriction of coal drawing has a tendency to keep up prices’; continuous coal drawing would apparently bring down coal prices and hence wages. Only the larger owners, the Joiceys and Furnesses, ‘who own the pick of the coalfield’ would ‘derive some satisfaction from the Eight Hours Agreement’.143 Harvey was inconsistent, however. A month later, he effectively refuted this, asserting that the ‘sliding scale is not a law of political economy, nor does it rest on any economic truth’ and that wages were ‘really decided by the owners’.144 A general slackness in the Durham coal trade in summer 1910 meant an average of 5.16 days were worked per week in Durham collieries, compared to 5.24 in August 1909.145 This appeared to vindicate Harvey’s earlier claims, as he observed that coal output was up and coal prices down on the same time in 1909. A glutted coal market meant smaller collieries were laid idle and Harvey predicted that smaller coal seams would be closed and unemployment rise, which would help to further suppress wages. He also blamed the Agreement for intensifying the competition between the larger coal companies, thereby speeding up the process of absorbing the smaller ones.146 In fact, many of the larger collieries, like Murton, Thornley and Wheatley Hill, were also idle for periods in later 1910 due to slackness in the coal trade. Furthermore, Harvey’s predictions were later shown to be mistaken; 1913 was the year of peak coal production in Durham, but prices (and, of course, wages) also both rose. Indeed, wages reached a post-1900 peak of 60% above the 1879 basis, all with the overwhelming majority of Durham collieries still operating under the three-shift system.147 In terms of the developing situation in 1910, Harvey took solace in the apparent evidence that DMA agents were losing control of their members, as suggested by the January 1910 general election defeats of House and Johnson. He mercilessly attacked Wilson’s stance, but also penned harsh criticisms of the supposed ‘rebels’ seeking to force the agents’ resignation, suggesting that they were of the same ilk as Wilson himself.148 Harvey condemned the two northern counties ‘scabbing’ on each other, claiming that even if northern mining unity were achieved, other districts would simply supply the coal to striking areas, as the MFGB, ‘like its units, it too is a broken reed’.149 In most of these commentaries, Harvey finished by arguing the case for industrial unionism that would fully weld the district miners’ unions together, rendering them an effective and militant fighting force. The Cambrian Combine dispute, for Harvey, offered the same lessons: that the South Wales miners’ leaders will ‘do’ the men; that their strike was beaten, not by the owners but by their fellow miners producing coal in other districts.150 Harvey had a point. The Times revealed that the unrest in the north-east coalfields in January 1910 had strengthened the market for steam coal from South Wales and Yorkshire. Yet, by early March the market for north-east coal was already picking up a little, especially due to industrial strife in South Wales (ironically due to owners’ demands there for their workers to move from single to two-shift systems).151

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Significant though the 1910 Durham and South Wales disputes were, they came too early for syndicalism in Durham to capitalise on greatly. The Eight Hours Agreement strikes ended some months before the Cambrian Combine strike began and before Mann’s Industrial Syndicalist had been launched, in July 1910 (though Mann was speaking in Newcastle by the end of that month). Harvey, only fairly recently out of Ruskin, made regular use of his party’s paper (with, in theory at least, national coverage), to make propaganda about the Durham situation. But he had not had the time to establish himself fully as a grassroots coalfield militant. His local SLP meetings do not appear to have received any local press coverage until August 1911.152 More generally, there seems to have been no relationship between the lodge revolt against the owners and their own agents and explicit syndicalist ideas. Certainly, there is no positive evidence that any of the fourteen lodges of the most militant collieries in 1910 (in terms of the duration of unofficial strikes against the Agreement) were – at any point – definitely interested in any form of syndicalism before August 1914 (see Chapter 6). The South Wales example would prove vital to understanding syndicalism’s growing purchase in Durham but this necessarily came after syndicalists emerged as leaders in the Cambrian Combine dispute, and the ideas that they took from it and began to popularise throughout the other coalfield districts in summer 1911. Harvey had, however, in August 1910, published the first version of a work that – produced in updated pamphlet form – was to effect a more significant coalfield-wide impact for his politics (see Chapter 5).153 Conclusion The events of 1910, as Tanner suggested, represented a setback for the ILP within the DMA, as well as for the wider cause of independent Labour representation in the county. The apparent confusion, apathy and silence from many ILP activists over the agreement were testament to its complexity and divisiveness. Certainly, even sustained opprobrium towards the three-shift system did not lead some radical lodges into an oppositional stance towards the agents. The crisis made arguments about the utility of the MFGB – intimately associated with the eighthour day – very difficult to make in the Durham coalfield in 1910. The Durham ILP consequently suffered from a period of self-doubt and surely paid a price in terms of lost influence, prestige and morale. The situation was not, however, as dire as first appeared. First, Labour’s electoral position was always likely to be subject to some flux. The 1910 general election results cannot be understood without appreciating the context of widespread anger at DMA leaders over the Eight Hours Agreement. The results cannot be read simply as emblematic of the Durham miners’ rejection of Labour per se, not least when the local election results, which were by no means a disaster for the ILP, are factored in. The party’s organisational setbacks appear to have been minimal and were to be recouped reasonably quickly. The main ILP activists on the executive whose names were signed on the actual Agreement seem



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not to have suffered in terms of standing. The confusion and consequent division in the ranks of radical lodges that opened up in 1910 – to some extent between those serving larger, more modern collieries and those of smaller, older collieries – was by no means total. It was also temporary; the radical lodge alliance was to prove itself fairly readily reforged, in a new way, after summer 1911. The evidence of interlodge solidarity both in the 1910 three-shift system strikes and for the Welsh miners certainly boded well for future disputes, although it was insufficient to sustain lodges unofficially resisting the four-shift system indefinitely. Furthermore, the ILP’s Liberal enemies among DMA officials had hardly escaped untainted. Indeed, the most notable victim in 1910 was the DMA leadership, which, in coming very close to losing a ‘no confidence’ vote, suffered a substantial loss of prestige. This vote (like the general election results) was clearly much more about rank-and-file antagonism towards their leaders than it was party political, though certainly Wilson’s notion of conciliating the ever more recalcitrant coal owners was coming under increasingly severe scrutiny from inexorably growing numbers of DMA members. As Wilson was fortunate that the ILP could not capitalise on his weakness in 1910, so the ILP, in turn, was lucky that the syndicalists were not in a position to harness the discontent effectively. While the spontaneity, intense solidarity and apparent organic democracy informing many localised disputes was encouraging to those sympathetic to syndicalism, Harvey was an isolated voice still learning his political trade inside the SLP and in the coalfield. Conversely, there was no evidence of an organised, radical, Liberal caucus emerging in Durham lodges, seeking also to harness this discontent and present a more modern and radical form of liberalism that might better contain and marginalise the ILP’s challenge. Finally, it was abundantly clear to the ILP that much groundwork still needed to be undertaken in terms of further undermining Wilson and his supporters, before the DMA might be captured. It was clear too that there was considerable potential in the turmoil, more so than at any time since the mid-1890s. The mounting rank-and-file discontent could be harnessed; it was simply a case of finding a suitable vehicle to do so. This, given the divisions within the radical lodge alliance, was unlikely to be a sustained campaign against the iniquities of the Eight Hours Agreement. Instead, various attempts to eliminate the three-shift system played a significant but background role in events after summer 1911, as they too contributed to the growing feeling that the current DMA leadership, and its ideology, were incapable of dealing satisfactorily with most ordinary miners’ material concerns. Certainly, while 1910 was damaging for the ILP, the party was not fatally wounded and could emerge with a new sense of purpose. Indeed, the fallout from 1910 opened up a space on the left for a more industrially militant, politically aggressive form of ILP politics, more antagonistic towards – and keen to define itself against – liberal ideas (economic and political). There was space, too, for this politics to be championed by gifted younger militants coming through the ILP’s ranks who were not tainted by the Agreement.

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1 Tanner, D., Political Change and the Labour Party 1900–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 205–209. 2 Evening Chronicle, 13, 14, 20, 28, 29 December 1909; Durham Chronicle, 17, 24, 31 December 1909; 7 January 1910. 3 Durham County Advertiser, 31 December 1909; 7 January 1910. 4 Durham Chronicle, 31 December 1909. 5 Durham Chronicle, 14 January 1910. 6 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/610, ‘Eight Hour Act, details of shifts arranged under, 1910’; Socialist, September 1910; Durham Chronicle, 7, 14 January 1910. 7 Durham Chronicle, 31 December 1909; Socialist, February 1910. 8 Durham County Advertiser, 7 January 1910; Socialist, February 1910; Durham Chronicle, 17 March 1911; 14 April 1911. 9 Evening Chronicle, 30 December 1909; Durham County Advertiser, 7 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 31 December 1909; 7, 21 January 1910. 10 Evening Chronicle, 3, 6 January 1910; Durham County Advertiser, 7 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 17, 31 December 1909; 7, 21 January 1910. 11 The Times, 5 January 1910. 12 Miners’ Eight Hour Day Committee, Final Report Part II (HMSO, 1907), p. 164; Durham Chronicle, 7 January 1910. 13 Durham Chronicle, 7 January 1910. 14 Durham County Advertiser, 7 January 1910. 15 Coal Industry Commission, Reports and Minutes of Evidence on the First Stage of the Inquiry Vol. 1 (HMSO, 1919), Q. 7434; DRO, NCB I/CO 86/613, ‘Annual return DCOA stoppages, 1910’; DRO, D/DMA 327/1, Marsden lodge, joint meetings, 26 December 1909; 9 January 1910; full meeting, 30 December 1909; Durham County Advertiser, 14 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 31 December 1909; 1 July 1910; 19 August 1910; Garside, W.R., The Durham Miners 1919–1960 (Allen and Unwin, 1971), p. 20. 16 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages caused by and systems of working adopted under, January 1910’; Durham County Advertiser, 7 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 31 December 1909; 7 January 1910; Evening Chronicle, 30 December 1909; 18 January 1910; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 9 March 1910. 17 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/613, ‘Annual return DCOA stoppages, 1910’. 18 Not all Durham coal companies were members of the DCOA. Report on Strikes and Lock-outs and on Conciliation and Arbitration Boards in the United Kingdom in 1913 (HMSO, 1914), pp. 80–81. 19 Coal Industry Commission, Reports and Minutes Vol. 1; DRO, NCB I/CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages’; Evening Chronicle, 28, 29 December 1909; Durham Chronicle, 14 October 1910. 20 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 24 January 1910. 21 Durham County Advertiser, 7 January 1910; The Times, 12 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 7, 14 January 1910; Evening Chronicle, 17 January 1910. 22 Durham Chronicle, 7 January 1910. 23 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages’; DRO, D/DMA 17/81/3, Oxhill lodge, special meeting, 18 January 1910; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 January 1910; Evening Chronicle, 15 January 1910; Durham County Advertiser, 7 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 14 January 1910; 15 July 1910.



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24 Evening Chronicle, 10, 11 January 1910; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 10 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 14 January 1910. 25 Durham County Advertiser, 7 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 31 December 1909; 7, 14, 21 January 1910. 26 Durham Chronicle, 14 January 1910. 27 Durham Chronicle, 14 January 1910. 28 Durham Chronicle, 14 January 1910. 29 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 13 January 1910; The Times, 13 January 1910; Durham County Advertiser, 14 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 14, 21 January 1910. 30 Durham Chronicle, 14 January 1910. 31 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages’; Durham Chronicle, 31 December 1909; 7, 14 January 1910; Durham County Advertiser, 7 January 1910. 32 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages’; DRO, NCB I/CO 86/613, ‘Annual return DCOA stoppages, 1910’; DRO, D/DMA 322/9, Usworth lodge, full meetings, 9, 17 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 7, 14, 21, 28 January 1910; 11 February 1910; Durham County Advertiser, 14 January 1910. 33 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages’; DRO, NCB I/CO 86/613, ‘Annual return DCOA stoppages, 1910’; DRO, D/DMA 322/9, Usworth lodge, full meetings, 16 February 1910; 15 March 1910; special committee meeting, 20 February 1910; special full meeting, 10 March 1910; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 22 February 1910; 24, 25 March 1910; Durham Chronicle, 3 June 1910; 22 July 1910; 12 August 1910; 9 September 1910; Evening Chronicle, 9 March 1910. 34 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages’; DRO, NCB I/CO 86/613, ‘Annual return DCOA stoppages, 1910’; DRO, D/X 1118/1, Washington Glebe lodge, special meetings, 2, 11 May 1910; Socialist, March 1910; September 1910; Durham Chronicle, 31 December 1909; 7, 14, 28 January 1910; 11 February 1910; 26 August 1910; Durham County Advertiser, 7 January 1910. 35 Durham Chronicle, 23 September 1910. 36 Durham Chronicle, 4 February 1910. 37 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/613, ‘Annual return DCOA stoppages, 1910’, January 1911; Durham Chronicle, 15 April 1910. 38 DRO, NCB1/CO/86 668, ‘Return as to houses or rent and coals’, August 1913. 39 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/613, ‘Annual return DCOA stoppages, 1910’; DRO, NCB I/ CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages, 1910’; DRO, D/DMA 327/2, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 26 March 1911; Durham County Advertiser, 7 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 11 March 1910; 8, 22 April 1910; 15 July 1910; 3, 10 March 1911; 26 May 1911; 2 June 1911. 40 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages’; The Times, 8, 10, 14 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 14, 21, 28 January 1910. 41 Durham Chronicle, 17 December 1909; 14, 21 January 1910; Durham County Advertiser, 7 January 1910. 42 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 18 January 1910; The Times, 18 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 21, 28 January 1910; Smith, D., ‘Tonypandy 1910: definitions of community’, Past and Present, 87 (1980), pp. 158–184. 43 The Times, 17, 21 January 1910; 14 February 1910; Durham Chronicle, 21 January 1910. 44 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 22 January 1910; The Times, 22, 24 January 1910; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 24 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 28 January 1910.

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45 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/610, ‘Eight Hour Act, details of shifts arranged under, 1910’; The Times, 28 January 1910; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 27, 29 January 1910; Evening Chronicle, 28 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 7 January 1910; 4 February 1910; 22 July 1910; Blaydon Courier, 29 October 1910. 46 DRO, D/DMA 322/9, Usworth lodge, full meeting, 3 April 1910; Evening Chronicle, 21 January 1910; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 2, 5, 19 February 1910; Durham Chronicle, 7, 14, 28 January 1910; 4, 11 February 1910. 47 DRO, D/DMA 327/1, Marsden lodge, joint meetings, 23 January 1910; 6, 27 February 1910; 6 March 1910; committee meeting, 5 February 1910; full meeting, 24 February 1910; DRO, D/DMA 17/3/1, Andrew’s House lodge, meetings, 10 February 1910; DRO, D/X 1118/1, Washington Glebe lodge, general meeting, 4 May 1910; DRO, D/DMA 17/61/1, Hylton lodge, general meeting, 3 February 1910; DRO, D/ DMA 17/51/11, Hamsteels lodge, special meeting, 2 February 1910; DRO, D/DMA 17/65/1, Langley Park lodge, general meeting, n.d. February 1910; special meeting, 21 April 1910; DRO, D/DMA 322/9, Usworth lodge, full meeting, 1 February 1910; Durham Chronicle, 21, 28 January 1910; 4, 11, 18, 25 February 1910; 11 March 1910. 48 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA annual meeting, 20 December 1909; DRO, D/DMA 11, ‘Slip vote of all lodges on motions calling for resignation of the Agents and Executive Committee over the settlement for the 8 Hour Act’, 12 February 1910; Wilson’s monthly circular, February 1910; Durham Chronicle, 28 January 1910; 18 February 1910. 49 Durham Chronicle, 11 February 1910. 50 Durham Chronicle, 28 January 1910; 11 February 1910. 51 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/613, ‘Annual return DCOA stoppages, 1910’; DRO, NCB I/CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages’; DRO, D/DMA 17/65/1, Langley Park lodge, committee meeting, 7 January 1910; ‘adjourned meeting’, 29 January 1910; special meetings, 8 March 1910, 6 April 1911; general meeting, 27 April 1911; Durham Chronicle, 7, 14 January 1910. 52 DRO, D/DMA 11, result of slip vote on resignation of agents and executive, 12 February 1910. 53 DRO, D/DMA 11, Wilson’s monthly circular, February 1910. 54 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA special council, 12 March 1910. 55 DRO, D/DMA 11, Wilson’s monthly circular, March 1910. 56 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 14 March 1910. 57 DRO, D/DMA 17/81/3, Oxhill lodge, special meeting, 3 February 1910; Durham Chronicle, 14 January 1910; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 28 February 1910; Evening Chronicle, 12, 14 March 1910. 58 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages’; DRO, NCB I/CO 86/613, ‘Annual return DCOA stoppages, 1910’; Durham Chronicle, 18 March 1910. 59 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 10, 24, 28 March 1910; Evening Chronicle, 15 March 1910; Durham Chronicle, 11, 25 March 1910. 60 DRO, D/DMA 17/65/1, Langley Park lodge, special meeting, 21 April 1910; DRO, D/ DMA 17/61/1, Hylton lodge, committee meetings, 6, 20 July 1910; 14 August 1910; general meeting, 21 July 1910; DRO, D/X 1118/1, Washington Glebe lodge, general meeting, 4 May 1910; DRO, D/DMA 327/1, Marsden lodge, joint meetings, 3, 24 April 1910.; Durham Chronicle, 1 April 1910. 61 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages’; DRO, NCB I/CO 86/613, ‘Annual return DCOA stoppages, 1910’; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 24 February 1910; 18 March 1910; 7, 8, 11, 20 April 1910; The Times, 7, 8, 11 April 1910; Durham Chronicle, 8, 22 April 1910; Evening Chronicle, 4, 9 April 1910.



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62 Durham Chronicle, 22 April 1910. 63 DRO, D/DMA 327/2, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 9 January 1911; committee meeting, 4 March 1911; DRO, D/DMA 17/61/1, Hylton lodge, committee meeting, 20 July 1910; general meeting, 21 July 1910; special meeting, 14 August 1910; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 27, 28, 29, 30 June 1910; 1, 4, 7 July 1910; Evening Chronicle, 27, 29, 30 June 1910; 6 July 1910; Durham Chronicle, 18 February 1910. 64 Durham Chronicle, 22 July 1910. 65 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/613; /625; /649; /671, DCOA annual returns disputes, 1910– 1913; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 25 May 1910; 13 June 1910; Durham Chronicle, 20 May 1910; 3, 10, 17 June 1910; 22, 29 July 1910; 25 November 1910; Evening Chronicle, 11 June 1910. 66 Report of HM Inspector of Mines for the South Durham District, 1910 (Harrison and Sons, 1911); DRO, D/X 1118/1, Washington Glebe lodge, special meeting, 17 August 1910; DRO, D/DMA 322/9, Usworth lodge, committee meeting, 10 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 28 January 1910; 11, 18 March 1910; 15, 22, 29 April 1910; 5 August 1910. 67 Durham Chronicle, 1 July 1910; 14, 21 April 1911; 4, 18 August 1911. 68 NRO, 759/B/5, MFGB annual conference, 5 October 1911; special conference, 6 April 1912. 69 Durham Chronicle, 22 April 1910; 21 October 1910; 6, 27 January 1911. 70 The Times, 1 September 1910; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 6 September 1910; Durham Chronicle, 9 September 1910. 71 Durham Chronicle, 23 September 1910. 72 The Times, 14 February 1910. 73 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 21 May 1910; The Times, 5 April 1910; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 6 April 1910; Durham Chronicle, 27 May 1910; 21 October 1910; 17 February 1911. 74 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 18 February 1911; DRO, D/DMA 327/2, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 12 March 1911; DRO, D/DMA 17/81/3, Oxhill lodge, committee meeting, 14 February 1911; DRO, D/X 1118/1, Washington Glebe lodge, general meeting, 25 January 1911; DRO, D/DMA 17/61/1, Hylton lodge, ordinary meeting, 18 January 1911; committee meetings, 15 February 1911; 18 March 1911; Durham Chronicle, 27 January 1911; 10, 17 February 1911. 75 Durham Chronicle, 24 March 1911; 14 April 1911. 76 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA special council, 8 April 1911; Durham Chronicle, 7, 14 April 1911. 77 DRO, D/DMA 17/51/11, Hamsteels lodge, full meeting, 19 April 1911. 78 Durham Chronicle, 21 April 1911; 30 June 1911. 79 Blaydon Courier, 14 January 1910; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 31 March 1910; Durham Chronicle, 14 January 1910; 4 February 1910. 80 DRO, D/DMA 11, Wilson’s monthly circular, March 1910. 81 DRO, D/DMA 327/1, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 31 July 1910; Evening Chronicle, 13 July 1910; The Times, 14 July 1910; Durham Chronicle, 15 July 1910; 14 October 1910. 82 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages, January 1910’; DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 26 November 1910; DRO, D/DMA 327/1, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 9 October 1910; D/DMA 327/2, joint meeting, 4 June 1911; DRO, D/ DMA 17/51/11, Hamsteels lodge, full meeting, 7 June 1911; DRO, D/DMA 17/61/1, Hylton lodge, committee meeting, 12 October 1910; special meeting, 13 October

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83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93

94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109

The Great Labour Unrest 1910; general meeting, 8 June 1911; Evening Chronicle, 2, 17, 30 March 1910; 7, 17 October 1910; Durham Chronicle, 21 October 1910; 2, 16 December 1910; 10, 24 February 1911; Blaydon Courier, 17 September 1910; Evening Mail, 16 February 1911; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 28 November 1910. DRO, D/DMA 17/81/3, Oxhill lodge, ordinary meeting, 16 July 1910. Durham Chronicle, 4 February 1910; 12, 19 August 1910. Durham Chronicle, 19 August 1910. The italics are mine, to render the exchange more intelligible. DRO, D/DMA 1/11/21, Wilson’s monthly circular, August 1910. Durham Chronicle, 28 January 1910; 19 August 1910. DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA annual meeting, 17 December 1910; DRO, D/DMA 17/61/1, Hylton lodge, general meeting, 8 December 1910; Durham Chronicle, 23 December 1910; 20 January 1911. The Times, 22 June 1910. Durham Chronicle, 20 May 1910. Evening Chronicle, 19 November 1909; 16 December 1909; Durham Chronicle, 21 January 1910; 19 August 1910; Socialist, July 1910. Socialist, July 1910. DRO, D/DMA 82, Board of Conciliation for the Durham Coal Trade minutes, 24 December 1909; 4 January 1910 (special meeting); 6 May 1910; 2 August 1910; 4 November 1910; 19 December 1910; 3 February 1911; The Times, 11 January 1910; 7, 23 May 1910; 5 November 1910; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 24 December 1910; Durham Chronicle, 20, 27 May 1910; 5 August 1910; 25 November 1910; 9, 23 December 1910; 10 February 1911. Durham Chronicle, 10 March 1911. DRO, D/DMA 82, Board of Conciliation for the Durham Coal Trade minutes, 20 March 1911; 5 May 1911; Durham Chronicle, 24 March 1911; 9 June 1911. Durham Chronicle, 21 July 1911. DRO, D/DMA 82, Board of Conciliation for the Durham Coal Trade minutes, 4 August 1911; Durham Chronicle, 12 August 1910; 11 August 1911. Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 12 January 1910; The Times, 15 August 1910; Durham Chronicle, 7 January 1910; 19 August 1910; 14 April 1911. NRO, 759/B/5, MFGB annual conference, 5 October 1911. Durham Chronicle, 31 December 1909. Durham Chronicle, 22 April 1910; 16 September 1910. Evening Chronicle, 22 January 1910. Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 10 January 1910; 3 February 1910. DRO, D/DMA 1/11/21, DMA committee and council minutes, July–December 1910. Blaydon Courier, 14 January 1910. Northern Democrat, April 1911. DRO, D/X 1118/1, Washington Glebe lodge, general meetings, 8, 21 February 1911; special meeting, 18 March 1911; Durham Chronicle, 6, 13 January 1911; 10, 17 March 1911. Durham Chronicle, 25 February 10; 11 March 1910; 13 September 1912; Marshall, C., ‘Levels of industrial militancy and the political radicalisation of the Durham miners, 1885–1914’ (MA thesis, Durham University, 1976), F25. Durham Chronicle, 21 October 1910.



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110 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 20 June 1910; 8 November 1910; Durham Chronicle, 20 May 1910; 29 July 1910; 19 August 1910. 111 Durham Chronicle, 19 August 1910. 112 Northern Democrat, September 1910; Durham Chronicle, 7 June 1912; Marshall, thesis, pp. 203–209. 113 DRO, D/DMA 1/11/21, DMA annual meeting programme, 17 December 1910. 114 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA special council, 7 October 1911; DRO, D/DMA 1/11/22, lodges voting on Eight Hours Agreement, 7 October 1911 and DMA annual meeting programme, 16 December 1911; DRO, D/DMA 327/1, Marsden lodge minutes, joint meetings, 26 December 1909; 16, 23, 26 January 1910; 6 February 1910; 31 July 1910; full meeting, 30 December 1909; committee meeting, 26 June 1910; D/DMA 327/2, joint meeting, 26 December 1910; 12, 26 March 1911; 23 April 1911; 4 June 1911; 30 July 1911; committee meeting, 18 March 1911; full special meeting, 6 April 1911. 115 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages’; DRO, NCB I/CO 86/613, ‘Annual return DCOA stoppages, 1910’; DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA annual meeting, 17 December 1910; DRO, D/DMA 11, programme of the special council meeting (on the Eight Hours Agreement), 12 March 1910; DRO, D/DMA 11, lodge vote on agents’ resignation, 12 February 1910; DRO, D/DMA 322/9, Usworth lodge, full meetings, 9, 17, 27 January 1910; DRO, D/DMA 17/61/1, Hylton lodge, special meetings, 9, 30 January 1910; general meetings, 23 June 1910; 8 December 1910; 2 February 1911; 8 June 1911; committee meetings, 15 February 1911; 18 March 1911; Durham County Advertiser, 7 January 1910; Durham Chronicle, 14, 21 January 1910. 116 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages’; DRO, NCB I/CO 86/613, ‘Annual return DCOA stoppages, 1910’; DRO, D/DMA 11, lodge vote on agents’ resignation, 12 February 1910; DRO, D/DMA 17/51/11, Hamsteels lodge, special meetings, 10 January 1910; 19 August 1910; full meetings, 26 January 1910; 27 July 1910; 7 September 1910; 8 February 1911; 7 June 1911; DRO, D/X 1118/1, Washington Glebe lodge, committee meeting, 29 June 1910; general meetings, 11 January 1911; 21 April 1911; Durham Chronicle, 7, 21 January 1910; 26 August 1910; Durham County Advertiser, 7 January 1910. 117 The Times, 1 February 1910. 118 Durham Chronicle, 11 March 1910. 119 Durham Chronicle, 18, 25 February 1910; 4, 11 March 1910; Marshall, thesis, pp. 175–176. 120 House of Commons Debates, 17 March 1910, vol. 15, cols 511–512; Durham Chronicle, 11 March 1910; 20 May 1910. 121 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 22 January 1910; DRO, D/DMA 11, ‘Committee notes’, 7 January 1910; The Times, 6 August 1910; Evening Chronicle, 28 October 1910; 3 December 1910; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 5, 12 November 1910; Durham Chronicle, 11 November 1910; 17 February 1911; Blaydon Courier, 20 January 1912. 122 Davies, D.K., ‘The influence of syndicalism, and industrial unionism, in the South Wales coalfield 1898–1921: a study in ideology and practice’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Wales, 1991), p. 64. 123 Durham Chronicle, 20 January 1911; Blaydon Courier, 18 February 1911; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 13 February 1911. 124 DRO, D/DMA 17/51/11, Hamsteels lodge, full meetings, 25 January 1911; 8 February 1911; DRO, D/DMA 327/2, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 22 January 1911; DRO, D/X 1118/1, Washington Glebe lodge, general meeting, 8 February 1911; special

144

125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135

136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153

The Great Labour Unrest meeting, 19 February 1911; DRO, D/DMA 17/61/1, Hylton lodge, general meeting, 24 November 1910; Blaydon Courier, 25 February 1911. Metcalfe, G.H., ‘History of the Durham Miners’ Association, 1869–1915’ (Durham: unpublished typescript, 1947), p. 454. DRO, D/X 1118/1, Washington Glebe lodge, special meeting, 4 March 1911; Blaydon Courier, 18 February 1911; 20 January 1912; Durham Chronicle, 30 September 1910; 10, 17 February 1911. Davies, P., A.J. Cook (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987), p. 12; Holton, B., British Syndicalism 1900–1914: Myths and Realities (Pluto, 1976), p. 112. DRO, D/DMA 327/2, Marsden lodge, joint meetings, 11, 26 December 1910; 9 January 1911; DRO, D/DMA 17/3/1, Andrew’s House lodge, general meetings, 24 December 1910; 7 January 1911. DRO, D/DMA 17/61/1, Hylton lodge, ordinary meeting, 5 January 1911; committee meeting, 1 February 1911; DRO, D/DMA 17/65/1 Langley Park lodge, general meeting, 27 October 1910. Van der Linden, M., ‘Second thoughts on revolutionary syndicalism’, Labour History Review, 63:2 (1998), p. 188. Zeitlin, J., ‘“Rank and filism” in British labour history: a critique’, International Review of Social History, 34:1 (1989), pp. 54–60. Durham Chronicle, 19 August 1910. Durham Chronicle, 10 March 1911. DRO, D/DMA 322/9, Usworth lodge minutes, February 1909 to April 1910. DRO, NCB I/CO 86/613, ‘Annual return DCOA stoppages’, 1910; DRO, D/DMA 322/9, Usworth lodge, full meetings, 16 February 1910; 15 March 1910; special committee meeting, 20 February 1910; special full meeting, 10 March 1910; special meeting, 29 March 1910; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 23 May 1910. DRO, NCB I/CO 86/613, ‘Annual return DCOA stoppages, 1910’; Evening Chronicle, 10 September 1910; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 27 February 1911; 15, 16 May 1911; Durham Chronicle, 9, 16 September 1910; 19 May 1911. See, for example, reports on Usworth disputes in Durham Chronicle, 9, 16 September 1910. DRO, NCB I/CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages’; DRO, NCB I/CO 86/596; 86/613, ‘Annual returns DCOA stoppages, 1909 and 1910’; Durham Chronicle, 16 September 1910; 3, 17 March 1911; 19 May 1911. Blaydon Courier, 8 October 1910. Marshall, thesis, pp. 81–82. Socialist, March 1910; The Times, 22 May 1901. Socialist, February 1910. Socialist, February 1910. Socialist, March 1910. Durham Chronicle, 8, 29 July 1910; 26 August 1910; 16, 23 September 1910. Socialist, September 1910. Durham Chronicle, 8 July 1910; 9 September 1910; 25 November 1910; 8 May 1914. Socialist, February 1910; March 1910; April 1910; September 1910. Socialist, February 1910. Socialist, December 1910. The Times, 7 January 1910; 4, 25 March 1910. Evening Chronicle, 1 August 1910; Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 25 August 1911. DRO, NCB I/CO 86/602, ‘Eight Hour Act stoppages’; Socialist, August 1910.

1 Surfaceworkers break and sort the coal on the picking belts at St Hilda (colliery of rank-and-file leaders Jos Batey and Thomas Barron)

2 A hand putter toils while a deputy looks on

3 Twizell blacklisted colliery workers (joiners, carpenters, etc.). The ‘blacklist’ may relate to the 1912 minimum wage strike

4 Crowd with draped (mourning) Alma banner seen outside the Newfield Inn, Pelton Lane Ends, possibly en route to the annual miners’ gala in 1912. Jack Lawson, lodge checkweighman, stands on the right wearing a straw boater

5 Murton colliery strikers against the four-shift system collecting coal in March 1910

6 Hewer at work in north-west Durham

4 ‘Not exactly the millennium’ The minimum wage campaign1

By June 1911, the campaign against the three-shift system was struggling in the mire of protracted and ultimately fruitless negotiations between the DMA executive and mine owners. Yet, by March 1912, the DMA had played an essential part in mounting the largest strike in British history hitherto, in favour of an individual minimum wage for all miners. Under the auspices of the MFGB, over one million coal miners struck, in the Federation’s first truly national industrial action. As the failed 1893 miners’ strike showed, they could not have done so effectively without the endorsement of the DMA, after 1908 the second largest MFGB affiliate. But, with the main DMA agents steeped in economic liberalism, opposed to the minimum wage in principle, and keen to use the rulebook to subvert lodge and Federation proposals that they opposed, the responsibility of winning a two-thirds majority vote for strike action on the issue (required by DMA rules) fell to the coalfield’s ILP activists. Facing an entrenched leadership that had adopted something of a siege mentality in the aftermath of 1910, and operating in a highly stratified, hierarchically organised workforce, they faced a major challenge. This chapter examines how they began to go about this task, analysing the genesis and early development of an important rank-and-file trade union movement in the months before and during the 1912 national miners’ strike. Origins of the Durham Minimum Wage Movement The tumult brought about by the Eight Hours Agreement had served as a distraction from the campaign for a miners’ minimum wage from late 1909 until summer 1911. While DMA council of 22 January 1910 passed a Thrislington lodge motion that the union seek a national miners’ minimum wage of 6s. per day, this was forgotten among the acrimony over the three-shift system and calls for the agents’ resignation. This was despite the support from lodges like Langley Park, which asked the agents to secure a 6s. minimum for Durham hewers in February 1910.2 Yet, the Agreement also played a positive role in the origins of the Minimum Wage Movement (MWM).3 The resentment that it spawned proved

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fairly easy to shift onto another related aspect of the miners’ working life; the potential threat to the earning power of those grades of piece-working miner who had had their hours shortened by the Eight Hours Act became a further resource to be tapped by minimum wage campaigners.4 This was one aspect of a more widespread and growing consternation in the Durham coalfield provoked by the spreading knowledge of the extent of the profits made by the dominant Durham coal companies – information that became even more widely circulated by those making arguments for the financial viability of a minimum wage. In 1911, Thomas Richardson MP and John Walbank expanded their 1908 study on coal profits in Durham to include the whole British coal industry, arguing that the owners, nationally, could well afford a generous minimum wage.5 In early 1911, the minimum wage began to creep back onto the Durham ILP miners’ agenda. The impetus came within the MFGB, from South Wales miners attempting to get the Federation to take up the minimum wage as a national demand. By early February, the Durham Chronicle felt the alarm bells were ringing. It praised the recent formation of a coal owners’ national combine, which provided a counterbalance to the MFGB, and especially its socialist elements that might organise a national strike with apparently terrible consequences for coal and other dependent industries.6 Leading Durham ILP activists were now also taking up the minimum wage again. Speaking at a party meeting in Stanley in early February 1911, Thomas Richardson MP thought that the ‘time had come for a minimum wage in the mining world’. In a remarkably prescient speech, he claimed that they ‘did not have hope of extracting the minimum wage from Durham coal owners’ and that, instead, ‘hope lay in making the minimum wage a national question. And, if by united effort the MFGB could not achieve the minimum wage, miners would need the State to legislate.’7 There was, however, little more agitation on the minimum wage until July 1911, when the ILP launched a nationwide campaign for its ‘living wage for all’ national minimum wage of 30s.8 In connection with this initiative, Durham ILP branches began holding well-attended propaganda meetings; Chopwell’s, for example, ‘was one of the best meetings held for some time’.9 The appearance of South Wales miner ‘missionaries’ in the Durham coalfield, proselytising for national strike action in support of an individual miners’ minimum wage in late July 1911, turned local attention more firmly towards mounting an organised campaign inside the DMA. The missionaries spoke at important coalfield centres like Stanley and a ‘large audience’ they addressed at Chester-le-Street passed a resolution instructing the DMA leaders to demand the minimum wage and to invoke MFGB national action on the issue at its annual conference on 28 July 1911 to secure this. Individual Durham lodges also received the Welsh miners’ deputation to hear their case about the minimum wage and secure financial support for their ongoing strike (the MFGB had recently ended its support for the Cambrian Combine strikers). Their presence could have a galvanising effect. Oxhill lodge for instance, while ignoring a circular from the South Wales miners in May 1911, agreed in early



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July to receive a Welsh delegation and subsequently donated them £2. In January 1912, Oxhill distributed a petition against the prison sentences for the Tonypandy rioters, as did Andrew’s House and Washington Glebe lodges. The latter, along with Marsden, also received Welsh delegations in summer 1911, deciding afterwards to pay regular levies to their striking comrades. The cool reception from the Durham agents also provoked criticism; Hamsteels lodge asked the agents why the South Wales men were not permitted to ‘solicit’ support in Durham.10 The missionaries then appeared at the annual Durham miners’ gala on 22 July. Denied an official DMA platform, the South Wales miners’ message nevertheless had struck a chord.11 At the gala, Wilson was persistently heckled when speaking against South Wales’ proposed strike. Wilson argued that Durham miners did not need stirring up for a strike. A heckler responded, ‘You will allow a man to think for himself.’ Wilson advised the interlocutor to hold his tongue and not to be foolish, whereupon there was more interruption. Joining in a national strike would be ‘madness and foolish’, Wilson claimed, though other speakers’ calls to support the Welsh miners drew approving gala cheers. Robert Smillie, vicepresident of the MFGB, interpreted these cheers as an indication that the crowd was dissatisfied with the Federation’s leaders, whom he defended over South Wales: the whole MFGB had decided, ‘he thought rightly (a voice: “wrongly”) that a settlement should be reached in South Wales ... let the South Wales men put forward a case for a general stoppage and he would be with them all the way’.12 In the aftermath, Wilson was left in no doubt that the South Wales missionaries’ case had (erroneously, in his view) been endorsed by the gala crowd.13 The events of summer 1911 suggested that a context was developing in which syndicalism could also prosper. The South Wales missionaries to Durham included Noah Rees, secretary of the Cambrian lodge, student contemporary of Noah Ablett at Ruskin (1907–1908) and to become part-author of the seminal syndicalist text The Miners’ Next Step in late 1911. In response to a statement from SWMF officials that success in wages negotiations could be regarded as ‘half a loaf is better than none’, Rees famously responded, ‘We are demanding the bake house.’14 The minimum wage was a central demand of the South Wales syndicalists.15 By gala day, the gala crowd’s spirit of insubordination seemed in full flow, more so even than in summer 1910. Wilson was very upset at his audience’s interjectionary manner, which he ascribed to the missionaries’ pernicious influence. In terms of radical socialist ideas, the lodges had again elected the maverick and charismatic firebrand Victor Grayson as one of the guest speakers for the 1911 gala. From the platform Grayson urged a sympathy strike for the Welsh miners, stressing the futility of striking in sections. ‘Why should they allow the geographical dividing line to divide them? (A voice: “it’s not the men; it’s the leaders”.)’ Grayson responded, ‘Never mind the leaders ... the world has been crushed by leaders before today ... Realise your own individuality and take action.’ Grayson, who had briefly been an MP, then attacked the parliamentary system: ‘don’t trust to Parliament – don’t think that because you send a man to the House of Commons that you have laid a brick in the new temple

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of Jerusalem (laughter). They have got a nack [sic.] of nibbling them up there. They tried to nibble me. But they found I was indigestible. (Laughter)’16 For Wilson, Grayson had ‘descended to the lowest depth’, the speech designed merely to feed an egotistical desire for ‘evoking applause and gaining popularity’.17 Speaking at an opening of aged miners’ homes a few days after the gala, Wilson attacked both the South Wales missionaries – who had set aside the MFGB’s authority, which was thus not bound to support them – and Grayson, who had taken advantage of his invitation to the gala to ‘utter foul remarks’ about Durham’s leaders. This was ‘a big mistake’ and an ‘unwarrantable intrusion’ by Grayson who, in twenty minutes had apparently done more damage than the agents could remedy in twelve months. (Wilson also praised Joicey’s £8,000 donation for the homes).18 Certainly, Grayson was not an overt syndicalist, but his speech, with its distinctly syndicalist (even anarchist) tone, was well received by the crowd. Only three days after the gala, R.A.S. Redmayne, the government’s Chief Inspector of Mines, penned a report for the cabinet on the situation in the coalfields. He thought there was a great probability of the spirit of unrest culminating in a general strike ... the men are not as submissive to their old official leaders as they formerly were, younger and more violent men urging a more ‘forward’ policy. This is particularly noticeable in Northumberland, Durham and South Wales. Coal owners of large experience in Northumberland and Durham tell me that they have never known the temper of the men to be as ‘difficult’ as at present, and I have observed the same feature myself.

Redmayne also pointed out that none of the districts had had a full-blown strike for many years: ‘there is great danger in the fact that so many of the miners now at work have not been through a strike and do not realise what it means’. He regarded the three-shift system as largely responsible for the ill-feeling prevalent in the [north-eastern] coalfield. The matter is largely a domestic one, and the men will be urged onward by the women, who in some cases suffer considerable inconvenience in having to prepare meals and make the necessary arrangements to suit members of their family going and returning to work at three different periods of twenty-four hours. ... Should the coal owners or the men remain obdurate – and I think the men will remain obdurate – a strike would seem to be inevitable in the Northumberland and Durham districts ... The mine manager and others (from various districts) with whom I have conversed of late are, in the majority of cases, very pessimistic.19

This subversive, militant, mood should not be overstated. There were contrasting attitudes in evidence at the 1911 gala. Wilson’s conciliatory speech – including the claim that the South Wales men were not acting within MFGB rules – was cheered. A section of his audience was apparently keen on throwing one of his militant



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hecklers into the nearby river Wear (a fate that actually befell the dean of Durham at the 1925 gala).20 Indeed, Grayson was by far the most militant of the four elected to speak that year. Far more moderate, Will Crooks MP called from the gala platform for greater confidence between the miners and their officials. Wilson’s comments at the gala also suggested that he saw a strong generational dimension to the unrest. He feared that Durham might get dragged into a national strike for South Wales as he had seen the tone of letters written by (he assumed) young Durham miners in the local press.21 The Durham Chronicle endorsed this perception. ‘A Spectator’ commented that some of the younger generation thought Wilson overcautious and overly peaceful, while other miners thought the young would know better when they were older.22 ‘A Spectator’ also argued that, while the 1911 gala might suggest that Durham miners were not loyal to their leaders, the lodge banners implied otherwise – many included portraits of past leaders, including Gladstone. More specifically, the MFGB’s refusal to continue supporting the South Wales miners on strike posed considerable problems for the Federation’s more militant advocates. It allowed Wilson to pose as the MFGB’s defender, now that it had made a decision (constitutionally) that he supported. Accordingly, Wilson could attack both the South Wales missionaries for wanting to stir up trouble in Durham as well as Durham’s own lodges demanding a DMA council meeting to side with the South Wales men, not against the owners, but against the MFGB’s leaders. There had been no injustice done to the South Wales miners by the MFGB, Wilson assured his members in July 1911; if there had, he would have urged Durham miners to support them.23 Nevertheless, Durham revolutionary George Harvey, for the first time, really came to the notice of his fellow miners (and the local press) in summer 1911. Harvey turned a series of articles published in the Socialist between April and May 1911 into his first pamphlet, Industrial Unionism and the Mining Industry. It critiqued current mining trade unionism, including the MFGB, in terms of its conception that ‘there is a common interest between master and man’.24 It made a case for industrial unions and attacked the ‘political schemes’ of the ILP and the other ‘sham parties’. Quoting Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto, it argued that ‘the relations of the workers in the industrial field is the controlling factor in their political life or activities, and that a necessary condition of working-class political unity is organised action in the industrial field’.25 For Harvey, this lesson was demonstrated in Durham in January 1910, when angry miners protested against the DMA candidate John Johnson in Gateshead constituency. Industrial Unionism and the Mining Industry was rediscovered by a later generation of militants in the 1970s and 1980s.26 But it was similarly popular in the Durham coalfield when it first came out as a pamphlet. The national SLP organiser regretted not taking more copies of it to the 1911 gala; apparently the ten dozen they had brought were ‘sold out in a few minutes’.27 That year, the SLP had also been close to the heart of the gala action. It held its own ‘noisy’ gala meeting, subject to ILP interruptions when they criticised it (though apparently

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the ILP activists refused the offer of the platform to defend themselves). Then South Wales miners, denied an official gala platform, requested and were granted the SLP platform, though the SLP claimed that it also had to plead with the ILP activists present to give order and allow the South Wales men to speak. Industrial Unionism and the Mining Industry itself was undoubtedly a success. According to Harvey it had sold over 2,000 copies by May 1912 and secured him invitations to speak all over the coalfield.28 The first local press coverage for Harvey’s political work came, presumably as a result of this wider publicity, in late August 1911.29 Returning to the minimum wage, by the last week of July 1911 the South Wales influence had firmly cemented the national ILP’s wider minimum wage campaign to more specific miners’ demands; for example, a large audience at Beamish heard speeches on the minimum wage ‘from a miners’ point of view’ that week.30 The speaker at Beamish was Jack Lawson, elected a checkweighman only the year before. Andrew Temple presided at the same meeting. He was also a checkweighman (Twizell colliery, very near Lawson’s Alma, in West Pelton, near Chester-le-Street) and to become a MWM leader.31 Both had some history of political activity; Temple contributed to the ILP’s Northern Democrat discussing Durham miners’ wages and owners’ profits and dividends and a miners’ minimum wage in 1909, and he had intervened (to defend the executive’s actions) in early 1910. But both were junior activists who had not before taken the lead in a significant coalfield-wide initiative. Indeed, Temple wrote his first column on ‘Mining topics’ in the Northern Democrat only in July 1911, with Lawson briefly mentioned in the journal for the first time the previous month.32 In autumn 1911 Temple in particular became a regular contributor to the local press on the minimum wage issue.33 Lawson was quick to admit that the South Wales missionaries’ had done ‘more than anyone’ to foster a rebellious feeling in the Durham rank and file, ‘for there is great indignation in the county as to the way in which these [South Wales] men have been treated by the leaders’.34 In mid-August 1911 Lawson and Temple again spoke on the minimum wage at Beamish, and then on their home turf of nearby West Pelton.35 Lawson claimed that ‘there was no class in the country’ with greater reason to demand the minimum wage than the miners.36 Late August 1911 saw the beginning of a proliferation of miners’ minimum wage demonstrations, albeit as fairly localised events. The economic context seemed favourable. Minimum wage campaigners noted at their meetings the contrast between their own declining wages (cut by 2.5% with immediate effect in early August) and press reports of big Durham coal companies declaring dividends of 20% or 30%. In the ensuing months Durham miners’ wages stagnated.37 The wider industrial context also inspired. Strikes, like that of the railway workers, meant an MWM activist could comment credibly that ‘strike mania was in the air’ in late August 1911.38 Lodges also began pressuring their leaders over the minimum wage. Marsden lodge, for instance, urged the Durham agents to ask the MFGB to press for an 8s. per day hewers’ minimum.39 For his part, Lawson was clear that ‘the men of Durham have



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made up their minds to march. They are asking their leaders to lead. They will mark time no longer’.40 Course of the minimum wage campaign to the strike, September 1911–March 1912 The nascent MWM assumed more coherence at a mass conference convened by three ILP-dominated lodges of the West Pelton area on 2 September 1911.41 The chairperson was W.P. Richardson, who, with nine years’ direct experience of the minimum wage at Usworth colliery (and a well-known older brother in the ILP), was an obvious candidate to assume a leading role in the movement. The conference had to requisition the local Co-operative Hall as attendance was far higher than anticipated; many present claimed it was the best event of this type that they had ever attended, with ‘no rowdyism and no personalities’.42 The conference circularised all Durham lodges urging them to maintain and extend the minimum wage agitation. This clearly happened, as there were more than twenty mass meetings calling for the minimum wage held throughout most districts of the coalfield before the end of the 1912 national strike.43 The Durham movement’s main aim was a hewer’s individual minimum wage of 7s. per day (excluding their privileges of colliery house or rental allowance and ‘free’ house coal), with other classes of mineworkers to receive a minimum commensurate with existing pay grades. In October 1911, Temple outlined four additional proposals for how wage determining should be reformed in Durham. He called for a ‘substantial’ increase in the basis and, second, for the fixing of a much more generous scale for wage advances to, say, 6% for every 4d. advance in the selling price of coal (from the existing 1.25% for every 2d. rise in coal prices) up to 9s. per ton. Over a selling price of 9s. per ton, there should be an 8% advance for every 4d. rise in coal prices. Third, an umpire should attend all Conciliation Board meetings to check the coal owners’ books if required. Finally, Temple argued that the cost of living, profits and the state and prospects for the coal trade should all be factors in determining wages (rather than, as at present, coal prices alone).44 MWM activists anticipated calling on MFGB support if their coalfield campaign failed. In the event, the Durham campaign was prescient as, on 6 October 1911, the MFGB annual conference at Southport voted unanimously to take immediate steps to secure a minimum wage for all men and lads working underground in British collieries. The coal owners in several districts, including Durham, would not agree to the minimum wage and an MFGB special conference in late December 1911 decided to ballot all members on strike action early in January 1912.45 Durham MWM activists urged miners to vote for a strike, though they tended to frame any potential stoppage in apocalyptic terms.46 Lawson, for instance, warned that a national strike ‘would lay the country to waste’, but he insisted it was the only way to bring the owners to a ‘reasonable’ frame of mind.47 Even with the ballot, however,

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the Durham owners remained steadfastly opposed, and refusing to countenance paying a minimum wage that was unrelated to the actual work done.48 The Durham owners’ case against the minimum wage was made public by two of the most powerful coal owners in the county, lords Joicey and Londonderry. The former claimed that miners’ wages on average consumed 60–70% of the pit-mouth selling price of coal (i.e. between 12s. and 14s. of every £1 realised). The remaining 6–8s., he wrote, paid for all other charges: machinery, materials, rents, rates, taxes, claims for subsidence and many other costs, as well as interest on capital.49 Londonderry endorsed Joicey’s case in the House of Lords. He discussed the minimum wage in relation to the Eight Hours Act, which had done ‘such undoubted damage’ to the coal trade, and which he ‘to a great extent attribute[d] the present unfortunate condition of affairs’. The Eight Hours Act, the miners’ minimum wage and the Insurance Act all entailed additional costs to coal production, he pointed out. This meant that collieries with smaller margins would be put out of business. Londonderry was being disingenuous – see his fellow Durham coal owner Lord Furness’ claims below. Londonderry also feared the uncertainty about the effect that the minimum wage would have on coal output. In this connection he cited Usworth colliery’s minimum wage (though he did not name the colliery). Londonderry claimed that Usworth made a loss working a particular seam, while another colliery working the same seam without a minimum wage produced a larger coal output, employed fewer miners and turned a profit. The implication was clear: the minimum wage disincetivised hard work for pieceworkers, who consequently became less productive. Londonderry also argued that the wage-bargaining machinery in Durham rendered the minimum wage unnecessary, especially the ‘consideration’ that was paid to those working in ‘abnormal places’. This was the main plank of the Durham owners’ response after the miners had voted to strike for a minimum wage. They suggested instead discussions over new arrangements to improve the ‘consideration’ system, making it better able to remedy specific cases where miners’ earnings remained low.50 More generally, Londonderry claimed that Durham’s Joint Committee settled disputes ‘without friction and without Government interference’. He added that, had he foreseen what would happen, he would not have invested annually for a decade ‘a very large sum of money in sinking a colliery’ (presumably Dawdon) and would instead have invested it abroad, in some of those undertakings which it would not have been possible for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to rob. And surely that will be the experience of others who have invested their capital. Not only would there have been less coal worked if I had followed that line, not only would all these men who are now working the pits have been unemployed, but also the vast army of men who have been engaged in building the houses, the chapels, the churches, the schools, and all the other buildings which are necessary in connection with the mines.51



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For its part, the Durham MWM also articulated the grievances of other grades of mineworker. Elderly and infirm miners were particularly important as their wage levels had been factored in when the county average was fixed, ensuring that younger, more energetic workers would always earn more than the county average. A minimum wage excluding the elderly and infirm, which was what some inside the MFGB were suggesting, would mean younger workers experiencing an effective wage reduction. Two speakers at the 2 September 1911 MWM conference called for increases in the low wages of various grades of mineworker, including ‘banksmen’ (who worked on the surface, operating the cages taking men down the pit shaft), stonemen and shifters. The latter two grades sometimes earned as little as 3s. per shift. Surfaceworkers, who had been almost entirely ignored in the agitation against the Eight Hours Agreement, harboured considerable grievances over their long hours and low pay. By late December 1911, the Durham movement was calling for the inclusion of all surfaceworkers’ wages in the minimum. Movement activists could only express regret when the MFGB later explicitly excluded them from its minimum wage demands.52 An essential feature of the Durham MWM’s campaign was its serious and sustained criticisms of the DMA’s leaders. The 2 September 1911 conference set the tone, with W.P. Richardson claiming that agents ‘were living on the reputation of the past, and he would remark that the water which had gone would never turn the mill round again’.53 The agents were called on to modernise, denounced for holding their positions due to the votes of pub-attending miners, condemned for being apathetic (while their own members were eager to act) and criticised for behaving unconstitutionally in not having their actions at MFGB conferences ratified by the lodges.54 By March 1912, the MWM went as far as to claim that DMA agents were actually helping ‘the coal kings’.55 The agents responded in kind. T.H. Cann (DMA treasurer), for example, launched a personal attack on W.P. Richardson, and Wilson refused to answer any of the movement’s ‘slanders’ of him, which he roundly condemned.56 This agitation, and the accompanying opprobrium, did not, however, appear to intimidate the agents into acting on the MWM’s demands. Movement leaders became convinced that the executive had begun negotiating the exclusion of aged and infirm workers from the minimum wage in Durham. This was certainly true of Wilson, who favoured their exclusion. He raised the issue with the MFGB in late December, arguing that if the miners could agree that the ‘unfit’ and old be excluded from the minimum wage, it would alter the bargaining position in Durham and possibly break the deadlock with the local owners. A month later, in January 1912, Wilson reasoned that ‘with the aged and infirm excluded, and some provision made for them, if I were an employer I should give the minimum wage. It would be a minimum wage for the strong and not the weak’.57 But he remained unclear whether the MFGB policy was for inclusion or exclusion. At another MFGB conference in early February, Wilson again asked for clarity, this time on whether a daily or weekly minimum wage was being sought (he understood it, correctly as it turned out, to be daily), and also, again, whether the minimum

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would apply to aged and infirm pieceworkers. This time confirmation came that aged and infirm workers were to be excluded, no doubt to Wilson’s satisfaction, but to the chagrin of his fellow Durham delegate John Storey (see below).58 For their part, the MWM leaders could only criticise Wilson at a distance. Twizell lodge argued, rather futilely, that the executive had no lodge mandate to behave as it was. A movement circular of mid-January 1912 lamented that ‘modern capitalism has no use for the aged and infirm’.59 The agents ignored the movement’s repeated calls for a special meeting of DMA council to consider its 7s. minimum demand for over six inactive weeks. MWM threats that any special council meeting might pass a ‘no confidence’ vote over the agents’ disregard of elderly and surfaceworkers hardly served as an incentive for them to call one. When the special council meeting finally came on 10 February 1912, Wilson dominated by delivering a lengthy monologue before answering questions from delegates. Surfaceworkers were once again overlooked. The meeting’s decision that Durham delegates would vote against the exemption of the aged and infirm from any MFGB minimum wage demand was a short-lived movement victory. When the MFGB met to discuss the Liberal government’s Minimum Wage Bill, the Durham delegates failed to push for the inclusion in the legislation of the elderly and infirm (contrary to their mandate). Wilson justified this by claiming that the majority of the districts were opposed to this inclusion and that Durham wanted to remain ‘loyal’ and maintain unity.60 The MWM’s 7s. hewers’ minimum demand also fell on deaf ears. The DMA had already decided, on 23 September 1911, that it would drop its own initial call for a 6s. minimum and instead support a Somerset miners’ resolution at MFGB conference that each district agree its own minimum wage in keeping with specific local circumstances. The DMA agreed that its minimum demand should be on a par with current Durham average wages.61 The MWM again regretted that the DMA executive had not adopted its 7s. demand and that, consequently, the claim was not discussed at MFGB conference. Yet this probably would have made no difference. The issue of what minimum wage figure to demand nationally was fiendishly complex as each of the seventeen MFGB-affiliated districts had different wage rates and conditions, with vast variations in types of workers employed and the terminology used to describe them. The idea that districts could secure a wage increase through their minimum wage claims was problematic for districts like Scotland, which argued that attempting this would break pre-existing Conciliation Board agreements. In late January 1912, the MFGB fixed demands for hewers as close to existing rates as it could. The hewers’ rate for Durham was consequently set at 6s.1½d., the current county average. The Federation also agreed that the minimum wage for all other than hewers (other pieceworkers and underground datal men) be set by the districts as they were too complicated to fix centrally. It did however stipulate that no minima should be set under 5s. for adults and 2s. for boys per day (the so-called ‘5 and 2’) except in selected smaller districts where such rates might mean job losses.62 The MWM ‘reluctantly’ accepted all



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this, pledging in late February 1912 to continue pressing for 7s. for hewers and for the inclusion of surfaceworkers in the minimum.63 There were further failures for the MWM. It demanded, quite sensibly, that no one opposed to the minimum wage should represent the DMA in negotiations with the government. This was particularly aimed at Wilson, who, naturally, went on to lead the Durham negotiators. Why the movement had been so studiously ignored by the agents was not entirely clear. It had clearly mobilised a significant section of lodge opinion, although its precise following is difficult to gauge. Fiftythree lodges (of the sixty-four invited) attended the 2 September 1911 West Pelton conference, with several uninvited delegates from eastern districts also present (totalling 156 delegates in attendance). This was from a total of some 200 DMA lodges. Furthermore, the 2 September turnout was by far the highest for a single minimum wage meeting before the 1912 strike. More representative of these pre1912 strike movement meetings was one at Seaham Harbour in September 1911, with fourteen lodges attending (of nineteen invited), representing around 1,500 miners. Nevertheless, and fundamentally, the movement certainly enjoyed the overwhelming support of Durham’s largest lodges: at least fourteen of the twenty largest DMA lodges with over 26,600 members between them definitely supported the MWM. The breach in the radical lodge alliance caused by the three-shift system seemed to be healing, but now with smaller lodges, under new leaders, taking the initiative. By March 1912, the MWM itself was claiming majority lodge support, which seemed tenable. The forty-eight lodges that can be positively identified as MWM supporters had a combined membership in excess of 42,000 (approaching 40% of the DMA’s membership).64 The 1912 vote for a national strike would soon test the movement’s confident claims about the purchase the minimum wage now had on individual DMA members. The eclipse of the anti-Eight Hours Agreement agitation For a few weeks in late summer 1911, the existing grievances against the Eight Hours Agreement and the Conciliation Board meshed with the reinvigorated campaign for an individual minimum wage. Indeed, it seemed that the early impetus of the minimum wage campaign had encouraged ILP activists to venture more boldly into political territory that hitherto many were reluctant to occupy around the Agreement. A West Pelton joint lodges mass meeting in late August 1911 heard Temple, Lawson and Eli Cook (Handon Hold) discuss both the Agreement and the minimum wage. The meeting’s unanimous resolution condemned the Durham agents for delaying dealing with these two issues. The large MWM conference of 2 September 1911 organised mass meetings in several localities (Bishop Auckland, West Stanley and Shawdins Hill) that would discuss the abolition of the Conciliation Board as well as the minimum wage.65 The former demand had been the major plank in the ILP’s challenge to economic liberalism

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in Durham for many years, with a particularly intense (but futile) onslaught mounted in 1909. Like the minimum wage, it had disappeared from the radical agenda with the Eight Hours Agreement strife from January 1910. Both the Agreement and the minimum wage, and whether Durham should take its case on these issues to the MFGB, were discussed at a DMA special council meeting on 9 September 1911. At this point the minimum wage was the secondary issue. Before this special council, St Hilda lodge (Batey’s) circularised all lodges to ascertain if they were in favour of submitting fourteen days’ notice to strike on two separate issues. The first was to win abolition of the three- and fourshift systems, the second was to secure an increase in the basis wage (of all classes of miners) by 40%, ‘such new basis to be a minimum wage’.66 In the event, the special council chairperson, William House, decided that the three-shift question would be discussed in an informal manner, with lodges invited to send in motions to be considered at a further meeting on 7 October. This was agreed after a long discussion; the militants were not placated.67 The abolition of the Conciliation Board also re-emerged as a live issue with Handon Hold lodge making the case at a MWM meeting held immediately after the 9 September special council. A movement meeting at Seaham Harbour a few days later called by Dawdon lodge and attracting 1,500 miners from fourteen lodges echoed the calls for abolition as well as protesting at the Agreement (especially the clauses allowing unlimited numbers of shifts and hours of coal drawing), and calling for the minimum wage. The Shotton delegate condemned the DMA executive’s passivity.68 When wages and the cost of living were being discussed it seemed natural that the Conciliation Board should come under scrutiny. At a MWM meeting of twelve lodges on 23 September 1911 at Hettonle-Hole, the Conciliation Board was discussed as it had recently reduced wages. One delegate remarked that they wanted ‘only a decent day’s pay for a decent day’s work’, while John Ferguson (chair of Hetton lodge) noted that ‘every sort of eatables and wearing apparel has advanced in price ... they did not live to work but worked to live. At least that was what they ought to do.’69 The next DMA special council meeting, on 7 October, rejected several proposals to tackle the Agreement; these included Marley Hill’s motion to leave the matter in the hands of the executive and the executive’s own suggestion that lodges negotiate with management locally over working conditions. The proposal from Langley Park, Heworth and others to ballot lodges for a strike to abolish the three-shift system (and, in the event of securing a majority, to ask the MFGB for a national solidarity strike) was withdrawn. However, a more moderate resolution (Windlestone and others) to ballot lodges over abolishing the Agreement with a view to returning to pre-1910 conditions was passed by 581 to 104 votes.70 If, on a vote in favour of abolition the owners proved uncooperative, the DMA would appeal to the MFGB for a national strike.71 Coal owners’ resistance to such initiatives was already apparent. Addressing Broomhill Collieries annual meeting in October 1911, Lord Furness claimed that abolishing the three-shift system



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would mean the closure of some collieries. Such a development would apparently cost his company between £30,000 and £40,000 per annum, a cost they ‘could not face’.72 Interestingly, The Times later deemed this a ‘characteristically courageous attempt to reconcile the interests of employers and employed’.73 More importantly, Furness was implying the very opposite of Londonderry’s claims about the impact of the Eight Hours Act (discussed above), given that the Agreement had ushered in the three-shift system and unlimited coal-drawing time in Durham, massively boosting coal production. Furness provided the more credible account of the Act’s significance in Durham; as a boon to production and profit, rather than a further, state-sponsored limit on it. R.A.S. Redmayne, the government’s Chief Inspector of Mines, concurred. In July 1911, he rejected owners’ claims that the three-shift system was essential to maintain output: the fact that some well-managed and profitable concerns in the north having deemed it unnecessary to adopt it [the three-shift system] and continue the double-shift system would seem to prove this. I think to some extent the Eight Hours Act has been used as an excuse to adopt means for increasing the output at some collieries in the north.74

Returning to the miners, the October 1911 DMA special council again revealed how divisive (and confusing) the Eight Hours Agreement issue continued to be. Marsden lodge’s (defeated) motion stated that the abolition of the three-shift system would undoubtedly ‘establish an undesirable shift of an unlimited number of tubloaders’ (as already inaugurated in some collieries; see Chapter 2).75 It suggested, as the executive had, that negotiations to abolish the three-shift system only be conducted at those collieries where the workmen wanted it, a proposal supported by some other radical lodges, such as Washington Glebe. On MWM platforms, too, the Agreement was not invariably condemned and could introduce a discordant note. In late September 1911 at Hetton-le-Hole, the Wearmouth delegate announced that his colliery had ‘no problems’ with how the three-shift system was working there (it predated 1910). But, he added, as they were ‘not individualists’, they stood with the rest of the Durham miners.76 At a MWM mass meeting at Spennymoor (with ‘over a dozen’ lodges represented), ‘some objection was taken’ to Lawson’s criticism of the three-shift system; there were cries from the audience of ‘stick to the minimum wage’.77 This rift was again evident when the result of the full membership ballot over the Agreement was announced on 11 December 1911. A majority, 55,537, had voted for the abolition of the Agreement. But there were 22,734 (21%) against and another 30,699 (28%) abstained; while 71% of those who voted did so in favour of abolition, almost as many miners were either opposed or apparently indifferent.78 True to form, Wilson favoured inaction. He had already implied that the MFGB could do little in terms of the Agreement, pointing out that the NMA failed to get the Federation to commit to a national stoppage to support its

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campaign against the three-shift system (though the MFGB did offer the NMA its unanimous support).79 In January 1912, Wilson argued against reverting to the two-shift system. He claimed that, under the eight-hour day, any two-shift system demanded a (hewer’s) working day of eight hours and thirty minutes bank-to-bank; over ninety minutes more than hewers worked under the threeshift system. This was disingenuous as Wilson was probably referring here only to the demands of coal owners who had introduced three-shift systems before 1910 (i.e. if they were to end their pre-existing three-shift systems, they expected the hewers to work longer hours over two shifts in recompense). Finally, Wilson claimed (astoundingly, given the lodge response to the Agreement in 1910) that neither shift system disrupted social life.80 Considering the Agreement’s continuing power to divide, and perhaps declining ability to galvanise (evident in the 28% abstention in the December 1911 vote), Lawson’s controversial aside on the Agreement in January 1912 was one of the last times it was mentioned from a rank-and-file movement platform. The rapidly growing momentum of the MWM allowed activists to mobilise around a more (though not entirely) unifying and popular issue (both within Durham and the wider MFGB); a cause, furthermore, that the MFGB seemed to be taking seriously by late 1911. The three-shift system itself continued to provide an ongoing source of low-level discontent, which in turn fed into the MWM and the foment after the minimum wage was won. In summer 1913, DMA agent James Robson condemned the three-shift system, arguing (unusually) that the surfaceworkers had been hit the worst by it, while House announced that the DMA was about to enter into negotiations with the owners to eliminate its ‘worst evils’.81 Nothing came of these particular negotiations. Both the NMA and DMA brought motions to MFGB annual conference in autumn 1912. DMA delegate W.P. Richardson condemned the third shift; its existence, he said, pointed to the ‘power of employers over the lives of workers in being able to force conditions on us that we do not want’.82 There was disagreement and confusion, however, as the two north-east miners’ unions wanted different things. The NMA aimed for the complete elimination of the three-shift system, while the DMA desired its removal from all collieries that had adopted it in 1910, but not those operating it before then, as complete abolition would throw many out of work. The eventual motion suited the DMA as it proposed that the MFGB take steps to get the three-shift system abolished where it was operated as a result of Eight Hours Act. But this was defeated by 44 to 69 votes against. The Northumberland miners did secure the promise of MFGB support in December 1913, but the NMA-sponsored parliamentary Bill to abolish the three-shift system also failed in 1914.83 Consistent with the agendas of these autumn 1911 movement mass meetings, lodges launched renewed demands for the Conciliation Board’s abolition inside the DMA but, if their proposals managed to get onto the DMA council agenda, they did not pass. Thus, a Hobson lodge motion to this effect was eventually withdrawn at DMA council on 28 October 1911 after a long discussion. A similarly worded



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Lumley New Winning motion at the 1911 DMA annual meeting was rejected by a heavy majority. This defeat saw the Conciliation Board drop down the socialists’ agenda. There were no further attempts to secure official DMA endorsement for its abolition and it seems not to have been mentioned on rank-and-file movement platforms at all between May 1912 and July 1914.84 It made good strategic sense for the ILP to effect a change of tack, shifting its emphasis away from the (essentially negative) abolition of the Conciliation Board towards the (positive) advocacy of an individual minimum wage. The socialists were also responding to a changing economic environment, particularly after May 1912 when the Conciliation Board began delivering wage advances. It consequently became increasingly difficult to tackle the Conciliation Board directly, and even more appropriate to shift campaigning emphasis to the minimum wage. The growing receptiveness towards the minimum wage of increasing numbers of lodges from summer 1911 appeared to justify the radicals’ change in emphasis. The minimum wage made sound theoretical sense as well. It was a potentially very powerful weapon for the socialists for, as Jack Lawson recognised in his brilliant propaganda pamphlet, it ‘cut right at the root’ of the Durham wages system, promising to smash the traditionally accepted link between coal prices and miners’ wages.85 It allowed Lawson to argue against the liberal economic notion that if wages rose, then the cost of living would follow and assert that ‘the principle of wages following prices must be abandoned. We claim that henceforth wages shall be the first consideration.’86 Curiously, Duncan Tanner quoted this pamphlet only to endorse Lawson’s claim that ‘Wages follow prices; that is Durham philosophy’, neglecting all the arguments in that self-same pamphlet – concisely and very skilfully expressed – that were helping to undermine these notions in the coalfield as never before.87 The socialists, however, sustained more defeats than over abolition of the Conciliation Board at the 1911 DMA annual meeting. The lodges had voted that summer to permit rule book amendments and in total there were 227 separate proposed changes to existing rules tabled as well as a further forty-eight suggestions for new rules and six recommended alterations to standing orders. The majority of these were suggested by radical lodges attempting to further their reform agenda. Hylton wanted the executive to be denied its current power of withholding lodge motions sent to DMA council. Five radical lodges fronted proposals for different ways to remedy the underrepresentation of the larger lodges in terms of votes allocated to them. Other lodges wanted an individual full membership ballot for any agent position if contested at an annual meeting (currently the vote was exercised by lodges) and for all agreements on any subject whatsoever to go before DMA council and receive majority endorsement before the executive could sign them (a new version of the defeated 1905 Hobson motion and obviously to avoid a repeat of the Eight Hours Agreement). Various proposals sought to limit the power of the chairperson at council meetings, or to curtail the agents in other ways, making it harder for them to get onto the DMFB and the MFGB executive,

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and even disqualifying them from voting on the DMA executive. There were also suggestions for tabulated voting of lodges to promote transparency, as well as referring back of all council decisions to lodges for approval. In the light of Wilson’s flouting of the 1909 rule, Croxdale tried to insert another clause to ensure DMA parliamentary candidates were Labour Party members. The executive wrote a fifteen-page response to these suggestions, making arguments for rejecting them all and claiming that in aggregate they threatened ‘to make a complete and (in our opinion) dangerous change. These are an entire revolution in the structure of our organisation and a vast increase in our expenditure, without any increase in our income.’88 This did not prevent some radical lodges like Chopwell, for instance, from voting for every proposed rule change in favour of more representation for lodges and individual members. However, there still appeared to be little or no coordinated voting among radical lodges. Some, like Marsden, were much more loyal to Wilson. Its only proposal was that no agent could also be an MP, but it excluded those like Wilson who currently did hold both roles, making it more moderate than Dean and Chapter and Garesfield Towneley’s similar proposal that would have included all sitting agents. Furthermore, Marsden was one of the nominators for re-election of all the agents, and, with only House’s position being contested (by a Greenside lodge nominee), all the sitting agents were re-elected.89 The shadow of a national minimum wage strike had other negative impacts in December 1911. Six lodges had to withdraw their requests for loans to build their own miners’ halls in the light of the impeding national crisis over the minimum wage negotiations. The DMA needed to conserve its funds in case of a national strike. Worse still, one of the very few rule changes that did pass – Ravensworth’s idea of dividing the coalfield into six wards, each electing two representatives to the executive – served to weaken further the influence of the usually more radical (and invariably underrepresented) larger lodges. Though this change made the executive larger, and offered potentially more places to ILP grassroots leaders, a larger executive could well render it easier, rather than more difficult to control from the top. The only defeat for the leadership, and potential victory for the radicals, came in the area of industrial action. Horden’s radical proposal to reduce the two-thirds to a simple majority vote to take united district strike action failed, but Thornley, Auckland Park, Morrison and St Hilda’s suggestion that lodges could strike and retrospectively appeal for central strike funds to DMA council passed. This measure effectively took the DMA back to the situation before 1897, when lodges circumvented the rule attempting to prevent them from precipitate action by striking without central DMA approval and retrospectively appealing for support. This change awarded lodges more powers to avoid a repeat of the executive’s refusal to grant them strike pay in 1910 and, as the executive rightly anticipated, it was to augment the trend of lodges undertaking unofficial industrial action (see Chapter 2). While many of the lodges sponsoring the failed progressive rule



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changes were also involved in the MWM, they had not coordinated effectively to give their proposals the best chance of success – something they needed to do, considering how underrepresented many of them were on DMA council.90 Finally, while the Durham radical lodge alliance was certainly in the process of being reforged around the minimum wage campaign, some lodges integral to the alliance before 1910 were not yet firmly back in the fold. Crucial in this context was Marsden lodge, suffering from an apparent Liberal backlash in its internal politics. This was manifest when a lodge meeting in late July 1911 agreed to buy 1,000 leaflets about, and 100 copies of, what was most likely the newly published Richardson and Walbank coal trade profits pamphlet (the minutes are a little opaque). Yet, the next Marsden lodge joint meeting, on 20 August 1911, resolved ‘that no pamphlets be purchased from the socialistic [sic.] press’.91 This individual reversal for the socialist activists was emblematic of an ongoing battle inside Marsden lodge for ideological and organisational control, a power struggle that was likely to have been experienced inside many other lodges in this period. The minimum wage strike Notwithstanding the setbacks inside the DMA in December 1911, the individual ballot in January 1912 revealed how many had heeded the socialists’ calls for a vote in favour of national strike action for the minimum wage. While Wilson claimed that the outcome of the minimum wage ballot was less predictable in Durham than elsewhere, a Durham Chronicle journalist’s ‘own enquiries mean I anticipate a large vote in favour of a strike ... the influence of Mr. Wilson is for peace. But there are other forces at work in this great coalfield and they are not making for peace.’92 In the event, 66.8% of Durham miners voted to strike, just exceeding the DMA’s required two-thirds majority. Of all the MFGB affiliates voting in favour, the DMA’s margin was the lowest (Cleveland had voted against striking). The national vote was 79.3% in favour, with the frontrunners being Yorkshire (85.8%), South Wales (84.8%), Scotland (83.4%) and Lancashire (81.9%).93 Ostensibly, then, Tanner’s claim that Durham miners remained wedded to economic liberalism, and consequently supported the minimum wage strike ‘without enthusiasm’, seems relatively uncontroversial.94 The vote was, according to Tanner, even more perplexing as Durham miners’ wages – being subject to the vagaries of the export market – were particularly likely to benefit from the minimum wage. Yet the specifics of the context cast the result in a rather different light. Wilson’s vocal opposition must have had a negative impact; he denounced the minimum wage as ‘economically unpredictable’ just as the MFGB was conducting its strike ballot.95 More importantly, there were several specific facets of the actual minimum wage being demanded (and then offered) that made it more difficult, even for its most vehement enthusiasts, to argue for. First, it was widely (and correctly) understood that the minimum would exclude the elderly,

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infirm and surfaceworkers, a considerable proportion of any colliery’s workforce. Wilson was quick to exploit these significant omissions in an effort to sow apathy and opposition. A DMA circular in January 1911 urged all Durham miners, ‘not merely the moderate men but also the most ardent promoters of the minimum wage’, to consider the serious implications for a minimum that excluded so many.96 There is no doubt that this negatively affected the vote in favour of striking in some parts of the coalfield. For example, checkweighman John Bell, speaking from the audience at a MWM meeting, claimed that his lodge (Dean and Chapter, one of the largest in the county) returned a majority of only three for striking because the minimum only applied to a small proportion of miners. Bell’s solution was a 40% advance on the basis wage, which would include surfaceworkers. Responding from the platform, W.P. Richardson argued that wages set on Bell’s proposed system could be reduced, but the minimum wage could not be. (Richardson turned out to be mistaken on this; see Chapter 5). Bell’s criticism of the MWM activists’ attacks on Durham’s ‘worthy leaders’, his firm belief in the union’s institutional machinery and stressing of the potential dangers of a strike – especially what the DMA had to lose in terms of standing and funds – all suggested ideological opposition to the minimum wage.97 Nevertheless, the continued alienation of surfaceworkers remained a problem. While they did receive strike pay, many Durham surfaceworkers complained during the national strike that they were still being ignored.98 Second, for miners who did stand to gain, there remained discontent that the MFGB requested the county average, almost a full shilling lower than the MWM’s 7s. demand (which would have, if won, constituted a significant wage advance). Third, that the minimum would reflect existing pay scales and thereby vary considerably between different grades of mineworkers provoked some opposition. In November 1911, for instance, John Storey asked how MWM leaders expected to ‘be seen as consistent when they did not demand a minimum wage of 7s. for all workers in mines. He thought the owners might easily concede a minimum wage of 7s. or 8s. a day and make larger profits than they do now.’99 Storey (of Ouston E lodge) was a long-term Labour activist who had served as parliamentary agent to John Johnson in 1910 and been elected several times to the DMFB and DMA executive (he was set to join it again in January 1912). His mining expertise within the ILP was such that he had contributed a regular ‘mining notes’ column to the ILP area’s monthly journal.100 Yet his comments were confusing in that they seemed to spring from two quite different political perspectives; most importantly, his claim in November 1911 that the minimum wage would simply push up the cost of living suggested that he was opposed to it on principle. As a delegate to the MFGB special conference on the minimum wage in December 1911, Storey had defended Wilson from an attack by another delegate after the Durham leader had argued the Federation needed a two-thirds majority to strike (the same as in the DMA) and then stated that he was personally opposed to national strike action over the minimum wage.101



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Storey’s position did, however, appear to alter slightly. A DMA delegate to MFGB deliberations in January 1912, he stood firm in contrast to Wilson’s desire to exclude the aged and infirm from the minimum wage, being adamant that ‘we are fighting for an advance in wages and a principle of the minimum wage that would apply to all’.102 Storey maintained this stance at an MFGB conference in early February, registering his displeasure at the official confirmation that all aged and infirm workers were to be excluded from the Federation’s minimum wage demand: ‘let me say to my socialist friends if I understand socialism at all ... the specific feature of socialism is to protect and provide for the old, infirm and weak.’ But he nevertheless felt that there was no alternative but to sacrifice this principle for a ‘manifestation of the survival of the fittest’.103 These interventions notwithstanding, Storey only criticised the MWM before his involvement in the national negotiations. He then assumed a high-profile role next to – and in some respects supporting – Wilson immediately before and during the strike and he was to play no part in the movement after the minimum wage was won. With this, at best, rather mixed record, his militant lustre was surely fading fast. Furthermore, Storey was not the only individual among the older generation of well-established ILP activists who experienced a complex relationship with the renewed minimum wage campaign. John Thompson (secretary of Marsden lodge) was concerned about how much work needed to be done to qualify for the minimum wage. He feared that miners’ laziness and coal owners’ greed would make a minimum wage unworkable, though he wanted this pessimism to be proved unjustified. Certainly, Thompson’s doubts about the minimum wage practicability and desirability sit with Marsden lodge’s fluctuating attitudes to the MWM and its successor, the DFM (see Chapter 5).104 Thompson’s fears rested in part on a third problem for minimum wage campaigners: the issue of ‘shirkers’, who apparently would take advantage by working as little as possible and claiming the minimum. With ‘cavilling’ also meaning that Durham miners ordinarily worked with very little direct supervision, Durham coal owners consequently expressed the strongest concerns of all the owners over this particular issue, claiming that they had no way of ensuring that piece-working hewers not reaching the minimum were working their hardest. Wilson apparently told the owners in negotiations that this question ‘belonged to their side’.105 Movement activists dealt with charges of ‘shirking’ in different ways. John Herriotts attempted to counter the ‘talk in the press about malingering’, assuring his audience that the owners had the profits to afford a minimum wage.106 By contrast, W.P. Richardson, who had supplied the MPs fighting the minimum wage case in spring 1912 with much of their data, remarked at a movement meeting that working-class shirkers were as big a parasite as shirking owners (for which he received generous applause).107 Lawson, on the other hand, wrote that ‘in every mine some will skulk and not work; probably they have some aristocratic blood in them and live up to the reputation of the idle class’.108 Certainly, the notion of Durham miners shirking did not appear to sit well with a proud masculine

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culture that celebrated the almost super-human exploits of strength and stamina associated with the so-called ‘big hewer’.109 In addition to union leaders’ opposition to strikes in general – and especially to strikes over the apparently economically suicidal minimum wage – the Durham Chronicle indulged in more general scaremongering. It claimed that the DMA’s funds could only last three or four weeks of a strike and, by then, money would be worthless anyway as there would be nothing to buy with it. Unsurprisingly, the strike demonstrated both claims to be nonsense; the strike cost the DMA £332,360, in strike pay over five weeks, about two-thirds of its total funds. The Durham Chronicle also quoted a ‘northern mine owner’, who depicted the strike as a disaster, as the industry would not regain some of the foreign markets that such action would inevitably lose it. Indeed, this very fear had spurred the Durham coal owners belatedly to accept the minimum wage in principle, in a desperate attempt to avoid the strike. This eleventh-hour Damascene conversion was itself very likely to have weakened the resolve of some miners just about to vote on whether to strike.110 All of these considerations complicated interpretation of the miners’ vote. It was not just a simple case of endorsing the principle of a minimum wage. When the vote came, lodges like Alma, Washington Glebe and St Hilda, all prominent in the MWM, made public their heavy support for a strike and were reprimanded by the executive for doing so. Yet that the pitch had been queered was clear when Redheugh returned its ballot papers without voting. George Ollier, checkweighman at Redheugh lodge, urged other lodges to act likewise, and to demand a special council meeting: ‘Why, it is the aged veteran of the mine who has given of his life’s best; it is the infirm made so by foul air, bad conditions or rendered so by accident at his employment, who need the minimum’, he remarked.111 Seaham and East Stanley lodges did ape Redheugh, for the same reasons, and the desire not to exclude the old and infirm from the minimum meant that other lodges returned a stronger vote against striking than anticipated. Fears for the economic future of collieries, especially often smaller ones, working thinner seams (sometimes 2 feet or less thick) helped to explain the generally weaker support for the minimum wage in southern and western coalfield districts.112 There was probably also a generational aspect to the vote. A letter to the press from an anonymous miner lamented that boys aged eighteen were admitted as full DMA members and so could vote inside the DMA, as they were more likely than their fathers to support striking.113 Given the high propensity to strike by the grades of lads working in many of the larger Durham collieries over specific local grievances, this seemed a tenable observation. Yet, in spite of all the flaws in the minimum wage on offer, and Wilson’s best efforts to confuse, a requisite twothirds majority of Durham miners still voted in an individual ballot (rather than a lodge ‘slip vote’) to strike for a minimum wage. (Wilson had already persuaded the MFGB to require a two-thirds majority in favour of striking on this issue nationally before pursuing it).114 It is very likely that, had the MFGB’s minimum wage demand been closer to that of Durham MWM advocates, more Durham



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miners would have voted to strike for it in the first ballot. Nevertheless, the actual Durham vote still represented an undoubted blow to Wilson, who, had the district’s two-thirds majority not been reached, would have ensured that Durham broke the miners’ national solidarity, just as it had in 1893. The national minimum wage strike began on 26 February and was to last for thirty-seven days. Again, rather belying the apparently ‘unenthusiastic’ vote, local press reports on the striking Durham communities suggested no lack of eagerness. These reports tended to stress the ‘holiday’ aspect of the strike, with miners indulging in leisure activities such as marbles, gardening or football, and enjoying the time off work. They even raced the pit ponies, brought to the surface for the duration. There were few signs of trouble; many lodges were clear that their members would remain orderly while on strike (as was the MWM itself). At the same time, there was no suggestion that miners were annoyed at being called out on strike, or apathetic. Some miners, expecting the strike to be over in a matter of days, left their gear down the pit. Others, like one woman who had bought in fifty stones of flour, took precautions by stocking up on house coal and food stuffs. An early but orderly raid on coal wagons at Ryhope showed there remained triedand-tested alternative means of securing domestic essentials like coal if need be. There were examples, too, of continued paternalism. The stokers at Pelton colliery gas works had gone on strike with the miners, so the local coal owners decided to supply electricity to the miners’ institute they had built there in 1909. This was very busy with striking miners using its reading rooms and playing billiards. By early April local relief funds had been established in places like Crawcrook and Annfield Plain as the strike began to bite, with relief fundraising efforts conducted in places like Blaydon, on Tyneside.115 The legislation that the strike prompted, rapidly passing as the Minimum Wage Act on 29 March 1912, was, however, a source of dissatisfaction for all parties. Speaking for the owners, Lord Londonderry thought it gave no guarantee that the miners would vote to return to work. And even if they did so, some employers would not be able to reopen their pits, as ‘with this minimum wage hanging over their heads, they do not know what their liability will be’. Some collieries might not reopen at all. Londonderry also attacked the provision that miners would start receiving the minimum wage immediately: it is well known that when the men first go down the pits after having had a cessation of work for several weeks they are not in such good physical condition to do the work as they were in when they were fully employed. Their muscles are relaxed, their hands are soft, and for the first week or two they probably would not be able to do enough work to bring in the minimum wage. The owner is therefore having a heavy fine inflicted upon him if he is to pay the minimum wage when the men do not produce coal sufficient even to produce the minimum wage.116

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The Act was equally disappointing for the miners: it failed to comply with the MFGB demand of stipulating the minimum for hewers in all districts. Indeed, it did not even legislate the MFGB’s ‘5 and 2’ rates, in spite of Lloyd George’s lobbying, and the support of some Liberal MPs. Labour had similarly failed to amend and then to oppose the Bill successfully. The final Act contained no minimum wage figures at all; every new minimum wage rate had to be agreed at district level in new Joint District Boards (JDBs).117 The absent ‘5 and 2’ claim was even more of a disappointment to MWM activists, as it was apparently the bare minimum they would stand for. Unsurprisingly, the MFGB decided to hold a second ballot over whether to accept the new law and end the strike or to stay out for the ‘5 and 2’.118 As before, Wilson sought to use his influence to end the strike. He highlighted the plight of the workers in dependent trades who were laid off when the miners struck and called for conciliation rather than conflict in the settling of future disputes. With the Act, Wilson claimed, bizarrely, that the miners had got the legislation they had asked for. He thus advised Durham miners to return to work, arguing that they were now faced with a choice: ‘to accept the law of the land or strike against it’.119 Wilson’s behaviour was in direct contravention of an MFGB decision that district leaders should not advise their members on which way to vote in this second ballot. As in Derbyshire – where district leaders behaved as Wilson did – this provoked some rank-and-file fury.120 Wilson was again supported by important sections of the local press. The now hysterical Durham Chronicle warned that if miners persisted in striking they might destroy civilisation ‘in one devastating maelstrom of disaster’.121 The MWM countered with a resolute lodge circular: the Prime Minister, backed up by the capitalist Press, and our leader, Mr. John Wilson, MP, are doing their level best ... to prejudice the issue, and to secure a majority for the resumption of work. ... The Press, the government and even Mr. Wilson are all saying that the Act gives us all that we ask for. ... Our reply is that they all know it is not true. ... Let us remember that the miners did not ask for this Act. It has been thrust upon us with two objects in view: first, to settle the strike; second, to divide our forces into sections in the hope that instead of fighting the owners we may soon be fighting ourselves. There lies the great danger. United we stand, divided we fall. ... The Act gives nothing but a principle which will not assist us to pay butchers’ and grocers’ bills. Don’t let us be led away by this offer. Our policy must be one of ‘NO Surrender’ until we know and have laid down in plain figures, what we are going to work for. Vote against resumption!122

The second strike vote was surprising. The two leading areas, Yorkshire and Lancashire, both lost almost 10% support from the first vote, dropping to 76.8% and 72.5% in favour (on turnouts of 81.7% and 74.9% respectively). Scotland’s support was over 25% down and only narrowly in favour of staying on strike (56.8% voted



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to strike on a 71.7% turnout). Previously militant South Wales heavily (66.7% on an 80.7% turnout) favoured a return to work. Stoic Durham, by contrast, maintained a 66.6% majority to stay out on a good turnout (74.5%). Exhaustion from the Cambrian Combine strike and depleted funds explained South Wales’ collapse. At the outset, the SWMF only had £1 1s.9d. per member to fight the strike. Scotland, however, did not share South Wales’ problems, with an average of £2 19s. per striking member to use; Durham’s £3 17s. per member fighting fund still left it at a lowly seventh in the table of miners’ district unions’ funds. However, unlike their Celtic counterparts – the Scottish and South Wales coal owners had been the most opposed to the minimum wage – the Durham owners had conceded the minimum wage in principle before the strike. This partially explained why Durham voted to keep striking; to yield something not already won before the strike began.123 This must explain Redheugh lodge’s almost 70% vote to stay out in the second ballot after its refusal to vote at all (in protest at the minimum wage actually on offer) in the first ballot, though East Stanley, which also did not vote in the first ballot, only marginally supported staying out. A Scottish delegate also suggested that a lower turnout in his district was partly a result of disgust at the officials’ failure to offer a lead. Wilson’s arguments, by contrast, against challenging what was now a legally instituted minimum wage must have kept some in Durham from voting to continue the strike, although they may well have antagonised other waverers.124 Were the two very similar Durham votes brought about by the same miners voting the same way twice (albeit, with a lower second ballot turnout, in smaller propositions)? Or did the MWM manage to win some converts to its cause in lodges that were less convinced or opposed to striking in the first ballot? MWM activity during the strike provides an opportunity to test its influence. The movement held a meeting soon after the first strike ballot results in Spennymoor in the south of the coalfield, where there was more opposition to the strike. W.P. Richardson and his supporters openly acknowledged their desire to ‘convert’ more miners to the minimum wage there. At first glance, the possible results of their efforts did not seem encouraging. Of the six local lodges known to have voted against the strike in January 1912, none then voted to stay out in March. There was no obvious galvanising effect, as in only two cases of the six did more miners actually vote in the second ballot. Nevertheless, there was some suggestion that the MWM’s message had had a limited impact. Browney colliery was particularly interesting as the Liberal DMA agent Samuel Galbraith had been checkweighman there, and it had not experienced a strike since its opening in 1856. The proportion of Browney miners voting for the strike rose by 11% to 44% in the second ballot; while the total number of pro-strike votes remained similar, 135 fewer voted against the strike in the second ballot. In Evenwood lodge a lower turnout combined with a small increase in the pro-strike vote meant it rose from 14% to 20%. Big declines in turnout at Roddymoor and Tudhoe saw the pro-strike vote hold (at around 45% and 30% respectively). With a slight increase in turnout at Wooley, the pro-strike proportion rose from 22% to 28% and only in Esh Winning did those who supported staying out lose ground.

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There, a far higher turnout in the second vote saw a fall in support for the strike from 45% to 40%. Overall, then, in five of the six collieries, the pro-strike vote in the second ballot either held up or increased, albeit often from a low level. Furthermore, at Dean and Chapter, a very large colliery in the same district (with a moderate checkweighman), the tiny majority of three to strike in January had increased to 312 in March, turning a paper-thin 50.1% majority to a more convincing 63.8%. Again, the turnout dropped there considerably between votes, with the pro-strikers only losing forty-four votes to the antis’ 365. Perhaps unsurprisingly, none of these lodges seems to have been involved in the MWM before the strike. Similarly, neither Old Sherburn nor Littletown, two lodges that went from supporting the strike to opposing its continuance, seem to have been involved in the movement.125 This case study suggests that the MWM made, at best, rather limited propaganda advances during the strike, though a causal relationship between propagandising in a specific area and local changes in voting patterns cannot be firmly established. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to suggest that, taken as a whole, the second ballot reveals that the MWM had helped to create a determined majority in Durham who had a clear idea of an acceptable – and desirable – minimum wage. Therefore the second Durham ballot can be regarded as a two-thirds’ majority against what the Minimum Wage Act offered, and in favour of a minimum wage akin to that championed by the MWM. Though Durham was prepared to carry on the strike for a better minimum wage, the MFGB as a whole was not. The national vote produced a 54.8% majority to stay out on a 75.7% turnout. With no two-thirds majority, the strike was over by 6 April 1912. Still, the second Durham ballot result, and the difficult context in which it was conducted, further qualifies claims about a lack of enthusiasm in Durham for the minimum wage. Indeed, it demonstrates clearly that by early 1912 liberal economic understandings were rejected consistently by a two thirds majority of ordinary Durham miners. There were several facets to the explanation offered for the Durham miners’ apparently lukewarm attitude to the minimum wage. Coal owner Lord Londonderry argued at the time that there was no need whatever for the strike in the county of Durham, and I believe if the miners there were free agents they would be very glad to return to their work, because they have not struck for the reason that they do not receive good wages. I think I have shown that their wages are exceptionally high.

Londonderry personally blamed agency, and particularly the speeches of Lloyd George, as they were ‘based on the principle of setting class against class, Labour against Capital, employed against employer; and now those speeches are coming home to roost’.126 Historians have also suggested that Durham miners’ wage levels rendered Durham largely immune to the minimum wage and, indeed, to the Labour Party itself. Liberalism in both its economic and political forms apparently



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had brought miners prosperity during these years. Yet, while Duncan Tanner echoed Roy Gregory’s claim that high wages bolstered the Durham miners’ liberal economic outlook, Gregory’s own figures suggested that, even in the good times, Durham miners were not particularly well paid, nor were they comparatively speaking especially well off. In 1914, the average wages of Durham hewers (including the often unpopular and inadequate lodging allowance) ranked only mid-table among British mining districts.127 The specifics of Durham’s wage-bargaining machinery were also cited as part of this explanation. Tanner argued that ‘cavilling’ in Durham allayed the grievances about ‘abnormal places’ as it allowed hewers working poor seams the possibility of improving their workplaces every quarter.128 Certainly, the problem of payment for working in ‘abnormal places’ – particularly thin or wet coal seams that were difficult for piece-working miners to work – had sparked the Cambrian Combine dispute and provided the impetus to the South Wales minimum wage campaign inside the MFGB. Some contemporaries agreed: The Times argued that if all Britain’s mining districts were like Durham there would be little support for a minimum wage. The Yorkshire coal owners even suggested introducing cavilling into their coalfield instead of a minimum wage, an idea the Yorkshire miners rejected outright.129 Yet ‘cavilling’ also had its detractors in Durham, who mentioned it explicitly when making their case for a minimum wage. As chance was involved, cavilling gave no guarantees that a hewer with a bad cavil one quarter would get a good one the next. W.P. Richardson at a MWM meeting in January 1912 remarked that if those who opposed ‘the minimum wage were put in a 3s. per day cavil for two quarters, they would soon become full fledged minimum wagers (Laughter)’.130 The previous month, Lawson pointed out that the ‘abnormal working places’ issue had been discussed in Durham since 1872, claiming that the only adequate way to remedy problems related to bad cavils was the minimum wage.131 Indeed, the issue of ‘hard to work seams’ (essentially ‘abnormal places’) was regularly aired at MWM meetings and cavilling came in for harsh criticism. A Twizell lodge leaflet in January 1912 even argued that Durham hewers did not have a minimum wage precisely because of cavilling.132 Dislike of cavilling, however, was not universal among miners and attempts to abolish it in 1912 and 1913 were voted down by lodges.133 Nevertheless, while cavilling may have taken some of the edge off anger over ‘abnormal places’ in Durham, it was certainly not viewed in an exclusively favourable light by all Durham miners. (Ironically, when the minimum wage came in, the management of some Durham collieries sought to pool wages in order to avoid paying it, effectively negating the very point of cavilling; see Chapter 5). Another central facet of the Durham wage-bargaining machinery, the County Average System, was also more open to critique than has been recognised. Lawson wrote that it was ‘common knowledge’ that the County Average was ‘one of the most perfect devices for pitting man against man that was ever conceived’ and that some miners might work for a year without ever managing to earn it.134 In his punchy minimum wage pamphlet, Lawson eloquently condemned the County

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Average System, which wrung ‘the last ounce of energy from the worker at the least possible cost’.135 While recognising that some earned very much more than the county average theoretically allowed for, Lawson argued that this was no consolation to miners consistently drawing poor cavils. In one colliery, Lawson claimed that about 40% of the workforce earned below the county average for three quarters consecutively; some took home less than half of it (a contention supported in the secondary literature; see Chapter 2). Like many other Durham activists, Lawson pointed out that coal owners’ profits had increased beyond belief. Thanks to improved productivity, coal prices (and hence wages) might stagnate while profits still rose, all the more since the smaller (and often more precarious) concerns were disappearing, leaving the larger, growing concerns run by millionaire ‘coal kings’ increasingly dominant.136 The notion that miners deserved a (much) greater share of the coal industry’s profits underlay the vast majority of arguments made for a minimum wage in this period. The Durham-born partnership of Thomas Richardson and John Walbank argued in their expanded study of the British coal trade produced in January 1912 that throughout the nation, miners could be paid an extra 5s. per week each and the industry still turn about a 3% profit per annum. While the MWM itself drew on this work for its propaganda, unsurprisingly, one of the Durham coal owners, Sir Hugh Bell (of Bell Brothers), disputed their figures, leading to an exchange of disputatious letters in The Times and several regional newspapers in February and March 1912.137 Other less well-known individuals adopted a similar approach to Richardson and Walbank. An pseudonymous correspondent in the Blaydon Courier, for example, pointed to the Consett Iron Company’s recent dividends of over 30%, adding that its shareholders, many of whom lived outside the county, spent these huge profits ‘in other parts on sport, and motoring and living lives of luxury’; a ‘reasonable and satisfactory’ 10% dividend with the remaining 23% distributed in wages would have been better for the workers and boosted spending power in the district.138 The need for both workers and owners in the coal industry, and an acceptance of profits, seemed to be recognised implicitly or explicitly in much of this discourse. Similarly, another correspondent condemned the ‘arrogance of capitalism ... capitalism arrogates to itself the right to stand between the nation and its natural resources’ but, again, affirmed that ‘the men do not question the right of coal owners to make profits’.139 The claim from many was simply for a (often considerably) larger proportion of coal’s profits to find their way into miners’ pay packets. In May 1912, a pseudonymous ‘Blaydon miners’ advocate’ suggested a profit-sharing scheme be implemented in the mines. This would apparently prevent miners from damaging their collieries (as had happened during various disputes), as they would be ‘cutting their noses off to spite their faces’.140 The greater the wealth produced, the more there would be to share between miners as well as owners.141 Interestingly, this thinking was the essence of Wilson’s belief in the shared interests of both sides of industry, though he, as seen above, made no such demands for full profit-sharing schemes, nor even for his members to receive a greater proportion of the industry’s profits.



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Profit sharing in the mines was discussed favourably in other sections of the local press, though it was not promoted by any lodges inside the DMA, nor did any of the Durham coal owners show any interest in replicating Lord Furness’ earlier shipyard co-partnership scheme (see Chapter 2).142 The DMA leadership’s conduct of the minimum wage strike also, like the owners’ stubborn opposition to the minimum wage, offered the socialists a means of attack. The secretary of Harraton lodge criticised the executive for allowing some miners to work during the strike, thereby keeping the mines ready for immediate restarting when it ended. Radical lodges like Washington Glebe, a stalwart MWM supporter (in terms of attending its meetings and making donations), simply voted the DMA executive’s circular on allowing some miners to work to maintain the collieries ‘Off the Board’ in protest at its content.143 While the leaderships’ stance was regarded as too conciliatory by many lodges, it was in line with the MFGB’s policy that enough miners should work to keep the collieries operational, but not to draw coal. The MWM also attacked the Durham representatives who had voted at the MFGB special conference for a return to work, against the second ballot of their own coalfield. Wilson defended the Durham delegates, claiming they acted in accordance with the MFGB president’s call for ‘unity’ on the vote. This did not, however, explain why Lancashire and Yorkshire districts’ delegates still voted according to their mandates against returning to work.144 Radical lodges like Oxhill even asked the executive to resign over this action in April 1912.145 The MWM (and individual lodges involved in it) then protested when the agents appointed themselves onto the (minimum wage) JDB, instead of allowing the miners to elect their own representatives, as the movement had requested. At a movement mass meeting in Chester-le-Street, Jack Lawson argued that ‘their officials and executive were against them at every stage of the minimum wage agitation, and it was ridiculous to think they would be for them while acting as the men’s side of the Wage’s Board’.146 Claiming that 75% of miners in the county wanted a minimum wage of 7s., he warned that if the movement’s claims were not met, ‘the flame of revolt would be lighted ... they would not give even fourteen days’ [notice], but would “down tools” at twenty-four hours’ notice, and they would take out with them the railway men and the transport workers’.147 Very well might M. Martin of Pelton announce at the same meeting that during the strike the miners had had to fight their own officials as well as the capitalists and the press. Lodges like Marsden publicised their disapproval of agents sitting on the JDB. The executive and Wilson responded with circulars attempting to justify their actions, claiming that their critics amounted to only ‘one or two lodges’.148 Though their critics were rather more numerous than this, the executive requested a slip vote of lodges to legitimise its action and received a narrow majority endorsement. Wilson condemned those concerned for ignoring the DMA’s rules stipulating that agents had to be members of any board related to mining in the county. Consequently, an Oakenshaw lodge motion attempting to remove the agents from the JDB was ruled ‘Out of Order’ at the July 1912 DMA council.149

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The first Durham award under the Minimum Wage Act brought another intense and broad dimension to the rank-and-file discontent. As the owners and the unions failed to agree the minimum, the (Durham) JDB chairperson, the retired judge Sir Robert Romer, used his statutory powers to set the rates. Romer had sat as a Lord Justice in November 1900, overseeing Washington Glebe lodge’s failed appeal against the ruling that DMA lodges could not lawfully appeal retrospectively for DMA strike funds.150 Given this, Washington Glebe lodge, which protested at Romer’s appointment, would not have been surprised by the nature of his first minimum wage award, announced by 17 May 1912.151 Though no class of Durham lad fell below the MFGB’s 2s. lower limit, the hewers’ minimum was set at only 5s.6d. per shift. This was 7¼d. less even than the MFGB request for the county average. The award also seemed to contravene the new law, which stipulated that JDB chairs should take average earnings into consideration when setting the minimum. Several classes of underground datal men secured minimum rates at or above 5s., but others were awarded a meagre 4s. Romer’s explanation for these comparatively low rates was that accommodation and domestic coal benefits for married miners were to be continued, but this was no consolation both to those not entitled to these ‘benefits’, and those dissatisfied with a rapidly decreasing (in real terms) rental allowance (see Chapter 2).152 Almost immediately, the Conciliation Board awarded a 3.75% wages advance. Initially, the miners asked for a 6.25% advance, as coal prices had risen. The owners, arguing that the minimum wage strike meant they could not take advantage of rising coal prices and had instead made substantial losses, offered only 1.25%. The agreed advance would, said Wilson, take wages to broadly where they were when prices were last the same, before 1910.153 The advance certainly reduced the negative impact of the new low minimum rates, but it also initiated a process that made the minimum wage look increasingly inadequate. Several of the rules Romer set around operating the minimum wage were also contentious. Most important was the rule stipulating that miners forfeited the minimum if they were ‘absent from work without leave or without reasonable excuse’ (the so-called ‘100% rule’). In other districts, miners could have one day’s leave per week and still qualify for the minimum. This was because, with working weeks of around fifty hours, having a day off meant they still worked forty-one hours, the minimum working time required to qualify for the minimum wage. But Durham hewers’ full working week was already just forty-one hours, so, for Romer, this gave no leeway for time off. He was the only umpire in the country to insist on the 100% rule, which offended Durham hewers’ jealously guarded freedom to decide when they took a day off. But the rule also applied to grades like horse keepers, who had to attend work thirteen times a week; if they missed just one appearance at work, they forfeited the minimum.154 Owners were to receive 7s.6d. compensation from every miner who illegally absented himself from a shift. This figure was particularly perplexing as it was more than most men could have



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earned in any single shift they were absent from. W.G. Elliott (Addison colliery checkweighman) wondered if the 7s.6d. figure was equal to the profit the owners would make on the miner’s shift.155 There were other restrictive, irksome Romer rules. Pieceworkers had to give notice of the cause of any failures to perform work equivalent to the minimum wage to the correct official before the end of their shift (if practicable, or as soon as possible thereafter). Miners also forfeited the minimum if they ‘unnecessarily’ delayed going to their workplace or if they left their workplace before the proper time, reinforcing the need for miners to calculate underground travel times accurately (a notoriously difficult task) that the eight-hour day introduced (see Chapter 3). Deductions for ‘laid out’ and explosives were made from the minimum wage, rather than being deducted before any miner’s minimum wage was calculated. This meant, complained W.G. Elliott, that if a miner was working in a dirty, dangerous, ‘abnormal place’ (with considerable stone in the coal seam), the ‘laid out’ could still take earnings down to 4s. per day even with the minimum wage. Finally, there was the rule that regarded as inefficient all those new to working underground, so they were not entitled to the minimum wage for four weeks.156 The minimum wage in Durham acted as a second mechanism inaugurated since January 1910 limiting Durham miners’ job control. This new limitation on job control came not from the ‘centralising’ of trade unions (as suggested by Richard Price; see Chapter 1), but rather from the application of national legislation in a regional context. (The eight-hour day was a more complicated case as, though it was also brought about by national legislation, the DMA was certainly culpable in agreeing precisely how it would operate in the Durham coalfield). But, while important, the curtailing of job control only partially explained the popular outcry over the minimum wage; its actual measly level provoked far more anger than the new limits it placed on miners at work.157 Revealingly, the Durham owners welcomed Romer’s apparently ‘fair’ attempt to ‘split the difference’ between them and the miners.158 MWM activists, on the other hand, were far from satisfied; one was soon claiming that Durham had the ‘worst’ district settlement under the Minimum Wage Act.159 Indeed, the parliament-won minimum wage soon came to be regarded by some as inferior to that instituted at Usworth colliery many years earlier, though this claim did not have a prominent airing from contemporary MWM platforms.160 The growing militancy of January 1912, manifest in the national minimum wage strike in the spring, suggested that syndicalist ideas, too, could prosper among Durham miners. The publication of The Miners’ Next Step in January 1912 coincided with the vote for national strike action. By early March 1912, the Durham Chronicle was relaying (in an account that appeared to have been taken from The Times), ‘an astonishing conspiracy against private ownership in coal’, embodied in The Miners’ Next Step’s emphasis on using the minimum wage as one method of so reducing coal’s profits that the owners would eventually relinquish the mines to the miners who worked them; ‘the minimum must be secured before the conspiracy can be developed’, it commented, before drawing some (actually

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mistaken) solace that the pamphlet had been withdrawn ‘and is now practically unobtainable’.161 It had, in fact, simply sold out, and new copies were not long in coming. The Newcastle Daily Chronicle reported similarly, on both The Miners’ Next Step and the ‘Don’t shoot!’ text in the same edition, sounding a stark warning against the dangers of syndicalism.162 With the second Durham vote to stay out, in spite of all the dire warnings from Wilson and the press, the Durham Chronicle returned to the apparently pernicious influence of syndicalism. With the country seemingly ‘in the rapids of revolution’, Labour politicians’ claims that syndicalism was negligible were dismissed, as it was not in their (Labour’s) interests to recognise their own ineffectiveness. Syndicalists were said to be converting the youth. The editorial commented, reasonably, that the recent large-scale strikes ‘may or may not show that syndicalism is spreading, but it certainly furnishes the syndicalist with striking object lessons in the efficacy of his specific’.163 But how influential was syndicalism in terms of Durham lodge votes on the minimum wage strike? Bob Holton, in a rather cursory discussion of syndicalism’s influence in the Durham coalfield, attached considerable significance to these lodge votes. However, the only DMA lodge vote Holton specifically considered was Chopwell, where he linked a 1,315 to 76 vote against returning to work (95%) with Lawther’s syndicalist influence.164 Lawther was certainly moving from his earlier militant socialism towards syndicalism by then, under the influence of South Wales syndicalist tutors like Noah Ablett. But he was away from the coalfield, studying at the CLC in London. He did, however, contribute occasionally to the regional press from London; for instance, condemning, in June 1912, John Wilson’s ‘old fashioned idea of conciliation’, and arguing for a DMA policy that embodied the class war.165 Furthermore, he also visited the coalfield in May 1912 on a syndicalist speaking tour (see Chapter 5). But, given the distance, Lawther was clearly not in a position to exercise the kind of influence over his lodge before and during the minimum wage strike that Holton suggested.166 It would become clear in autumn 1912 that the actual Chopwell lodge officials, while militants, were not syndicalists (though they were undoubtedly interested in syndicalist ideas; see Chapter 5). George Harvey’s lodge, Handon Hold, returned a 78.3% majority for staying out on strike, while South Pelaw, where an SLP grouping was to emerge in autumn 1912, voted 94.8% to continue striking. By contrast, St Hilda lodge, whose president became a syndicalist, only produced a 59% vote to stay out. Conversely, there were very many more lodges recording votes as high or even higher than Chopwell’s against returning to work (and often with long-standing reputations for militancy) where syndicalists do not seem to have been obviously active and influential.167 In short, there was no easily discernible relationship between syndicalist influence of any kind and the degree to which a lodge voted to stay out during the national minimum wage strike of 1912. In the immediate aftermath of the strike, Harvey appeared for the first time at a MWM mass meeting in Chester-le-Street. The prelude came in late March, when Harvey had appeared with MWM activist Andrew Temple at a meeting in nearby



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Beamish protesting at Tom Mann’s imprisonment over publishing the ‘Don’t shoot!’ leaflet.168 The Chester-le-Street meeting was called by Pelton Fell lodge, with seven other local lodges attending, including Harvey’s Handon Hold. The Pelton Fell lodge chairperson and Jack Lawson took turns to condemn the press, coal owners and DMA agents. Harvey seconded the meeting’s motion of censure on the DMA agents, complaining ‘that the men had been “sold-out” by their leaders’. ‘Our leaders’, he maintained, ‘should receive the same wage as miners; perhaps then we would get our demands fought for.’169 Harvey’s remarks fitted the meeting’s mood very well. Harvey’s appearance on a MWM platform, even at a fairly localised meeting of a few lodges (albeit crucially important lodges in terms of the coalfield’s politics) suggested that his stock had risen considerably, and that he might be able to work with ILP activists and even further radicalise the growing rank-and-file movement around the minimum wage. The Socialist’s report on this appearance implied that Harvey, speaking to 3,000 on ‘Industrial unionism and fakirdom in the DMA’ was the main attraction at the meeting, rather than, more prosaically, a supporting speaker to a crowd interested in the minimum wage and brought together there by the ILP-led rank-and-file movement.170 Politically, however, the national MFGB strike over the minimum wage rather suggested that Harvey’s earlier claims about the Federation being a broken reed that could not hope to organise solidarity action throughout Britain were wide of the mark, even though the miners had not, in the end, even won the statutory ‘5 and 2’. For Harvey, the minimum wage was but one arena that sustained his attacks on Wilson; and in this sense he used Wilson’s prevarications in exactly the same way as the MWM.171 But this made it difficult for Harvey to differentiate his critical analysis from that of his ILP counterparts and, even with his growing profile and the radical mood among much of the coalfield, he struggled to make significant political headway for his own project. His attempt to launch a group of industrial unionists, inaugurated at a meeting in Chester-le-Street at around the same time as his MWM platform appearance, did not draw in any of the main leaders of the much larger movement. Harvey did, however, begin to cement his own place in the coalfield’s politics, receiving more local press coverage for his lectures on industrial unionism and related topics after March 1912.172 Conclusion The re-emergence of the minimum wage as a salient issue inside the MFGB had tremendously rejuvenating and unifying effects for ILP activists and the coalition of radical lodges inside the DMA that had been left divided and demoralised by the confusion over the Eight Hours Agreement of the previous year. By enthusiastically taking up first the ILP’s national ‘living wage’, and then the South Wales miners’ calls for a miners’ individual minimum wage, Durham rank-and-file activists had managed to mount and sustain a highly effective propaganda campaign in autumn

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and winter 1911 dedicated to winning miners over to the minimum wage idea and for a strike to achieve it. In focusing almost exclusively on this campaign, the ILP had been able to sideline the urgent but divisive issue of the Eight Hours Agreement and effected a change of tack from an essentially negative demand to abolish the Conciliation Board to a positive one in favour of an individual minimum wage. The campaign bore fruit with the national strike of spring 1912. By January 1912, a two-thirds majority of individual Durham miners had decided that the minimum wage needed to be one worth winning. Given the earlier antipathy and opposition evident in Durham, this was no small achievement for the MWM, the sophisticated arguments it mounted against the Durham wages system and for the minimum wage. The support it had galvanised was more impressive than has been appreciated because it remained so steadfast in such apparently unpromising conditions, with a relatively unappealing minimum wage on offer (in terms of who remained excluded from it, and uncertainty about its actual level), combined with press and DMA agent hostility, scaremongering and obfuscation building on miners’ genuine fears about the potentially damaging economic impacts of a minimum wage. Indeed, such was the mood from summer 1911 that syndicalists like George Harvey could for the first time really make themselves felt in the coalfield. And, while Lawther was away for this period and unable to exercise influence, he was being schooled in syndicalist ideas and soon to make his mark on coalfield politics. The minimum wage had proved a brilliant way to attack liberal economic notions and to undermine those who continued to subscribe to them, not least John Wilson himself. After the damage sustained to his reputation in 1910, Wilson’s behaviour over the minimum wage in terms of attacking it – in spite of his members’ majority support for it – and voting against their wishes as expressed in full membership ballots further damaged his credibility and offered immense propaganda potential to the MWM and the ILP. The coal owners’ refusal to contemplate the minimum wage until their lastminute acceptance of it in a vain attempt to preclude a strike further undermined Wilson’s claims of shared interests on both sides of industry. Before 1907 the minimum wage was apparently a reason for the DMA to stay out of the MFGB; after summer 1911 it formed a rallying point inside the MFGB, showing what might be achieved with concerted national action. Still, there remained some dissatisfaction among militants at the MFGB’s handling of the minimum wage issue, and, indeed, of the apparently changing aims of its main Durham advocates. Militant W.G. Elliott (Addison), for example, argued that it was wrong to blame Wilson for the Minimum Wage Act’s failings. Wilson had not been on an MFGB executive that reduced its aims to simply winning the principle of a minimum wage in the legislation. Elliott also claimed that even Batey, ‘one of main agitators’ for a 7s. minimum, was reported in the press to have remarked that, with the Act, the miners got ‘more than he [Batey] expected’.173 This defence of Wilson from a radical was unusual; and Elliott was far more critical of the agents when they acquiesced to Romer’s controversial minimum wage rules.174 Certainly, under



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Wilson’s influence, the DMA was and continued to be a powerful conservative force inside the MFGB, placing obstacles in the way of achieving a majority for strike action on the minimum wage in 1911 and 1912. The onus was still on ILP-led radical lodges to force their Liberal-dominated leadership to act more progressively inside the MFGB. To do this, they still needed to introduce suitable institutional mechanisms to exercise better control over the agents. They also had to find a constitutional way to force Wilson into line politically, something they failed to do 1909–1910, and, indeed, to broaden the fight against liberalism in economic terms into the more open ‘political’ sphere as well. Notes 1 Lawson, J., A Minimum Wage for Miners: Answer To Critics in the Durham Coal Fields (ILP Publication Department, National Labour Press, 1912), p. 7. 2 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 22 January 1910. 3 The use of MWM denotes specifically the Durham rank-and-file movement from August 1911 to April 1912. It is not a name that the movement explicitly called itself. 4 The Times, 27 September 1911. 5 Richardson, T., and J.A. Walbank, Profits and Wages in the Durham Coal Trade, 1898–1908 (Darlington: Northern Echo, 1908); Richardson, T., and J.A. Walbank, Profits and Wages in the British Coal Trade, 1898–1910 (Newcastle: NAAC, 1911). 6 Durham Chronicle, 3 February 1911. 7 Durham Chronicle, 10 February 1911. 8 British Library of Political and Economic Science (BLPES), ILP 12/1/2, ILP annual conference report, May 1912. 9 Labour Leader, 14 July 1911. See also reports in Labour Leader, 21, 28 July 1911. 10 DRO, D/DMA 327/2, Marsden lodge joint meetings, 14 May 1911; 23 July 1911; DRO, D/DMA 17/3/1, Andrew’s House lodge, general meetings, 28 December 1911; DRO, D/DMA 17/81/3, Oxhill lodge, general meetings, 11 May 1911; 6 July 1911; committee meeting, 2 January 1912; DRO, D/X 1118/1, Washington Glebe lodge, committee meeting, 27 December 1911; general meetings, 17 May 1911; 12 July 1911; DRO, D/DMA 17/51/11, Hamsteels lodge, full meeting, 3 May 1911; Durham Chronicle, 21 July 1911; 5 April 1912. 11 Labour Leader, 21 July 1911; Durham Chronicle, 21 July 1911; Socialist, September 1911. 12 Durham Chronicle, 28 July 1911. 13 DRO, D/DMA 1/11/22, Wilson’s monthly circular, July 1911. 14 Davies, D.K., ‘The influence of syndicalism, and industrial unionism, in the South Wales coalfield 1898–1921: a study in ideology and practice’(Ph.D. thesis, University of Wales, 1991), pp. 41, 91, 127, 146. 15 Hay, W.F., and N. Ablett, ‘A minimum wage for miners: what it means and how to get it’, Industrial Syndicalist, 1:8, February 1911. 16 Durham Chronicle, 28 July 1911. 17 DRO, D/DMA 1/11/22, Wilson’s monthly circular, July 1911. 18 Durham Chronicle, 11 August 1911. 19 The National Archives (TNA), CAB 37/107/78, R.A.S. Redmayne, Chief Inspector of Mines, cabinet memo, 25 July 1911.

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20 Barron, H., The 1926 Miners’ Lockout: Meanings of Community in the Durham Coalfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 171–172. 21 Durham Chronicle, 28 July 1911. 22 Durham Chronicle, 28 July 1911 23 DRO, D/DMA 1/11/22, Wilson’s monthly circular, July 1911. 24 Socialist, January 1911. 25 Socialist, January 1911. 26 Coates, K. (ed.), Democracy in the Mines: Some Documents of the Controversy on Mines (Nottingham: Spokesman, 1974), pp. 33–46; Walker, G., ‘George Harvey and industrial unionism’, Bulletin of the North-East Group for the Study of Labour History, 17 (1983), p. 21. 27 Socialist, September 1911. 28 Socialist, May 1912. 29 Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 25 August 1911. 30 Labour Leader, 28 July 1911. 31 Lawson, J., A Man’s Life (Hodder and Stoughton, 1944), pp. 74, 95–111, 116–120. 32 Northern Democrat, September 1909; October 1909; June 1911; July 1911. 33 See, for example, Temple correspondence in Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 6, 13 October 1911; 17 November 1911. 34 Labour Leader, 11 August 1911. 35 Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 19 August 1911. 36 Blaydon Courier, 12 August 1911. 37 DRO, D/DMA 82, Board of Conciliation for the Durham Coal Trade minutes, 4 August 1911; Blaydon Courier, 2 September 1911; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 5, 23, 24 August 1911. 38 Durham Chronicle, 1 September 1911. 39 DRO, D/DMA 327/2, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 20 August 1911. 40 Labour Leader, 11 August 1911. 41 Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 25 August 1911. 42 Blaydon Courier, 9 September 1911. 43 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 25 September 1911; 27 November 1911; 18 December 1911; 9, 22 January 1912; Blaydon Courier, 2, 16 September 1911; 2 December 1911; 20 April 1912; Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 10 November 1911; Durham Chronicle, 8 September 1911; 13 October 1911; 15, 29 December 1911; 5, 12 January 1912; 23 February 1912; 1 March 1912; 5, 12 April 1912. 44 Blaydon Courier, 7 October 1911. 45 NRO, 759/B/5, MFGB annual conference, 3–6 October 1911; special conferences, 14–15 November 1911, 20–21 December 1911. 46 Blaydon Courier, 20 January 1912; Durham Chronicle, 8, 29 September 1911; 23 February 1912. 47 Durham Chronicle, 29 December 1911. 48 The Times, 22, 26 December 1911; 8, 11 January 1912; 3, 16, 19, 22 February 1912; Blaydon Courier, 20 January 1912; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 14 February 1912. 49 The Times, 1 March 1912. 50 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 14 February 1912; The Times, 22 February 1912. 51 House of Lords Debates, 27 March 1912, vol. 11, cols 684–691. 52 Durham Chronicle, 8 September 1911; 29 December 1911; 23 February 1912; 22, 29 March 1912. 53 Durham Chronicle, 8 September 1911.



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54 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 22 January 1912; Durham Chronicle, 13 October 1911; 29 December 1911. 55 Durham Chronicle, 1 March 1912. 56 DRO, D/DMA 12a, Wilson’s monthly circular, January 1912. 57 NRO, 759/B/5, MFGB special conferences, 20 December 1911; 18–19 January 1912. 58 NRO, 759/B/6, MFGB special conference, 1–2 February 1912. 59 Blaydon Courier, 20 January 1912. 60 NRO, 759/B/6, MFGB special conferences, 20, 22, 23 March and 25–27 March 1912; DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA special council, 10 February 1912; Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 27 October 1911; Durham Chronicle, 29 December 1911; 2, 12, 16 February 1912; 22, 29 March 1912; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 22 January 1912. 61 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA special council, 23 September 1911. 62 NRO, 759/B/6, MFGB executive committee, 17–19 January 1912; 28–30 January 1912; special conferences, 18–19 January 1912; 1–2 February 1912, 13–14 February 1912; 27 February–1 March 1912. 63 Durham Chronicle, 1 March 1912. 64 DRO, D/DMA 327/3, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 17 December 1911; DRO D/ DMA 327/4, joint meeting, 8 December 1912; DRO, D/DMA 17/81/3, Oxhill lodge, ordinary meeting, 31 August 1911; Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 15 December 1911; Durham Chronicle, 8, 15, 29 September 1911; 13 October 1911; 15 December 1911; 12 January 1912; 1, 22 March 1912; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 22 January 1912. 65 Blaydon Courier, 9, 16, 30 September 1911; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 25 September 1911. 66 Durham Chronicle, 25 August 1911. 67 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA special council, 9 September 1911. 68 Durham Chronicle, 15 September 1911. 69 Durham Chronicle, 29 September 1911. 70 Though never spelled out in the lodge motions, calls for a return to pre-1910 conditions could not, in most cases, have meant precisely that. Rather, pre-1910 two-shift system collieries would have had to operate systems modified to allow for the lads (putters etc.) to work an eight-hour day. The same applied to pre-1910 three-shift system collieries. There is no clear indication that any lodges favoured compelling the lads to return to their pre-1910 ten-hour day. 71 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA special council, 7 October 1911; Durham Chronicle, 22 September 1911. 72 Durham Chronicle, 6 October 1911. 73 The Times, 11 November 1912. 74 TNA, CAB 37/107/78, R.A.S. Redmayne, Chief Inspector of Mines, cabinet memo, 25 July 1911. 75 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA special council, 7 October 1911; DRO, D/X 1118/1, Washington Glebe lodge, general meeting, 4 October 1911. 76 Durham Chronicle, 29 September 1911. 77 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 22 January 1912. 78 DRO, D/DMA 1/11/22, DMA executive, 11 December 1911. 79 NRO, 759/B/5, MFGB annual conference, 5 October 1911. 80 Durham Chronicle, 12 January 1912. 81 Durham Chronicle, 25 July 1913. 82 NRO, 759/B/6, MFGB annual conference, 1-4 October 1912.

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83 NRO, 759/B/6, MFGB annual conference, 1-4 October 1912; NRO, 759/B/7, MFGB special conference, 10–11 December 1913; Coal Mines (Northumberland): A Bill to Restrict Work in Coal Mines to Certain Hours of the Day (HMSO, 1914); House of Lords Debates, 1 April 1914, vol. 15, col. 874; Durham Chronicle, 23 May 1913; 2 August 1913; 29 May 1914. 84 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 28 October 1911; DMA annual meeting, 16, 23, 26 and 27 December 1911; Durham Chronicle, 3 November 1911; 29 December 1911; 5 April 1912; 17 July 1914. 85 Lawson, Minimum Wage, p. 4. 86 Lawson, Minimum Wage, p. 13. 87 Tanner, D., Political Change and the Labour Party 1900–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 210. See also Tanner, D., ‘Ideological debate in Edwardian Labour politics: radicalism, revisionism and socialism’, in E.F. Biagini and A.J. Reid (eds), Currents of Radicalism: Popular Radicalism, Organised Labour, and Party (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 289. 88 Blaydon Courier, 13 July 1912. 89 DRO, D/DMA 17/65/1 Langley Park lodge, general meeting, 8 June 1911; committee meeting, 1 March 1911; DRO, D/DMA 327/2, Marsden lodge, committee meeting, 5 August 1911; joint meeting, 20 August 1911; DRO, D/DMA 1/11/22, DMA annual meeting programme, 16 December 1911. 90 DRO, D/DMA 1/11/22, DMA annual meeting programme, 16 December 1911; DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA annual meeting, 16, 23, 26 and 27 December 1911; Durham Chronicle, 29 December 1911. 91 DRO, D/DMA 327/2, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 30 July 1911; 20 August 1911. 92 Durham Chronicle, 12 January 1912. 93 The Times, 19 January 1912; Durham Chronicle, 29 December 1911; 12 January 1912. 94 Tanner, Political Change, p. 210. 95 The Times, 11 January 1912. 96 DRO, D/DMA 12a, DMA minimum wage circular, January 1912. 97 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 22 January 1912. 98 The Times, 20 May 1912; Durham Chronicle, 12 January 1912; 29 March 1912; 5 April 1912. 99 Durham Chronicle, 10 November 1911. 100 See, for example, Northern Democrat, August 1909; Durham Chronicle, 13 January 1911; 3 February 1911. 101 NRO, 759/B/5, MFGB special conference on the minimum wage, 21 December 1911. 102 NRO, 759/B/5, MFGB special conferences, 20 December 1911; 18–19 January 1912. 103 NRO, 759/B/6, MFGB special conference, 1–2 February 1912. 104 Durham Chronicle, 11 August 1911. 105 NRO, 759/B/5, MFGB, special conference on the minimum wage question, 14 and 15 November 1911. 106 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 22 January 1912. 107 Durham Chronicle, 12 January 1912; 17 April 1926. 108 Lawson, Minimum Wage, p. 11. 109 Lawson, Minimum Wage, p. 12. Regarding Durham miners’ masculinity, see Lawson’s lengthy description of a fight between two Durham miners in A Man’s Life, pp. 54–59. 110 NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, Wilson’s monthly circular, January 1914; Durham Chronicle, 19 January 1912; 15 March 1912; 26 July 1912; 18 July 1913; The Times,



111 112 113 114 115

116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137

138 139 140

‘Not exactly the millennium’ 183 10 September 1912; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 14 February 1912; Page Arnot, R., The Miners: Years of Struggle, 1889–1910 (Allen and Unwin, 1949), pp. 94, 100; Clegg, H.A., A History of British Trade Unions since 1889 Vol. 2: 1911–1933 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), p. 46. Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 9 January 1912. Evening Chronicle, 8 January 1912; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 12 January 1912; Durham Chronicle, 12 January 1912; Blaydon Courier, 20 January 1912. Durham Chronicle, 12 January 1912. NRO, 759/B/5, MFGB special conference, 20–21 December 1911. The Times, 1 March 1912; Blaydon Courier, 9, 16, 23, 30 March 1912; 6 April 1912; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 9 April 1912; Durham Chronicle, 8, 15, 22 March 1912; 26 July 1912; Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 22, 29 March 1912; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 22 January 1912; Lawson, Man’s Life, p. 118. House of Lords Debates, 27 March 1912, vol.11, cols 687–688. House of Commons Debates, 19, 21 March 1912, vol. 35; Emy, H.V., Liberals, Radicals and Social Politics 1892–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 261–262. NRO, 759/B/6, MFGB special conferences, 11–15; 20, 22, 23, 25–27 March 1912. DRO, D/DMA 12a, Wilson’s monthly circular, March 1912. NRO, 759/B/6, MFGB special conference, 25–27 March 1912; Williams, J.E. The Derbyshire Miners: A Study in Industrial and Social History (Allen and Unwin, 1962), p. 430. Durham Chronicle, 15 March 1912. Newcastle Journal, 1 April 1912. The Times, 5 April 1912; Durham Chronicle, 15 March 1912; 5 April 1912; Jevons, H.S., The British Coal Trade (Trowbridge: Redwood Press, 1969), pp. 542–543. NRO, 759/B/6, MFGB special conference, 6 April 1912. Durham Chronicle, 6 January 1911; 21 July 1911; 19 January 1912; 5 April 1912; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 22 January 1912. House of Lords Debates, 27 March 1912, vol. 11, col. 687. Gregory, R., The Miners and British Politics, 1906–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 55, 64; Tanner, Political Change, p. 210. Tanner, Political Change, p. 210. The Times, 1 March 1912; Baylies, C.L., The History of the Yorkshire Miners, 1881– 1918 (Routledge, 1993), pp. 373–374. Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 22 January 1912. Durham Chronicle, 29 December 1911. Durham Chronicle, 1 September 1911; 12 January 1912. DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 26 October 1912; 22 March 1913. Labour Leader, 11 August 1911. Lawson, Minimum Wage, p. 4. Lawson, Minimum Wage, pp. 6–7. Richardson, T., and J.A. Walbank, Profits and Wages in the British Coal Trade, 1898– 1910 (Newcastle: NAAC, 1911); Blaydon Courier, 6 January 1912; 2 March 1912; The Times, 28 February 1912; 7, 12, 15 March 1912; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 7, 9 March 1912; Evening Chronicle, 28 February 1912; 1, 6 March 1912. Blaydon Courier, 9 September 1911. Blaydon Courier, 28 October 1911. Blaydon Courier, 25 May 1912.

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141 See further correspondence to this effect in, for example, Blaydon Courier, 27 January 1912; 17 February 1912. 142 See, for example, letters to Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 25, 27 March 1912. 143 DRO, D/X 1118/1, Washington Glebe lodge, special meeting, 27 February 1912. 144 NRO, 759/B/6, MFGB special conferences, 27 February–1 March 1912; 6 April 1912; Durham Chronicle, 8 March 1912; 12 April 1912. 145 DRO, D/DMA 17/81/3, Oxhill lodge, special meeting, 10 April 1912. 146 Durham Chronicle, 12 April 1912. The executive’s circular replying to these charges is reproduced in the Blaydon Courier, 20 April 1912. 147 Blaydon Courier, 20 April 1912. 148 Durham Chronicle, 12 April 1912. 149 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 20 July 1912; DRO, D/DMA 12a, Wilson’s monthly circular, April 1912; result of slip vote on executive actions, April 1912; DRO, D/ DMA 327/3, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 21 April 1912; Durham Chronicle, 26 April 1912. 150 Durham Chronicle, 16 November 1900. 151 DRO, D/X 1118/1, Washington Glebe lodge, special meeting, 7 April 1912. 152 DRO, D/Sho 82, ‘Coal Mines (Minimum Wages) Act, 1912: rules of the Joint District Board, minimum rates of wages and district rules’ (Newcastle: Durham Coalowners’ Association 1913). 153 DRO, D/DMA 82, Board of Conciliation for the Durham Coal Trade minutes, 3, 18 May 1912; The Times, 17, 20 May 1912; 19 July 1912. 154 NRO, 759/B/7, MFGB special conference, 10-11 December 1913, pp. 107–111. 155 DRO, D/Sho 82, Joint District Board minimum rates; Blaydon Courier, 27 July 1912; The Times, 10 September 1912. 156 DRO, D/Sho 82, Joint District Board minimum rates; Blaydon Courier, 20 July 1912; The Times, 10 September 1912. 157 See angry remarks on various of Romer’s rules in, for example, Blaydon Courier, 22, 29 June 1912; 20, 27 July 1912. 158 The Times, 17 May 1912. 159 Blaydon Courier, 13 July 1912. 160 Evening Chronicle, 27 February 1912. 161 Durham Chronicle, 1 March 1912. See The Times, 27 February 1912. 162 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 27 February 1912. 163 Durham Chronicle, 5 April 1912. 164 Holton, B., British Syndicalism 1900–1914. Myths and Realities (Pluto, 1976), pp. 118, 169–170. 165 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 1 June 1912. 166 Newcastle Journal, 16 March 1955. 167 Syndicalist, 1:10, November 1912; Durham Chronicle, 5 April 1912. 168 Syndicalist, 1:1, January 1912; Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 5 April 1912; Blaydon Courier, 6 April 1912. 169 Durham Chronicle, 12 April 1912. 170 Socialist, May 1912. 171 Harvey, G., Does Dr. John Wilson MP Serve the Working-Class? (Sunderland: Lambton Press, Chester-le-Street and District Industrial Union Group, 1912), pp. 14–15. 172 Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 12 April 1912; 10 May 1912. 173 Blaydon Courier, 27 July 1912. 174 Blaydon Courier, 20 July 1912.

5 ‘A capitalistic piece of legislation’

The launch of the Durham Forward Movement and the syndicalists’ high tide?1 The MWM’s struggle did not end with a two-thirds majority effectively in favour of their minimum wage demand in spring 1912. Controversially, the minimum wage excluded surface and old and infirm workers and Romer’s parsimonious first award antagonised many who actually did qualify for the minimum wage. The agents’, and especially Wilson’s, refusal to represent adequately the wishes of the majority of DMA members on the issue before, during and after the national strike suggested that the MWM still had considerable work to do. This chapter examines the emergence (in May 1912) and first year of a more organisationally coherent and programmatically varied rank-and-file ILP-led challenge in the aftermath of the disappointment of the Minimum Wage Act. It analyses the movement’s aims and achievements, in a period pregnant with potential for the syndicalists. The launch and aims of the Durham Forward Movement Such was the continued frustration with their own agents and with the legislation that MWM activists established a more permanent rank-and-file organisation even before Romer had announced Durham’s minimum wage rates (to further consternation). The initiative originated in a circular of mid-April 1912 entitled ‘Durham miners and progress’, which claimed that the recent minimum wage campaign had achieved ‘good results that needed to be improved upon’.2 It called for lodges to attend a rank-and-file conference in the Shakespeare Hall, Durham, on 4 May 1912. Two of the circular’s signatories, Lawson and W.P. Richardson, were prominent speakers; Richardson outlined their ideas for an educational campaign of conferences and mass meetings, and the new rank-and-file movement, soon calling itself the Durham Forward Movement, was launched.3 The DFM represented a crucial advance in terms of the coalfield’s ILP-led agitation against liberalism in four main ways. First, it adopted a more concrete organisation than the MWM, its aim to be ‘a permanent institution until our objects are accomplished’.4 It had four elected officers and a committee of six, and it invited lodges to pay an affiliation fee and nominate individuals for all posts, to be elected

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democratically. (It is unclear if lodges were afforded representation inside the DFM in proportion to their often very varying memberships; they were certainly asked to affiliate proportionally, at a rate of 1s. per 100 members). Democratic or not, there was no challenge to the four authors of the initiative, as they became the DFM’s provisional, and then actual (uncontested), officials (in July 1912). The two leaders most prominently active throughout the DFM’s pre-war existence were Lawson (DFM assistant secretary and later secretary) and W.P. Richardson (DFM chairperson), who was exceptional among the four in not being a colliery checkweighman. The other two leading DFM officials were Andrew Temple (DFM secretary) and Henry Bainbridge (DFM treasurer), the latter a checkweighman at Shield Row (West Stanley). Like the other three, Bainbridge was also prominent in the pre-strike MWM and active in the ILP (as secretary of Stanley ILP branch). The vast majority of the second-ranking activists in the DFM were also checkweighmen ILP members previously active in the MWM, including James Gilliland, Joseph Batey, John Herriotts and John Swan. The movement’s main platform speakers were invariably lodge officials, if they were not checkweighmen. The DFM committee places were contested, however. There were seventeen nominations for the six positions. Three of the provisional committee (including both activists who had been particularly prominent in the MWM) retained their seats. Batey was elected onto the committee. The DFM envisaged that this ‘central committee’ would retain control of the organisation initially, but that, as the movement grew, local committees electing their own officers were anticipated to appear. They would then use the central committee as a coalfield-wide coordinating body.5 Second, the DFM’s activity was periodically as or more intense than that of its more disparate predecessor movement. By August 1914, there had been very likely in excess of thirty DFM conferences or mass meetings. At least nine of these attempted to bring together the entire coalfield, attracting representation in excess of forty lodges each time. These nine coalfield-wide events tended to take the form of an organising conference lasting around two hours, followed by a mass propaganda meeting, held in either a large hall or the open air. Other DFM meetings were smaller in their reach, involving invitations to lodges in a limited area around the meeting point and attracting attendances of between nine and eighteen lodges. Both types of event occurred all over the coalfield, and it was striking that only three places, including the organising centre of Durham City, hosted more than two of either type. Durham City was particularly convenient as it was where lodge delegates, with their expenses already paid, congregated for DMA council meetings anyway. Indeed, the Shakespeare Hall, the DFM’s favoured venue, was literally across the North Road from the Durham miners’ offices. The two other favourite venues, Birtley and Spennymoor, were towards the north and south ends of the coalfield respectively. To communicate the times and places of meetings, as well as its broad case, the DFM periodically issued circulars, very many of which found their way (often verbatim) into the regional press. DFM pre-war activity came in four distinct phases. This chapter covers the first phase,



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the longest and most active, between May 1912 and January 1913, when there were at least one or two movement meetings every month, with evidence for at least nineteen mass meetings at seventeen different coalfield venues; four of which attracted more than forty lodges each.6 (The chapter then documents an interim phase, when DFM lodges became involved in a distinct and separate campaign around doctors’ fees). Third, the DFM, building on a hardcore of MWM supporting lodges, cultivated a greater lodge support base. This was suggested even at its inaugural conference on 4 May 1912, at which sixty-one lodges were represented. Fifty-eight lodges attended its second conference, on 1 June 1912. Both attendances exceeded the single MWM conference, which, with fifty-four lodges represented, garnered comparable involvement. After June 1912, however, lodge attendance at the coalfield-wide DFM conferences fluctuated between the low forties and low fifties.7 The numbers of lodges at DFM events seems to have been related in part to the urgency of the issues the movement was dealing with at specific times. That the first two DFM conferences were the best attended was due partially to the freshness of anger over the recently ended minimum wage strike. Lodge attendance figures, however, tell only part of the story as supportive lodges were not necessarily represented at DFM events. After the 1 June 1912 conference, for instance, the DFM claimed the support of another fifty lodges in addition to the fifty-eight present. The conference organisers offered parlous finances as an explanation for many lodges not affiliating or attending meetings. Many lodges had haemorrhaged funds engaged in, or in supporting, unofficial strikes against the Eight Hours Agreement in 1910 and then expended even more during the recent (official) national strike. In late July 1912, DFM leaders claimed that the miners’ annual gala was also a drain on lodge resources at that time of year. Furthermore, like the MWM before it, many of the largest DMA lodges were active in the DFM, something the movement itself was quick to observe. The fifty lodges represented at the 12 October 1912 DFM conference – which organisers regarded as ‘the most successful gathering so far’ – accounted for 40,000 DMA members between them; about a third of the DMA’s full membership, in less than a quarter of its lodges.8 At least twenty-two of the largest thirty DMA lodges were involved in the DFM at some point before August 1914. While many of the most active DFM lodges had been so in the earlier MWM, the DFM’s developing programme and superior organisation helped to widen and deepen this support (although not all lodges active in the MWM moved into the DFM; see below). In total, at least fifty-two lodges supported a MWM event, while around half as many again (seventy-six lodges) were definitely active (albeit to rather differing degrees) in the DFM at some point between May 1912 and August 1914. The final major difference between the DFM and its predecessor was the new organisation’s broader and more ambitious programme. It continued operating, like the MWM before it, on the industrial/material plane, putting considerable energy into addressing miners’ bread-and-butter issues. But it also moved more

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purposively onto the offensive on the more overtly political plane. In terms of its industrial programme, five distinct themes developed, with the DFM attempting to exert pressure on Romer and the JDB, the coal owners and, in some cases, the government itself. To do this effectively, it needed the DMA leadership to take its grievances either directly to these sources of power or to the MFGB with the hope of securing wider solidarity support. First, the DFM criticised Romer’s miserly minimum wage award. With miners’ wages rising, the movement then began also to highlight the growing gap between the minimum and the county average. Interestingly, growing wages after May 1912 did not affect activists’ pre-strike rhetoric; they still attacked coal owners’ profits and highlighted the increasing cost of living. Second, the DFM agitated against Romer’s rules relating to the minimum wage, particularly the ‘100% rule’ (see Chapter 4).9 Third, the DFM protested at how some coal owners were applying the Act, including ‘harassment’ of their workers over the minimum. According to movement activists, the owners hastily developed a bulging portfolio of ingenious methods for reducing their costs in operating the minimum wage. By summer 1913, for example, a ‘pooling system’ in some collieries combined the wages of several hewers with higher earnings from the better cavils, effectively making up wages earned in poorer cavils to the minimum. This neutralised cavilling’s appeal: even if a hewer drew a good cavil he would not take home all of his earnings. (While pooling earnings was unpopular when enforced on hewers, some hewers’ teams in Northumberland and Durham had developed this practice themselves before the minimum wage was introduced.10) Furthermore, and in contravention of Romer’s ruling, some owners sought to minimise costs by altering the grades of miners due bonuses over and above the minimum wage. There was substance to these allegations. In Hetton colliery, for instance, there were cases of marras (working partners) being overruled by an umpire when trying to resist management attempts to pool their wages earned from working in two different quality cavils. In Heworth there were several cases of miners being denied the minimum, essentially for not working as hard as they apparently should. Others fell foul of the 100% rule by absenting themselves without permission. The need for legal umpires meant that the minimum wage generated a good deal of work for the region’s solicitors.11 The movement’s fourth industrial demand was the inclusion of aged, infirm and surfaceworkers in any future amendment of the Minimum Wage Act. Finally, the DFM urged improvements in wages and conditions for workers currently outside the Act’s remit. It claimed for surfaceworkers an eight-hour working day (they currently worked around ten and a half hours) and an immediate advance of 20% on wages, which would raise them from 4s.11d. to 5s.6d. The DFM agitated specifically on pit firemen’s pay and hours, a long-running if sporadic concern of lodges. Typically, firemen worked a twelve-hour day for about 4s.10d.12 The DFM’s political platform contained two major components. First, there was a practical effort to democratise the union’s power structures in an endeavour initially to curtail and ultimately to wrest institutional control from the dominant Liberal



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agents. The movement developed a critique of how the executive (under Wilson’s guidance) could counter lodge influence. For example, it claimed that the results of a lodge vote taken on altering the DMA’s rules in early 1911 were only made available as late as September 1911. This meant lodges only had twelve days to discuss a hugely complex document containing over 200 suggested rule changes. The DFM also complained at the ‘hundreds’ of lodge motions that the agents had suppressed for various apparently spurious reasons.13 But there was also criticism of the power that lodge officials exercised. In mid-April 1912, Lawson claimed that ‘They had to lay the axe at the root of the tree, and they had to demand that thimble-rigging which at present went on in connection with voting for the executive should be abolished, and that they should have instead an individual ballot vote’. 14 In an effort to address the DMA’s major institutional imbalances, the DFM’s 4 May inaugural conference heard proposals both to empower individual members over agents and to foster better lodge accountability. The DFM’s four specific demands were: more democratic ways of choosing officials, including an individual ballot (rather than a lodge slip vote) for electing new agents (Lawson’s suggestion for an individual ballot for lodge executive representatives was not formally taken up); that the policy of DMA delegates at conferences (MFGB, TUC) be determined by lodges at council meetings, with full delegate reports to be submitted back to council; that the union provide a printed tabulation of all lodge votes on proposals at DMA council when demanded by ten or more delegates and, finally, that no agent be an MP concurrently, as the work of both was too great and too important (this last point was, of course, aimed at Wilson, as well as at aspiring MPs like House; as Thomas Richardson MP’s candidature for the agent position in 1911 suggested, there was popular antipathy towards individuals who aspired to so-called ‘dual working’, almost regardless of their politics).15 The DFM also demanded a new union educational department that would, among other things, produce a magazine to replace Wilson’s monthly circular; this needed abolishing as it was simply, according to the DFM, a vehicle for expressing Wilson’s personal opinion. Regular reports from the officials running each DMA organisational department offered a second alternative to Wilson’s monthly circular. The educational element to the movement was crucial and no doubt owed much to Lawson, an ex-Ruskin student, as well as Andrew Temple (who secured a scholarship to Ruskin for autumn 1912) and Bainbridge, who was his local Co-operative Society’s education secretary. At a DFM meeting in August 1912 Lawson expressed the hope that the educational work the movement was undertaking would one day be an integral part of the DMA.16 A likely spur to this specific aspect of the DFM’s campaigning platform was the DMA’s ending of financial support to Ruskin students in 1909 (see Chapter 2). As an aside, Ruskin aided Lawson twice in his early career: first by affording him the credentials to stand for a checkweighman post at a young age; and second by taking Temple away from the coalfield and direct involvement in the DFM, thereby allowing Lawson, then assistant secretary, to step into Temple’s shoes as secretary. Temple

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did not loose out, however, as being at Ruskin boosted his local profile in another way. He began contributing regular articles on trade union history, theory and the labour movement to the Stanley News from February 1913 and then also to the Chester-le-Street Chronicle from May 1913, maintaining a steady stream of output in the former until well into spring 1914.17 The second major component of the DFM’s political programme was its consistent and vocal support for the Labour Party’s project in Parliament. This new emphasis – the MWM had largely ignored the Labour Party – was evident from the outset. A May 1912 DFM circular claimed: The present [Minimum Wage] Act, it must be recognised, is a capitalistic piece of legislation. The hand of the employer generally, and the coal owner in particular is written across it quite clearly. It reveals more than ever the need for increased Labour representation in Parliament. Employers are employers whether in the House of Commons, in the Industrial Council or at the workshop or the mine, and as such safeguard their own interests, not ours.

It then outlined the DFM’s two-pronged strategy of working through the MFGB ‘on the industrial battlefield’, and the Labour Party ‘in the political arena’.18 True to this, speakers at subsequent DFM meetings repeatedly emphasised the need for activity through the Labour Party. They urged lodges to run Labour candidates at local elections and to vote (under the new Trade Union Act of 1913) in favour of using trade union funds for political purposes (i.e. financing the Labour Party).19 On this last point, the only available figures on this vote are for the MFGB as a whole, with 261,643 voting in favour, 194,800 against and 20,223 spoilt ballot papers.20 Naturally, there was a delicate balance to strike between political and industrial agitation. DFM leaders (in theory, at least) saw no contradiction in employing industrial action to help force through political measures in Parliament; this was precisely what happened, of course, during the national minimum wage strike. But how did local ILP activists view Labour’s record in Parliament? Duncan Tanner documented north-east ILP members claiming Labour’s national compromise in the Lib-Lab pact was an obstacle to their local organising. Yet there was no public indication of DFM activist discontent with Labour’s parliamentary performance, nor public criticism of its apparent timidity when working with the Liberals.21 It seems likely, in fact, that Durham ILP activists in particular were appeased because Labour did fight by-elections against Liberals in the coalfield (see Chapter 6). These contests were endorsed by MacDonald in spite of his determination to maintain the Lib-Lab pact as part of a national strategy aimed in part to eliminate confusion over Lib-Labism, particularly evident, thanks to Wilson and other Liberal agents like T.H. Cann, in Durham.22 Indeed, DFM-supporting lodges seemed to be looking for reasons to praise Labour in Parliament. Chopwell lodge, for instance, announced its satisfaction at



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the Labour MPs who had spoken against the government’s use of the military against strikers in October 1911.23 Labour MPs’ failed efforts to alter the Minimum Wage Bill in Parliament during its third reading seemed, if anything, to strengthen this support. Marsden miners, for example, praised Labour MPs’ ‘indefatigable efforts’ in ‘endeavouring to make the [Minimum Wage] bill workable and acceptable’.24 A meeting of lodges at Seaham Harbour passed a similarly worded resolution in late March 1912.25 There developed something of a symbiotic relationship between national and regional, as Labour MPs’ behaviour in Parliament bolstered the DFM’s propagandising inside the DMA. This was evident to the local ILP organiser Matt Simm, who claimed in May 1912 that Labour MPs’ actions over the Minimum Wage Bill had afforded the north-east ILP ‘more power than at any time during the last ten years. The work done on this measure alone would justify the presence of the Labour Party in Parliament.’26 This became an increasingly familiar refrain from DFM platforms. In these terms, the DFM was in tune with the more Labour-inclined DMA agents, most significantly William House. At the 1910 gala, House asked his audience, ‘when would they realise that political power was industrial control and stop sending rich capitalists to Parliament instead of their own men?’27 In September 1910, House remarked that there had never been a strike epidemic ‘so universal as the present’. He continued, a curious thing was that invariably those loudest in denunciations of the despots [coal owners] were at election times those who not only voted but worked for them too! ... the battleground for settling disputes and improving the conditions had been transferred from the colliery office and lodge room to the floor of the House of Commons.28

But the rhetoric deployed on DFM platforms in arguing for their programme was strikingly more aggressive in tone than that of both House and the MWM before it (certainly until early 1912). Again, the May 1912 DFM circular set the tone: to obtain a fair share of the fruits of our labour we must be aggressive. Our interests and those of the owners are not identical; they never were and never will be. Better wages and improved conditions of labour come only when by the power of organisation we compel them, not before.29

While this statement fell short of a Marxist claim that owners’ and workers’ interests were necessarily entirely antagonistic, it still very firmly cut across the coalfield’s apparent liberal economic ‘religion’ and was entirely in keeping with Lawson’s aggressive rhetoric in the immediate aftermath of the national minimum wage strike (see Chapter 4). Indeed, Lawson himself was soon deploying a more aggressive language of class war. Speaking at a DFM meeting in Seaham in July 1912, he claimed that the miners ‘would only get from the coal owners what they were compelled to give at the point of a sword’.30 Certainly, Lawson’s

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ideological influences were rather diverse in this period. Some of the ex-Ruskin College students he kept in touch with had revolutionary politics. One such was C. Pattinson who wrote to Lawson from Canada in August 1912, describing himself as part of the revolutionary ‘class conscious proletarian element of the socialist party; none of your laborism for us’. Pattinson praised Lawson’s role in the DFM, and asked for copies of two pamphlets – Lawson’s own on the minimum wage and The Miners’ Next Step.31 Judging by some of his rhetoric and writing, and the nature of the rank-and-file movement he led, Lawson had drawn inspiration (though not an entire programme) from having read the latter. Two decades later Lawson wrote that, during the minimum wage agitation, ‘I preached no abstract economic theory, not even that of Marx. I knew the problem better than any theorist and had plenty of material at hand from dayto-day experience to point the moral.’32 In fact, Lawson’s was the most frequent and among the most militant voices heard from DFM platforms, and, as could reasonably be anticipated, his memoirs did not fully convey just how he went about addressing the rank-and-file movements’ crowds. These lines did express, however, the point that activists did not need to use Marxist theoretical models to understand and condemn capitalist exploitation in material terms that could be readily understood by their audiences. They also suggest that activists’ moral and economic critiques of capitalism, and capitalists, could blur so completely that they could not be easily or usefully (in terms of analysis) disentangled. Thus, while Tanner provided a fascinating discussion of progressive political thought, his categorisation of socialism nevertheless imposed too rigid a structure on the many and varied ideas available, all of which were subject to various influences, definitions and changes of emphasis in the minds of individual activists. Stefan Berger proffered the same criticism, pointing out, for example, that Keir Hardie’s socialism fell into all three of Tanner’s categories.33 In fact, the ILP activists of the DFM employed a good deal of the same rhetoric, and to advance similar immediate aims, as the syndicalists. Lawson’s reference to the ‘point of a sword’ was comparable in tone to the rhetoric of George Harvey. In July 1910, for instance, Harvey wrote that ‘the masters will only yield what can be forced from them’.34 The DFM’s demands for a more militant and aggressive industrial policy, the stringent critique of the DMA’s leaders and the aim of democratising the union were all shared with the syndicalists. Furthermore, the DFM showed some interest in promoting further consolidation of miners’ industrial forces, and its leaders did, on occasion, make rhetorical allusions to a wider union of all workers that also sounded syndicalist (the DFM also welcomed the creation of the Triple Alliance in 1914; see Chapter 6).35 Of course, there were crucial theoretical differences too; while syndicalists of the South Wales miners’ type, and anarchists, opposed nationalisation and would largely deplore the DFM’s political strategy, Harvey and the SLP (who favoured political action) were hardly likely to be any more sympathetic to the DFM’s wholehearted support for Labour. Even so, the early days of the DFM saw an apparently genuine and



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growing interest in syndicalism, which had come to prominence immediately before and during the miners’ strike, thanks to The Miners’ Next Step and some scaremongering national and local press coverage (see Chapter 4). In May 1912, ILP activist George Jaques, for example, welcomed ‘the advent of syndicalism or industrial unionism; their ideal is commendable. But I venture to think that several of our young men today will be grey haired and wrinkled before they can mend our surface workmen’s condition.’36 For a time, the ILP was a perfectly adequate vehicle to facilitate the growing radicalisation of Will Lawther. Indeed, it was significant that Lawther did not move firmly towards syndicalism until he left the coalfield to study at the CLC in London. Harvey, too, seemed at home in the ILP until his slightly earlier radicalisation at Ruskin (see Chapter 2). Yet both men were exceptions in terms of moving firmly away from the ILP and towards revolutionary politics in this period. Consequently an ‘anti-liberal minority’ in Durham (actually, as argued in Chapter 4, a two-thirds majority using the 1912 minimum wage strike votes as the yardstick) was – contrary to Tanner – not significantly ‘weakened by defections to syndicalism and the far left’ (which were, of course, themselves hardly likely to be pro-Liberal).37 As for Lawther and Harvey, it was significant that they did not maintain their ILP membership when they took up syndicalism. This contrasted with many South Wales activists. A.J. Cook, Mainwaring and others all remained in the ILP for at least some of the period after they became syndicalists.38 In Harvey and Lawther’s cases, the precise nature of their syndicalist politics demanded, sooner or later, a break from the ILP. Yet, in leaving the party, both raised a barrier between themselves and their former ILP comrades that then needed overcoming in order to forge links within the wider rank-and-file movements (should they want to do so). Their potential to exercise influence was thus placed in jeopardy before they had really begun. But did the DFM/ILP militants’ class-based, syndicalist-tinged rhetoric isolate them from the national ILP? There was clearly something of a gulf between them, with national ILP leaders keen to attack syndicalism in print in this period.39 Indeed, MacDonald’s doubts about trade unions, and even the working class itself, must have rendered the young Durham ILP activists’ rank-and-file movement strategy unappealing to him. Yet, Lawson’s minimum wage pamphlet, and other writings promoting the Durham movement, did receive national ILP backing in the form of sponsorship and coverage in the ILP’s paper, the Labour Leader.40 There was another influence within the ILP that chimed in some respects with this tranche of militant Durham ILP activists: the politics of the maverick socialist Victor Grayson. Though he was regarded by some as ideologically shallow, and a mere rabble-rouser, Grayson’s 1911 gala speech certainly resonated with the Durham DFM leaders’ critiques (see Chapter 4).41 There were, however, differences too. The DFM’s increasing insistence on the need for a coherent Labour Party in Parliament was at odds with Grayson’s undisciplined approach to the party and parliament. Nevertheless, Grayson’s local ILP branch, the ILP in South Wales (which retained syndicalists among its membership for much of

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the pre-1914 period), and the DFM showed that the ILP was perfectly capable of maintaining a fairly heterogeneous and often very radical grouping of activists in its ranks (including some anarchists), able to appreciate syndicalism and its appeal and harness this to their own, sometimes rather different, ends.42 The ILP’s ability to retain many militants in Durham, and the syndicalist tone of much of the DFM’s programme and propaganda, have implications for the role of Methodism in activists’ ideology and praxis. Certainly, a strong Methodist influence is suggested by the Forward Movement’s very name. This was also the name given to Christian socialist Hugh Price Hughes’ radical movement in Wesleyan Methodism, and the Durham rank-and-file movement’s meetings were in some respects reminiscent of a Methodist revival. Will Lawther later wrote that this period saw a ‘great awakening in the land which it was exciting to witness’. This ‘was a time of political revivalism, of conversions’.43 But it was an apparently somewhat secular revival. While Lawson and other activists’ rhetoric sounded rather more like that of Hughes’ more radical fellow Christian socialist, S.E. Keeble, there were strikingly few allusions to Biblical themes in the speeches delivered from DFM platforms – certainly in comparison with, say, the overt religious imagery Keir Hardie deployed in his gala speeches.44 The bulk of DFM activists’ speeches were confined to the details of the movement’s various demands, with the occasional wider ‘class war’ rhetorical flourishes. Lawson was particularly interesting in this context, as his speeches from DFM platforms gave no indication that he was a Methodist lay preacher. In an undated (but certainly much later) religious text Lawson wrote about the relationship between politics and religion: ‘deeply as I am immersed in the great Social and Industrial questions of the day I would be the last to have the Pulpit turned into a Political Platform or make it the cockpit for Rival Parties or great Social and Industrial issues’.45 Lawson seemed equally keen not to turn the political platform into a pulpit in this period. Indeed, it was somewhat ironic that the avowed atheist revolutionary George Harvey drew more heavily on Biblical themes than Lawson in his contemporaneous propaganda.46 This evidence endorses Robert Moore’s claims about the decline in Methodism’s political influence.47 It also suggests that the ‘circumstances of class’ were mounting a serious ideological challenge to the ‘politics of patronage’ in the DMA before 1914, and that the 1926 lockout represented simply another stage in a process that was rather more advanced in the Edwardian period than has been appreciated.48 Indeed, the complexities of relations between ideology and religion in individual activists’ minds rather suggests that it is not helpful to regard socialist/ syndicalist politics as emerging necessarily hand-in-hand with growing secularisation. As evidenced here (and in Chapter 2), a sustained religious faith can bear little or no obvious relationship at all to some radical activists’ changing politics. This aside, Lawson’s politics certainly moderated in the inter-war period, though the relationship between this process and his sustained Methodism is by no means necessarily straightforward. It is even possible that Lawson – and, indeed, other leading DFM activists – were



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indulging in a more militant rhetoric than they actually believed before August 1914. Crucially, though, they must have done so, anticipating that their militant language would resonate with their disgruntled (and predominately Methodistschooled) audience. As important, it actually did so. Another angry summer When ILP activist George Jaques commented on syndicalism in May 1912, he was responding to the news of a ‘second coming’ of South Wales missionaries to the coalfield, only a matter of a weeks after the national minimum wage strike had ended. This time William Ferris Hay was on tour, financed by George Davison and ably supported by a newly radicalised Will Lawther, approaching the end of his academic year at the CLC.49 Speaking at an open-air meeting at West Stanley on 25 May, Hay discussed The Miners’ Next Step and called for one big organisation for miners, with one executive and one policy; of attempting to wrest at every opportunity the utmost in wages from the owners.50 The audience was not unanimously supportive, however. A heckler told Hay, ‘you are talking about a thing you know nowt about’.51 After sustained interrupting, Hay advised someone to give the heckler tuppence so he could go and get some beer. But Lawther was receptive; the most ‘anti-politics’ of the South Wales syndicalists, Hay’s influence was apparent in the very similar way in which Lawther talked about syndicalism at these meetings. Hay and Lawther moved on to speak at Spen, near Chopwell. Lawther complained at the meeting that they could get no one from the DFM to chair the previous day’s meeting because, he presumed, they were ‘too scared’.52 For his part, John Wilson was unhappy about Hay’s presence. Writing in his monthly circular, Wilson remarked, ‘strike first and reason after appears to be the modern creed … is South Wales so far ahead that they can with justification send missionaries among us?’ As their aim was syndicalism they were against all forms of conciliation. ‘I hope it is not necessary for me to urge caution in accepting teaching of this kind’, warned Wilson.53 That Tom Mann had been elected among the top four to speak at that year’s gala was also encouraging for the syndicalists, and concerning for Wilson. On the gala’s platform No. 1 that July, there were representatives of all three of the main ideological groupings contesting for influence inside the DMA; the gala crowd made it difficult for most of them. Chairing, House was one of the Laboursupporting agents. His speech was conciliatory towards the Liberal government, praising its recent legislation, including the Mines Bill, the National Insurance Act and the Minimum Wage Act: ‘taking it in all, they had gained a very great deal with it and he failed to see where they had lost very much’.54 When Mann spoke, he described his belief (syndicalism, implicitly) that workmen, getting more and more intelligent and more and more perfectly organised, would learn to control the industries they engaged in themselves. They would do

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it by themselves through their industrial organisation, each industry having its own experts ... managing each district, not from above but from below, from the men’s ranks and through their own organisation.55

He ended by pledging all his energy in continuing to preach the ‘gospel’ of industrial solidarity. Thomas Richardson MP, W.P. Richardson’s older brother who had previously spoken on MWM platforms, followed Mann. Richardson ‘associated himself with Mann’s remarks with respect to the Forward Movement though he didn’t want to enter into controversy’. This seemed disingenuous, as Richardson then began criticising elements of the new minimum wage (‘I am not blaming the leaders but in places as organised as this it is an insult to the intelligence’) and defending the DFM: ‘He knew enough of the “advance movement” that the men in it were the most loyal in their districts’. Initially linking the DFM and Mann’s (syndicalist) doctrine, Richardson later developed his understanding of their relationship. He ‘disagreed with Mann’s claim that salvation lay in industrial activity and organisation only’, though he did then accept that ‘one vital aspect of that gospel was the control of every industry by the workers and he believed in the fullness of time that this would happen’.56 This was reminiscent of Jaques’ position about the desirability of syndicalism in the longer term, but it also suggested that DFM activists regarded the syndicalist programme as inadequate, because it was only half-developed, that it needed a political strategy (one that the DFM was developing for itself). The real division on the gala platform, however, then opened up within the ranks of Labour – between the more radical ILP activists of the DFM and the Labour-supporting agents, the latter in the form of the pugnacious James Robson. Speaking after Richardson, Robson took ‘exception’ to the former’s claim about the DFM’s loyalty, asking why, if this were so, the movement issued critical circulars and held meetings attacking the agents. Robson pointed out that several of the movement’s committee were also on the DMA executive, and so could easily air their grievances through it, without the need for their separate organisation.57 Robson had a point. Of the last eight on the final ballot for four lodge executive representatives in June 1912, at least four had been prominently involved in the DFM. A further two were to become involved (if they were not so already). Of these six rank-and-file movement activists, four had not been elected to the DMA executive before. Of the four finally elected, two were definitely prominent rankand-file movement activists before summer 1912 and a third was to become so afterwards. It was hardly surprising, then, that Robson should feel threatened and, when he questioned the movement leaders’ sincerity, ‘disorder’ ensued on the gala platform. In seconding the meeting’s motion, Andrew Temple, one of the leading DFM activists who had been elected to the executive for the first time that June, restated the claim that the movement did not ‘do any harm’ to the DMA.58 Platform No 2, with Wilson, George Lansbury and Ramsay MacDonald, was quiet by comparison. Yet Lansbury, a Labour MP and recently involved in establishing



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the pro-syndicalist national newspaper the Daily Herald also struck a militant note.59 Calling for solidarity for the London dockers, he demanded a ‘real union of unions so they could down tools together if they had to down tools at all ... if the labour movement stood for anything at all it was the destruction of the profit system and the wage system’. Workers, he urged, ‘“need to stop fighting among themselves join hands and go forward together ... as comrades in the march of progress” (cheers)’.60 Lansbury might well have directed his remark specifically at those attacking each other on the other gala platform. The apparent continuing influence of significant South Wales activists like Hay, the evident discontent of the gala crowd and the appearance of Mann himself were all encouraging signs for syndicalists. But, while Mann was elected by lodges, his presence cannot be straightforwardly read as indicating that a vast swathe of the Durham coalfield shared his syndicalism. Mann was a well-known national figure and particularly so in Durham, having spoken at five consecutive galas from 1897 to 1901 (see Chapter 2). He had again come to national attention more recently, as he was just out of gaol after the ‘Don’t shoot!’ prosecution (see Chapter 4). Support for (and interest in) Mann in 1912 might simply have revolved around his right to free speech. This was evidently the case for Marsden lodge. In March 1912, it organised a public meeting around Mann’s arrest. Its protest resolution made clear that the discrepancy in Mann’s treatment when ‘compared with the recent utterances of others in higher circles on the Irish question’ was the issue, rather than support for his syndicalism. (At the same time, the lodge organised a public meeting praising Labour MPs in Parliament).61 Indeed, Mann’s actual gala speech was fairly low key; he did not mention syndicalism by name and, while he was loudly cheered at the beginning and end of his speech, he was also heckled, to his evident annoyance. After insulting his interlocutor, Mann criticised the platform chairperson for his inability to control the heckler. Eventually, and rather ironically, the police had to remove the troublemaker. Finally, as usually occurred, Mann was elected to speak alongside more moderate labour movement figures and Liberals. In 1912, these were Ramsay MacDonald, Enoch Edwards MP and Lloyd George, with Mann coming fourth in the ballot. (In the event, Lloyd George and Edwards did not speak, with Lansbury and Richardson MP replacing them).62 Marsden lodge, though it organised a solidarity meeting for Mann, voted for four more moderate labour figures as DMA gala speakers.63 Thus, at best, the syndicalist-influenced militants represented but one of several competing political tendencies within the DMA. Furthermore, the DFM again sought to distance itself from syndicalism in the aftermath of the gala, in spite of the rebellious mood. A DFM meeting in Spennymoor on 17 August 1912 (with fifteen lodges represented) called for ‘discontent and friction’ until the minimum wage was set at a ‘decent’ level, as well as for DMA rule changes ‘to give expression to the will of the individual’. But Lawson was explicit that they ‘were not syndicalists, nor were they seeking to bring about another strike’. Rather, the DFM sought simply ‘to better the working conditions of their fellows, although he was not certain that strikes were yet abolished’.64 This

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was most likely an effort to deflect Wilson’s attempts to tarnish the DFM. Wilson had been describing the DFM as ‘syndicalist’, in the same way as later generations of Labour leaders employed the term ‘communist’ to discredit their left critics. The fascinating controversy played out on platform No 1 at the 1912 gala was significant for several reasons. It revealed how the MWM, and the early months of the DFM that followed it, had already helped to elevate its leading activists to the front ranks of the radical lodge leaders. Yet this success also brought with it new challenges. Having its activists on the executive potentially inhibited the DFM’s immediate room for manoeuvre. It certainly demanded a change of rhetorical emphasis. Accordingly, the DFM was, from the outset, far less explicitly critical of the Durham agents (and, as seen above, keener to assert its loyalty and desire to strengthen the union) than was the MWM before it (though the DFM did still attack Wilson on occasion; see below).65 The other problem it shared with the lodge representatives on the executive who put their names to the Eight Hours Agreement in 1909 – being tainted by association, and becoming discredited by the very forces they were trying to oppose. While the movement made only sporadic efforts to argue that its separate organisation was necessary, there seemed no doubt that little would change if it were to limit its work to acting solely through its members on the executive; Wilson et al. would see to that. There was a wider crucial development clearly on display on the 1912 gala platform. It was abundantly clear that there was now a wide and growing ideological cleavage among Labour in the coalfield.66 Essentially, House was far more accommodating towards the Liberal Party than were the DFM/ILP activists. Indeed, House was to become the butt of many DFM criticisms, though these, and House’s responses, tended to be in coded terms. The ideological cleavage in Labour’s ranks was partly between the leaders (DMA agents) and the led (rankand-file movement activists) and was evident in starker terms with Robson’s open aggression towards his supposed Labour comrades in the DFM. The cleavage was also to some extent generational: House and Robson were born in 1854 and 1860 respectively, while DFM leaders W.P. Richardson (1873) and Lawson (1881) were born significantly later. This generational divide was remarked on by contemporary commentators. In October 1912, the DFM leaders were dubbed ‘the young men in a hurry’ by the local press.67 Similarly, the Chief Inspector of Mines had also observed the generational divide in Durham, just before the MWM emerged.68 The very existence and nature of this ideological cleavage, indeed, the complexity of ILP/Labour activists’ ideology in the coalfield more generally, has not been appreciated. Tanner wrote: Some ILP miners, like J.J. Lawson, W.P. Richardson, or William House in Durham ... were more ‘Labour’ than ‘Socialist’, but ethical socialist ideas usually dominated Labour’s approach. Ethical socialism drew support from a radicalised nonconformity, and from the collective individualism particularly apparent in South Wales. ... Yet property owning religious radicals, or those with a strong



‘A capitalistic piece of legislation’ 199 sense of moral outrage, were a minority. The social basis for the ILP was thus limited, especially – as in Yorkshire and the North-East – where other factors supported a Liberal allegiance.69

To conflate the politics of House and the younger generation of leading DFM ILP activists is to miss the defining feature of Labour politics in Durham in this period. Indeed, the election of the latter two onto the DMA executive did not begin to heal the breach in Labour ranks. Quite the opposite, in fact, as public appearances, like the 1912 gala, helped to further underscore the ideological gulf. While ILP activists tended not to use the term ‘socialism’ itself from DFM platforms, they did articulate a clear, militant language of hostility to the coal owners and a critique of their mounting profits. Another plank of Tanner’s argument about the weakness of pre-war socialism was the claim that miners outside South Wales did not take nationalisation seriously.70 This was in spite of the MFGB voting unanimously in favour of nationalisation of ‘all lands, minerals, mines and railways ... in the interests of the whole community’ at its 1912 annual conference.71 Certainly, in terms of Durham, nationalisation of the mines tended not to feature in speeches delivered from rank-and-file movement platforms between 1911 and 1914. At times, however, it was hinted at. At a Chopwell MWM meeting in November 1911, for instance, a Sunderland councillor expressed the belief that, ‘out of the present movement in the country’ there would be such an ‘awakening’ that private exploitation of their labour ‘would have to cease’.72 Even pivotal ILP activists were not necessarily explicit, and instead alluded to nationalisation. Speaking at an ILP meeting at Swalwell, for example, regional organiser Matt Simm claimed that the owners, with the ‘competitive idea’ in their minds, naturally opposed the minimum wage: ‘the workers wanted the competitive factor abolished altogether from the mines’.73 Others were less ambiguous, though. Non-aligned socialist Frank McKay, while arguing that miners’ wages should be governed by ascertained profits and not coal prices, also stated his preference in September 1912 for the ‘collectivist or socialist solution which is nationalisation’.74 More explicit in terms of ILP rank-and-file movement leaders was Jack Lawson. His minimum wage pamphlet was clear that nationalisation awaited the mines of owners who claimed the minimum wage would bankrupt them; ‘when it is not in his [an owner’s] interests to work the mines it will be to the State’s interest to work them – so we will thank him for doing a stroke or two towards the nationalisation of the mines’.75 This, interestingly, was the reason the South Wales syndicalists had taken up the minimum wage campaign, in order to help – along with various forms of industrial action short of an all-out strike – to bankrupt the owners, allowing the miners to take over the control of the mines themselves. Furthermore, DFM/ILP activists did promote nationalisation outside their movement work. Lawson, for instance, speaking at an ILP meeting in March 1912, called for the nationalisation of the mines, arguing that this measure would bring about a greater degree of

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popular education and would consequently be the greatest safeguard of the nation as an intelligent and educated democracy.76 Thomas Richardson’s electoral platform when he was standing for Whitehaven constituency in 1910 included nationalisation. Little inclined to speak in Parliament, Richardson was nevertheless a strong supporter of the Bill to nationalise the mines in 1913.77 His younger brother, the second (with Lawson) main DFM leader, was similarly inclined.78 Other evidence suggests that nationalisation was taken seriously by prominent ILP lodge activists. The president of Chopwell lodge, for example, told a young Will Lawther in this period that the miners would secure no ‘lasting change’ until they had a unified national union (rather than a federation) and nationalisation.79 A debate between ILP activists and syndicalists in Chopwell in October 1912 (discussed further below) also suggested that nationalisation was something of a given among the more radical sections of Durham miners.80 Still, with Labour in its infancy in Parliament, nationalisation could only have been a medium- or longerterm goal, and Durham lodges did not bring the issue to DMA council until the war.81 Lesser aims, apparently more achievable in the short-term, understandably dominated detailed consideration among the rank-and-file movements still trying to build support for Labour in their own union. Whether Durham miners, given the opportunity, would have provided a similar ringing endorsement of nationalisation as their counterparts north of the Tyne in 1913 remains unclear.82 Finally, Tanner was clearly right to argue for the limited ‘social basis’ for the ILP’s ‘ethical socialism’ in regions like County Durham. But the extent to which Tanner thought the Durham ILP attempted nevertheless to base its ideological appeal on ‘ethical socialism’ remains unclear. It is apparent from studying the rhetoric of the major ILP activists in the coalfield, however, that ethical socialism was of little or no relevance in terms of activists’ individual ideologies and the ways they conveyed their movement and their party’s message to their fellow miners. The high tide of Durham syndicalism (autumn 1912)? Notwithstanding the complexities of the events of the summer, autumn 1912 suggested new possibilities for the revolutionaries to nurture their influence among the more militant element of Durham miners. Lawther had returned to his old job in Chopwell colliery a convinced syndicalist, and was soon integral to a new initiative calling itself the Durham Unofficial Reform Movement (DURM). This ‘Miners’ Next Step committee’, as the Syndicalist billed it, expressed its desire for Durham miners to fall in line with those of South Wales. It would disseminate syndicalist propaganda through local groups and organising conferences.83 Lawther was the new DURM committee secretary, with Thomas Barron (St Hilda lodge) the committee’s chairperson. The DURM held its first such conference, on ‘industrial unionism’, at Chopwell workmen’s club hall on Saturday 12 October 1912. Eight lodges were represented,



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as well as Harvey’s Chester-le-Street Industrial Union. A ninth lodge, Chilton, apologised for being unable to send a delegate but expressed sympathy with the meeting’s aims. Barron opened proceedings by attacking the DMA leadership’s policy of compromise and conciliation. He remarked on a recent ‘scientific strike’ at Chopwell, which, while unsuccessful, had still ‘stumped the men at Durham [the agents]’.84 Lawther spoke next, also attacking conciliation and arbitration as well as the policy of nationalisation of the mines: they were out for the whole of the workers to be in one organisation. They could call that Industrialism, Unionism [sic.; likely a mistake for ‘industrial unionism’] or syndicalism, or what they liked, but sooner or later they would have to recognise that ... the workers would ultimately have to be in such an organisation.85

A fascinating discussion then followed; some among the audience clearly favoured The Miners’ Next Step. But George Harvey, contributing from the floor, sounded a discordant note. He warned that ‘they ought not to go in for syndicalism, because if it were a halfway house they had to recognise sooner or later that they must go to the higher pinnacle of organisation. ... They were out for industrial and political action. The two must go hand-in-hand’.86 Others, including three Chopwell activists, remained sceptical. Vipond Hardy (Chopwell ILP secretary) was ‘in sympathy with any movement that made for the advancement of the workers’ and that ‘restricted or restrained officialism’.87 But he still thought that the miners were bound to retain clerks who would have the same powers as the agents currently enjoyed. Two other leading Chopwell lodge and ILP activists similarly argued for the necessity for some form of full-time union leadership, and for political as well as industrial action. What does this conference reveal? First, that some elements of the DFM were favourable to aspects of the syndicalists case and were surely open to influence. At least seven of the lodges represented at the conference (and probably all of them) actively supported the DFM or its predecessor movement.88 While serious scepticism persisted, however, over important planks of the revolutionary project, these lodges were interested enough to send representatives to debate the issues. There remained, then, the possibility of discussions and debates leading to further radicalisation. In terms of assessing syndicalism’s influence, though, the case of Chopwell shows quite clearly that lodges could deploy syndicalist tactics like the ‘irritation strike’ (or ‘go-slow’) without actually being overt syndicalists. That The Miners’ Next Step advocated these types of industrial action was more a reflection of how the document itself came about – born of the struggle in the Cambrian Combine dispute and informed by the experience of it and earlier industrial struggles. But the way the three syndicalists presented themselves brought difficulties. They offered to some extent conflicting approaches. Barron’s speech suggested he was closest to The Miners’ Next Step, while Lawther’s discussion of

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the IWW preamble implied that he was moving away from it and towards a ‘dual unionist’ position. Harvey was quite clear that both Barron and Lawther’s approaches were insufficient, and that political action through the SLP was unequivocally required as well. Here Harvey could potentially find common ground with DFM activists; many of those present were councillors or standing for local office, though of course Harvey’s version of political action (standing on the SLP’s ‘revolutionary’ ticket) was rather different from the more reform-minded ILP activists’. That Harvey did not speak from this meeting’s platform also suggested a degree of disunity among the revolutionaries. The result was that all three presented different and conflicting versions of syndicalism that must have confused many in the audience; certainly, the local journalist present seemed a little perplexed in the reporting of Lawther’s speech (as noted in the above quote from it). Furthermore, dual unionism also seemed designed to alienate potential supporters in the DMA. A practical programme of reforms of the existing union, such as those delineated in The Miners’ Next Step, and a form of which the DFM had already developed, could also have offered the syndicalists a way to build understanding with ILP activists. Nevertheless, the interventions of the Chopwell lodge/ILP leaders suggested a firm grasp on the specifics of some forms of industrial unionism. One redefined the term ‘industrial unionism’ as he understood it, closely identifying it with the DFM – something, as argued above, that the DFM had already begun to do more generally. W.F. Hay’s influence on Lawther seemed to be on the wane. When speaking in Durham in May 1912 Hay had emphasised the immediately practical elements of The Miners’ Next Step – such as internal reform of the SWMF – rather than its revolutionary ends.89 There were still vestiges of this more pragmatic approach in Lawther’s speech, but more dogmatic elements were creeping in. Perhaps most problematic was Lawther’s sectarianism towards fellow coalfield activists outside the syndicalist camp. His opening salvo was to define his revolutionary project explicitly against the DFM, which hardly seemed designed to facilitate constructive debate. By mid-November Lawther had attacked the DFM in writing and he sustained this harsh criticism of the movement’s leadership and their alleged careerism.90 Harvey’s sectarianism towards Lawther at the meeting, and to other revolutionaries in his writings – often mimicking de Leon – was also potentially corrosive and certainly not conducive to fostering constructive communication and solidarity.91 Even had the DURM conference seen unanimous and enthusiastic support for syndicalism (and which version?), the total number of lodges represented was also modest, at best, considering that it is very likely that many (if not all) of the DMA’s 200-plus lodges were invited to attend. In fact, there was no official representation at the conference even from lodges with members on the DURM committee (St Hilda, Murton, Handon Hold and South Pelaw), with the exception of Chopwell lodge itself.92 The DFM apparently had little to fear. True, it had held meetings in



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September 1912 at Shildon (21 September) and Lanchester a week later with only thirteen and nine lodges represented respectively, but these were localised events, and not aimed at the entire coalfield. Probably by chance, a coalfield-wide DFM meeting was held at Chester-le-Street on the same day as the DURM Chopwell conference. It had fifty lodges with 40,000 members represented in attendance, dwarfing the syndicalists’ event. The extent to which the latter’s attendance had suffered as a result of clashing with the former is difficult to determine, though it cannot have helped. Certainly Chilton lodge, unable to attend in Chopwell, was represented at Chester-le-Street on the same day. But, of the eight lodges represented at Chopwell, four also sent delegates to Chester-le-Street.93 The complex relationship between lodge attitudes to the DFM and syndicalism is clear in Marsden lodge’s minutes. A Marsden committee meeting of 6 October 1912 voted against being represented at the Chopwell conference (by a majority of two) but decided (also by two votes) to send delegates to a DFM conference at Felling on 19 October (the decision to be represented at the Chester-le-Street DFM conference on the same day as the DURM conference was made at the same meeting, but without a vote). This suggests that most of the pro-DFM Marsden lodge activists would also send delegates to a syndicalist event. Similarly, a Marsden lodge meeting in early September decided to be represented at an earlier DFM conference (in Lanchester) but also to send 10s. to the ‘reform movement’. This might also have been a reference to the DFM, but more likely it refers to the syndicalists’ DURM. Yet, the radicals of Marsden lodge (the supporters of the DFM, syndicalists, or both) did not have it all their own way: a lodge meeting in December 1912 voted 26 to 20 to withdraw from the DFM altogether.94 Nevertheless, Marsden’s partial (re)-radicalisation in 1912, indicated by its involvement in the DFM, put revolutionary politics onto the lodge committee’s agenda as well, even if they were not to receive any majority support once there. The DURM also seems to have been a short-lived initiative. It claimed that its Chopwell conference was the first of many, but there is evidence of only one follow-up event, a meeting in Chester-le-Street in early November.95 Barron’s involvement in the DURM is relevant here. On the one hand, Barron’s support was a boon to syndicalism. He was president of St Hilda lodge, one of the largest in the coalfield, working alongside one of the ILP’s leading coalfield activists, the colliery’s checkweighman Jos Batey. Barron himself had been a critic of some of the ILP coalfield leadership, arguing that no signatory of the Eight Hours Agreement should be elected the new DMA agent in early 1911 (see Chapter 3). Yet, Barron still spoke on MWM platforms alongside ILP activists before organising openly as a syndicalist.96 Indeed, he seems not to have become a purist ‘anti-political’ syndicalist at all, as he stood unsuccessfully for election to South Shields council in November 1912.97 Finally, Barron disappeared altogether from the sources after spring 1913 (see below). Concurrently, Lawther was moving away from the DURM in another direction, towards more strictly ‘anti-political’ anarchist syndicalism.98

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For his part, Harvey remained an outsider. The DURM was a project that his politics would not allow him to endorse fully. But Harvey soon had an opportunity to build his own union organisation more successfully. On 7 November 1912, he was taken to court by John Wilson for the alleged libel in his second pamphlet, Does Dr. John Wilson MP Serve the Working Class? Harvey’s acerbic response to his pamphlet’s title was emphatically in the negative. He argued that Wilson was dishonest, acting knowingly in the interests of the coal owners and capitalism, and swaying the miners towards actions that were ‘either harmless or beneficial to the capitalist class’.99 For instance, Harvey discussed a ‘joke’ Wilson cracked at a ceremony after mine owner Lord Joicey had presented Thomas Burt MP, a retiring Northumberland miners’ leader, with £260. Wilson ‘made the superfluous announcement that he was willing to be corrupted – by a cheque for £260 – at the hands of his dear friend Lord Joicey. If £260 is the price, then miners’ leaders are cheap and worth getting at.’100 Originally, Harvey had published an article under the same title in the Socialist in August 1910. It seems only to have come to Wilson’s attention when updated, expanded and produced as a pamphlet in June 1912, in the wake of the success of Harvey’s first pamphlet of a year earlier (see Chapter 4). The issues were encapsulated by the pamphlet’s opening salvo. Harvey aimed to show that Wilson’s claims that there was a common interest between master and men, and that the workers’ conditions were improving, were both false and, crucially, that ‘Wilson knows that his statements are false’.101 Wilson demanded Harvey withdraw the accusations. Harvey refused and the case went to court. Harvey, defending himself and arguing that his remarks were in the public interest, questioned Wilson directly. The trial became one of the ‘old’ Lib-Lab methods against the new, revolutionary ideas. The trial’s generational dimension was not lost on the prosecution, which attempted to use Harvey’s youth and relative inexperience against him. Harvey’s efforts to establish Wilson’s knowledge of the growing cost of living and of the figures that his pamphlet quoted were deflected by a jocular Wilson. This was a typical exchange: [Harvey:] Are you aware the Board of Trade figures prove conclusively that the condition of the working classes is absolutely on the decline? [Wilson:] I don’t know to what Board of Trade return you refer. I should have a clear head if I carried them all in it. (Laughter).102

When Wilson then took Harvey’s questions seriously, he had an answer. Harvey asked if Wilson had always advocated improved conditions within the limits of capitalism. ‘No’, Wilson replied, ‘I have advocated them within the limits of trade unionism.’103 A central element of Harvey’s strategy was to align himself with the DFM’s contemporary criticisms of Wilson. In his final address to the jury, Harvey argued that he had not damaged Wilson’s reputation as he ‘had said no more than what



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had been said by other bodies during the last decade – by the socialists or the “Forward movement”’. Wilson had taken this ‘very flimsy and childish’ libel action against him as Harvey was an individual ‘working miner’; Wilson ‘could not have afforded to take action against the formidable organisations which had said the same thing’ (i.e. the DFM). Wilson wanted simply to silence Harvey’s ‘mouth and his pen – which was an utter impossibility’. But, while Wilson might, as Harvey claimed, have been ‘looking at things through the masters’ telescope’, the jury took merely ten minutes to decide that Harvey had failed to show that Wilson did so knowingly. Finding for the plaintiff, Justice Pickford assessed damages at £200. He reassured Harvey that he would not be prevented from criticising Wilson’s conduct, only from impugning his honesty and honour. Pickford advised Harvey to consult a lawyer in future: ‘It is quite a mistake to think that people who don’t agree with your views are not honest.’104 In retrospect, Harvey had stood little chance against a seasoned master like Wilson. He had got at least one of his facts wrong, mistaking Thomas Burt for Charles Fenwick as the Northumberland miners’ retired leader. While this did not significantly alter the nature of Wilson’s ‘joke’ about being bribed, it did not reflect well on a propagandist who claimed to ‘not write a single passage before he had looked up all the facts’.105 But the case had generated decent press publicity, and Harvey drew some support. 106 Will Lawther, apparently not embittered by Harvey’s sectarianism at the DURM Chopwell conference, publicly supported Harvey over the Wilson libel case in the anarchist Herald of Revolt.107 Most significantly, however, Harvey was quick to use the publicity to build his own organisation and his IWGB branch, depicting the case as a significant propaganda victory.108 The approaching court case had surely helped him secure some space to propagandise on industrial unionism in the Stanley News.109 Furthermore, news of Wilson’s action seems to have aroused more interest in Harvey’s project among some lodges. Washington Glebe lodge, for example, bought fifty copies of Harvey’s pamphlet in early September 1912, in the context of the approaching libel case.110 Harvey pre-organised a meeting at Chester-le-Street for Saturday 9 November, surely anticipating the further publicity the actual court case itself would generate. This meeting established a ‘Durham Mining Industrial Union Group’, with core principles of working class self-emancipation, the need for the working class to possess its own press and that industrial organisation must form the basis of the ‘mechanism for future society’.111 Around twenty representatives were present at the meeting, though it is unclear, but unlikely, that these were official delegates from twenty separate lodges. Given the surviving evidence, the lodges represented must have included Harvey’s Handon Hold as well as the adjacent South Pelaw and Murton. But none of the individuals listed as supporting Harvey’s SLP initiatives at this time seem to have been lodge delegates or officials, suggesting they were present in a personal capacity and not especially important or influential within their lodges.112

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One lodge definitely invited to Harvey’s meeting but not represented officially was Marsden, even though it had become increasingly critical of the DMA leadership during 1912. Indeed, it had even donated £3 to an appeal from Harvey’s defence fund in September but, in late October, Marsden lodge committee rejected by 27 to 16 votes an invitation to attend the 9 November meeting. As far as Marsden was concerned, this was consistent with its voting shortly before (by the far closer margin of 16 to 14) not to be represented at the DURM Chopwell conference.113 Similarly, Washington Glebe’s bulk purchasing of Harvey’s pamphlets did not appear to stimulate further interest in Harvey’s wider project, at least not from the lodge’s officials. Wilson, as has been seen, had many and varied enemies on the left. Harvey’s new Durham Mining Industrial Union Group’s manifesto was apparently circulated to the ‘mining organisations of Durham’, but no existing lodge minutes even record receiving it.114 Nevertheless, while the libel trial publicity saw only rather limited gains for Harvey’s organisation and political project, his own personal standing (and notoriety) in the coalfield received a significant boost. On the other hand, after the trial, Harvey’s propagandising through pamphlets and articles in the Socialist halted until after the outbreak of war. Two projected Harvey pamphlets, critiquing the MFGB and discussing the nationalisation of mines and mining royalties did not appear.115 It seems likely that the libel case had played a part, though Harvey had ceased to be editor of the Socialist in summer 1912 and was to take on a potentially more time-consuming job in 1913 (see Chapter 6).116 In line with the fragmentary lodge evidence, it was clear that Harvey’s strategy of attempting to align himself with the more radical elements of the DFM had not elicited similar moves from the other direction. Indeed, DFM activists kept silent on the specifics of Harvey’s court case, instead deeming the moment opportune for another statement of principles defining the DFM against the syndicalists. In a circular of late November 1912, the DFM announced, ‘We do not encourage the delusion that Trade Union action can bring about the millennium, but we are convinced that unless Trade Unionists take up an aggressive attitude on particular questions, which affect their living and working conditions, they will go backward in these things.’117 While the word ‘syndicalism’ itself did not appear, it was quite clear that the DFM was referring to the ideas of people like Harvey and Lawther, which many of its leading activists had had reason to come into some form of contact with in the recent months. Lawson reiterated this point; in October 1913, for instance, in a long and detailed personal account of the DFM’s aims and aspirations published in the Stanley News.118 The last time Wilson mentioned syndicalism explicitly also came in November 1912. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the new miners’ institute at South Moor, Wilson claimed that ‘there never was greater unrest than now’, but that the labour leaders ‘were in confusion’. ‘They had one leader saying they should appeal to politics for everything; they had the syndicalists saying that the strike was the true weapon, and everywhere different remedies were suggested’. The ‘old trade unionists like himself ’, Wilson assured the crowd, were not confused. He stood by the DMA’s



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two founding principles – compromise and conciliation – and the self-reliance of the individual, even though he had been ‘taken to task’ for saying there was a mutual interest between employers and employed.119 Coming soon after the Harvey libel trial, it was likely in this particular instance that Wilson was referring to actual syndicalists, or at least Harvey, rather than implying that the DFM was syndicalist. But Wilson was really more interested even then in attacking the DFM; it was by far the most influential critic of his ethos. Larger and better organised than its predecessor movement before the minimum wage strike, it seemed by late autumn 1912 that more lodge activists and ordinary rank-and-file miners were being won to support for a proper minimum wage and away from liberal economics, as well as, possibly, to the movement’s calls for democratic reform of the DMA. The doctors’ fees agitation (spring 1913) In January 1913, a new and urgent problem around doctors’ fees offered the syndicalists a new opportunity to exert local influence but also distracted the mass rank-and-file movement from its work concerning the minimum wage. Doctors were paid a fee automatically deducted from every miner’s wages. Each colliery nominated a doctor, who usually employed one or two assistants, necessary to deal with the large number of subscribing miners. (The Durham Chronicle published shocking claims in January 1910 that, due to a lack of adequate drugs, doctors’ assistants encouraged miners to imbibe alcohol instead). Some lodges broke from this system. The Murton miners, for example, voted in April 1912 to allow individual miners to choose their doctors and pay them directly, rather than have a doctor chosen for them. In 1910 Marsden lodge got into a dispute with the British Medical Association (BMA) over who had the right to appoint the colliery doctor. The disagreement rumbled on sporadically well into 1911 and included threats that the miners would stop paying the doctor altogether. While there had been considerable opposition to the Liberals’ National Insurance Bill from doctors in the region as it passed through Parliament in 1911, the Act gave them a chance to maintain an inflated fee structure when it came into operation. By May 1912, there were already occasional lodge-organised conferences on the issue, with many lodges attempting to meet their local doctors to discuss the implications of the legislation.120 The real storm of protest began when the National Insurance Act came into operation. In January 1913, St Hilda lodge argued that the medical benefits under the Act meant its members, instead of continuing to pay a 9d. per miner per fortnight doctor’s fee, should be allowed to revert to the ‘old custom’ of 6d. per fortnight. The lodge was outraged at the BMA’s decision to continue to charge the 9d. fee even though the new Act meant doctors would now be paid from the insurance committees for attendance on all insured persons. St Hilda claimed that the ‘doctors’ question’ was at a ‘critical stage’ at every Durham colliery; ‘the grasping greed of

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the medical profession’ made it essential that the DMA ‘protect our members’ from BMA ‘tyranny’.121 Many miners appeared to agree, as forty-five lodges were represented at a conference St Hilda called to discuss the problem on Saturday 18 January. At around the same time, there was a similar conference at Murton for the south-east Durham coalfield, with eleven lodges present. The Murton conference resolved, firstly, that no lodge in the county should come to a local agreement with doctors until the DMA had decided its position and, secondly, that a full DMA conference be called for Saturday 1 February. In the meantime, Murton would send delegates to every Durham lodge to discuss doctors’ fees.122 On 25 January, the DFM itself intervened. A meeting it organised at Birtley (with forty-one lodges represented) devoted considerable time to discussing the fees issue. W.P. Richardson argued that even if doctors reduced their fees for ‘club practice’ back to 6d., they would still be financially better off under the National Insurance Act than they had been before. Several speakers condemned the DMA executive for failing to deal with the problem. The meeting’s resolution stated that the DMA executive was the best body to negotiate for the miners and urged it to meet the doctors and report back to a special council meeting. The lodges were advised to make any local agreements with doctors provisional until an acceptable scale for the whole county could be settled. (Miners in Brandon district had already agreed with doctors on 6d. fees until the question was settled at county level). Two days later the DMA executive did consider the problem.123 The executive had not complied with the many lodge demands for a special conference on the issue because, it claimed, to do so would be unconstitutional under the DMA’s rules. Instead, the agents attended, in an unofficial capacity, a DFM-organised conference of 1 February. Speaking for the leadership, House ‘did not know if the doctors were better organised than the miners but they had a better minimum wage to start’.124 His suggestion of a small committee appointed by the DMFB to meet with the BMA was taken up. (Interestingly, a delegate suggested that the question of maternity benefits should also be considered, but this was apparently ‘laughed off ’). The meeting of six representatives of the different Durham mining unions with doctors in Newcastle did not go well. Apparently the doctors simply lectured for two hours that trade unionists had to accept the 9d. fee. The doctors rejected the miners’ suggestion of a round-table conference of seven representatives from each side to discuss further. A meeting of doctors in Durham then agreed to maintain the 9d. fee. They claimed that the issue was not money related, as they served only to alleviate human suffering. They argued that the new legal requirements meant incurring extra expenses in issuing many more medical certificates. These were a requirement under the Minimum Wage Act even for those with only minor ailments (though they were charged for separately anyway). The increasing costs of drugs and securing suitably qualified assistants were additional reasons they could not accede to lower the subscription to 6d. It was now more economical, they claimed, for young miners and those married but without families to pay bills for medical attendance, rather than to pay a fortnightly subscription.125



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The miners’ response was a conference on 1 March 1913 in the DMA hall in Durham. There was ‘great unanimity’ between erstwhile political enemies; ILP activist Peter Lee was elected meeting chairperson, and supported by Batey, with several agents also contributing. The conference stated its willingness to negotiate, but called on all lodges not to pay the 9d. fee; several had apparently already stopped doing so, opening their own lodge medical funds instead (these would then pay out medical fees as required). Three weeks later a second conference in the DMA hall heard that the doctors’ position had not shifted. Negotiations at lodge level, however, had been ongoing. By 16 March 1913, Marsden lodge had not received an undertaking that it had demanded several weeks earlier that its doctor agree in writing to accept a 6d. fee. But the solidarity among doctors was breaking up. Another Marsden doctor had broken ranks and agreed to the lodge’s demands. Similarly, a doctor in South Hetton had also agreed to a 6d. fee, though the other doctors in the district were holding out for the BMA’s 9d. fee.126 By this time, though, Marsden lodge was animated by a second related grievance, the charges for doctors’ certificates, which miners needed if they were to claim benefits for absence from work. Marsden organised a public protest, describing the 1s. certificate charge as ‘a piece of wanton and greedy extortion’. It decided to reimburse the cost of certificates from its fund for local hospitals, so doctors could have the ‘satisfaction that their ill-gotten gains have been justly transformed into a robbery of charitable institutions’.127 At the end of the month, the visit of a representative of the infirmaries that Marsden supported convinced its committee to rescind this decision. The lodge held firm on the fees issue, though. On 20 April, it voted 16 to 6 in favour of subscribing the 6d. per fortnight doctor’s charge to be deducted from miners’ wages from the following week.128 The ongoing county-wide dispute necessitated a third conference in the Durham miners’ hall on 24 May 1913. It suggested two different approaches to lodges. The first was to accept the 9d. fee but secure concessions for some grades of workers, depending on the size of families, for instance. Unmarried miners and surfaceworkers should pay a 6d. fee. The second proposition was that lodges seek the best settlement for themselves locally. Lodge responses varied. Washington Glebe initially agreed with the first option, but by 25 June 1913 was organising a deputation to meet with local doctors and ideally negotiate a reduction in fees. Similarly, Oxhill lodge organised a local petition on the issue in June 1913 and held a membership vote on the fee; 171 voted for 6d., while 62 voted for 9d. (a majority of 109). Armed with this mandate, by the end of July, Oxhill had come to what it regarded as a satisfactory arrangement with local doctors.129 The fees agitation, which faded away as lodges came to local agreements with doctors in summer 1913, was important for several reasons. Firstly, it was a clear example of the DFM, and then DFM-supporting lodges, spurring the DMA executive into action (albeit in an ‘unofficial’ capacity). At the very least, the movement had again effectively channelled lodge discontent that had, in turn, galvanised the DMA executive. Secondly, the campaigning also had a likely radicalising effect on some

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lodges. A good example here is Oxhill lodge, which became active in the DFM in the wake of involvement in protests over doctors’ fees (though it had been active in the earlier MWM).130 The doctors’ fees agitation did, however, also consume DFM lodges’ energies and, after the initial spur that the movement provided to the executive in January 1913, the DFM itself became essentially inactive on all of its programme (around the minimum wage) until May 1913. Again, radicalisation was not wholesale. Marsden lodge, for instance, formerly part of the pre-1910 radical lodge alliance, did not become involved in the DFM soon after its doctors’ fees activity.131 Finally, the fees issue demanded localised (as well as county-wide) action and organisation, which proved ideally suited for syndicalist participation when they had seemed sidelined in the campaigns over the minimum wage. Integral at South Shields was Thomas Barron, who, as lodge president, presided over the mass meeting St Hilda lodge organised on the issue in January 1913 – a meeting, incidentally, that attracted marginally more lodge representation than did an official DFM county-wide conference a week later. And in Chopwell, Will Lawther was at the hub of the intense campaigning in his village. As a member of the committee appointed to negotiate with the local doctors, Lawther’s position afforded him a platform to relate his developing anarchist politics to a community struggle.132 Crucially, Lawther was working alongside front-ranking local ILP and lodge leaders like Hardy. Evidently Lawther’s quite different politics, and his attacks on the careerism of the DFM’s leaders – made to their faces only a matter of three months before – had not resulted in his exclusion from Chopwell miners’ politics. The Durham Forward Movement’s ‘balance sheet’ (to summer 1913) While the doctors’ fees campaigning can be regarded as a success for the DFM (albeit at arm’s length), other aspects of the movement’s record were less impressive. First, it had not managed to galvanise all the lodges involved in the MWM before the 1912 national strike. This was true, for example, of Washington Glebe lodge, which did not participate in any DFM activity, despite the keen interest the lodge maintained in the minimum wage issue itself. Immediately after the minimum wage was won, Washington Glebe asked management to consider making up to 5s. the wages of all those earning less until the JDB met. The minimum wage was also a source of some confusion for the lodge. In later May 1912, it asked the DMA executive if the minimum would affect the county average in any way, and complained about the colliery manager keeping ‘laid out’ out of the minimum; it did so again in March 1913. Washington Glebe continued to ask for greater wage advances even with the minimum wage in place and, like other lodges, found that much of its business was now consumed by individual cases of miners with grievances about the minimum. In October 1912, the lodge protested to the executive over Romer’s 100% rule, suggesting that all overtime



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working should be stopped if anyone was denied the minimum for missing a day’s work. Given its involvement in the doctors’ fees agitation, its grievances over the minimum and its heavy involvement in the MWM before the strike, it is difficult to explain why Washington Glebe was not active in the DFM. The lodge continued to support Labour, so it seems unlikely to have been the result of a shift in political influence within the local leadership away from the socialists. Nevertheless, a dispute between the local LRC and Washington Glebe lodge secretary in autumn 1912 that resulted in the lodge putting forward its own Labour candidates might have had a negative impact on associated DFM activity. The lodge’s stance here is certainly testament, once again, to the immense complexity of the debates and processes at lodge level, and the difficulties of interpreting them.133 A second problem was that the DFM’s material achievements were, at best, rather limited. Its project to reform the DMA could not progress as lodges had not voted in favour of amending the rulebook for the December 1912 annual meeting. All the DFM could do in these circumstances was make the general case for internal democratic reform from its platforms, and hope for a vote in favour of rule changes in principle for 1913. It did seem to be able to spur the DMA to action on at least some of its chief concerns, though this of course did not necessarily result in successful material outcomes. This was the case for surfaceworkers’ grievances. Given the discontent in the coalfield over their exclusion from both the eight-hour day and minimum wage, championing surfaceworkers’ demands seemed most likely to yield a rapid, morale-boosting victory. In July 1912, DMA council duly endorsed the DFM’s call for a 20% increase in surfaceworkers’ pay. But subsequent negotiations brought disappointment in August when the owners offered a mere 2d. advance on surfaceworkers’ wages. The DFM urged the agents to push for at least 6d. per day (itself about 2d. short of a 20% increase), but the two sides had still not met to discuss this claim by late September 1912, much to the movement’s disgust. The agents appeared to be – perhaps wilfully – confused over how, or even if, surfaceworkers’ pay related to the minimum wage. In early October Wilson felt the need to ask MFGB conference if, in negotiations with the owners scheduled for 14 October, he could accept any advance for surfaceworkers up to 5s. or if he had to hold out for 5s. and accept nothing less.134 While the executive ignored a DFM call in mid-October 1912 for a special council meeting on the issue, the scheduled DMA council meeting of 9 November 1912 did, finally, make a claim regarding surfaceworkers’ pay and conditions to the Conciliation Board.135 The Board, however, ruled in favour of the owners’ offer of a 2d. advance. DFM activists attacked Wilson’s position, which apparently gave the impression ‘that when the Durham miners asked for 6d. and got 2d. they were satisfied’.136 Yet, the owners had also agreed to make up the 3% discrepancy in the basis with underground workers (albeit for the ‘able bodied’ only).137 This allowed the executive to announce at the July 1913 gala that it had won effectively an extra 4d. for surfaceworkers’ daily wages. This took some of the sting out of the issue, though the agents continued to recognise that surfaceworkers’ pay

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remained a ‘serious matter’ still requiring a solution. But by July 1913, the DFM was no longer attempting to offer this solution. From then on, both the agents and the movement began vesting all hope of effectively addressing surfaceworkers’ grievances through the MFGB, which had taken up the issue in autumn 1912.138 In terms of the minimum wage itself, a DFM circular of November 1912 claimed, ‘The owners know quite well the great value of the principle which has been wrung from them.’139 It was incumbent on the movement to turn this principle into material gains for miners. This proved rather more difficult to effect as the DFM struggled to influence Romer on the JDB in terms of the minimum wage rates awarded and the rules applied in operating it. The rules Romer appended to the minimum wage in his first award proved as unpopular as the actual monetary figure itself (see Chapter 4). As controversial was the DMA agents’ continued passivity on the issue. Marsden lodge, for instance, pronounced its ‘strongest indignation’ at the executive’s acceptance of Romer’s ‘tyrannical, undignified and unworkable rules’, instead of providing ‘a spirited condemnation’ and stirring ‘the county up to the point of revolt’ against them.140 A DFM meeting at Ryton heard its chair, Councillor Robert Wren (Crawcrook) claim that ‘there was not a County that had a worse settlement under the Minimum Wage Act than they had’.141 Councillor J. Robson (Greenside) (without ‘posing as a firebrand’) argued that the meeting’s motion did not go far enough. He thought that ‘a well engineered strike could be won in a fortnight’.142 These kinds of DFM condemnations did not provoke the executive into action. It regarded any attempts to amend Romer’s award as ‘extremely futile’; the Minimum Wage Act stipulated any award could only be amended with the owners’ agreement, otherwise the award was to stand for fifteen months.143 A DFM lodge (Langley Park) resolution requesting a strike ballot over Romer’s rules was consequently declared ‘Out of Order’ in July 1912.144 The ‘legal’ status of the Minimum Wage, enshrined in an Act of Parliament, posed something of a problem for the movement in terms of what it could realistically propose to tackle the Durham minimum wage’s many perceived deficiencies (see Chapter 6). An officially sanctioned county-wide strike seemed unobtainable, but this did not prevent individual lodges from taking action. The continuing and considerable rank-and-file dissatisfaction with the minimum wage was soon manifest in a rash of unofficial localised strikes, often in Durham’s largest collieries (although Wilson had claimed that many among the largest collieries had not experienced ‘the slightest difficulty’ with implementing the minimum wage as their managers – ‘all praise to them’ – avoided too rigid an interpretation of Romer’s rules).145 As the executive had feared, lodges had been effectively encouraged to stage local strikes by the December 1911 DMA rulebook change that allowed them to appeal retrospectively for central union funds.146 There were many examples after July 1912. That month, for example, saw sixty-four Sacriston miners summonsed for absenting themselves without permission after walking out in a dispute after one miner had been refused the minimum wage. Early the same month, 118 Redheugh



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hewers who believed they were entitled to the minimum wage had been denied it. The manager had invoked Romer’s Rule 3 – that the men had not given notice of why they could not perform work equivalent to the minimum, meaning they forfeited it. Consequently, in August, 315 Redheugh hewers were summonsed for walking out over this dispute. This was a complex and difficult case for the miners as the owners withdrew the summonses of twenty-five men, while the rest were divided over whether they should pay the 4s.6d. fine (each) or fight it. In the end, four refused to pay and faced a second summons; one of them denounced as blacklegs those who had paid the fine. In late August, 2,000 Heworth miners were laid idle over a similar case involving twenty-one of their workmates (who complained of a lack of pit ponies and of working in an ‘abnormal place’) and the management’s invocation of Rule 3. In a fourth case, at Houghton colliery, the whole workforce was denied the minimum after they laid the pit idle over a fatality at work (the management claimed the death was from natural causes and not an accident). The result was a full strike.147 Finally, in Sherburn colliery in October 1912, 204 (mostly hewers) were summonsed over a complex case relating to the minimum. The miners claimed that the Minimum Wage Act could be used ‘very severely against the men, if they [managers] were so disposed ... there had been many differences at the colliery over the minimum wage’.148 These five disputes together cost a total of 17,562.33 working days.149 This type of unofficial dispute, often related in some way to the minimum wage, continued into 1913. That year, at least nineteen lodges struck unofficially, in a total of twenty-eight separate disputes.150 During the period of Romer’s first award (May 1912–September 1913) at least 22% of the 156 DCOA recorded disputes in the coalfield were over the minimum wage, accounting for 15% of all the working days lost (32,461 out of 222,730). These figures might have been as high as 37% and 20% respectively (the records are imprecise). At least twenty-three collieries saw stoppages over the minimum wage in this period (of a total of sixty-eight involved in strikes), and for Heworth, Redheugh, Sherburn and Tursdale, the minimum wage was the only cause of stoppages.151 That the minimum wage could spark trouble where before there had been none was evident in another interesting case; that of Waterhouses colliery with a Liberal-dominated lodge and ordinarily very placid industrial relations. In February 1914, hewers working an ‘abnormal’ seam were refused the minimum. Four hundred miners were laid idle as the management refused to discuss the issue, before an umpire was brought in; 868 working days were lost. The colliery under-manager was left wondering what had happened to the colliery’s system of amicable negotiation.152 Though platform rhetoric urging strike action often resonated with an irate audience, the DFM became more cautious in practice after the setbacks inside the DMA in July 1912. When the Conciliation Board found against DFM demands over surfaceworkers’ wages, the movement’s threatened ‘drastic action’ was merely increased propagandising. There was no threat to coordinate a strike.153 Again, the DFM could make political capital from the DMA leaders’ supine attitude to

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the minimum wage, but it seemed to have little hope of having an impact on the actual minimum wage levels or the rules surrounding their implementation for the fifteen months before Romer was due to reassess them. The best that could be hoped for was that individual lodges might force their managements to withdraw some of the more effective ways they had concocted to avoid paying their workers the minimum, though there were no obvious examples of this actually happening. It was ironic that one of the movement’s clearest successes in getting the DMA to act came over the doctors’ fees issue. In this case DFM lodges acted for the most part without using the movement’s name explicitly and over an issue that was not in its original remit. According to the DMA agents, the issue did not come under their remit either. Nevertheless, thanks to DFM lodge pressure, they gave their time and resources to a campaign they claimed contravened the DMA’s own rulebook. Part of the explanation for the DFM’s apparent ineffectiveness in winning its material demands throughout the period relates to the difficulties of developing a programme that could consistently mobilise a complex and stratified workforce. The DFM periodically altered the emphasis of its propagandising but this almost inevitably meant that, in taking up the cause of one specific stratum of miners, it neglected others. So, for instance, the DFM’s decision in June 1912 to promote surfaceworkers’ grievances came at the cost of its erstwhile emphasis on old and infirm miners. By summer 1913, surfaceworkers’ grievances were replaced by a new concern for the lads’ low wages and poor conditions. A Tantobie surfaceworker wrote bitterly to a local paper in May 1913 that he was ‘still one of the neglected’.154 Yet, while the lads’ grievances then also seemed to drop down the movement’s priorities, the old and infirm did not return to the forefront of the campaign, though a demand to include surfaceworkers in the amended minimum wage and eight-hour day legislation eventually did.155 The DFM’s task was made all the more difficult because some grades of mineworker were comparatively better off under the new minimum wage. Stonemen’s earnings, for example, had averaged just over 5s. per day, and could drop to as little as 3s. Romer’s May 1912 minimum wage award guaranteed stonemen 5s.6d. per day. Similarly, Romer’s second award (October 1913) was comparatively generous to lads, presumably resulting in the DFM dropping their grievances from its agenda (see Chapter 6).156 Certainly, Romer could have done more to (intentionally or not) divide (and thereby weaken) potential opposition to his minimum wage awards. Certainly, it was a significant challenge for the DFM to address consistently the specific grievances of all the main grades of mineworker among a highly stratified workforce (in terms of roles, status, pay and conditions). That the movement was to some extent still successful is suggested by an attempt by ‘JB’, an activist from Greenside (a radical lodge near Chopwell), to establish a ‘Forward Movement’ specifically for stonemen and other night-shift workers in Durham in July 1912. This initiative imitated developments in Northumberland, where such a movement had already developed. There, the NMA executive had refused to grant the movement finances and recognition inside the union in



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August 1912, so its activists began discussing the possibility of organising nightshift workers outside of the NMA.157 In Durham, thanks presumably in part at least to the DFM’s existence and comparative cohesiveness, this ambitious idea – the Greenside correspondent was also hoping to form a specific district night-shift workers’ union – was a non-starter. In late August ‘JB’ complained that the response to his earlier invitation ‘has been a little surprising and a trifle disappointing’.158 Nothing else was heard of the scheme. A second significant contextual consideration for the DFM was the rapidly changing economic environment after the minimum wage was won. This, too, presented the movement with serious tactical and strategic problems over propagandising. The case for the minimum wage, and an actual figure, was comparatively simple to arrive at when miners’ wages in Durham were stagnating after being cut in August 1911. Wages, however, began to rise immediately after the strike in May 1912, and by August 1913 they had reached a new post-1900 peak of 60% above the 1879 basis. By autumn 1913 wages had grown by 21% since Romer’s first award.159 That the May 1912 difference of 7¼d. between the minimum and the county average had increased to 1s.5¾d. a year later seemed a propaganda gift to the DFM, which naturally began highlighting this growing discrepancy. Faced with suddenly rising wages, however, the DFM could not settle on a minimum wage figure that it could both realistically advocate and that would also appeal to all Durham miners.160 More problematic still, the DFM could not decide on a consistent mechanism for calculating its desired minimum wage. Before the 1912 strike, the MWM’s 7s. minimum demand was 10¾d. above the then county average; their minimum wage demand was effectively a mechanism for winning a significant wage advance. Crucially, the MWM did not relate their minimum wage demand to the county average in any way. With the minimum wage won and the county average rising from May 1912, the DFM stopped arguing for a minimum separate from (and higher than) the county average. Instead, it suggested there should be no discrepancy between the two, which was the DMA’s official position during the minimum wage strike. When the second Romer award froze the minimum in October 1913 as the county average continued growing, the movement conceded more ground as it began to argue that the gap between the two should not be allowed to widen from that originally set by Romer in May 1912. By June 1914, the movement had reverted to demanding a minimum wage for hewers that was ‘not less than the County Average’.161 It never returned to its pre-strike stance of a minimum wage figure higher than – and, crucially, entirely unrelated to – the county average. The DFM’s desire to peg the minimum wage to the county average seemed a good strategy for maximising the minimum when wages were rising. The problem was, however, that falling wages could drag the minimum down with them. Then all the minimum would do was ensure that no one got paid below the county average. This was clearly an improvement on conditions prior to 1912 (when many were officially paid up to 5% below the county average and others were in

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fact paid considerably less than this), but it did mean that there was no level below which the minimum could not potentially fall. Minimum wage advocates like W.P. Richardson and Temple seemed unaware that any minimum set by the JDB could also theoretically be reduced by it subsequently.162 There was no provision in the Minimum Wage Act ensuring that subsequent ‘varying’ of the minimum rates could only be higher than currently set. Romer’s first award effectively established the minimum at 132% on the 1879 basis; the only time since 1899 when Durham miners’ wages fell below this level was between 1904 and November 1906 (dropping as low as 127.5% on the basis).163 Romer must have anticipated wages would not fall so low again, so his low minimum wage rate precluded the potential embarrassment of having to revise the minimum downwards after fifteen months. Indeed, the actual 1879 basis itself was the only figure below which a miner’s wages could not drop and, set as it was over thirty years earlier during the depths of a coal trade slump, it was inconceivable that an Edwardian hewer’s wages would even approach the low figure of 4s.2d. per day that it established (see Chapter 2). For its advocates, a continued direct link between the minimum wage and the county average really meant sustaining the liberal economic notions that firmly bonded wages and coal prices. The litmus test for the minimum wage would come when wages began declining; a fixed minimum wage that was completely unrelated to the county average could prevent wages decreasing below a certain definite point. But by the time Durham wages did start to decline, by 2.5% in May 1914, the DFM had adopted a strategy focusing entirely on improving the Minimum Wage Act itself through a new, overtly political agenda.164 Clearly, while the minimum wage in principle was, as Lawson and its other sponsors claimed, a direct attack on liberal economic notions, strategic reasons – getting as much out of the owners as possible in a period of rising prices – meant that its full ideological impact could not be brought to bear before August 1914. In modifying how it argued for the minimum wage after the legislation was implemented, the DFM (perhaps inadvertently) reduced the measure’s immediate propaganda impact. But, with the DFM’s new political strategy, the minimum wage’s propagandising potential was to be harnessed again, in a different and potentially more effective way, before August 1914 (see Chapter 6). Notwithstanding this, that the new, more formally organised rank-and-file movement – the DFM – developed organisationally after the minimum wage was won testified to the movement’s continued relevance, even during a time of apparently rising prosperity. It, and the MWM before it, had nurtured a new coalition of lodges that throws light on claims about the distribution and strength of liberal economic notions in different types of Durham colliery. Whereas most of the DMA’s largest lodges supported one or both movements, the minimum wage campaigns were initiated and then led by activists based in the smaller lodges. This contrasted with the radical lodge alliance before 1910 and throws some doubt on Tanner’s ostensibly reasonable suggestion that liberal economic views seemed more valid in smaller and older collieries that were more likely to be owned and run



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individually or by minor coal companies.165 In supporting this argument, Tanner quoted Jack Lawson’s description of the long-established mining community at Alma, West Pelton, and the cordial relations between this small colliery’s lodge officials and managers (discussed in Chapter 2). Yet this very example reveals something more significant. Lawson, already a well-known ILP activist, moved to work at Alma as he had been elected checkweighman there. With good social relations between manager and miners, Alma should have been more ‘liberal’ and unfavourable both to Lawson’s politics and to the DFM, as should many of the other leading or active DFM lodges representing smaller collieries. These cases demonstrate that there was a rather complex relationship between economic and social contexts and attitudes to economic liberalism and the minimum wage, as expressed through the actions of lodges’ elected representatives. It is certainly clear that harmonious industrial relations in some of these smaller collieries did not automatically equate to popular endorsement of economic liberalism. By contrast, poor industrial relations seemed almost invariably related in some way to support for the minimum wage campaigns (with the partial exception of lodges like Washington Glebe). Indeed, as argued above, the minimum wage provided, for a number of reasons (and like the eight-hour day before it), new and important sources of industrial discord in many Durham collieries. Finally, by summer 1913, the DFM’s increasing influence among miners (lodge officials, if not automatically their members) was testified to by the remarkable rise in the profile of one of its main leaders, W.P. Richardson, who came second in two agent elections before summer 1913. In August 1912, he was defeated by 362 to 301 votes by William Whiteley for the new position of DMA insurance agent, necessitated by the National Insurance Act. A second new agent position was won by Thomas Trotter, by 374 votes to Richardson’s 255 in early 1913. Both Whiteley and Trotter were DMA office insiders; union clerks who had only briefly worked down the mine. Based at the DMA offices in Durham, they came into regular contact with leading lodge officials of all political persuasions, enabling them to become well known and to nurture politically diverse constituencies of lodge support for their candidatures. Both figures were popular with at least some radical DMA lodges. William was the son of ILP activist Sam Whiteley, and, though he had been a Liberal, William joined the ILP in 1906. Washington Glebe voted for Whiteley after initially supporting DFM activist James Gilliland. Furthermore, it and Marsden lodges were among those successfully protesting against an executive effort to exclude Trotter from the agent elections in spring 1913. At the same lodge meeting, Washington Glebe chose Lloyd George and Asquith among its nominees for gala speakers, indicating a significant Liberal influence inside the lodge. Indeed, rather like Marsden, this suggests that there was an ongoing struggle for control within Washington Glebe lodge between socialist and more Liberal factions.166 In direct response to these two agent elections came two important DMA rule changes that would aid DFM leaders in the future. First, on South Moor lodge’s suggestion, from December 1913 no candidate for an agent’s position could

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have less than five years’ experience working in the mine. Second, agents would henceforth be elected on an individual ballot of miners, not a lodge slip vote (see Chapter 6). W.P. Richardson had come from the obscurity of not making the short-list for the agent position in 1911; his more startling rise (at this stage) over fellow rank-and-file movement leader Jack Lawson was likely due in part to the notoriety of Richardson’s elder brother, now an MP and less active in the coalfield after his own defeat to Robson in the 1911 agent elections. Lawson, however, was also advancing. It seems likely that his high-profile role in the rank-and-file movements had transferred across to the political arena, helping him to win a county council seat in March 1913. The evidence is not as clear-cut, however, for another four (at least) second-ranking DFM activists who also contested council wards in 1913. They were no more likely to win or lose seats than the (twelve) non-DFM miners’ candidates in those elections.167 Conclusion The fortunes of the revolutionaries and the ILP-led rank-and-file movements mirrored each other for about two years after summer 1911. Syndicalism’s potential in Durham appeared to grow from summer 1911 with the first visit of the South Wales missionaries and the popularity of Harvey’s first pamphlet. It peaked in 1912, which saw a second South Wales syndicalist propagandising tour in May, with Tom Mann speaking at the gala in July and then the DURM Chopwell conference and Harvey’s libel trial in the autumn. This chronology broadly matched that of the ILP rank-and-file movements, established in summer 1911, growing up to the 1912 strike and emerging in the more organised form of the DFM afterwards. Unlike in South Wales, where the fallout from the 1912 national minimum wage strike boosted syndicalist influence, the attendance at DFM meetings suggested that it had been the chief beneficiary of the strike in the Durham coalfield.168 This timing certainly suggests that the syndicalists and the ILP-led movements were benefiting from the same rank-and-file discontent (as does the case of Marsden lodge, discussed above), but the latter far more so than the former. As far as the DFM was concerned, its efforts to make the minimum wage one worth having and to extend it to all workers in and around the mines allowed for more effective propaganda in its first year of life. In this endeavour, the coal owners, the government, and its representatives on the minimum wage JDB were all the movement’s unwilling accomplices. The behaviour of the Liberal DMA agents also undermined further their authority and the credibility of their economic liberalism. Furthermore, after the 1912 strike the DFM could use the minimum wage as a means of securing MFGB intervention in support of Durham miners, thereby demonstrating to them the clear benefits of affiliation to the Federation. All these admittedly less tangible gains came in spite of the continued problems the DFM faced in terms of mounting its appeal (forging an alliance of all of Durham’s



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diverse mining workforce, as well uncertainty over how best to calculate the minimum wage itself), making its demands felt and, finally, its ultimately rather limited record in winning actual material gains. But, as its industrial strategy – which never fully settled the problem of using and coordinating strike action – seemed to be reaching the limits of its possible effectiveness, so the movement began developing its political platform. Notes 1 2 3 4 5

6

7 8 9 10

11 12

13 14 15 16

17

Durham Chronicle, 17 May 1912. Blaydon Courier, 27 April 1912. Durham Chronicle, 10, 17 May 1912. Durham Chronicle, 26 April 1912. The two MWM activists who stayed on the DFM committee were R. Boad (Dawdon lodge) and J. Herriotts (Windlestone lodge). Durham Chronicle, 8 September 1911; 17 May 1912; 16 August 1912; 6 September 1912; 20 March 1914; Stanley News, 30 January 1913; 24 October 1913. The very few mooted DFM meetings with no extant press reports are confirmed by their presence in lodge minutes (referenced here). Blaydon Courier, 8, 22 June 1912; 6 July 1912; 17 August 1912; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 17 June 1912; Chester-leStreet Chronicle, 18 October 1912; 31 January 1913; Durham Chronicle, 19 July 1912; 23 August 1912; 6 September 1912; 4 October 1912; 6 December 1912; Stanley News, 17 October 1912; 30 January 1913; The Times, 10, 30 September 1912; DRO, D/ DMA 327/4, Marsden lodge, committee meeting, 1 September 1912; joint meeting, 6 October 1912; full meeting, 31 October 1912. Durham Chronicle, 8 September 1911; 10 May 1912; 7 June 1912; 31 January 1913; 31 October 1913. Durham Chronicle, 7 June 1912; 18 October 1912; Blaydon Courier, 27 July 1912. Stanley News, 22 May 1913. The tactically important practice of pooling wages was reintroduced by the rank and file in many collieries in the 1970s, in response to the reintroduction of individual face contracts; the latter’s potentially divisive impact was vividly revealed in the case of the Nottingham and Leicestershire collieries during the 1984–1985 strike; Dave Douglass, personal communication, 29 December 2014. DRO, D/DMA 214, Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act, 1912, awards; Blaydon Courier, 4 November 1911; Evening Chronicle, 11 August 1913. DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 26 January 1907; 20 July 1912; Blaydon Courier, 13 July 1912; The Times, 10 September 1912; Durham Chronicle, 17 May 1912; 7 June 1912; 6 September 1912; 6 December 1912; 23 May 1913; 15 August 1913. Durham Chronicle, 24 May 1912. Blaydon Courier, 20 April 1912. Durham Chronicle, 17 May 1912. Stanley News, 30 January 1913; Durham Chronicle, 26 July 1912; 23 August 1912; Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 16 August 1912; Stanley News, 19 September 1912. See, for example, Stanley News, 27 February 1913; 10 April 1914; Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 2 May 1913; 5 December 1913.

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18 Durham Chronicle, 17 May 1912. 19 Durham Chronicle, 31 January 1913; 15 August 1913; Stanley News, 20 February 1913. 20 House of Commons Debates, 1 February 1914, vol. 58, cols 613–614. 21 Tanner, D., Political Change and the Labour Party 1900–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 241. 22 Pugh, M., Speak for Britain! A New History of the Labour Party (Bodley Head, 2010), pp. 95–96. 23 Durham Chronicle, 27 October 1911. 24 DRO, D/DMA 327/3, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 26 March 1912. 25 Newcastle Journal, 1 April 1912. 26 BLPES, ILP 12/1/2, ILP annual conference report, May 1912, p. 59. 27 Durham Chronicle, 19 August 1910. 28 Durham Chronicle, 30 September 1910. 29 Durham Chronicle, 17 May 1912. 30 Durham Chronicle, 19 July 1912. 31 PGAD, LAW 2/1/13, C. Pattinson letter to Jack Lawson, 21 August 1912. 32 Lawson, J., A Man’s Life (Hodder and Stoughton, 1944), p. 117. 33 Tanner, Political Change, pp. 19–78, 214; Berger, S., ‘The decline of liberalism and the rise of Labour: the regional approach’, Parliamentary History, 12:1 (1993), p. 92. 34 Socialist, July 1910. 35 Durham Chronicle, 8 September 1911; 5 April 1912. 36 Durham Chronicle, 24 May 1912. 37 Tanner, Political Change, p. 226. 38 Davies, D.K., ‘The influence of syndicalism, and industrial unionism, in the South Wales coalfield 1898–1921: a study in ideology and practice’(Ph.D. thesis, University of Wales, 1991), p. 64; Davies, P., A.J. Cook (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987), pp. 10–11. 39 MacDonald, R., Syndicalism: A Critical Examination (Constable and Co., 1912). 40 Lawson, J., A Minimum Wage for Miners: Answer to Critics in the Durham coal fields (ILP Publication Department, National Labour Press, 1912); BLPES, ILP 12/1/2, ILP annual conference report, May 1912, p. 14; Labour Leader, 11 August 1911. 41 Morgan, K.O., Labour People: Leaders And Lieutenants, Hardie to Kinnock (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 64–68. 42 Quail, J., The Slow Burning Fuse: the Lost History of British Anarchists (Paladin, 1978), p. 272. 43 Newcastle Journal, 15 March 1955. 44 See, for example, Hardie’s 1910 gala speech, Durham Chronicle, 19 August 1910. 45 PGAD, LAW 2/6/2, Jack Lawson manuscripts and typescript, n.d. 46 Harvey, G., Does Dr. John Wilson MP Serve the Working-Class? (Sunderland: Lambton Press, Chester-le-Street and District Industrial Union Group, 1912), passim. 47 Moore, R., Pit-Men, Preachers and Politics: The Effects of Methodism in a Durham Mining Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), pp. 58–59. 48 Beynon, H., and T. Austrin, Masters and Servants. Class and Patronage in the Making of a Labour Organisation (Rivers Oram Press, 1994), p. 348. 49 Quail, Slow Burning Fuse, p. 342. 50 Blaydon Courier, 1 June 1912. 51 Durham Chronicle, 31 May 1912. 52 Blaydon Courier, 1 June 1912.



‘A capitalistic piece of legislation’ 221 53 54 55 56 57 58

DRO, D/DMA 12a, Wilson’s monthly circular, May 1912. Durham Chronicle, 2 August 1912. Durham Chronicle, 2 August 1912. Durham Chronicle, 2 August 1912. Durham Chronicle, 2 August 1912. Durham Chronicle, 2 August 1912. The six DFM activists were W.P. Richardson, Temple, John Adair, Lawson, Eli Cook and Peter Cassidy (Beamish Air lodge). The first three were elected onto the executive this time: Adair and Cook had sat on it before. 59 Tanner, Political Change, p. 71. 60 Durham Chronicle, 2 August 1912. 61 DRO, D/DMA 327/3, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 26 March 1912 (and attached, undated newspaper article). 62 DRO, D/DMA 12a, ‘Election of gala speakers’ 25 May 1912; Durham Chronicle, 2 August 1912. 63 DRO, D/DMA 327/3, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 26 March 1912. 64 Durham Chronicle, 23 August 1912. 65 Durham Chronicle, 17, 24 May 1912; 16 August 1912. 66 Tanner, Political Change, p. 214. 67 Durham Chronicle, 11 October 1912. 68 TNA, CAB 37/107/78, R.A.S. Redmayne, Chief Inspector of Mines, cabinet memo, 25 July 1911. 69 Tanner, Political Change, p. 214. 70 Tanner, Political Change, p. 211. 71 NRO, 759/B/6, MFGB annual conference, 1–4 October 1912, p. 50. 72 Blaydon Courier, 2 December 1911. 73 Blaydon Courier, 16 March 1912. 74 Blaydon Courier, 28 September 1912. 75 Lawson, Minimum Wage, p. 8. 76 Durham Chronicle, 15 March 1912. 77 House of Commons Debates, 9 July 1913, vol. 55, cols 433–437; Bellamy J., and M. ‘Espinasse, ‘Richardson, Thomas’, in J.M. Bellamy and J. Saville (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 4 (Macmillan, 1979), pp. 146–147. 78 Martin, D., and J. Saville, ‘Richardson, William Pallister’, in J. Bellamy and J. Saville (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 3 (Macmillan, 1976), pp. 153–155. 79 Clarke, J.F., ‘An interview with Sir Will Lawther’, Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, 18 (1969), p. 20. 80 Blaydon Courier, 19 October 1912. 81 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 7 October 1916. 82 Hall, V.G., ‘The anatomy of a changing consciousness: the miners of Northumberland, 1898–1914’, Labour History Review, 66:2 (2001), p. 175. 83 Syndicalist, 1:10, November 1912. 84 Blaydon Courier, 19 October 1912. 85 Blaydon Courier, 19 October 1912. 86 Blaydon Courier, 19 October 1912. 87 Blaydon Courier, 19 October 1912. 88 Durham Chronicle, 18 October 1912; 31 January 1913. 89 Durham Chronicle, 1 June 1912. 90 Stanley News, 14 November 1912. 91 Brown, G. (ed.), The Industrial Syndicalist (Nottingham: Spokesman, 1974), p. 19.

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92 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 28 October 1912. 93 Those lodges represented at the DURM Chopwell conference only were; Chopwell, Axwell Park, Victoria Garesfield and South Garesfield; those represented at both events were Greenside, Heworth, St Helen’s, St Hilda. Durham Chronicle, 27 September 1912; 4 October 1912; Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 18 October 1912. 94 DRO, D/DMA 327/4, Marsden lodge, joint meetings, 8 September 1912; 6 October 1912; 8 December 1912. 95 Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 15 November 1912. 96 Durham Chronicle, 25 August 1911; 1 September 1911; 1 March 1912. 97 Evening Chronicle, 1 November 1912. 98 Syndicalist, 1:11, December 1912. 99 Evening Chronicle, 7 November 1912. 100 Harvey, Dr. John Wilson, p. 12. 101 Evening Chronicle, 7 November 1912. 102 Evening Chronicle, 7 November 1912. 103 Evening Chronicle, 7 November 1912. 104 Evening Chronicle, 7 November 1912. 105 Evening Chronicle, 7 November 1912. 106 As well as the Evening Chronicle the Harvey libel case was also covered by, among others, the Newcastle Journal (8 November), Stanley News (7, 14 November) and Durham Chronicle (8, 15 November). 107 Herald of Revolt, February 1913. 108 Socialist, December 1912. 109 Stanley News, 31 October 1912; 7, 14 November 1912. 110 DRO, D/X 1118/2, Washington Glebe lodge, general meeting, 4 September 1912. 111 Durham Chronicle, 15 November 1912. 112 Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 28 June 1912; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 28 October 1912; Stanley News, 21 November 1912. 113 DRO, D/DMA 327/4, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 8 September 1912; 6, 27 October 1912. 114 The more detailed lodge minutes often recorded receiving numerous circulars weekly from a variety of sources. Durham Chronicle, 15 November 1912. 115 Harvey, Dr. John Wilson, p. 34. 116 Harvey, G., Industrial Unionism and the Mining Industry (Pelaw-on-Tyne: Miner’s Hall, Wardley colliery, 1917), p. 2. 117 Durham Chronicle, 6 December 1912. 118 Stanley News, 31 October 1912. 119 Durham Chronicle, 22 November 1912. 120 DRO, D/DMA 17/81/3, Oxhill lodge, ordinary meeting, 17 July 1912; DRO, D/DMA 327/1, Marsden lodge, joint meetings, 24 April 1910; 9 October 1910; D/DMA 327/2, committee meeting, 21 January 1911; full meeting, 9 February 1911; joint meetings, 12 February 1911; 26 March 1911; 9 April 1911; 10 June 1911; DRO, D/X 1118/1, Washington Glebe lodge, committee meeting, 30 May 1912; general meeting, 21 June 1912; DRO, D/DMA 17/3/1, Andrew’s House lodge, general meeting, 19 September 1912; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 13, 15, 22, 24, 25, 27 May 1911; 5 June 1911; 17 July 1911; Durham Chronicle, 21 January 1910; 26 May 1911; 9 June 1911; 5 April 1912. 121 Durham Chronicle, 17 January 1913. 122 Stanley News, 16, 23 January 1913; Durham Chronicle, 24 January 1913.



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123 NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/38, DMA executive, 27 January 1913; Evening Chronicle, 27 January 1913; Stanley News, 30 January 1913; Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 31 January 1913. 124 Stanley News, 6 February 1913. 125 For details of local lodge actions over fees, see Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 7 February 1913; 7, 21 March 1913; 4, 18, 24 April 1913; 16 May 1913; Stanley News, 30 January 1913; 27 February 1913; 13, 20 March 1913; 3, 10, 17, 24 April 1913; 29 May 1913. 126 Durham Chronicle, 7 February 1913; 28 March 1913; 4 April 1913; 16 May 1913; Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 7 March 1913. 127 DRO, D/DMA 327/4, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 16 March 1913. 128 DRO, D/DMA 327/4, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 20 April 1913. 129 NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/38, DMA circular re conference on fortnightly doctors’ contributions, 17 May 1913; DRO, D/X 1118/2, Washington Glebe lodge, committee meetings, 28 January 1913; 26 March 1913; general meetings, 2 April 1913; 28 May 1913; 25 June 1913; special meeting, 31 May 1913; DRO, D/DMA 17/3/1, Andrew’s House lodge, general meeting, 23 January 1913; 29 May 1913; DRO, D/ DMA 17/81/3, Oxhill lodge, ordinary meetings, 30 January 1913; 27 February 1913; 13 March 1913; 22 May 1913; 19 June 1913; 3, 17, 31 July 1913; special meeting, 3 March 1913; Durham Chronicle, 4 April 1913; Stanley News, 29 May 1913; Chester-leStreet Chronicle, 30 May 1913. 130 DRO, D/DMA 17/81/3, Oxhill lodge, ordinary meetings, 31 August 1911; 14 September 1911; 23 November 1911; 5 December 1911; 30 January 1913; 27 February 1913; 13 March 1913; 8, 22 May 1913; 4 December 1913; 23 April 1914; special meetings, 4 April 1912; 3 March 1913; Durham Chronicle, 24, 31 January 1913; 7 February 1913. 131 DRO, D/DMA 327/4, Marsden lodge, joint meetings, 12, 19 January 1913; 2 March 1913; 20 April 1913; 25 May 1913; full meeting, 2 February 1913; committee meetings, 15, 29 March 1913; 7 June 1913. 132 Blaydon Courier, 25 January 1913; Stanley News, 23 January 1913. 133 DRO, D/X 1118/2, Washington Glebe lodge, general meetings, 1, 30 May 1912; 7 August 1912; 2, 16 October 1912; 2 April 1913; 5 March 1913; 28 May 1913; 25 June 1913; special meetings, 19 May 1912; 1 June 1912; 7 July 1912; 13, 26 January 1913; 1 March 1913; 31 May 1913; committee meeting, 28 January 1913; 19, 26 March 1913. 134 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 20 July 1912; DRO, D/DMA 82, Board of Conciliation for the Durham Coal Trade minutes, 2 August 1912 (special and ordinary meetings); 8 November 1912 (adjourned and ordinary meetings); NRO, 759/B/6, MFGB annual conference, 1–4 October 1912, p. 187; Durham Chronicle, 16 August 1912; 4 October 1912. 135 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 9 November 1912; Durham Chronicle, 18 October 1912. 136 Durham Chronicle, 23 May 1913. 137 DRO, D/DMA 82, Board of Conciliation for the Durham Coal Trade minutes, 2 December 1912; 17 December 1912 (committee on surfacemen’s wages); 31 December 1912 (special meeting). 138 NRO, 759/B/6, MFGB annual conference, 2 October 1912; Durham Chronicle, 25 July 1913; 22 August 1913. 139 Durham Chronicle, 6 December 1912. 140 DRO, D/DMA 327/3, Marsden lodge, committee meeting, 8 June 1912. 141 Blaydon Courier, 13 July 1912.

224 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152

153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166

167

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The Great Labour Unrest Blaydon Courier, 13 July 1912. DRO, D/DMA 12b, DMA ‘Appeals to the members’, 5 July 1912. DRO, D/DMA 12b, DMA council, 20 July 1912. The Times, 10 September 1912. DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA annual meeting, 16, 23, 26 and 27 December 1911. DRO, NCB I/CO 86/649, DCOA annual stoppages return, 1912; Evening Chronicle, 17 July 1912; 17 August 1912; 20, 21, 22, 24 August 1912. Evening Chronicle, 30 October 1912. DRO, NCB I/CO 86/649, DCOA annual stoppages return, 1912. NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, Wilson’s monthly circular, January 1914; The Times, 22 April 1913. DRO, NCB I/CO 86/649, 86/671, DCOA annual stoppages returns, 1912 and 1913; Evening Chronicle, 17 August 1912; 23 October 1912. DRO, NCB I/CO 86/683, DCOA annual return, stoppages caused by disputes 1914 (January 1915); Evening Chronicle, 4, 5 February 1914; Emery, N., ‘Pease and Partners and the Deerness valley: aspects of the social and economic history of Waterhouses, Esh Winning and Ushaw Moor’ (MA thesis, Durham University, 1984), pp. 122–128. Durham Chronicle, 6 December 1912. Evening Mail, 7 May 1913. Durham Chronicle, 24 May 1912; 7 June 1912; 15 August 1913; 8 May 1914; 12 June 1914. Durham Chronicle, 8 September 1911; The Times, 17 May 1912; 19 July 1912; Rowe, J.W.F., Wages in the Coal Industry (P.S. King: 1923), p. 56. Evening Chronicle, 31 July 1912; 20 August 1912. Evening Chronicle, 29 August 1912. NRO, 759/B/7, MFGB special conference, 10–11 December 1913, pp. 107–111. DRO, D/DMA 82, Board of Conciliation for the Durham Coal Trade minutes, 18 May 1912; 2 August 1912; 8 November 1912; 7 February 1913; 2 May 1913; 1 August 1913. Durham Chronicle, 12 June 1914. For Richardson on this, see Durham Chronicle, 26 January 1912. For Temple see his letter to the Evening Chronicle (18 March 1912). Metcalfe, G.H., ‘History of the Durham Miners’ Association, 1869–1915’ (Durham: unpublished typescript, 1947), appendices 1 and 16, n.p.n. DRO, D/DMA 82, Board of Conciliation for the Durham Coal Trade minutes, 7 November 1913; 6 February 1914; 1 May 1914; Durham Chronicle, 8 May 1914. Tanner, Political Change, p. 220. DRO, D/DMA 12b, DMA executive, 29 August 1912; DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA annual meeting, 14 December 1912; NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/38, election of agent tabulated return, February 1913; DRO, D/X 1118/1, Washington Glebe lodge, general meetings, 24 July 1912; 21 August 1912; 5 February 1913; DRO, D/DMA 327/4, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 26 January 1913; Durham Chronicle, 14 March 1913; Metcalfe, ‘Durham Miners’, p. 356; Saddler, B., and J. Saville, ‘Whiteley, William’, in Bellamy and Saville (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 3, pp. 203–205. NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, DMA annual meeting, 20, 22, 23, 24 December 1913; Durham Chronicle, 10 February 1911; 28 February 1913; 7 March 1913; Marshall, C., ‘Levels of industrial militancy and the political radicalisation of the Durham miners, 1885–1914’ (MA thesis, Durham University, 1976), pp. 176–177. Durham Chronicle, 10 May 1912; 7 June 1912; 22 November 1912; Holton, B., British Syndicalism 1900–1914: Myths and Realities (Pluto, 1976), p. 120.

6 ‘Trade union questions were now political questions’ Defeats, victories and new strategies1

This chapter considers the period between May 1913 and August 1914, covering the second (May to August 1913), third (October to December 1913) and fourth (April to August 1914) distinct phases of DFM activity before the outbreak of war. Taken together, these three phases saw at least eleven DFM mass meetings/ conferences at ten different locations. Proportionately, there were fewer of the localised meetings than in the first phase – at least five of the eleven DFM meetings in these three phases were coalfield-wide, attracting more than forty lodges each.2 This period saw the syndicalists become more isolated from the mainstream of the rank-and-file movement, though they did progress and consolidate their political vision in their own immediate localities. The DFM, for its part, came through a period of soul-searching and relative industrial impotence to begin to reap an impressive political harvest both in terms of its battle for democracy inside the DMA and in its development of a new political strategy that seemed well tailored to further its wider goal of promoting more substantial, vigorous and independent Labour representation in Parliament. A less fractious summer? On 17 May 1913, and with the doctors’ fees agitation ongoing, the DFM re-launched its own reforming agenda with a conference and mass meeting of fifty-one lodges at Stanley. The meeting’s resolution, proposed by Andrew Temple and protesting (after twelve months) at Romer’s minimum wage award, was passed unanimously by the crowd. The speakers developed now-familiar themes: the growing gap between the minimum and the county average (up from 7d. to 1s.5¾d.); coal owners’ schemes for robbing the miners of the minimum, low surfaceworkers’ wages, the need for (in John Herriotts’ words) a ‘living wage for all workers’ and to alter the DMA’s rulebook.3 Summer 1913 proved challenging for the DFM. When the miners’ annual gala met on 19 July, with a possible record attendance of 130,000, it appeared to do so in more cheerful times than a year before. The long shadow of the minimum wage

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strike had cast its pall over the 1912 gala. By contrast, July 1913 heralded, according to the Durham Chronicle, ‘unprecedented good times’, not seen by Durham miners for forty years. They had been awarded the highest aggregate advance in wages known in any calendar year: almost 14% in three separate advances. The gala’s invited speakers were also less incendiary than the immediately preceding years. They included J.M. Robertson MP, a Liberal MP who defended the Minimum Wage Act, arguing that the House of Commons was not fit to fix minimum wage levels, which was best done by the district boards. Robertson’s claim that the miners ‘had a great industrial machine’ and that conditions were improving for them received considerable applause.4 While Labour MPs Arthur Henderson and Stephen Walsh urged their audiences to vote Labour, there was little said to make Wilson squirm. The heckling he was subjected to was ‘good humoured’; a miner who had putted for Wilson at Wheatley Hill colliery wanting to shake the general secretary’s hand. In the form of activists elected onto the executive, the DFM was very well represented on both gala platforms (by Jacks Lawson and Gilliland and others), though none spoke. Indeed, they were forced to listen as William House sounded ‘a discordant note’ by attacking apathy among the DMA’s rank and file. This was manifest in the non-payment of membership dues; though these were good times, never had so many been in arrears, House claimed. He then turned his critical eye to lodge meetings, declaring it was ‘well known’ that lodge business was conducted by only 5% or 6% of any lodge’s membership. House thought that the executive had ‘the right to expect that their rank and file was behind them’ when it sought to remodel the minimum wage agreement.5 Taken in context, House’s speech was a thinly veiled attack on the DFM, implying that it was disloyal and unrepresentative of lodge opinion. This criticism of a dearth of lodge democracy has been taken up by some historians. Roy Gregory, for instance, argued that most lodges cast all their votes one way in DMA council after the deliberation of usually a single and poorly attended lodge meeting. Consequently, lodge votes ‘were notoriously unreliable guides to the general opinion of miners, particularly on political questions’.6 Gregory argued that a dedicated ILP grouping could take control of lodge decision-making and cast votes that the majority of the lodge’s passive and more Liberal membership did not endorse. Certainly, there was some truth in claims about the low levels of members’ participation in lodge meetings. ILP activists also complained about this phenomenon. For example, in January 1911, Jaques grumbled that ‘a lot of our own marrows [sic.; workmates] ... do not attend union meetings’.7 Marsden lodge minutes show that more than forty regularly voted at lodge meetings, and this rose as high as seventy-four at one meeting in June 1912. Those voting at lodge meetings (likely equating to the large majority present in the more controversial votes) constituted between about 3% and 5% of the full Marsden lodge membership, and this in one of the apparently more politically engaged lodges (albeit one of the larger lodges where the logistics of mass lodge meetings were made more difficult by the sheer numbers who could potentially attend).8



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There are three points in mitigation. First, there was nothing to prevent small organised groups of more moderate activists exerting the same unrepresentative control over lodges. Indeed, there is a fascinating case in Marsden lodge, where political control of the lodge committee waxed and waned between fairly evenly balanced moderate and militant factions. In November 1913, the factions were finely poised, as the lodge meeting decided which issues it would put to a full ballot of lodge members. The meeting cast two tied votes over the issue of re-affiliating to the DFM. It agreed on a third vote (by twenty-six to twenty-four votes) to put the issue to the full membership. The membership then turned out to be rather more enthusiastic about the DFM than those attending the lodge meeting, as they voted 503 to 314 in favour of (re-) joining the movement.9 Here, then, more moderate lodge activists had come very close to preventing the full membership from expressing its convincingly more combative stance. While the scarcity of really detailed lodge minutes for this period means that other examples are not forthcoming, there is no reason to suppose that Marsden was untypical, certainly of the larger, more modern Durham lodges, both in terms of the ideological struggle at lodge level and the majority inclinations of its membership. The case of Marsden is important in substantiating a second point, as it was one of the more democratic lodges, balloting its full membership on the choice of lodge officials, as well as other selected issues. The vast majority of the more democratic lodges (discussed in Chapter 2) actively supported either the MWM and/or the DFM. Their lodge officials were undoubtedly more representative of, and accountable to, their members than were the officials of lodges elected in the old ‘show of hands’ manner, though, naturally, individuals supported for their abilities on union matters could not convincingly claim that their political stances had been necessarily endorsed as well. In Marsden, levels of participation in full lodge votes on issues other than strikes also varied considerably from about 35% turnout (in January 1912 over the question of using lodge funds for ‘political’ purposes) to 87% on the ballot over a Boldon lodge resolution regarding a fiveday working week in February 1913. Amazingly, more voted on this question than they did over striking for the minimum wage in 1912 (81% turnout).10 Third, even if ILP groupings had successfully hijacked some lodge committees and did not represent their lodge members, the DFM still worked (with some success; see below) to place more lodge officials’ powers in the hands of individual DMA members. This was undoubtedly more democratic. Furthermore, it seems likely that the DFM campaigned for an individual ballot for all DMA agents not only because it was more democratic, but also because it anticipated (correctly, as it turned out) that this would favour its nominees at the expense of the Lib-Labs like Wilson. In sum, the DFM’s programme of reforming the union suggested the opposite of an organisation determined to capture and undemocratically wield lodge votes inside the DMA against the wishes of the union’s own essentially Liberal, but apathetic, membership. Democratising the DMA by placing more

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power into the hands of its ordinary members was (correctly) regarded as a means to extend ILP control over the institution. The summer of 1913 was difficult for the DFM for other reasons too. DMA council had decided in March 1913 to conduct twelve ‘district meetings’ on surfaceworkers’ grievances. The DMA was effectively aping the DFM in a desire to appear as dynamic and active as it.11 On one hand, this was a measure of the DFM’s success in getting the executive working on the movement’s agenda. On the other hand, this development called into question the DFM’s very existence. William Lawson’s warning to his brother Jack in October 1912 that ‘your opponents are now becoming your friends ... Mind that they don’t take your programme at the last minute’ began to seem prescient.12 The DFM conference of 17 May 1913 decided these DMA ‘district meetings’ were ‘a step in the right direction’, but also that the movement, representing the ‘militant forces of the County’, and with ‘a definite policy in industrial and political questions’, should ‘retain its identity’.13 Ironically, the movement criticised the DMA’s district meetings for not following its own formula more closely. The union district meetings involved only a mass meeting and were not preceded by a conference, which was apparently ‘a weakness as the most effective work is done in conference’, which ‘also serves as the basis for an enthusiastic and successful mass meeting’.14 Undeterred, the DFM persisted with its own schedule of meetings, staging a two-hour conference on 9 August 1913 at Houghton, followed immediately by a ‘large and enthusiastic’ meeting at the White Lion Hotel. Jack Lawson spoke, detailing how some owners avoided paying bonuses above the minimum, when even Romer himself had been clear on the matter: ‘The Durham [coal] owners had not exactly been shining examples of the friendly spirit during the last year’; they had initially limited bonus payments for wet working to putters only.15 After negotiations they agreed to include other classes of workers, but then partially reneged by only extending bonuses to hewers and not to drivers. Then they retreated from this position, agreeing to (re-)include the drivers. If that was the owners’ ‘method of maintaining friendly relations’ with the miners, Lawson remarked, ‘the sooner the game was smashed up the better for the workers’.16 A week later, one of the official DMA district meetings was held at Stanley, heartland DFM territory. DMA agents were the main speakers. Samuel Galbraith condemned ‘unconstitutional’ action (i.e. of the DFM) and discussed negotiations seeking a 15% advance for surfaceworkers: ‘no stone would be left unturned until the surfaceworkers of that county ... had been made up to a wage upon which they could live and also enable them to enjoy life (Cheers)’.17 The tone was suitably loyal, with speakers praising Wilson’s standing and achievements. The meeting’s resolution protested ‘against the rates and rules of the Minimum Wage Act as operating in Durham at the present time, and trusts there will be such improvements in the coming revision as will meet the desires of the workers of the County’.18 No prominent DFM activists spoke, though Lawson, as an executive member, was on the platform.



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There was clearly some common ground between the DFM and the agents as well. The official ‘district meetings’ also addressed the political situation, and especially the need for Durham miners to support the new political fund, made necessary by the Trade Union Act (1913), which reversed the Osborne judgement. DMA agent Robson’s attitude was particularly significant. Speaking in August 1913, Robson discussed the importance of the MFGB, calling for national wage bargaining. He criticised the Liberals for not allowing Lloyd George to redistribute wealth, and emphasised the need for Labour to have a separate identity from the Liberals. Robson continued, ‘they had a large number of men who had signed the Labour ticket and undertook an obligation which the greater part of them had not fulfilled’. Alluding to the three Lib-Lab MPs who ‘refused to sign the ticket’ (which, of course, included Wilson), Robson ‘honoured these men for their action’. But he condemned as ‘intolerable’ the situation in Chesterfield, where the Labour candidate for a vacant Labour-held seat was receiving support from the Liberals.19 While Robson was certainly no ally of the DFM, his emphasis on Labour’s need of full independence from the Liberals placed him closer politically to the rank-andfile movements’ agenda than was William House, the other important outwardly Labour DMA agent. Overall, while the ‘official’ ‘district meetings’ certainly forced the DFM to justify its continued existence, the case in its favour was readily, and convincingly, made. While the DFM’s existence was momentarily coming into question, the syndicalists – in some regards – continued to advance. By December 1911, George Harvey, now better known in the coalfield after the success of his first pamphlet the previous summer, was standing for checkweighman posts. He was not successful, securing only two votes in a large field of candidates for the checkweighman election at Shotton colliery (some distance to the south-east of his own, Handen Hold).20 In March 1913, and in the aftermath of the Wilson court case which had afforded him greater publicity, Harvey stood for the checkweighman post at Follonsby colliery on an out-and-out revolutionary platform. He told prospective voters in Follonbsy lodge that he was ‘strongly opposed to the kind of men we have so long kept at Durham and whom we, in our ignorance, believe are tin Gods. ... If you want a gentle Jesus, Temperance preacher, for God’s sake don’t consider me as likely to suit.’21 This forthright stance struck a chord, as Harvey was elected, an impressive achievement – even more so given that Follonbsy colliery, located to the east of Gateshead and very near the river Tyne, was some distance from where he had been active hitherto. Indeed, that Harvey was elected having had no experience as a lodge official, and on a platform that stated his revolutionary socialist politics, his militant industrial policy and his opposition to both Wilson and conciliation was quite remarkable. In other words, Harvey was not elected because of his trade union experience and in spite of his industrial and political programme, as, though Ruskin educated, he had very little of the former. While there was no evidence of a subsequent move en masse to join the SLP at Follonsby, Harvey’s

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following there must have included many who endorsed at least a good degree of his politics in general terms. On the other hand, Harvey’s election necessitated his removal from the storm centre of the rank-and-file agitation, among the collieries immediately north of Chester-le-Street. Furthermore, becoming a checkweighman meant Harvey effected a move away from his earlier intense SLP propagandising.22 Though he remained an industrial unionist, for some unknown reason (perhaps related to the demands of his checkweighman position) Harvey did not produce any more lengthy written propaganda (pamphlets) until 1917. His main outlet for public propaganda subsequently became the letters pages of the local press, while his ‘industrial union’ regularly circularised lodges, inviting them to affiliate, albeit with no recorded success.23 Will Lawther, moving towards anarchist syndicalism in early 1913, made more political progress in his immediate environs. By May 1913, and likely boosted by his high-profile involvement in the Chopwell doctors’ fees agitation, Lawther had established a Workers’ Freedom Group, modelled on similar groups in the South Wales coalfield that had developed a programme ‘that may be the envy of every Anarchist’.24 Lawther regarded his fledgling group as ‘the forerunner of a real rank-and-file movement’.25 The group sold anarchist propaganda papers, held regular public meetings in pit villages in Chopwell’s environs in the north-west of the coalfield and staged public debates.26 Nevertheless, Lawther’s influence among Chopwell’s radical lodge officials must not be overstated. In August 1913, Chopwell lodge called on the Durham executive to promote the linking of the MFGB with the railwaymen and transport workers’ unions to adopt a ‘down tools’ programme to replace the current ‘fraudulent’ policy of conciliation, ‘believing that conciliation holds out nothing but degradation and poverty for the workers’.27 This did sound very much like Lawther’s rhetoric, and Holton presumed that this stance was from ‘Lawther’s lead’. But it did not need Lawther – whose developing anarchist politics meant that he refused to stand for elected office out of principle, and was not among the lodge officials – to ‘lead’ the radical grouping of Chopwell DFM activists (who did themselves lead the lodge) towards such positions.28 Chopwell lodge’s position here was entirely in keeping with the rhetoric of the DFM leaders like Lawson and W.P. Richardson. At the 1913 gala, Lawther spoke alongside Harvey on the ‘need for direct action and revolution’.29 Unlike previous years, the syndicalists spoke from the official gala platform in 1913, after the official programme of speakers had vacated them; Harvey secured the executive’s permission to do so in February 1913. This was remarkable considering the libel case that Harvey’s attack on Wilson had precipitated only the previous autumn; perhaps it revealed that Wilson et al. simply did not regard Harvey and his industrial union as any kind of threat. By contrast, the ILP rank-and-file movement leaders, who, in years past, had similarly secured official use of the gala platforms once the DMA’s invited speakers had finished, were now, as executive members, among the regulars on those very DMA official gala platforms. In terms of the gala and official



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recognition for the syndicalists, 1913 was to be the peak. In March 1914, the executive allowed the decision on whether to grant Harvey’s industrial union’s application to use that year’s gala platform to ‘rest over for the present’ (i.e. they indefinitely postponed making the decision). In the event, the suffragists were granted the official 1914 gala platform (in late April) and occupied it once the militant Irish trade unionist Jim Larkin had vacated it; a superlative propagandising opportunity for the syndicalists had been denied them.30 So, in spite of the progress made, the revolutionaries remained on the periphery, largely isolated from the ILP-led mass rank-and-file movements and working instead on the Herculean task of building their own revolutionary alternatives. The October 1913 Romer award On 9 August 1913, the DFM called for a ‘drastic improvement’ in the minimum wage rates and the restrictive rules in Romer’s second minimum wage award, due in autumn 1913. When the new award was announced on 20 October 1913, however, it was immediately evident that Romer had not been listening. Remarkably, there was no advance at all, as the award simply maintained the minimum wage at 5s.6d. even though the county average had risen by 1s.9d. to 7s.2d. since his first, and Romer himself had accepted, according to the DFM, that the Act demanded any award must be made in relation to the county average.31 Furthermore, Romer kept his unpopular 100% rule. The only improvements (for the miners) were slightly raised rates for lads and the introduction of a new rule stipulating that minimum wage dispute cases had to be dealt with in no more than seven days. Wilson pointed to these improvements, though even he had to recognise that the award remained disappointing.32 Unsurprisingly, Romer’s new award provoked widespread outrage, evident in the minutes of miners’ lodges and publicised in the letters pages of the regional press.33 The award appeared especially wilfully (and indeed inexplicably) ungenerous, particularly when compared to the new contemporaneous South Wales minimum award.34 DFM protest meetings in October and November attacked Romer for not providing the 5s. per day minimum for all grades of (underground) mineworker that even Asquith had declared reasonable. The movement regarded accepting the new award as ‘sheer suicide’.35 The DMA agents seemed to agree, condemning the award and trying to seek redress. They requested an urgent interview with the president of the Board of Trade, Sydney Buxton, who responded that he had no legal power to intervene. The executive then took its grievances to the MFGB.36 The disgust at the Romer award apparent at lodge level seemed to demand a more vigorous and immediate response. There had been ‘general agreement’ at the August DFM conference that if the new award did not represent a considerable improvement, there ‘would not be passive acceptance’.37 Yet DFM leaders were initially cautious (as they had been in 1912) even in light of the ‘great indignation’

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over the award expressed at a movement conference on 25 October 1913. For a while there even threatened to be a split between the more militant sections of some lodges and DFM leaders, who seemed keen to damp down possible industrial action. Lodge delegates conveyed to the conference the impression that ‘all over the County great difficulty was being experienced ... to prevent their men from striking against the award’.38 Convinced that the award was a gross violation of the Minimum Wage Act, Lawson suggested a legal, rather than industrial, response. If, however, DFM leaders attempted to stifle putative unofficial lodge strikes against the new award they were not entirely successful; at least five lodges struck unofficially in late October and early November 1913, definitely or probably in direct response to it. Morrison lodge, for instance, struck on 24 October 1913 in a dispute over the putters’ minimum wage. While lasting less than two days, it still cost the owners 1,858.33 working days.39 By late November 1913, though, DFM leaders and militant lodge opinion seemed to have coalesced. Lawson, speaking at Dawdon, ‘felt the injustice of the Romer award so strongly that ... if it came to stopping the pits for some weeks it would be money well spent’.40 The DFM began to argue that it was insufficient to take the issue to the MFGB and that ‘deliberate resistance’ was justified. Of course, any strike had to be made effective by being county-wide and, ideally (perhaps crucially), official. To achieve this, there needed to be a two-thirds majority lodge vote first. True to form, the executive ignored the DFM’s calls for an immediate special council meeting to arrange a ballot on striking in protest at the Romer award.41 The executive then prevented a lodge proposal for a ballot on the Romer award from appearing at the 1913 annual meeting. Wilson argued that a strike against an Act of Parliament ‘would be the height of indiscretion to say the least, and that the executive Committee had done all that was possible for a body of men to do’.42 This claim was spurious; the Yorkshire miners struck over minimum wage rates in spring 1914, winning some concessions, although not a complete victory.43 The unofficial localised industrial action continued. By 17 June 1914 there had been at least seven unofficial disputes involving six lodges that year (four of which had not struck unofficially in 1913). Hetton and Heworth, two of the worst offenders, and both ranking in the twenty largest lodges, were also among the most active in the DFM. In total, at least ten (and very probably many more) of the twenty-three known lodges involved in unofficial action after the minimum wage had been introduced were part of the DFM.44 In the nine months between the announcement of the second Romer award and the outbreak of war disputes over the minimum wage were responsible for at least 20% of Durham strikes and a similar proportion of working days lost. Each of the fifteen known minimum wage strikes cost an average of 1,580 working days.45 The problem of organising a county-wide strike over the minimum wage remained. Even had the DFM secured an official DMA strike ballot, there was no guarantee of two-thirds majority support. Three major obstacles stood in the movement’s way. First, as seen in Chapter 5, lodge financial resources were



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stretched, particularly after 1910, and lodges were nevertheless called on fairly regularly to provide solidarity financial support for their fellow miners in Durham and further afield. Few lodges could boast, as Chopwell did in spring 1913, that they had the funds to sustain a strike regardless of receiving central DMA support.46 Indeed, that more lodges did strike after the 1911 DMA rule change offered the possibility of retrospective central union support further supports this. The extra pressure on central funds to support unofficial local strikes further threatened the DMA’s already comparatively precarious finances. With twothirds of its £0.5m funds expended during the 1912 national strike, the DMA could have afforded less than three weeks’ strike pay for an official coalfield-wide dispute before completely exhausting its resources. It was small wonder then that, reluctant to deploy the strike weapon at the best of times, Durham agents used the lack of union funds to rule out any new strike over the minimum wage in September 1912 – a strike that, as George Harvey and others pointed out, would struggle to succeed in any case, if it did not first secure the solidarity action of all the other MFGB districts.47 The second and third obstacles represented two related problems that the DFM failed to deal with inside the DMA. The first of these failings was the continued underrepresentation of the largest lodges in the DMA machinery. They were usually among the most militant, and therefore more likely to support strike action. This particularly disadvantaged the DFM more generally as much of its strongest support came from the larger, underrepresented lodges, those that contributed around 27% of the DMA’s membership, but exercised only 18% of votes on DMA council. When the lodges voted to alter the DMA rulebook at the December 1913 annual meeting, seven lodges active in the DFM and all among the largest thirty made various proposals for allocating extra votes to lodges with memberships over 750. But, as before, none was endorsed.48 A more proportionate voting system related directly to lodge membership would have given DFM lodges a majority on DMA council, which would, as a consequence, almost certainly have endorsed many more of the DFM’s proposed reforms, as well as being more likely to produce majorities for strike action. The 1913 annual meeting showed, as others before it, that many of the larger DFM lodges were keen to address the issue of their underrepresentation, though it is difficult to determine if they had cooperated outside of the DFM (but it seems unlikely, given the proliferation of proposals). The DFM, too, was well aware that the DMA’s administrative machinery was outdated. But at no point did this issue actually make it into the movement’s list of specific reform proposals, which is perplexing considering the significant advantages a voting rule change offered it. Perhaps this reform was not on the DFM’s agenda as the movement’s main leaders represented lodges ranked among the smallest third. The rules as they stood effectively overrepresented these lodges in the DMA; a more proportionate system would have diminished the standing of the smaller lodges’ leaders. This possible explanation casts the main movement leaders in a rather poor light, but other

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reasons for this apparently glaring oversight are not readily suggested. So, while the rank-and-file movements had managed to reforge the progressive DMA lodge alliance after 1910, there remained potentially highly significant, and possibly even self-defeating, tensions between the smaller and larger lodges within it. The DFM did, however, promote reforms (with some success) that worked, in another way, to counteract its lodges’ underrepresentation – by removing powers from lodge-level decision-making and placing them in the hands of the entire DMA membership (see below).49 The third main obstacle was another apparent DFM oversight: the continuing influence of John Wilson and the other Liberal DMA agents against Labour and any kind of industrial militancy. In January 1914, Wilson condemned the trend towards lodge unofficial industrial action, highlighting its illegality and launching a veiled attack on the DFM for trying to precipitate a strike over the Romer award. He also pointedly remarked on the ‘pleasing’ way lodges patiently accepted the executive’s stance.50 Indeed, one of the DFM’s most notable apparent failures was that Wilson, the single most significant obstacle to the ILP’s advance inside the union, retained his powerful position as general secretary. Given Wilson’s symbolic, as well as actual, importance, it was perhaps surprising that the DFM itself made no major effort to remove him, and instead only sought to limit some of his powers (and that only in the movement’s early life immediately after May 1912). Indeed, the DFM’s initial aim to rule out MPs from being DMA officials (or vice versa) had been dropped inexplicably by the time it actually had a chance of successfully introducing such a rule in December 1913. Instead, several DFMsupporting lodges made separate proposals to make such a change to the union’s rulebook, though even two of these effectively exempted Wilson himself from any new rule and, in any case, none was passed in December 1913.51 In fact, Wilson tended not to be singled out for denigration from rank-and-file movement platforms even before the DFM toned down its general criticism of the union’s leadership as its own leaders started getting elected onto the executive. Even after the strife of 1910, Wilson still retained something of his elevated status, a status that (some) self-proclaimed socialists, like Jos Ritson, were prepared to publicly reaffirm. Ritson, who was checkweighman at Wearmouth, claimed (at a DMA ‘district meeting’ on surfaceworkers in summer 1913) that Wilson was ‘head and shoulders above other miners’ leaders in the County’.52 Similarly, in May 1912, Frank McKay, another socialist (non-aligned), publicly endorsed his lodge’s (Blaydon Main) statement of confidence in Wilson and rejection of the ‘so-called “Forward movement”’ circulars seeking to blame Wilson for all the minimum wage’s failings.53 In December 1912 McKay expressed his sorrow at hearing that Wilson was ill. McKay had known Wilson for twenty years and, though he had sometimes received ‘a good thrashing from his [Wilson’s] tongue ... I have never seen a better or more useful all-round miners’ leader in the country’.54 In the past, Wilson’s salary had made for good propaganda for his left-wing critics; George Harvey claimed in 1910 that Wilson had been paid ‘for a long time now’



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about seven times the county average.55 But, from January 1912 (in the wake of the government’s legislation on the payment of MPs), Wilson could announce to appreciative crowds that he no longer drew a DMA salary at all.56 That DFM activists had begun sitting on the executive may well have suited Wilson. This allowed him to attempt to control and thereby neutralise and discredit them. As it turned out, Wilson managed only the first of these. While DFM activists on the executive seemed to have had little direct impact on its actions, they had managed at least not to appear to have been co-opted by it. Indeed, Lawson’s defence of DFM activists was that, when elected to the executive, they had not ‘kept quiet’ when away from it.57 In this respect they avoided being regarded as guilty by association in a similar way to the lodge representative signatories of the Eight Hours Agreement in December 1909. Elections for five new DMA parliamentary candidates in March 1914 once again demonstrated that no blame for the DMA leadership’s apparent failings in these years contaminated the lodge-elected section of the executive (see below). In managing to control movement activists when they sat on the executive, effectively Wilson had merely further discredited himself and consequently (and inadvertently) boosted the standing of his young critics. In this sense, Wilson’s remaining in office served the DFM’s purposes. Wilson cut an increasingly marginalised anachronistic figure, repeatedly urging miners to remember their apparent common interests with the owners, who themselves were finding more and more ingenious means to deny their workers the minimum wage. All the while Wilson was fighting a rearguard action against movement activists outside the executive (if not also inside it). The DFM’s strategy was to attempt reform of the union around its general secretary – who, as the failed 1910 efforts showed, was very difficult to dislodge – while propagandising to improve its standing. It aimed to be best positioned to provide the replacement for a now very elderly Wilson. With every pronouncement on the minimum wage and the industrial and political means to make it worth having, the rank-and-file movement activists struck a rhetorical blow against Wilson and the politics he stubbornly embodied. Wilson’s role is also crucial to the historiographical debates around ideology, and particularly claims about the apparently diverse, radical and effective responses of Liberals at regional and local levels. Wilson was the single most significant Liberal in the political world of most Durham miners but, as an overt opponent of the minimum wage, he emphatically did not fit into Duncan Tanner’s picture of Liberals in the county who were radical and responsive to material questions.58 Wilson singularly failed to depict the minimum wage legislation (as Tanner claimed ‘centrist’ Liberals did) ‘to combine the interests of local miners with ideologically “acceptable” forms of state intervention’.59 Unsurprisingly, given that his political formation had occurred in quite a different age, Wilson revealed himself to be entirely incapable of adapting ideologically to the rapidly changing world around him. That Wilson was consistently re-elected at DMA annual meetings after 1910 was certainly partly because a section of Durham lodge leaders (predominately of

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smaller, overrepresented lodges) retained the same Liberal values. But the DMA votes on the minimum wage strike showed unmistakably that, by 1912, Wilson was out of touch with a (growing) majority of his members. The DFM’s sustained challenge subsequent to winning the minimum wage further suggested that the days for Wilson’s politics were numbered. What of liberalism as an organised force in the internal politics of the DMA? It is clear that there were moderate/Liberal factions operating inside many lodges, either in control or attempting to counter the influence of the ILP (and, to a much lesser extent, that of the syndicalists). But it is noteworthy that these Liberal factions were operating essentially negatively, trying to prevent movements like the DFM securing support, or aiming to stop their lodges purchasing socialist literature or officially attending rank-and-file movement events. There is no indication in any of the extant lodge minutes of Liberal rank-and-file activists attempting to organise any form of counter-movement around a particular material appeal, thereby generating an alternative pole of attraction for lodges that would keep them out of the socialists’ hands and harness them more firmly to Liberal leaders and organisations beyond the union. In fact, there is no record of Liberals organised outside the DMA attempting to forge direct links with lodges in this period either; no lodge minutes record receiving circulars from external Liberal political organisations, when very many did record receiving frequent communications from a multiplicity of labour and trade union organisations. In terms of radical liberalism’s appeal in the Durham coalfield, it is necessary to look outside the DMA itself, to figures like Llewellyn Atherley-Jones. Curiously, Tanner made little of Atherley-Jones, remarking simply that he ‘was respected for his commitment to radical policies’ despite ‘his hesitancy over trade union immunities’.60 The youngest son of prominent Chartist Ernest Jones, AtherleyJones was a barrister working in Durham after marrying a local woman. As a young Radical, he advocated female enfranchisement. Perhaps more significantly, he was credited with coining the term ‘new liberalism’ in 1889, with a seminal article in The Nineteenth Century. In this he argued that official liberalism was out of touch with modern liberal thought which ‘for the first time in the history of English politics ... almost exclusively identified with the particular interests of the working-class’.61 Atherley-Jones recognised that the Liberal Party would struggle if it remained dependent on middle-class support, with a programme largely formulated to cater for nonconformism. But the Liberal Party was hamstrung in its efforts to demonstrate its attentiveness to working-class aspirations by Gladstone’s dominance and radicalism’s ‘want of a leadership’.62 By the late 1880s, Atherley-Jones had already developed a strong relationship with the miners. He had worked for the Miners’ National Union, and, in 1880, represented the DMA on an inquiry into an explosion at Seaham colliery. He easily won the mining-dominated North-West Durham constituency as a Liberal (with DMA support) in 1885. In 1900, he represented Washington lodge in its failed legal attempt to secure retrospective strike pay from the central DMA.63



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Between 1876 and 1902 Atherley-Jones was an invited speaker at seventeen of twenty-seven DMA annual galas, promoting his ‘new liberal’ politics.64 At the 1897 gala, for example, he argued for ‘socialistic’ legislation.65 Atherley-Jones became one of a handful of those associated with traditional radicalism who also situated themselves among an English Labour tradition. He regarded socialism, according to Michael Freeden, not as a definite theory but rather as synonymous with a British approach to tackling the ‘social problem’. Indeed, Freeden remarked that Atherley-Jones’ support for proposals like old age pensions made his ideology difficult to distinguish from that of the Fabian Society’s Webbs.66 Atherley-Jones himself argued that, apart from nationalisation, nothing differentiated the Labour Party programme from that of the Liberals after 1906.67 Indeed, in light of a threatened national railway strike in autumn 1907, he attacked the railway owners, suggesting that nationalisation of the railways might provide a solution.68 Atherley-Jones later claimed that Keir Hardie had been keen to establish a working alliance with him and other advanced Radicals; true to this, he voted in favour of both of Labour’s ‘right to work’ bills in this period (and against his own government).69 His stance was not always popular among Durham miners. Consistent support for the eight-hour day, for the Durham coalfield as well as nationally, ‘met with considerable hostility’.70 Nevertheless, in 1908, Atherley-Jones’ rejected counter-calls from the north-east for the forty-eight-hour week, arguing that the Liberals’ Bill contained various clauses that might render it acceptable to former opponents. He pointed to the reduced hours of the lads which the Bill entailed, meaning that he did not share the ‘gloomy anticipations’ of some of his colleagues.71 In July 1910, after at least some of those ‘gloomy anticipations’ had been realised, Atherley-Jones acted (unsuccessfully) in court for the Oxhill miners over their refusal to work the three-shift system.72 In 1911, he made various recommendations to improve the Liberals’ Coal Mines Bill, including criticising the provision for ‘vexatious’ personal searches of miners for matches before going underground each day, which ‘the high-spirited miners in my constituency will resent’.73 Later that year, Atherley-Jones moved an amendment to reduce the working hours of deputies who inspect the mines from nine-anda-half to eight hours, in the interests of safety.74 The position on the Minimum Wage Bill (1912) was complex. On one hand Atherley-Jones was supportive, arguing in the local press that miners would not shirk under the minimum wage.75 He reiterated this in Parliament, claiming that the majority of the very many coal owners he knew agreed that it was not in the miners’ nature to shirk. In this, and some other crucial respects, his position chimed not only with the MFGB’s official policy, but also with DFM leaders like Jack Lawson. Atherley-Jones was convinced, after examining the figures of collieries in Yorkshire, Wales and Durham (the latter supplied by a ‘very able’ Labour Party member), that the owners were ‘quite capable of bearing, with comparative immunity, the slight extra charge that would be involved by the

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establishment of a minimum wage’.76 He estimated that only about 20% of Durham mineworkers would be affected by the minimum wage.77 He further supported the right to strike and argued that Durham miners’ ‘sense of loyalty’ to their organisation and ‘genuine sympathy’ with their fellow workers meant they would not return to work without a victory on the minimum wage. But he was also, like the DFM, critical of the minimum wage on offer, particularly the exclusion of aged and infirm miners, many of whom he thought might be rendered unemployed by the legislation.78 Elements of this case were restated at speeches in constituency pit villages and in debates in the letters pages of the local press. In one exchange, Atherley-Jones rejected the arguments of a curate from Annfield Plain that a maximum dividend on capitalists was better than a minimum wage that would inevitably raise all prices.79 On the other hand, while claiming to approach the minimum wage from a practical rather than doctrinaire standpoint, Atherley-Jones’ parliamentary interventions contained significant aspects that were very far from meshing with the perspectives of rank-and-file movement activists. He claimed (erroneously, as we have seen) that the county average was effectively a minimum wage. He was also ‘not so enamoured with the idea of a minimum wage, because I believe [it] will have the ultimate tendency of bringing down the average wage by reducing the big man at the top to a level more approximate to that of the man at the bottom’. He justified support for strikes as every political economist from Adam Smith onwards claimed that ‘a strike, or the threat to strike, is the only effective instrument in the hands of the worker’. In general he did ‘not like legislation of this kind’.80 Durham minimum wage campaigners clearly did not recognise AtherleyJones’ conception of ‘a coalfield in which the relations of employers and employed are singularly happy, and where, if you take the mine owners and their managers as a whole, there is a mutual endeavour to make the conditions of labour as fair and as reasonable as possible’. Indeed, this remark rendered him indistinguishable from John Wilson. Still, Atherley-Jones was one of a handful of Radicals who supported the failed Labour attempts to amend the Bill by inserting the MFGB’s ‘5 and 2’ demand; excluding this was like ‘straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel’. Including the ‘5 and 2’ was apparently essential to effect a settlement. 81 Nevertheless, Atherley-Jones’ position on the minimum wage demonstrated that, in Durham, even those Liberals closest to Labour ideologically speaking still remained clearly distinguishable from the younger, most aggressive and militant activists of the ILP who led the rank-and-file movements. The latter evidently did not regard relations with the Durham coal owners as ‘singularly happy’, nor did they recognise any mutual endeavour to render their conditions of labour as fair as possible, nor did they automatically agree with Atherley-Jones that it was not in their interests to make the mines unprofitable.82 Overall, Atherley-Jones’ interventions in Parliament (for the most part) and on the public platform over a long period allowed him to build a following among Durham miners that explains his sustained electoral success. But, crucially, he remained an outsider in terms of



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the union’s internal politics, something he openly recognised in his correspondence to the local press.83 The only mention of him in existing lodge minutes came in February 1911, when Hamsteels lodge voted in favour of a Labour candidate being adopted in North-West Durham if Atherley-Jones should retire.84 Wilson’s rather more unfashionable brand of liberalism dominated ideologically inside the DMA and it was this that the rank-and-file movement leaders were necessarily principally combating. This more traditional Gladstonian form of liberalism, personified by Wilson and the other Liberal agents, cannot be regarded as a dynamic reforming force capable of ideologically outflanking the ILP inside the DMA. Returning to the DFM’s industrial programme and activities, the movement could legitimately boast of having helped bring about some modest victories. By April 1914, Romer had resigned as Durham JDB chair. This came after the MFGB had taken up the DMA complaint about Romer’s October 1913 award, action that the DFM had urged the Durham executive to take.85 This further suggested the MFGB’s utility to Durham miners but, while the DFM welcomed Romer’s resignation, it also pointed out that discontent with his award and accompanying rules remained.86 Indeed, in spite of the earlier problems that industrial action over the second Romer award raised, the movement again threatened, in April 1914, a strike ‘if stern necessity should force this upon us’.87 Militant voices on DFM platforms also persisted; the Horden lodge chairperson told a DFM meeting that same month, ‘I don’t believe in strikes but I say this, if we cannot get on constitutionally, I would say “Strike, men, before we starve” (applause)’.88 But, once again, a DFM-inspired strike against the Romer award did not materialise. Indeed, a movement circular of June 1914 that contained essentially the same demands as its inaugural statement of May 1912 revealed that the DFM had won fairly negligible material gains, in spite of all its activity since May 1912. Yet, at the same time as it was promising to focus the continued discontent over the minimum wage, the movement’s attention was actually turning away from challenging the Romer award through industrial action and was looking towards ensuring that the Minimum Wage Act improved when it came up for parliamentary amendment in 1915.89 It was to be on the political plane that the DFM secured its most significant successes before the outbreak of war (see below). What of the revolutionaries? Harvey and Lawther made public interventions in the outrage over Romer’s second award, debating the issues in the letters pages of the local press in October and November 1913. Possible small individual successes were evident too: one anonymous miner was apparently so convinced by Harvey’s arguments for industrial unionism that he asked for more details. In late November, Lawther even spoke in Newcastle on the Romer award at a joint meeting with local NMA lodges. But, while John Swan of the DFM also appeared, this was not a DFM-organised event.90 Overall, the revolutionaries’ words were swamped by those of DFM/ILP activists in the local press, who largely monopolised the role of giving voice and direction to the discontent over the second Romer award (albeit, as seen above, in a sometimes confused way).

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Regardless, both revolutionaries made progress of different forms. Harvey, consolidating his position as Follonsby colliery checkweighman, began using this post as a platform to raise his profile inside the central DMA machinery, as had ILP activists like Lawson and many more before him. In 1914, Harvey was a nominee for DMA delegate to the MFGB and TUC conferences, as a representative on the DMFB, as a DMA parliamentary candidate and for the executive. Harvey was one of very many lodge nominees and he did not come close to winning any of these positions before August 1914. Still, his personal standing was slowly but inexorably growing inside the DMA.91 Lawther’s anarchist politics meant that Harvey’s method of advancement, through lodge influence to importance inside the wider DMA, was not open to him. Instead, Lawther used his contacts, most significantly the very wealthy George Davison, to help to develop his political project. This Davison did by funding the Chopwell Communist (or ‘Anarchist’) Club, like similar clubs he had supported in South Wales. The club opened its doors for the first time on 9 December 1913, two weeks into a Chopwell colliery strike. That same night, twenty-six coal trucks from a local pit were set loose to run down a hill and derail, causing about £3,000 worth of damage.92 The local police commented on this ‘strange coincidence’ of sabotage and the new club’s opening, but there was no suggestion that those finally arrested (and eventually acquitted) had any link with the Anarchist Club or its revolutionary politics.93 The club must have aided Lawther’s propagandising activities. The police were certainly impressed, observing that the club’s members were ‘mostly young men and are above the average miner in intelligence’.94 Some four months after its opening, Freedom, reporting on an Anarchist conference in Newcastle, remarked that ‘the Chopwell boys came in their dozens, each an embryo fighter, from whom more will be heard anon, we hope’.95 The Newcastle Anarchist conference considered national organisational issues and international topics such as the (recently state-executed) Spanish freethinker Francisco Ferrer’s ‘modern schools’, as well as the plans for an international anarchist conference in London scheduled for September 1914.96 Lawther had spoken at a modern school in east London in summer 1913, and his continued commitment to working-class education was evident in the Plebs’ League classes he ran three times a week (in Chopwell, Consett and South Shields).97 Lawther had clearly a firm basis for his activities in his Chopwell anarchist group, supported by the Anarchist Club, but by August 1914 he was also developing regional and, to a lesser extent, national networks to further his political goals. At the same time as the Durham coalfield was incandescent over the Romer award, events in the Dublin lockout, the struggle of the ITWF and its radical leader Jim Larkin preoccupied Lawther.98 The dispute resonated in the wider DMA as well. Though the executive refused to allow an Eden lodge grant proposal of £500 to appear, it instead proposed a £150 grant to the Dublin strikers in October 1913.99 Then, in late 1913, Larkin’s name appeared among the nominees for the 1914 gala’s speakers. Fearing the worst, Wilson



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launched an outspoken attack on Larkin, decrying his arrogance and suggesting that if Larkin had tact and direction commensurate with his energy, he would be a useful trade union leader.100 Wilson’s pre-emptive strike failed, as Larkin was eventually placed among the top four candidates for gala speakers.101 This result was perhaps partially explained by Larkin’s tour of northern Durham in early 1914, facilitated by Lawther’s organisation of the logistics.102 When gala day came, Larkin’s train was late, and he arrived at platform No 2 to find that proceedings were over. Platform No 1 was still occupied, so Larkin was allowed to speak there, though the platform chairperson (William House) advised that Larkin could deliver ‘unadulterated Larkinism, but he should not be personal’.103 Larkin ignored House and attacked trade union leaders, telling the gala crowd, if they would only end all this foolishness of trusting to leaders and politicians and go out and do their own work, what a change, what a wonderful change, there would be ... Why did they have county unions? Because men were interested in keeping them sectionalised. ... one section [of the miners’ unions] after another could be beaten, not by the owners but by the enemy within their own camp (hear, hear).

Angered, House responded that ‘the present day leaders were much superior in their day to Mr. Larkin and it was unfair for him to assail men who had grown grey in service for the workers’.104 Larkin’s presence and message seemed a boon to the syndicalists. Much in his speech chimed with their politics. Furthermore, Larkin offered a potential bridge between the overt syndicalists and the activists of the ILP/DFM. This was evident in an invitation penned by Harry Bolton (Lawther’s earlier convert to the ILP) to Larkin to speak at Chopwell after his engagement at the Durham miners’ gala.105 But, as with previous syndicalist or militant gala speakers in this period, care must be taken in interpreting the significance of Larkin’s appearance. First, Larkin was not recognised as a ‘pure’ syndicalist. Larkinism was, according to Mann’s ISEL, correctly regarded as one of many varieties of ‘mugwumps on the make’.106 The wider DMA solidarity for locked-out Dublin transport workers did not necessarily indicate support for Larkinite methods either. Again, as with the imprisonment of Tom Mann in 1912, the issue was more the repressive response of the State. The DMA council’s lodge-initiated resolution on the topic expressed ‘emphatic protest against the rash, unjustifiable and brutal’ police baton charge on Dublin strikers in October 1913.107 It also demanded an official inquiry. Even the Liberal Durham Chronicle expressed qualified support for the Dublin strikers.108 The same phenomenon can be observed at lodge level. In October and November 1913 Marsden lodge chose Larkin among its four gala speakers, sent £40 to support those locked-out in Dublin and called on the DMA to hold a special council meeting on the subject. The enthusiastic support for Larkin and

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the Dublin struggle contrasted strongly, however, with the lack of interest in the syndicalists’ organisations and politics. A Marsden lodge meeting in November 1913 voted 30 to 5 against even putting the proposal to join Harvey’s industrial union to a full lodge membership ballot. This was in line with a similarly heavy (14 to 3) vote against the same proposal six months earlier, in June 1913.109 While a handful of Marsden lodge committee activists repeatedly suggested that the entire lodge membership be allowed to vote on involvement in Harvey’s industrial union at these half-yearly lodge meetings, they never approached eliciting majority support. Marsden was a special case as it had a fluctuating relationship with the DFM too. But more solid DFM lodges like Oxhill equally offered support to the Dublin transport workers, but gave no indication of interest in any form of overt syndicalist organisation.110 And Washington Glebe, with no involvement in the DFM, still passed a motion supporting the Dublin workers. But, again, support for Harvey at the time of his court case had not obviously developed into greater interest in any form of organised syndicalism among the main lodge activists.111 Assessing syndicalist influence in the Durham coalfield to 1914 With these observations in mind, how influential were the syndicalists in the Durham coalfield before August 1914? The main published studies differ. Bob Holton’s enthusiastic account of British syndicalism suggested that, in a mining context, syndicalism had a significant impact in Durham, second only to its achievements in South Wales.112 More recently, Roy Church and Quentin Outram argued that syndicalist influence was virtually nil in Durham.113 Bringing together all the empirical evidence on syndicalist activity and impact in the Durham coalfield between 1910 and 1914 offers a more informed and nuanced understanding. Holton’s account in general is undoubtedly too keen to read syndicalist influence into every manifestation of industrial militancy, regardless of the specific contexts, and particularly the demonstrable presence of syndicalist activists or the known circulation of explicitly syndicalist ideas. Holton also overstated the novelty of other forms of industrial action, including the destruction of machinery during disputes (though, as Geoff Brown pointed out, ‘sabotage’ for syndicalists usually did not mean the actual destruction of the means of production, contrary to the SLP’s critical contemporary claims).114 All the phenomena associated with industrial disputes had a long history in the Durham coalfield before 1910, which partially explains why they were so readily adopted in that period by miners, the majority of whom were unlikely to have come into direct contact with explicit syndicalist ideas or activists.115 Having said that, the very beauty and potential of syndicalism as a revolutionary theory and strategy came precisely from this, its essential feature. The syndicalist project grew from lived struggle and was developed by those who applied the theory they learned, to evolve strategies – in the case of The Miners’ Next Step



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in an impressively democratic manner – applicable to conditions on the ground that they themselves had experienced (and continued to do so). It is no wonder, in that case, that syndicalist influence, and activities or attitudes that appeared syndicalist, were so often conflated, especially when considerable chunks of (most) syndicalist programmes – a militant industrial policy, a rejection of conciliation, support for union amalgamations within industries and federations between unions in different industries – were advocated by other activists on the left. British syndicalism’s strength, then, was also its weakness. Its indigenous and pragmatic characteristics, the absence of the Marxist jargon that dogged later British communists – that it was spoken about from platforms in Durham by those who worked in the mines fulltime (literally with a Geordie or South Wales accent) – made it difficult for its opponents to dismiss as an alien ideology (notwithstanding the actual ‘foreign’ influences integral to British syndicalism). However, this also meant that many of syndicalism’s essential features could be easily co-opted by non-syndicalists, who simply dropped the term itself. Methodologically, this crucial characteristic of syndicalism also makes it very hard to isolate when attempting to assess its influence in the wider movement. As Dave Berry and Constance Bantman commented, ‘it is always difficult to measure the practical impact of militant doctrines’.116 British syndicalism seems a particularly difficult militant doctrine to measure. Given this, a fundamental aspect of Holton’s approach is found wanting. Holton argued that, ‘on a number of occasions the character of spontaneous [industrial] action has been so close to formal syndicalist ideals ... that it can usefully be termed proto-syndicalist’.117 According to Holton, ‘proto-syndicalism’ was evident, for instance, in the targeted rioting at Tonypandy in November 1910, as South Wales strikers came into direct conflict with State power.118 Holton’s notion implies a broadly linear relationship; that the only logical outcome of ‘proto’ syndicalism was ‘pure’ syndicalism. As the Durham coalfield case study shows very clearly, it was not. Consequently, ‘proto-syndicalism’ does not offer a useful way of grappling with the nuances of often rather ambiguous, and certainly complex, evidence – an observation made in different ways by several contemporary and more recent commentators on Holton’s work.119 More helpful is the approach adopted by Ralph Darlington, who, in seeking to better assess syndicalism’s influence (actual or potential), emphasised the distinction between overt syndicalist activists and the broader currents of which they formed a (sometimes significant) part; while syndicalists were not always present at times of industrial militancy, certain conditions could generate a wider sympathy for their ideas.120 Methodologically, identifying a reliable gauge to measure syndicalist influence at the level of mass membership remains problematic. It is clear that the full DMA membership votes for strike action over the minimum wage cannot be read as votes in favour of syndicalism (as Holton has done), not least because syndicalists appear to have played very little part in the Durham movement for a minimum wage strike. Indeed, there are no full DMA membership votes that

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can be regarded as explicitly and exclusively ‘syndicalist’. Motions calling for ballots over proposed amalgamations with other miners’ unions in the coalfield, for example, were often brought forward by ILP-led lodges. While the DFM was certainly less outspoken than the syndicalists on the amalgamation issue, there were several DFM lodge proposals at the 1913 DMA annual meeting effectively promoting a Durham industrial union. Industrial unionism by itself was not, of course, automatically ‘revolutionary’, but it was opposed by the Durham agents, who argued that the existing DMFB meant an industrial union was unnecessary and damaging in Durham.121 Similarly, lodges did not have to contain influential syndicalists to indulge in repeated unofficial strikes, or to deploy other forms of industrial action short of an all-out strike, or to attack the agents in circulars and motions to DMA council. There are problems too in attempting an assessment of syndicalist influence at lodge official level which was not, in any case, necessarily an accurate surrogate for reading the opinion of the ‘ordinary’ membership. The lodges’ choice of DMA gala speakers does offer some insight and it is significant that overt syndicalists like Mann, and militants of the ‘political’ (Grayson) or trade union (Larkin) worlds with syndicalist-sounding rhetoric were elected to gala platforms in this period. But, as discussed above, there were various specific reasons why their appearances cannot be straightforwardly regarded as indicating mass, active commitment to an overt syndicalist programme, not least because in every year between 1910 and 1914 the revolutionaries/militants/syndicalists were elected to speak alongside more moderate labour movement figures and even some Liberals. This gala speaker diversity reflected, albeit a little crudely, the presence of several competing political tendencies within the DMA, whereby, at one end of the spectrum,the politics of the more militant sections of the rank-and-file movements and of the syndicalists partially overlapped. Durham lodges’ choice of gala speakers certainly suggested a militant and discontented mood among a majority of lodge officials and – given burgeoning lodge democracy – very likely in many cases lodge memberships. The case for these gala speaker choices indicating widespread support for actual syndicalism – understood as an explicit movement based on extant propaganda-based organisations and activists, actuated by a complex, developing ideology – is less convincing. The surviving Durham lodge records offer another dimension. They show that lodges participating in various manifestations of militant anger (like Andrew’s House and Oxhill), supporting the strikers in South Wales and Dublin and/or displaying solidarity with particular syndicalists (Mann’s imprisonment in 1912 and Harvey’s libel case later the same year), did not appear to gravitate towards syndicalism itself.122 No firm evidence of any interest in syndicalism exists in either of Andrew’s House or Oxhill lodges’ minute books; neither sent delegates to syndicalist conferences, bought syndicalist propaganda discussed syndicalism explicitly, or passed resolutions advocating syndicalism. Other lodges, like Washington Glebe, did buy some syndicalist literature, but seem to have gone no



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further. Marsden lodge contained a handful sympathetic to Harvey’s industrial union, but they were always easily out-voted when it came to the question of the lodge actually affiliating. From the available evidence, there was only one lodge official who supported syndicalism sufficiently to lead an initiative on it – Thomas Barron, and he was not an active syndicalist for very long. All the lodges mentioned here, and very many others, were, however, involved in the mass rank-and-file movements of the period. Consequently, it seems logical to apportion the bulk of the influence evidenced here to these movements’ mostly ILP leaders, rather than to the syndicalists. What, then, of the influence of syndicalism on individual ILP rank-and-file leaders themselves? Many, if not all, were certainly aware of syndicalist ideas, and there is no reason to suspect that when, for example, George Jaques praised syndicalism in 1912, he was being disingenuous. The Durham ILP leaders recognised too, as the South Wales syndicalists had, that militant rhetoric and the minimum wage could mobilise significant numbers. But it remained clear that while many of the basic means were shared, the ILP leaders’ ends remained rather different from those of the syndicalists’. For Lawson, the minimum wage could help to sharpen the issues over nationalisation of the coal industry. For the syndicalists (in South Wales at least), the minimum wage was one means to make the mines so unprofitable that the way would be opened for workers’ ownership and control of the industry. It is clear, then, that many basic planks of the syndicalist platform did galvanise a mass movement in the Durham coalfield, but one shorn of syndicalism’s revolutionary, non-Statist ends. The Durham ILP activists recognised a potential threat to their influence from the left and, by aping it to no small degree, deflected it very effectively. Similar arguments have been proffered regarding the methodological problems of assessing syndicalism’s role even in its most celebrated mining context. Davies argued that, given the South Wales syndicalists’ changing politics, the support they garnered was ‘unquantifiable’.123 In fact, comparing the actual concrete achievements of the Durham syndicalists with those of their South Wales counterparts offers a useful benchmark. Some of the latter served on the Cambrian Combine strike committee, were instrumental in producing The Miners’ Next Step and later sat on the SWMF executive. Their initiatives to centralise and democratise the SWMF received substantial lodge support; there was a vote in favour of union centralisation in June 1911 and the full membership voted to abolish the SWMF districts (to prepare for increased centralisation) three months later. Syndicalists helped to ensure that the SWMF was at the forefront of the wider campaign for a miners’ minimum wage.124 In Durham, the only comparable successes were those of George Harvey, who, as discussed above, was able to build a following sufficient to be elected a checkweighman on a forthright militant ticket and without having been a lodge official. But, in contrast to South Wales, no Durham syndicalists were elected onto the DMA executive, nor did they lead major industrial disputes in the coalfield, nor head up the minimum wage agitation.

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Nevertheless, in spite of all this, Durham syndicalists did make considerable propaganda that was energetically disseminated by the written and spoken word to communicate their ideas to a wide coalfield audience, at public meetings, the annual gala, in circulars to lodges, debates in the letters pages of the local press and, in Harvey’s case, through propaganda pamphlets and a highly publicised libel case. Thanks in no small part to them (Lawther’s grouping particularly, given the SLP’s hostility), The Miners’ Next Step was widely distributed and very likely well known among the circles of Durham’s coalfield radicals. The syndicalists also developed strong local followings that galvanised significant local activists like Tom Aisbitt, who would become influential in the future, and generated infrastructures like the Chopwell Communist Club, which would also play its part in the development of Chopwell as a ‘Little Moscow’ in the inter-war period.125 They drew supporters and followers from many lodges, albeit in fairly small numbers and largely from the rank and file rather than among lodge officials, and they were able to organise debates over the salient issues of the day with a core of interested militant lodge activists. Overall, it remains clear that, as Bob Holton claimed (but did not empirically demonstrate), ‘the Durham experience begins to show that syndicalism (of whatever variety) cannot be written off outside South Wales, even in areas with an entrenched conservative leadership as typified by John Wilson’.126 While the syndicalists’ influence in Durham was not negligible, might it have been greater? Comparison with the South Wales situation is again enlightening. The Durham syndicalists certainly suffered from some serious comparative contextual disadvantages: the DMA had existed for thirty years longer than the SWMF, which meant that traditions of deference to the rulebook and loyalty to the leadership (and to the institution as such) were established more firmly among its members. The South Wales miners’ reputation of quiescence and disorganisation changed in the late 1890s, when the rush for Rhondda coal peaked, informing a trend towards militancy as well as the formation of the SWMF. When real wages began falling in South Wales in 1903, its collieries became 70% more strike-prone than those of any other British coalfield district before 1910.127 The union’s federal structure left more scope for the autonomous action of rank-and-file militants against the South Wales Lib-Lab leaders than their Durham counterparts enjoyed. As argued in Chapter 3, Durham syndicalists were not in a position to be able to capitalise on the unofficial action against the Eight Hours Agreement in early 1910, in strong contrast to their South Wales counterparts during the Cambrian Combine dispute only a few months later. Nevertheless, despite the differences of 1910, and the longer term, the DMA rank-and-file discontent – with wages and conditions, with their leaders and with the coal owners – remained widespread and strongly felt. There was only a difference of degrees between the attitudes of many Durham and South Wales miners at this time, which was all the more remarkable considering how firmly embedded figures like Wilson (and their liberalism) were in the union.



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Consequently, syndicalism could have developed further in Durham; various contingent factors, including fortune, timing and individuals’ political judgements and actions (agency) played a part in ensuring that it did not. In terms of fortune, and given the crucial role that Ruskin College and the CLC played in making syndicalists, it proved portentous that the DMA sent notably fewer students to these centres of radicalisation than did the South Wales miners. The SWMF had a scholarship scheme for the CLC, making connections particularly strong.128 By contrast, the central DMA’s support of the more moderate Ruskin College ended in 1909 and could not be reinstituted in December 1913 (see below). Significantly, while some lodges did support Ruskin in different ways, the CLC received no mention in the surviving records of any DMA-related institution of this period. Lawther was only able to attend thanks to sponsorship from his lodge, Chopwell, as well as familial financial backing.129 Indeed, of Durham lodges, only Chopwell seems to have made grants to the CLC in this period.130 In terms of timing, Lawther’s undoubted ability and energy came a little too late. He was in London when The Miners’ Next Step was published and during the 1912 national strike, and so unable to make his presence and influence felt at crucial moments. True, there remained considerable potential in the coalfield after his return in summer 1912, but, clearly, the syndicalist cause in the coalfield surely would have been further advanced had he been converted to the doctrine earlier. Lawther’s relative youth and inexperience, too (he was only twenty-three when he returned to the coalfield in autumn 1912), may explain some of the rather purist, possibly even dogmatic, but certainly restrictive paths along which his politics then developed. Indeed, aspects of the specific politics of both leading Durham syndicalists inhibited them in different ways. Lawther’s developing anarchist syndicalism meant that he did not stand for office after returning from the CLC. This effectively ruled out a return to a lodge position that would have afforded him considerable influence.131 In South Wales, by contrast, was A.J. Cook’s example. Cook overlapped with Lawther at the CLC but, though a syndicalist, he took a lodge chair’s position on his return to the coalfield. In fact, Thomas Barron’s case demonstrated that active syndicalists could also be effective and influential Durham lodge officials simultaneously. Harvey’s politics were not so encumbered in this sense; he was instrumental in getting the SLP to end its bar on party members holding trade union office and reaped the benefits when elected checkweighman.132 While he did not come close to securing any elected position within the DMA before 1914, Harvey was in the running, at least.133 By contrast, Lawther’s (in many respects laudable) principles robbed Durham miners of the opportunity to vote for him either at lodge or central level. Thus part of the reason for Lawther’s apparent failure to advance his profile (at least in the measurable terms of union office) when compared to his South Wales counterparts was self-imposed out of principle.134 Similarly, Lawther’s complete rejection of ‘political action’ posed theoretical and practical problems for many in the coalfield. While Durham miners’ attitudes towards the parliamentary system were, and remained, complex, they did have a

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well-established tradition of voting Liberal and some degree of active involvement in Liberal politics, springing from a democratic discourse that drew from Methodism. The pro-political action comments of several of the DFM delegates at the DURM Chopwell conference in autumn 1912 bore testament to how important it was to many leading Durham socialists.135 Indeed, Lawther’s drawing of a sharp distinction between what he deemed counter-productive – or, at best futile – political action and essential industrial action became particularly discordant as the DFM’s developing strategy began blurring precisely this distinction (the climax of which is discussed below). By contrast, Harvey’s position on the need for political action, albeit from a strictly revolutionary platform, sidestepped these objections. But Harvey was clear, too, that the Labour Party was not, and could not be, the vehicle for any worthwhile political action. The weaknesses in Harvey’s policy lay in his ‘dual unionism’, also SLP policy, which seemed ill-suited to appeal to many Durham miners. The DMA (and Northumberland miners) were the only two miners’ district unions that organised significant numbers of surfaceworkers. There was a good argument that, within the ‘quasi industrial union structure of the MFGB’, and with the right reforms, the north-eastern miners’ unions were as close (or perhaps closer) to realising their industrial unionist potential as any of the district miners’ unions.136 A radical overhaul of the existing DMA machinery, at least in the short term, was more obviously achievable (and perhaps more desirable) considering the Durham miners’ historical attachment to their prestigious union. Indeed, with its wellestablished structures, high membership (in terms of density and aggregate figures) and (ordinarily) deep coffers, there were good practical reasons for the union’s members to stand by it, and for syndicalists to try to use its own mechanisms to reshape it in their own image. In practice, as the DFM was to find, reforming the DMA was rather difficult, though the movement did eventually manage to concert action to achieve some notable successes (see below). Whether dual unionism was, as John Quail claimed, a ‘non-starter’ in Britain in general is contestable, but it certainly seemed a non-starter in Durham mining circles.137 On this terrain Lawther was initially strong, endorsing The Miners’ Next Step position of reforming existing unions in May 1912. But by October that year Lawther seemed more interested in the dual unionism of the IWW and he subsequently seemed unclear, or reticent on this crucial issue, contributing to both ‘bore from within’ and dual unionist anarchist journals.138 While the leading Durham syndicalists at various times advocated positions on political action and dual unionism that seemed unlikely to appeal to many militant Durham miners, the situation could have been otherwise. In terms of dual unionism, Noah Ablett, like Harvey, encountered the SLP while at Ruskin. On returning to South Wales, Ablett’s enthusiasm for the SLP’s dual unionism evaporated as he realised that most miners merely desired reform of their existing organisation, rather than replacing it with an entirely new one.139 In terms of political action, W.F. Hay, the most ‘anti-politics’ of South Wales syndicalists, knew when to skate



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over this aspect of his syndicalism in pragmatically tailoring his speech to specific audiences.140 When speaking in the Durham coalfield in May 1912, Hay simply did not mention political action at all.141 Certainly, the ambiguity of The Miners’ Next Step on political action was in some respects a strength, as activists could choose, if they wanted to discuss it at all, to emphasise the position they agreed with. The generally pragmatic South Wales syndicalists garnered support by soft-pedalling the revolutionary elements of their politics in order to concentrate efforts on the minimum wage issue itself before and during the 1912 strike.142 The other major problem for the Durham syndicalists was their lack of unity. Though they shared physical platforms at meetings throughout the period, their visions of revolutionary trade unionism consistently failed to mesh. At the DURM Chopwell conference of October 1912, and throughout the period, Durham miners were offered (at least) two different – and to some extent competing – versions of syndicalism (indeed, over this short period, all three major forms of the doctrine were on offer, with Lawther moving from the syndicalism of The Miners’ Next Step to anarchist syndicalism). This, not surprisingly, provoked genuine confusion over terminologies and their meanings (again evident at the DURM Chopwell conference) among some interested delegates, as well as allowing some of the better-informed DFM activists to exploit the confusion in their challenges to the syndicalists’ arguments. The DURM was short-lived, and in any case seemed incapable of fully integrating Harvey, implacably critical as he was of The Miners’ Next Step. By contrast, the South Wales syndicalists maintained an effective degree of pragmatic unity – in spite of differences in approach and emphasis – around one key document. Harvey’s pamphlets were well researched (for the most part) and written, but, rather wordy and cerebral. They lacked the sheer propaganda impact of the punchy and practical The Miners’ Next Step (and, indeed of Jack Lawson’s contemporary minimum wage pamphlet that seemed to have drawn some inspiration from it). This was partly because of the production process: Harvey’s pamphlet was the result of an individual’s energetic endeavours, rather than emerging, like The Miners’ Next Step, from collective experience and cooperative collaboration, steeled through bitter industrial struggle. The disappearance of the DURM in late 1912 meant that there could be no Durham equivalent of The Miners’ Next Step – Harvey’s works were very much his own – and this in a context where unity was arguably even more essential given the relative lack of numbers. Instead, Harvey had aligned himself vigorously and unfailingly with an organisation and a politics that revealed themselves to be lacking in crucial respects in the industrial foment. Throughout Britain, the SLP was increasingly outmanoeuvred in the industrial arena by the ISEL syndicalists after 1910, and by the outbreak of war its membership – at its peak still stubbornly small – was shrinking.143 Lawther’s anarchism was more theoretically coherent than the South Wales miners’ syndicalism. But, in adopting it, Lawther necessarily erected barriers to building links with significant more mainstream national and international syndicalist figures. This augmented the relative geographical isolation of the

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Durham coalfield. This was, of course, overcome on occasion; Lawther’s supporting of Larkin’s speaking tour in February 1914 revealed his continuing openness to other types of militants outside of the coalfield, if not necessarily the leading younger ILP militants within it. But the degree of support from outside figures was necessarily less than that enjoyed by the South Wales syndicalists. Tom Mann visited them in the coalfield on several occasions, as did figures of international stature such as US miners’ leader ‘Big’ Bill Haywood of the IWW. After the dissolving of the DURM, the ISEL lost its foothold in the Durham coalfield, and when Mann came to the region again it was to speak in Newcastle to a meeting not even organised by syndicalists. Even when anarchist syndicalism became better organised and its ‘bore from within’ wing more popular in 1914, it did not sweep all before it on the revolutionary left.144 Syndicalists in Durham consequently organised around disparate groupings formed by local charismatic leaders (and educated to a high level away from the coalfield) who vied with each other for support but lacked the strategic maturity of the key South Wales syndicalists. Here Harvey and Lawther’s ‘extremism’ lay in their relatively dogmatic approach to revolutionary politics. Failing to strike an effective balance between theory and action, they were limited by the precise forms of revolutionary trade unionism they came to embrace and the rigidness with which they interpreted either actual party lines (Harvey) or the specifics of their ideological positions (Lawther). Nevertheless, even among the main South Wales syndicalists, unity was fragile and difficult to maintain. The tensions evident over disagreements on political action in The Miners’ Next Step became wider criticisms of the involvement of syndicalists like Noah Ablett in the SWMF executive by 1914. Once elected to these positions, critics like W.F. Hay claimed, syndicalists ceased to be revolutionary in all except words, necessarily spending most of their time involved in conciliation and arbitration.145 Much of the explanation thus far has relied on agency of various forms: the impacts of specific ideologies and their interpretations in terms of praxis when activists seek to understand, negotiate and intervene in their political worlds. Yet there were also crucial contextual differences with South Wales. There, syndicalists took the lead in the minimum wage agitation. In Durham, the syndicalists had to cope with ILP-led mass rank-and-file movements based around the minimum wage, deploying some syndicalist-sounding language and advocating aims that overlapped with those of the syndicalists. Essentially, the ILP-led movements occupied political space where the Durham syndicalists could have been. On one hand, there appeared little space left for Durham syndicalists to make their own. The ILP were channelling the considerable lodge discontent, on which syndicalism could have fed, into essentially statist, parliamentarist demands, however militantly worded. It seemed that Harvey had been outmanoeuvred in no small degree by his ex-Ruskin colleague Jack Lawson. On the other hand, syndicalists (of The Miners’ Next Step tradition, at least) could still make arguments that the agitation for a democratic and militant DMA



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should go much further. Significant elements of the rank-and-file movements were favourable to aspects of the syndicalists’ case and were open to debate. With dialogue, there remained the possibility of further radicalisation. Indeed, the possibilities were substantial, considering that several of the leading syndicalists had been in the ILP, or had worked with them. Thomas Barron had been involved in the MWM before organising as a syndicalist in autumn 1912. Harvey, too, spoke at a MWM mass meeting in April 1912 and tried to align his own criticism of Wilson with that of ILP activists at his libel trial in November 1912.146 Whether Harvey’s lack of involvement in the DFM was his choice or that of the movement’s ILP leadership remains unclear. Yet Lawther’s attitude, by contrast, was not conducive to sponsoring productive dialogue. Lawther repeatedly defined his project of fomenting a ‘real’ rank-and-file movement explicitly against the DFM, whose leaders, he claimed, were mere careerists.147 Hay’s early influence on Lawther’s syndicalism soon faded and, in strong contrast to the South Wales syndicalists, Lawther’s overriding concern soon appeared to be ensuring that he could never be mistaken for a ‘reformist’. This rendered working constructively alongside ILP activists rather problematic for Lawther and his group in most contexts, though it did still happen. In general though, while the DFM offered the syndicalists an opportunity, Lawther’s attitude ensured that it came to represent more of a – very sizeable – obstacle. As seen in Chapter 5, the ILP-led rank-and-file movements and the syndicalists’ trajectories to summer 1913 were similar. After that, their fortunes diverged. While the syndicalists continued to consolidate their groupings and local influence after the doctors’ fees agitation subsided in summer 1913, the potential to exert a wider influence in the rank-and-file movements, suggested in summer and autumn 1912, was not to be realised. (A similar process of syndicalism’s influence apparently ebbing away can be observed in South Wales, albeit slightly later.148) The vicissitudes the DFM experienced did not suggest an inexorable growth in popularity, but it was after summer 1913 that the movement secured its most significant political successes inside the DMA, demonstrating its growing influence. Simultaneously, it also began moving, for the first time, towards refining a strategy that could take its industrial influence and wield it effectively on the (narrowly understood) political plane, in full support of the Labour Party and its parliamentary path. The Durham Forward Movement: political successes, failures and a new strategy (December 1913–August 1914) While the DFM was struggling to harness the discontent over the October 1913 Romer award at an industrial level, it seized the opportunity to further its political aims inside the DMA. On 11 October 1913, a DFM meeting of fifty lodges convened specifically for the task agreed to take ‘united action’ at the DMA

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December annual meeting on five specific proposals. The focus had shifted from earlier proposed reforms; there were no longer any suggestions on improving lodge accountability to members but three separate propositions aimed at securing more control of agents. The fourth suggestion represented another new and highly significant departure – to guarantee in the rules that all future DMA parliamentary and council candidates stand exclusively on ‘strict Labour Party lines’.149 The fifth proposed reform was to secure DMA support for educational institutions. Lawson and Temple’s links with Ruskin College were reflected in the interest of many leading DFM lodges, which continued to send delegates to events about Ruskin, make donations to it, and receive speakers.150 In April 1913, there was a concerted effort to raise Ruskin’s profile again, and a DMA executive delegation attended a conference on the college. While Dawdon lodge’s subsequent attempts to get DMA council to make a grant to Ruskin foundered against the rulebook, the college’s supporters were allowed official use of the DMA’s hall for a conference on 13 December 1913, chaired by W.P. Richardson and with Lawson also prominent. At the 1913 DMA annual meeting, Temple’s lodge (Twizell) proposed a reversal of a 1909 decision: effectively that the central DMA again send four members to Ruskin annually and provide scholarships and maintenance. Twizell claimed this would probably cost the union less than ½d. per member per year, but the annual meeting still rejected the initiative.151 Undeterred, Temple addressed lodges on ‘Ruskin College and the trade union movement’ in early 1914, encouraging them (successfully, in the cases of Marsden and Hylton) to sponsor their own members to study there.152 Two other DFM proposed rule changes – that the existing annual re-election of agents be replaced by a ballot for or against their retention if demanded by not fewer than thirty lodges, and that each agent give a monthly report on the main business of his department, to replace Wilson’s monthly circular – met the same end at the 1913 annual meeting. The remaining two DFM proposals, however, passed. A success rate of two out of five seemed disappointing, but the DFM had been comparatively effective compared to proposals fielded at the same annual meeting by DFM lodges that were not among the movement’s agreed aims. In total only a mere handful among the thirty-two pages of lodge suggested rule changes or amendments were passed by the annual meeting.153 Furthermore, both approved DFM-sponsored changes had far-reaching implications for Labour inside the DMA. The first rule change was important in terms of the potential advancement of leading movement activists inside the DMA. All agents were now to be elected by an individual ballot of all members, thereby removing the vote from the hands of lodge committees. The second change was even more significant; the DMA’s political object was now ‘To promote and financially support parliamentary candidates’, who had to be DMA members, ‘and run solely under the auspices of the National Labour Party and be subject to its decisions if elected’.154 Securing the DMA’s explicit endorsement for Labour in its rulebook was crucial, and the



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DFM’s most important achievement from its list of specific demands. By way of mitigation, this rule change came in the context of the MFGB’s agreement in autumn 1913 that its affiliates should endorse ‘independent’ representation, after the confusion and embarrassment of the Liberal-supporting Derbyshire miners’ candidate at the Chesterfield by-election in summer 1913. Nevertheless, it was significant that all the suggestions on this issue at the DMA’s annual meeting came from DFM lodges; the executive itself had remained inactive once again.155 This development was the logical outcome of Lawson’s remark in August 1913 that ‘the workers must realise that whether they liked it or not trade union questions were now political questions’.156 Securing the DMA’s exclusive support for Labour had not been among the DFM’s original proposed reforms. Perhaps, in May 1912, ILP activists had not anticipated how effective – in this particular respect, at least – their rank-and-file movement could be. Still, it is clear that the DFM was by far the most significant vehicle for conveying the ultimately triumphant arguments on the issue of the DMA’s relations with Labour and the Liberals. Now it was unequivocally won institutionally, and with the Osborne judgement overturned, the DMA’s enormous prestige and resources could finally be brought to bear exclusively for Labour. This rule change was further evidence of a power shift within the DMA away from the Liberals and effected by the DFM. Indeed, after summer 1911 the rank-and-file movements had become the chief means for activists to mobilise lodge opinion against the Wilson-dominated DMA leadership, simultaneously building and consolidating ILP influence among the lodges. Further evidence of this political shift towards Labour, and especially in the direction of this specific grouping of ILP rank-and-file movement leaders, came with a DMA ballot for five new parliamentary candidates in March 1914. Four important DFM activists, including the two most prominent leaders, Lawson and W.P. Richardson, were placed among the top five from a field of seventy nominees. Only one of the five elected (and the only agent), James Robson, represented a more conciliatory Labour politics. Remarkably, all five beaten candidates in the final ballot of the most popular ten nominees had been involved (albeit to differing degrees) in the rank-and-file movements; two of these had only come to county-wide prominence since the minimum wage rank-and-file movements began, in summer 1911. Indeed, this vote provided ample demonstration of how remarkably successful the rank-and-file movements were in catapulting several specific ILP activists to notoriety as champions of the militant rank and file – not only W.P. Richardson and Lawson, but the other two leading DFM officials Andrew Temple (who had been away at Ruskin during most of 1913 but still featured in the top ten parliamentary candidates) and Henry Bainbridge. All four emerged from partial or total obscurity to become important contenders for the top lodgeelected positions including places on the DMA executive. The local press certainly equated the rank-and-file movements’ leaders’ prominence intimately with their activism, from the minimum wage strike onwards.157

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Overall, the March 1914 parliamentary candidate choices represented a convincing victory for the (generally) younger and usually more militant Labour generation who led the DFM. The two other ILP members chosen as DMA parliamentary candidates were the more established figures, Joseph Batey and James Gilliland. Both had been lodge ILP rank-and-file leaders for many years (at least fifteen years in Batey’s case, see Chapter 2). They had stayed the course after the emergence of the younger ILP generation from 1911, becoming important second-ranking DFM activists. Similarly influential and well-established ILP activists like John Thompson, who had expressed doubts about the minimum wage and had consequently not been involved in the rank-and-file movements after 1911, were not among the contenders at all in March 1914 (see Chapter 4). This phenomenon can be observed at lodge level too. Marsden lodge, for instance, began supporting DFM activists for DMA positions soon after it became involved in the movement.158 The opposite was the case as well. Washington Glebe lodge nominated three agents (Cann, Galbraith and Robson), as well as Gilliland and Batey, as parliamentary candidates. This profile of nominees fitted with a politically divided lodge that had nevertheless been involved in the radical lodge alliance before 1912, but which did not support the DFM.159 Were the DFM leaders simply careerists, as Will Lawther suggested? Lawson denied such allegations, claiming that the DFM was doing ‘voluntary work’ for the miners so that one day their ‘educational work’ would form part of the DMA machinery.160 Whether Lawson anticipated a full-time position in this putative educational department is unclear, but his signing up to fight when war broke out, when he was at the peak of his influence inside the DMA, did not immediately suggest careerist motives. This notwithstanding, the rank-and-file movements certainly did prove to be a very effective way of advancing the profile and careers of their leaders inside the DMA. The DFM was not, however, entirely successful on the political field. While the movement had won the argument to commit the DMA more firmly and fully to Labour, and ensured that its own leaders predominated among the new tranche of DMA parliamentary candidates, it seemed incapable, in spite all of its energetic campaigning, of boosting the Labour vote in parliamentary elections. Labour only managed third place in the two three-way County Durham by-elections immediately before the war. In Houghton-le-Spring (March 1913), the Labour candidate received 26.2% of the vote; in North-West Durham (January 1914), 28.9%, in constituencies with estimated miner electorates in 1910 of 56% and 61% respectively.161 Labour’s result in North-West Durham – which its MP AtherleyJones had claimed was ‘nearly the largest mining constituency in the country’ – seemed particularly poor, given that the constituency contained many rankand-file movement lodges and the DMA’s exclusive support for Labour had by then been secured.162 Was the DFM culpable? Its leaders, if Lawson was representative, did not seem especially anxious before January 1914 to explore the ways to potentially



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transform theoretical support for Labour inside the DMA into securing more votes for the party from ordinary miners. There was a sense at this time, too, that there remained a lack of political acumen even among the younger ILP activists. Remarkably, even the Ruskin-schooled Lawson, the Labour election agent in Jarrow in 1910, confessed to ignorance of electoral law and that he ‘knew little of the technique of organisation’.163 That there was no party organisation in Jarrow constituency anyway meant Lawson was not overly self-reproachful, though his culpability for this lack of organisation went uncommented. Even so, it would be unjust to blame exclusively the DFM leaders (and activists) for Houghton-leSpring having no Labour Party organisation to speak of in early 1913. Indeed, it was remarkable that even in the Labour stronghold of Chester-le-Street there was no formal constituency organisation until 1914, in an area that also produced all the DFM’s front-ranking leaders.164 But Lawson and the other main rank-andfile leaders had been indefatigably working inside the DFM before this time, in a movement that paid considerable attention to industrial and material matters. Given the sheer amount of grinding hard work and time the rank-and-file movements demanded, it was perhaps excusable that DFM activists had failed to prioritise the creation of organisational machinery capable of directly mobilising the miner vote for Labour. Nevertheless, considering Lawson’s attitude (as a leading DFM activist who remained among the most experienced in political organising), it was perhaps hardly surprising that miners’ lodges generally were not involved in their local LRCs. Gregory and Tanner both emphasised this point, to argue that Labour still had a long way to travel politically in Durham before August 1914.165 In fact, lodge attitudes to LRCs did differ quite markedly. Unsurprisingly, more moderate lodges such as Andrew’s House showed no interest in the Labour Party or local LRC (or even the DFM). Yet, in the case of Oxhill lodge, renewed activity in the DFM (after involvement in the doctors’ fees agitation) accompanied new participation in the LRC.166 Once again, Marsden lodge’s records are particularly interesting on this question. As Tanner noted, Marsden lodge committee twice voted against joining its local LRC between 1911 and 1913.167 But this told only half the story; between these votes, support for affiliation to the LRC (or to the Labour Party) often grew. In April 1914, the issue was finally decided, as a full lodge ballot voted (701 to 528) in favour of affiliating to Labour (an event Tanner failed to mention). Subsequent attempts to reverse this decision, presumably mounted by the lodge’s Liberal faction, were defeated. Furthermore, the support inside Marsden lodge for both the DFM and Labour fluctuated largely in sync, suggesting a strong relationship between the two (albeit with the DFM invariably the better supported of the two).168 More generally, Marsden’s records illustrate the political flux in Durham lodges in this period, with crucial decisions being determined by the numbers that rival moderate and militant (to a limited extent reducible to pro-Liberal and proLabour) factions could mobilise at specific lodge meetings. Nevertheless, it was

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also clear that the DFM did struggle against an ingrained lodge culture to remain aloof from many organisations (both overtly political and not) outside of the DMA (see Chapter 2). This, too, was evident in Marsden’s records: two full lodge ballots in 1912 decisively rejected using lodge funds for both parliamentary and municipal purposes, and in summer 1913 the lodge committee voted not to hold a full membership ballot on whether the lodge should affiliate to the local trades council and several other external groups or organisations.169 Itself firmly in and of the lodges, the DFM did not suffer directly as a result of this cultural feature, but local LRCs did, to varying extents. The crucial point, though, is that miners’ non-involvement in LRCs cannot be understood simply as hostility to the project of independent Labour representation in the Durham coalfield. Non-participation – which was never, in any event, unanimous – was part of a wider manifestation of miners’ refusal to become too involved in local organisations apart from their own. There is a second crucial observation; existent lodge records show no invitations of any sort for lodge involvement in local Liberal associations, which, in the case of the more detailed minutes, must mean that such invitations were not being received. While local LRCs could certainly have done better in terms of generating and sustaining commitment from Durham lodges throughout these immediate pre-war years, at least advocates for independent Labour representation were actively and consistently inviting miners’ involvement. Nevertheless, the problem remained for the ILP that activity in the industrial sphere did not automatically translate directly (and easily) into a more political context – not without clear mechanisms for facilitating such a transition. This was also suggested by the fortunes of the Durham ILP’s own branch organisation. While ILP activists had been integral to the rank-and-file movements, the party itself seemed to have benefited at best rather modestly from its leading activists’ exertions. With well over 100 branches by August 1914, the party was firmly established in the coalfield, but only a handful, at best, of these branches had been founded or re-founded during or after the rank-and-file movement’s emergence in summer 1911. Furthermore, the fairly even distribution of ILP branches throughout the coalfield, in areas that had both militant and more moderate lodges, suggested a sometimes tenuous relationship between ILP activists who were influential in their lodges and their local branch’s fortunes in the more strictly political sphere.170 While Lawson was regularly addressing ILP meetings throughout this period, the measurable publicly recorded activity of Durham miner ILP activists in general seemed heavily skewed towards the DFM. Given the movement’s very nature and focus, this focus of activity would always struggle to combat the cultural tendencies for miners to remain relatively aloof from the more overtly political forms of organisation and activity. Returning to the specifics of the two Durham parliamentary by-elections, several aspects require comment in terms of qualifying the DFM’s role and culpability. A crucial determinant at Houghton-le-Spring – overlooked in the secondary accounts of this election – was the actual Labour candidate, William House, and



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the area the constituency covered, which included Murton and the other three collieries that had struck the longest against the four-shift system in 1910. Many miners still held House largely responsible for the Eight Hours Agreement, and the visceral anger directed at him during the 1910 elections had hardly abated two years later. House’s arrogant refusal to apologise for the Agreement, combined with a crass attempt to deflect the blame while speaking at Murton in the final days of the by-election campaign, predictably inflamed emotions once more.171 Ideologically, too, House’s appeal to miners was limited; many of the lodges most irate over the Agreement were also those most involved in the DFM and likely inclined towards a more militant brand of Labour politics than House represented or could possibly hope to offer. The DFM itself could hardly have been expected to mobilise in support of House and, as it was, DFM lodges were heavily involved in the doctors’ fees agitation at the time the election was on – an issue which received far more local press column inches than the by-election itself (see Chapter 5). This reveals that ILP activists’ priorities, entirely understandably, lay in seeking redress for the material grievances of miners, rather than supporting a deeply unpopular figure to achieve (as Thomas Richardson MP discovered to his cost in 1911) a deeply unpopular status – as a ‘dual working’ DMA agent and MP. The unknown but radical Houghton-le-Spring Liberal candidate, Tom Wing, was, as Tanner claimed, a shrewd choice.172 Wing could easily further blur the already narrow ideological gap with House by emphasising the ‘Lib-Lab party’ of which Wilson and the other north-east ‘miners’ champions’, Burt and Fenwick, were part.173 While Wing seemed ideologically little different to House, he was not tainted by association with the three-shift system. His distinct advantage over House was that he offered hope for Irish voters on Home Rule, and a significant section of the electorate was anticipated to vote solidly Liberal over this one issue. Indeed, under these circumstances, that House secured as many votes as he did was something of an achievement. This is not to deny that, as Gregory and Tanner claimed, lodges were split between Liberal and Labour.174 But it remained clear that House’s poor showing was to a great extent a function of his low personal following, his role in the proliferation of the three-shift system and his inability to distinguish himself ideologically from his Liberal opponent. North-West Durham was the most mining-dominated constituency in the coalfield, and a miner Labour candidate therefore seemed essential. As such, MFGB leader Robert Smillie, thought to stand a fighting chance by Thomas Richardson, was mooted as a possible candidate. Reluctant to stand, Smillie would not entertain the idea without the DMA’s financial endorsement, which he suspected would not be forthcoming (though Smillie did not explain why in detail, this was presumably due to opposition he anticipated from Wilson, which, given Wilson’s politics, seemed a reasonable assumption).175 The eventual Labour candidate was G.H. Stuart, a socialist though not a miner; he was secretary of the Postmen’s Federation.176 Stuart was fighting in the long shadow cast by the Liberal Atherley-Jones’ long-established reputation among the miners.

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As in Houghton-le-Spring, some significant sections of the electorate, such as the Irish steelworkers of Consett, were likely Liberal voters, again over Home Rule.177 Timing was crucial too. This by-election came immediately after the rule change formally committing the DMA to Labour. But it was a little too soon after; the DMA executive did no more than call for members to give the Labour candidate ‘their whole support’.178 The DFM was also inactive in early 1914. Significant, too, was that in August 1914 the DMA sponsored a candidate in Houghton-le-Spring, encouraged by the amount of propaganda work done there since House’s 1913 defeat. It did not even consider North-West Durham, underscoring the continued lack of viable electoral organisation there.179 Two final issues around the DFM’s (potential) support base are relevant to wider debates around the ‘franchise factor’ and to offering another part of the explanation for the two by-election results. The DFM seemed to appeal most to younger miners who worked in the more modern, larger pits This chimes with Michael Childs’ argument that the twenty-one to thirty age group was more likely to identify with Labour than their parents and least likely to have the vote before the war.180 Robert Moore also observed this phenomenon in the Durham coalfield.181 Population movement was a second significant consideration. High levels of coalfield migration disenfranchised many, as twelve months’ residence in one place was necessary to get onto the electoral register under the household qualification. As seen in Chapter 2, the workforce turnover of the newer collieries pits was around 15% to 20% higher than in the older, more settled ones. This meant that a higher proportion of the miners in the more modern (and generally more militant) collieries who were more likely to support the DFM (and thus, at a remove, Labour) were less likely to be able to vote before 1914, had they wanted to.182 In terms of the DFM’s political strategy, April 1914 marked a critical turning point. In the immediate aftermath of the DFM candidates’ spectacular successes in the DMA parliamentary candidate elections of late March, there came a fourth phase of rank-and-file activity and the emergence of a new campaign that, for the first time, took seriously the problem of converting the movement’s industrial clout into votes for Labour. The new political campaign did not emerge fully formed, however. Instead, the DFM began reconsidering the balance between industrial and political action in the light of its inability (perhaps combined with some reluctance) to pursue its aims solely through the self-contained industrial sphere. Accordingly, a DFM circular of early April 1914 struck a curious balance between threatening strike action over the second Romer award on the one hand and claiming, on the other, that: ‘if the workers would be free they must fight together industrially and politically. Voting is easier and more effective than fighting.’183 The coal owners, the movement claimed, all knew this and would ‘spare nothing that their interests and their votes may be increased in the House of Commons. When will the workers learn and act upon this truth?’ The circular, remarking that the Minimum Wage Act was due for amendment in 1915, urged that the ‘discontent



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prevailing in Durham on these matters must be expressed, and a definite line of action agreed upon, so that we shall be in a position not only to give the public the facts, but to enforce our demands when the vital moment arrives’.184 By the end of April the new strategy had arrived. The resolution passed at a DFM conference at Horden on 25 April 1914, with forty-four of the ‘largest lodges in the County’ represented, made two demands: first, that minimum rates for all classes of mineworkers should be stated in the amended Act (datal men not less than 5s. per day and hewers not less than the county average); second, that surfaceworkers be included in the amended Minimum Wage and Eight Hours Acts (or in new legislation). Crucially, as a general election was also expected to precede any amendment of the Act in 1915, the resolution also called upon Durham miners not to vote for parliamentary candidates who refused to support these two demands.185 A DFM circular of June 1914 developed this strategy: ‘No Minimum Wages in the Act – No Vote!’ should be the motto of every worker in Durham at the general election. ... Now is our opportunity, and if we refuse to take it by making this the test question for our vote, then we deserve the inevitable results of umpires’ decisions. We can strike surer at the ballot box on this question than in any other way; therefore we say, ‘Strike’.186

Limiting the demands to two, long-standing themes rendered this strategy brilliant in its simplicity. Mass meetings at Crook and Spennymoor hammered this new strategy home. At Spennymoor on 11 July, Councillor B. Spoor argued that the miners needed the Labour Party and more political activity to secure national control of the mining industry (nationalisation, in other words); miners had to be represented in Parliament. The DFM followed up this meeting with another circular to lodges: ‘Real wages in a real Act’, calling for ‘real wages instead of abstract principles’. This again skilfully melded industrial and political forms of action, leaving no doubt as to where the DFM’s priority lay. The DFM was ‘pleased to note’ the emergence of the Triple Alliance of the miners, railwaymen and transport workers’ unions, for purposes of defence and attack. This is not merely necessary in the face of increasing strength of the employers’ forces, but also that when we fight we shall all fight – and, if necessary, suffer – together instead of one section fighting for its own hand, while another suffers in a context in which it has no direct interest. We trust this linking up of unions will continue until all workers in the Kingdom are organised on simple lines for swift and effective action.

But it sounded a word of caution, asking that when the trade unions had struck, ‘what is to prevent the government from repeating the miner’s strike experience?’ The result of that action, it pointed out, was ‘nothing more than wages boards and umpires’. In 1912, the employers controlled the House of Commons and shifted

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the battleground in their favour ‘because it is there we are weak’. The circular concluded that a ‘strong fighting industrial force is absolutely necessary but we refuse to blink at the fact that its effect can be damaged unless there is a strong fighting workers’ party in the House of Commons’.187 Thus, while maintaining the semblance of a continued dual industrial/political strategy, the DFM from April 1914 began placing major emphasis on parliamentary solutions effected by a strong Labour Party. The new strategy of urging miner voters to quiz their parliamentary candidates about the DFM’s demands over the minimum wage was brilliantly conceived. The DFM could be fairly sure that Labour candidates in Durham would provide the ‘correct’ (i.e. supportive) answers regarding the DFM’s demands; all Durham Labour candidates were, bar Robson, DFM leaders or activists. And even Robson seemed to be in tune (in some respects) with the other DMA parliamentary candidates by summer 1914. Speaking at Bowden Close in June (and in contradistinction to the DFM), Robson insisted that the political and industrial sides to their work must be kept ‘distinctly separate’. But he then emphasised that ‘if they wanted to progress they must bring their influence to bear on the ballot box’ and argued that the sooner the ‘farce’ of DMA agents ‘dual working’ as MPs was ended the better (he pledged to resign as an agent if elected an MP). Crucially, Robson concluded there was ‘only one great force in British politics as far as the working man was concerned and that was the ILP (applause)’ – and this in spite of his fractious and caustic relationship with the ILP leaders of the DFM.188 The DFM’s low expectations of a Liberal government that had refused to adopt any figures in the initial Minimum Wage Act seemed vindicated when, in March 1914, an MFGB deputation failed to convince Asquith to include the hitherto excluded surfaceworkers in the amended Minimum Wage Act.189 The picture was more complex at the local level as radical Liberals like the recently elected Tom Wing MP (Houghton-le-Spring) did seek to address some of their mining constituents’ central concerns. In April 1914, Wing even brought a Bill before Parliament to address ‘what is regarded as a great injustice by a large section of men employed on the surface at mines’, by reducing the working hours of enginemen, boilermen, and firemen (stokers) from twelve to eight per day.190 Nevertheless, unlike like the DFM parliamentary candidates he might face at election time, Wing was not an actual Durham miner who had spent years campaigning inside the union on precisely these issues. Other Liberal MPs responded as the movement expected. That the DFM’s new electoral strategy would be implemented and could well work was suggested by Oxhill lodge. In early July 1914, its secretary wrote to the local Liberal MP Aneurin Williams, asking his opinion on the DFM’s two demands of April 1914. Williams, son of a Middlesborough ironmaster, was similar to the man he replaced in NorthWest Durham, Atherley-Jones, in terms of his politics and career path. (He was also, incidentally, another champion of co-partnership).191 Yet, such was his disappointing response that an Oxhill lodge meeting of 16 July 1914 could only



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‘regret’ it and instruct the lodge secretary to write to him again. At around the same time, Oxhill was represented at the major DFM meetings and renewed its affiliation to a movement it had only joined relatively late (summer 1913).192 Conclusion In terms of timing, it was no coincidence that the emphasis in the DFM’s dual strategy shifted decisively towards the (parliamentary) political route after securing DMA institutional support for Labour in December 1913. With this institutional battle finally – and this time unequivocally – won, the next task was to find a mechanism to persuade DMA members to vote for Labour candidates. That those Labour candidates happened to be dominated by DFM activists made the need for an effective strategy for getting ordinary miners to vote Labour even more urgent for the movement. The result was a simple but effective-seeming solution, playing to the considerable strengths of the movement and its leading activists. Spring 1914 might well have marked something of a turning point in terms of Durham lodge support for Labour as well. As mentioned above, April 1914 saw Marsden lodge finally and unequivocally endorse its local LRC. Similarly, Hylton lodge, which supported the DFM in early 1914, voted to affiliate to its local Labour Party organisation in May 1914. In that same month, the Northumberland minerssponsored Bill to abolish the three-shift system, promoted by Conservative Lord Willoughby de Broke, failed.193 Rather than shake the miners’ widespread faith in parliamentary action, every failure of legislation in the current parliament to deal with the Durham miners’ grievances served simply to boost the DFM’s case for the urgent need of more Labour MPs representing Durham (and other) miners. Revolutionary George Harvey wrote in September 1910: ‘Send us to parliament and we will emancipate you; we will do things for you’. Such is the cry of the Labour leaders and of the aspiring ‘Socialist’ legislators of the ILP and SDP [Social Democratic Party]. Summed up this cry means that political action is sufficient to emancipate the working class. It is a denial of the function of the union.194

By summer 1914 the ILP activists, through the DFM, had come to approximately this political position. But in the interim they had demonstrated through the rank-and-file movements that they were very far from denying the significant function of the union. By August 1914, the DFM, its leaders and its politics were in a strong position. Four DFM activists elected as DMA parliamentary candidates had specific seats to contest. James Gilliland was to take over in ‘safe’ Chester-le-Street, and the DMA’s political sub-committee was remarkably enthusiastic about its candidates’ prospects at Houghton-le-Spring (W.P. Richardson) and South Shields (Jos

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Batey).195 On hearing that Lawson had been appointed as North-West Durham prospective parliamentary candidate, one of Lawson’s Ruskin tutors told him, ‘I always thought the Durham miners were sensible people and now I am sure of it’.196 The DMA’s resources were now starting to be brought to bear in terms of practical groundwork for their (unambiguously) Labour parliamentary candidates, albeit in fewer constituencies than some of the more optimistic DFM activists would have liked. In terms of popular attitudes within the DMA membership, the 1914 gala’s choice of speakers revealed that Labour was not all-conquering just yet. Lloyd George’s name was among the four top choice speakers, though he was unable to attend.197 While this gala vote was the result of the disproportionate lodge voting allocation (which the DFM had failed to address), Lloyd George’s presence on the list was still representative of a stubborn minority element of Liberal support (for the ‘new’, ‘centrist’ and Gladstonian forms) within lodge leaderships and among the DMA’s members, represented by individuals like Charles Wilson, the so-called ‘pitman poet’ from the Willington area.198 Still, when Jim Larkin urged the gala crowd to, ‘for God’s sake’, let Labour ‘be independent and not connected with the flabby vindictive Liberal Party’ in July 1914, he was almost certainly voicing the opinion of a majority of DMA rank-and-file members, a state of affairs attributable in no small measure to the campaigns of the ILP-led rank-and-file movements.199 Notes 1 Stanley News, 15 August 1913. 2 Mooted DFM meetings with no extant press reports are confirmed by their presence in lodge minutes (referenced here). DRO, D/DMA 17/81/3, Oxhill lodge, 20 November 1913; DRO, D/DMA 327/5, Marsden lodge, joint meetings, 7 December 1913; D/DMA 327/6, joint meeting, 14 June 1914; Durham Chronicle, 23 May 1913; 12 June 1914; 17 July 1914; 7 August 1914; Stanley News, 26 June 1913; 15, 22 August 1913; 31 October 1913; 14, 28 November 1913; 10, 24 April 1914; 15 May 1914; 18 June 1914; Chester-le-Street Chronicle, 27 June 1913; 17 October 1913; 3 April 1914; 31 July 1914; Evening Chronicle, 18 November 1913; Newcastle Journal, 27 April 1914. 3 Durham Chronicle, 23 May 1913. 4 Durham Chronicle, 25 July 1913. 5 Durham Chronicle, 25 July 1913. 6 Gregory, R., The Miners and British Politics, 1906–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 70. 7 Durham Chronicle, 27 January 1911. 8 DRO, D/DMA 12b, DMA membership by lodge (1912); DRO, D/DMA 327/3, Marsden lodge, joint meetings, 10, 17 December 1911; 9 June 1912; D/DMA 327/4, joint meetings, 5 September 1912; 6, 27 October 1912; 8 December 1912; D/DMA 327/5, joint meetings, 8 June 1913; 6 July 1913; 9, 23 November 1913.



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9 DRO, D/DMA 327/5, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 23 November 1913; committee meeting, 6 December 1913. 10 DRO, D/DMA 327/3, Marsden lodge, special committee meeting, 10 January 1912; committee meeting, 20 January 1912; D/DMA 327/4, committee meeting, 1 February 1913. 11 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 22 March 1913. 12 PGAD, LAW 2/1/14/1, William Lawson letter to Jack Lawson, 21 October 1912. 13 Durham Chronicle, 15 August 1913. 14 Durham Chronicle, 15 August 1913. 15 Stanley News, 15 August 1913. 16 Stanley News, 15 August 1913. 17 Stanley News, 15 August 1913. 18 Stanley News, 15 August 1913. 19 Stanley News, 15 August 1913. 20 Durham Chronicle, 29 December 1911. 21 Socialist, June 1913. 22 Walker, G., ‘George Harvey: the conflict between the ideology of industrial unionism and the practice of its principles in the Durham coalfield’ (MA thesis, Ruskin College, 1982), p. 39. 23 DRO, D/DMA 327/5, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 8 June 1913; 16, 23 November 1913. See, for example, the exchanges between Harvey and others in Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 14, 16, 18, 20, 21, 23, 27 November 1911; 1 December 1911. 24 Quail, J., The Slow Burning Fuse: The Lost History of British Anarchists (Paladin, 1978), p. 278. 25 Freedom, May 1913. 26 Freedom, July 1913; September 1913; Stanley News, 19 September 1913; Blaydon Courier, 20 September 1913. 27 Holton, R.J., ‘Syndicalism and its impact in Britain with particular reference to Merseyside, 1910–1914’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Sussex, 1971), pp. 590–591. 28 Holton, thesis, p. 611. 29 Freedom, September 1913. 30 NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/38, DMA executive, 11 February 1913; 23 March 1914; 28 April 1914; Durham Chronicle, 31 July 1914. 31 Durham Chronicle, 15 August 1913; 28 November 1913; Stanley News, 10, 31 October 1913; The Times, 3 November 1913. 32 NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, Wilson’s monthly circular, January 1914. 33 DRO, D/DMA 17/81/3, Oxhill lodge, ordinary meeting, 6 November 1913. See, for example, letters on Romer’s award in the Evening Chronicle, 21, 25, 28 October 1913, 1, 3, 4, 6 November 1913. 34 The Times, 3 November 1913. 35 Stanley News, 14 November 1913. 36 Stanley News, 31 October 1913; Durham Chronicle, 28 November 1913. 37 Durham Chronicle, 15 August 1913. 38 Durham Chronicle, 31 October 1913. 39 DRO, NCB I/CO 86/671, ‘Annual return DCOA stoppages caused by disputes 1913’; TWAS, T148/1, copy letters regarding unofficial minimum wage strike at Chopwell, superintendent at Felling to chief constable of Durham, 23 November 1913–15 December 1913; NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, Wilson’s monthly circular,

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The Great Labour Unrest January 1914; Durham Chronicle, 31 October 1913; Stanley News, 31 October 1913; Manchester Guardian, 9 December 1913. Stanley News, 28 November 1913. Stanley News, 28 November 1913. NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, Wilson’s monthly circular, January 1914. Baylies, C.L., The History of the Yorkshire Miners, 1881–1918 (Routledge, 1993), pp. 390–396. TWAS, T148/1, copy letters regarding unofficial minimum wage strike at Heworth, superintendent at Felling to chief constable of Durham, 17 and 18 June 1914; NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/38, DMA executive, 25 November 1913; 2 December 1913; NUMDA/1/6/39, DMA executive, 2 February 1914; 11 March 1914; 7 April 1914; 28 May 1914; 17 June 1914; Heslop’s Local Advertiser, 17 July 1914. DRO, NCB I/CO 86/671; 88/683, annual returns DCOA stoppages caused by disputes, 1913 and 1914. The Times, 22 April 1913. NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, Wilson’s monthly circular, January 1914; Socialist, February, March and April 1910; Durham Chronicle, 15 March 1912; 26 July 1912; 18 July 1913; The Times, 10 September 1912. NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/38, DMA annual meeting programme, 20–24 December 1913. NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/38, DMA annual meeting programme, 20–24 December 1913; Durham Chronicle, 17 May 1912; Stanley News, 17 October 1913. NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, Wilson’s monthly circular, January 1914. NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/38, DMA annual meeting programme, 20–24 December 1913. Durham Chronicle, 22 August 1913. Evening Chronicle, 27 May 1912. Evening Chronicle, 16 December 1912. Socialist, August 1910. Durham Chronicle, 24 May 1912. Stanley News, 31 October 1912. Tanner, D., Political Change and the Labour Party 1900–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 206. Tanner, Political Change, p. 209. Tanner, Political Change, p. 208. Atherley-Jones, L.A., ‘The new liberalism’, Nineteenth Century (August 1889), p. 187. Nicholls, D., The Lost Prime Minister: A Life of Sir Charles Dilke (Hambledon Press, 1995), p. 253. Durham Chronicle, 9 February 1900. Durham miners’ gala list of speakers, available at www.dmm.org.uk/history/gala. htm (accessed 4 July 2015); Ashton, O.R., R. Fyson and S. Roberts, The Chartist Legacy (Rendlesham: Merlin Press, 1999), p. 268. Durham Chronicle, 30 July 1897. Freeden, M., The New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social Reform (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 26–27, 145–146, 196–198; Emy, H.V., Liberals, Radicals and Social Politics 1892–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 47–49. Atherley-Jones, L.A., ‘The story of the Labour Party’, Nineteenth Century and After (October 1906), p. 585. Durham Chronicle, 1 November 1907.



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69 Emy, Liberals, p. 186. 70 House of Commons Debates, 10 December 1908, vol. 198, col. 850. 71 House of Commons Debates, 10 December 1908, vol. 198, col. 850; 11 December 1908, vol. 198, cols 942–1098. 72 Durham Chronicle, 15 July 1910. 73 House of Commons Debates, 17 March 1911, vol. 22, cols 2665–2668. 74 The Times, 24 November 1911. 75 Blaydon Courier, 2 March 1912. 76 House of Commons Debates, 21 March 1912, vol. 35, cols 2147–2148. 77 House of Commons Debates, 21 March 1912, vol. 35, col. 2149; 22 March 1912, vol. 35, cols 2267–2269; Emy, Liberals, p. 261. 78 House of Commons Debates, 21 March 1912, vol. 35, col. 2148. 79 Blaydon Courier, 27 April 1912; 11 May 1912. 80 House of Commons Debates, 21 March 1912, vol. 35, col. 2148. 81 House of Commons Debates, 21 March 1912, vol. 35, col. 2149; 22 March 1912, vol. 35, cols 2267–2269; Emy, Liberals, p. 261. 82 Blaydon Courier, 2 March 1912. 83 See, for example, Atherley-Jones’ letter to the Blaydon Courier, 2 March 1912. 84 DRO, D/DMA 17/51/11, Hamsteels lodge, full meeting, 22 February 1911. 85 NRO, 759/B/7, MFGB special conference, 10–11 December 1913, pp. 107–111. 86 NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/38, DMA executive, 28 October 1913; 19 November 1913; Durham Chronicle, 31 October 1913; 10 April 1914; The Times, 3 November 1913. 87 Durham Chronicle, 10 April 1914. 88 Newcastle Journal, 27 April 1914. 89 Durham Chronicle, 10 May 1912; 10 April 1914; 12 June 1914. 90 Evening Chronicle, 28, 31 October 1913; 1, 18 November 1913; Durham Chronicle, 5 December 1913. 91 NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, DMA, ‘Nominations of representatives at Miners’ Federation conference’ (2 February 1914); ‘Nominations of representatives for TUC’; ‘Nominees for parliamentary candidates’ (27 February 1914); ‘Election of executive committee first time’; ‘Election of Federation Board representatives’ (14 July 1914). 92 TWAS, T148/1 copy letters, superintendent at Felling to chief constable of Durham, 11 June 1914 (p. 367) and 10 July 1914 (p. 451). 93 TWAS, T148/1 copy letters, superintendent at Felling to chief constable of Durham, 27 December 1913 (p. 71). 94 TWAS, T148/1 copy letters, superintendent at Felling to chief constable of Durham, 27 December 1913 (p. 71). 95 Freedom, May 1914. 96 Freedom, May 1914; Evening Chronicle, 13 April 1914. 97 Smith, R., ‘Obituary article: Sir William Lawther’, Bulletin of the North-East Group for the Study of Labour History, 10 (1976), p. 33; Avrich, P., The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2006), p. 263. 98 Blaydon Courier, 20 September 1913; 18 October 1913. 99 NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/38, DMA executive, 29 September 1913; DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 18 October 1913. 100 Stanley News, 2 January 1914. 101 NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, ‘Gala speakers’, 1914. (n.d.)

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102 Evening Chronicle, 11 March 1914; Stanley News, 13 March 1914; Holton, thesis, p. 610. 103 Durham Chronicle, 31 July 1914. 104 Durham Chronicle, 31 July 1914. 105 National Library, Dublin (NLD), William O’Brien mss, MS 15679(1), Harry Bolton letter to Jim Larkin, 19 July 1914. 106 Syndicalist and Amalgamation News, 3:2, February 1914. 107 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA council, 18 October 1913. 108 Durham Chronicle, 5 September 1913. 109 DRO, D/DMA 327/4, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 8 September 1912; 6, 27 October 1912; D/DMA 327/5, joint meetings, 8 June 1913; 5, 19 October 1913; 16, 23 November 1913. 110 DRO, D/DMA 17/81/3, Oxhill lodge, ordinary meeting, 6 November 1913. 111 DRO, D/X 1118/2, Washington Glebe lodge, general meeting, 17 September 1913. 112 Holton, B., British Syndicalism 1900–1914: Myths and Realities (Pluto, 1976), p. 169. 113 Church, R.A., and Q. Outram, Strikes and Solidarity: Coalfield Conflict in Britain, 1889–1966 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 62, 68. 114 Brown, G., Sabotage! (Nottingham: Spokesman, 1977), pp. 23–40. 115 Douglass, D., ‘The Durham pitman’, in R. Samuel (ed.), Miners, Quarrymen and Salt Workers (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), pp. 246–266. 116 Bantman C., and D. Berry, ‘Introduction’, in D. Berry and C. Bantman (eds), New Perspectives on Anarchism, Labour and Syndicalism (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), p. 12. 117 Holton, British Syndicalism, p. 20. 118 Holton, British Syndicalism, pp. 78–84. 119 See Davies, D.K., ‘The influence of syndicalism, and industrial unionism, in the South Wales coalfield 1898–1921: a study in ideology and practice’(Ph.D. thesis, University of Wales, 1991), p. 6; S. Macintyre, ‘Some recent labour history’, Historical Journal, 22:3 (1979), pp. 724–725; Hinton, J., review of Holton, British Syndicalism in Labour History Review, 34 (1977), pp. 10–11; Darlington, R., Syndicalism and the Transition to Communism: An International Comparative Analysis (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), p. 156. 120 Darlington, Syndicalism, pp. 155–157. 121 NRO, 759/B/5, MFGB annual conference, 4 October 1911; DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA annual meeting, 20, 22–24 December 1913. 122 DRO, D/DMA 17/81/3, Oxhill lodge, ordinary meetings, 16 July 1910; 6 November 1913; general meeting, 6 July 1911; committee meeting, 2 January 1912; special meeting, 10 April 1912; DRO, D/DMA 17/3/1, Andrew’s House lodge, general meetings, 24 December 1910; 7 January 1911; 28 December 1911; 1 May 1913; special meeting, 4 May 1913. 123 Davies, thesis, p. 7. 124 Davies, thesis, p. 71; Holton, British Syndicalism, pp. 80–85, 112, 119–120; Davies, P., A.J. Cook (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987), p. 17. 125 LHASC, CP/CENT/PERS/1/01, Tom Aisbitt biography by Horace Green; Mates, L.H., The Spanish Civil War and the British Left: Political Activism and the Popular Front (I.B. Tauris, 2007), passim. 126 Holton, thesis, p. 612. 127 Egan, D., ‘The Unofficial Reform Committee and the Miners’ Next Step’, Llafur 2:3 (1978), p. 10; Holton, British Syndicalism, p. 79; Davies, thesis, pp. 36–52; Walters, R.,



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133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150

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‘Trade union questions were now political questions’ 267 ‘Labour productivity in the South Wales steam coal industry, 1870–1914’, Economic History Review, 28:2 (1975), pp. 280–303; Davies, Cook, pp. 3–8; Daunton, M.J., ‘Down the pit: work in the Great Northern and South Wales coalfields, 1870–1914’, Economic History Review, 34:4 (1981), pp. 578–597. Macintyre, S., A Proletarian Science: Marxism in Britain 1917–1933 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 81–85. Newcastle Journal, 16 March 1955. Plebs (National Council of Labour Colleges), 1911. Newcastle Journal, 11 March 1955. Walker, thesis, passim; Douglass, ‘Durham pitman’, p. 288; Challinor, R., ‘Jack Parks, memories of a militant’, Bulletin of the North-East Group for the Study of Labour History, 9 (1975), p. 37; Challinor, R., The Origins of British Bolshevism (Croom Helm, 1977), pp. 116–118. NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, lists of nominees, 1914. Holton, thesis, pp. 606–608. Blaydon Courier, 19 October 1912. White, J., ‘Syndicalism in a mature industrial setting: the case of Great Britain’, in M. van der Linden and W. Thorpe (eds), Revolutionary Syndicalism: An International Perspective (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1990), p. 113. Quail, Slow Burning Fuse, p. 261. Durham Chronicle, 31 May 1912; Blaydon Courier, 1 June 1912; 19 October 1912; White, ‘Syndicalism’, p. 112; Holton, British Syndicalism, pp. 142–143. Davies, thesis, pp. 66, 72; Davies, Cook, p. 10. Davies, K., ‘Rival prophets? William Ferris Hay, Noah Ablett and the debate over working-class political action in the South Wales coalfield, 1910–1914’, Llafur 3&4 (1999), pp. 89–100. Blaydon Courier, 1 June 1912. Holton, British Syndicalism, p. 119. Challinor, British Bolshevism, pp. 118–121. Evening Chronicle, 23 February 1914; Howell, D., ‘Taking syndicalism seriously’, Socialist History, 16 (2000), p. 29; Davies, thesis, p. 128. Holton, thesis, pp. 606–608; Davies, ‘Rival prophets?’, pp. 89–100. Durham Chronicle, 25 August 1911; 1 September 1911; 1 March 1912; 12 April 1912. See, for example, Herald of Revolt, February 1913. Holton, thesis, pp. 606–607; Holton, British Syndicalism, pp. 120–121; Davies, Cook, pp. 17–19. Stanley News, 17 October 1913. DRO, D/X 1118/2, Washington Glebe lodge, committee meetings, 19 March 1913; 26 November 1913; DRO, D/DMA 327/4, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 16 March 1913; D/DMA 327/5, joint meetings, 10 August 1913; 19 August 1913; 30 November 1913. NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/38, DMA executive, 5 April 1913; 6 May 1913; 29 September 1913; 11 November 1913; NUMDA/1/6/39, DMA annual meeting, 20, 22–24 December 1913; Durham Chronicle, 19 December 1913. DRO, D/DMA 327/5, Marsden lodge, committee meeting, 17 January 1914; D/ DMA 327/6, joint meeting, 24 May 1914; committee meeting, 4 July 1914; DRO, D/ DMA 17 61 2, Hylton lodge, general meetings, 15 January 1914; 6, 12 February 1914; committee meetings, 26 February 1914; 12 March 1914; 3 June 1914.

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153 NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/38, DMA annual meeting programme for 20–24 December 1913. 154 NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/38, DMA annual meeting programme for 20–24 December 1913. 155 Howell, D., ‘The ideology of Labourism’, in D. Howell, D. Kirby and K. Morgan (eds), Commitment and History: Themes from the Life and Work of a Socialist Historian (Lawrence and Wishart, 2011), p. 186. 156 Stanley News, 15 August 1913. 157 Durham Chronicle, 15 March 1912; 29 May 1914. 158 DRO, D/DMA 327/3, Marsden lodge, joint meetings, 26 May 1912; 16, 30 June 1912; D/DMA 327/5, joint meetings, 14 December 1913, 11, 25 January 1914; 15 February 1914; committee meeting, 17 January 1914; D/DMA 327/6, committee meeting, 14 March 1914; joint meeting, 15 March 1914; full meeting, 30 April 1914; Howell, D., British Workers and the Independent Labour Party 1888–1906 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983), p. 45. 159 DRO, D/X 1118/2, Washington Glebe lodge, committee meetings, 15, 29 October 1913; special meeting, 18 February 1914; general meetings, 12, 26 November 1913; 29 April 1914. 160 Durham Chronicle, 23 August 1912. 161 Gregory, Miners, p. 96. 162 House of Commons Debates, 22 March 1912, vol. 35, cols 2267–2269. 163 Lawson, J., A Man’s Life (Hodder and Stoughton, 1944), pp. 109–110. 164 Tanner, Political Change, p. 217. 165 Gregory, Miners, p. 80; Tanner, Political Change, p. 206. 166 DRO, D/DMA 17/81/3, Oxhill lodge, ordinary meetings, 31 August 1911; 30 January 1913; 27 February 1913; 13 March 1913; 8 May 1913; 4 December 1913; 23 April 1914; special meetings, 4 April 1912; 3 March 1913; Durham Chronicle, 24, 31 January 1913; 7 February 1913. 167 Tanner, Political Change, p. 206. 168 DRO, D/DMA 327/4, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 1 December 1912; DRO, D/ DMA 327/5, joint meetings, 10 August 1913; 9, 23 November 1913; 25 January 1914; 19, 26 April 1914; 7, 17 May 1914. 169 DRO, D/DMA 327/3, Marsden lodge, committee meeting, 20 January 1912; joint meeting, 30 June 1912; DRO, D/DMA 327/5, joint meeting, 8 June 1913. 170 Marshall, C., ‘Levels of industrial militancy and the political radicalisation of the Durham miners, 1885–1914’ (MA thesis, Durham University, 1976), pp. 195, 203– 208, 326–328. 171 Durham Chronicle, 14, 21 March 1913. 172 Tanner, Political Change, p. 220. 173 Durham Chronicle, 14 March 1913. 174 Tanner, Political Change, p. 205; Gregory, Miners, pp. 79–81. 175 BLPES, ILP/4/1913/273, Francis Johnson letter to J. Keir Hardie, 25 November 1913; ILP/4/1913/289, R. Smillie letter to W.E. Moll, 1 December 1913; ILP/4/1913/290, Francis Johnson letter to W.E. Moll, 3 December 1913; ILP/4/1913/291, T. Richardson letter to Francis Johnson, 3 December 1913. 176 Tanner, Political Change, p. 220; Gregory, Miners, p. 80. 177 Pelling, H., Social Geography of British Elections 1885–1910 (Macmillan, 1967), pp. 336–337. 178 NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, DMA executive, 6 January 1914.



‘Trade union questions were now political questions’ 269

179 NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, DMA council, 22 August 1914. 180 Childs, M., ‘Labour grows up: the electoral system, political generations, and British politics 1890–1929’, Twentieth Century British History, 6:2 (1995), pp. 123–125. 181 Moore, R., Pit-Men, Preachers and Politics: The Effects of Methodism in a Durham Mining Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), p. 168. 182 Marshall, thesis, pp. 306–309, 333. 183 Durham Chronicle, 10 April 1914 (my emphasis). 184 Durham Chronicle, 10 April 1914. 185 Newcastle Journal, 27 April 1914. 186 Evening Chronicle, 4 June 1914. 187 Durham Chronicle, 7 August 1914. 188 Durham Chronicle, 3 July 1914. 189 NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, Wilson’s monthly circular, March 1914; Durham Chronicle, 10 April 1914. 190 House of Commons Debates, 14 April 1914, vol. 61, cols 31–33. 191 See Dackombe, B., ‘A fine and disinterested spirit: the life and activities of Aneurin Williams’, Journal of Liberal History, 57 (2007), pp. 34–41. 192 DRO, D/DMA 17/81/4, Oxhill lodge, ordinary meetings, 2, 16, 30 July 1914. 193 Coal Mines (Northumberland): A Bill to Restrict Work in Coal Mines to Certain Hours of the Day (HMSO, 1914); House of Lords Debates, 1 April 1914, vol. 15, col. 874; DRO, D/DMA 17/61/2, Hylton lodge, ordinary meetings, 17 April 1914; 13 June 1914; special meeting, 10 May 1914; committee meeting, 12 August 1914; Stanley News, 10 April 1914; 28 May 1914. 194 Socialist, September 1910. 195 NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, DMA council, 22 August 1914; Wilson’s monthly circular, June 1914; Purdue, A.W., ‘The ILP in the North East of England’, in D. James, J.A. Jowitt and K. Laybourn (eds), The Centennial History of the Independent Labour Party: A Collection of Essays (Halifax: Ryburn, 1992), pp. 17–42, pp. 22, 33. 196 PGAD, LAW 2/1/15, H. Sanderson Furniss letter to Jack Lawson, 10 April 1914. 197 NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, ‘Gala speakers, 1914’, n.d. Thus Lancaster’s evidence about the 1914 gala speakers consisting entirely of Labour men is misleading. Lancaster, B., ‘The rise of Labour’, Labour History Review, 57:3 (1992), p. 99. 198 Mates, L.H., ‘Charles Wilson, the pitman’s poet’, in K. Gildart and D. Howell (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 13 (Palgrave, 2010), pp. 372–381. 199 Durham Chronicle, 31 July 1914.

7 Conclusion

John Wilson finally died in March 1915. T.H. Cann, the next most senior agent, was promoted to general secretary of the DMA, and Galbraith, with an eye to Wilson’s now-vacant safe parliamentary seat, resigned as agent in order to stand for Mid-Durham as an out-and-proud Liberal. This left two vacancies among the DMA’s agents. Considering how high the immediate pre-war political profile of the leading DFM activists was, it was little surprise that Richardson and Batey, two of Wilson’s fiercest DFM critics, became agents. They were the first to be elected on a ballot of all DMA members, one of the rule changes they had helped to bring about through the DFM. Lawson, too, would have been a prime contender for one of these posts, had he not gone to war. His volunteering to fight certainly suggests that his leading involvement in the rank-and-file movements was motivated much more by ideology than it was by pragmatic self-promotion.1 Batey had been a thorn in Wilson’s side since the 1890s, a leading long-term activist in the ILP’s campaigns against various manifestations of Wilson’s liberal politics and economics. Batey had managed to weather the storm of 1910, emerging with his reputation apparently unscathed even though his signature had been appended to the Eight Hours Agreement itself. Nevertheless, the turmoil and struggle of 1910 had had a disorienting effect on the radical lodge alliance which Batey had played such a major part in nurturing, at least since the turn of the century. The eight-hour day policy in general had not helped, and likely hindered, the ILP’s advance among Durham’s miners, most of whom suspected it would mean a longer working day – a fear that, fostered by the coal owners, the DMA leaders did nothing to dispel. In contrast to Batey, W.P. Richardson was a relative newcomer among the frontranking ILP leaders of the Durham miners and clearly owed his election in 1915 – particularly noteworthy as he had been accorded the ‘unusual honour’ of going straight from the coalface to the agent’s office without first being a checkweighman – to his leadership of the rank-and-file movements from summer 1911.2 Indeed, prior involvement in the DFM seemed to become an informal requirement for an official position as, after 1915, the next three agents – Peter Lee (1919), John Swan (1923) and James Gilliland (1925) – were all former DFM activists. While all three

Conclusion 271 (unlike W.P. Richardson) had been among the forty-four nominees for the agent’s position in January 1911, they had still raised their profile considerably since then (albeit with Lee still remaining fairly peripheral in the rank-and-file movements). All had managed to leapfrog higher-profile candidates who were not noticeably active in the rank-and-file movements and who had consequently dropped out of the running for agent positions after 1911. A rule amendment that no DMA agent could be an MP simultaneously, another earlier DFM aim, was also eventually passed, precipitating a higher turnover of agents. This served to accelerate the process of DFM activists colonising the DMA’s full-time positions. In 1934, Will Lawther was elected an agent; being a revolutionary critic of the pre-war DFM seemed only to have slightly delayed his career progress (and Lawther was, in any case, a few years younger than DFM leaders like Lawson). Naturally, the DFM fostered political careers too; Batey became an MP (in 1922, taking Galbraith’s vacated seat), as did Lawson (Chester-le-Street, 1919) and Robert Richardson (Houghton-le-Spring, 1918); Swan was briefly MP (for Barnard Castle, 1918), as was Herriotts (for Sedgefield, 1922–1923 and 1928–1931).3 But the post-1911 rank-and-file movements held much more significance than merely serving as a vehicle for the promotion of certain activists. The minimum wage offered, firstly, a new energising campaign to get the Durham ILP out of the political doldrums, the confusing and debilitating inertia that had been brought about by the complexities of how the Eight Hours Act was applied in the coalfield from January 1910 (in the Eight Hours Agreement) to proliferate the three-shift system, despised by many but, crucially, not all Durham miners. The radical lodge alliance, built up informally in the preceding decade, was splintered by the Agreement. Some significant radical lodges did not protest at it, instead supporting the agents in their time of trial. Others did strike, and protested at the three-shift system consistently, but still did not harness this anger as a weapon against the agents; had they done so, the agents were unlikely to have retained their positions. A third grouping of lodges changed its mind over the Agreement, moving from opposition to support by autumn 1911. Only a fourth group of radical lodges adopted a more consistent approach: striking in 1910, rejecting the three-shift system and attacking the agents for agreeing to it without lodge consent (see Chapter 3). The minimum wage, re-energised and evangelised by the South Wales miners in summer 1911, offered the Durham ILP a promising way of galvanising a mass rank-and-file movement, welding together once again the fragmented radical lodge alliance and bringing more lodges and miners into active support. Indeed, the rank-and-file movement leaders of 1911 onwards, like Lawson, Bainbridge and W.P. Richardson, were newcomers to the forefront of radical lodge politics, bringing new lodges into the alliance as well as recasting its form, with the smaller lodges of generally older collieries now taking the lead. The rejuvenating properties of the minimum wage campaign were evident at the individual level too. Batey and John Swan were the two lodge representative

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signatories of the Eight Hours Agreement who went on to reach the highest positions before August 1914 (other than Robson). They did so for positive reasons: their involvement in the MWM from summer 1911. Their success contrasted with a third long-standing front-ranking ILP activist who signed the 1910 Agreement, John Storey. While Storey was still elected to central DMA positions after 1910, his diminishing prominence must have been related strongly to his negative attitude to the minimum wage and his consequent absence from the campaigns to achieve it. The younger ILP leaders like Lawson and Richardson also brought new energy and ideas with them, and spearheaded a movement that severely undermined, as never before, the apparently rock-solid foundations on which both economic and political liberalism was built in the Durham coalfield. On the economic side, the minimum wage, as in many other British coalfields, posed a potent ideological challenge to liberal economics, and particularly notions of an apparently unbreakable bond between coal prices and wages. Lawson and other ILP activists took on the task of winning converts to the minimum wage. Their success, gained through energetic agitation, was measured in Durham’s two-thirds majority vote for a minimum wage in March 1912 and a second two-thirds vote in favour of a better deal than that offered by the government’s Minimum Wage Act in April. These two 1912 votes revealed that the theoretical link between wages and coal prices had been broken. This was a truly monumental achievement in a coalfield where liberal economics were as engrained in the local wage negotiating machinery as they were in the minds of most Durham miners, as well as their Liberal leaders. In spite of the problems ILP activists faced in terms of articulating a consistent and inclusive appeal, they still forged and maintained an impressive degree of solidarity in a highly stratified workforce between those who did and did not stand to benefit from the actual minimum wage. They had managed to build an effective (politically) Durham miner identity, in the teeth of the continued hostility of the DMA’s Liberal-dominated leadership and unsympathetic (at best) and scaremongering (at worst) local press. By helping to create this two-thirds’ majority, the socialists had denied Wilson the opportunity that, given his record, he would surely have taken, to avoid involvement in the MFGB’s national strike on the issue. Thanks to the ILP, Durham’s breaking of MFGB solidarity in 1893 was not to be repeated in 1912. Before 1907, the minimum wage was apparently a reason for Durham to stay out of the MFGB. By 1912, it had become a reason to be involved, even though the Federation’s securing of the minimum wage in principle unavoidably (due to the diversity among the district unions it represented) failed to meet all the Durham rank-and-file movement’s demands. Subsequent Miners’ Federation interventions against Romer’s almost perversely ungenerous interpretation of the national legislation further demonstrated the benefits of affiliation to Durham’s miners. With the minimum wage, the MFGB was able to redeem itself from the negative connotations attached to its advocacy of the eight-hour day; those who had long

Conclusion 273 argued for Durham’s affiliation to the Federation – ILP activists for the most part – could now enjoy a degree of vindication. The majority votes over national strike action in 1912 represented one stage of development. The efforts of activists to make the minimum wage one worth having (i.e. considerably more than 5s.6d. per day for hewers offered by Romer in May 1912) and to extend it to all workers in and around the mines allowed for more effective propaganda. That the ILP activists subsequently developed and consolidated their movement after the minimum wage was won was testament to the further undermining of the Wilson–liberal economic hegemony before the outbreak of war. They were aided in this task by their recalcitrant opponents. Lawson claimed that the movement’s 7s. minimum demand was ‘not exactly the millennium’.4 Yet such a demand appeared to represent exactly that, for both Durham coal owners and DMA officials alike. Wilson’s unequivocal and unfaltering opposition to the minimum wage allowed ILP activists to draw a clearer ideological distinction between themselves and him, simultaneously undermining his position (and allowing him to discredit himself). Certainly, the suggestion that Durham miners’ traditional economic liberalism was maintained largely unchallenged and unaltered throughout this period is demonstrably false. Wilson’s oppositional stance to the Durham ILP’s energetic advocacy of the minimum wage revealed just how autocratic, as well as (crucially for a trade union leader) increasingly out of touch and unsympathetic he was to the majority of his members’ interests. Similarly, the Durham coal owners, in first resisting the minimum wage fiercely and then, when it became law, in seeking various devious means to avoid paying it, demonstrated quite clearly that they did not regard their interests and those of their workers as mutually constitutive. The majority of miners now felt the minimum wage was their entitlement, and (many of) the owners’ actions threw even more doubt on Wilson’s ‘shared interests’ shibboleths. Romer and the minimum wage machinery of the JDB also provoked considerable disquiet among Durham miners, though the extent to which this then transferred onto the Liberal government – whose legislation had refused to include any explicit minimum wage figures (not even the ‘5 and 2’), established the district boards and, more specifically, appointed Romer in Durham – was not clear. Given the experience of the minimum wage after it was established in Durham, it seems unlikely that the Liberal government garnered much political capital in the County as a result of its legislative role; the DFM’s argument that more Labour MPs would have secured a better minimum wage law seemed tenable, if not immediately provable. More generally, the Liberal government had antagonised Durham miners over more than the minimum wage. The Eight Hours Act, of course, provoked all kinds of problems; then there was the doctors’ fees controversy, a by-product of the National Insurance legislation; the Mining Regulation Act stimulated widespread anger, particularly towards the compulsory use of pithead baths. Many Durham miners thought the owners regarded these baths as a cheap option instead of

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(rather than as well as) including bathrooms in all new colliery housing.5 Of course, the national legislation’s impact and consequent levels of popularity differed widely among the very varied conditions in Britain’s diverse coalfields. But, as with the minimum wage itself, credible arguments were readily mounted that better legislation more attuned to the needs of Durham miners could come about with a greater Labour representation in Parliament. The impact of much of this national legislation also played a major (and hitherto under-appreciated) role in the increasing industrial unrest in Durham from 1910. The three-shift system and later minimum wage were the direct or indirect causes of massive numbers of local disputes in these years as they served to speed up or intensify work pace, reduce job control and, combined with increasingly popular discourses about high coal owners’ profits contrasting with sluggish or stagnating wages, contributed to a sense of growing relative deprivation. High levels of employment (itself partly a consequence of the demand for labour brought about by the three-shift system) and unionisation (in part achieved by the specific and concerted efforts of trade unionists) also, of course, contributed.6 Regardless of this, Romer’s actual awards, and the obstructive behaviour of some major coal owners, certainly helped to push ordinary miners towards the arguments of Durham ILP activists, even though their rank-and-file movements around the minimum wage struggled to make their demands felt effectively for the most part and, as a consequence, had a poor record in terms of actual material gains. Indeed, the very intransigence and opposition of the owners, Romer and Wilson (along with their effective use of the DMA’s rules and machinery to stifle dissent) that meant the DFM failed to exert palpable influence, also played into the ILP’s hands. It galvanised the activists who might have given up on a project that seemed incapable of delivering in the immediate term, encouraging them to adopt a more militant and aggressive rhetoric. And, secondly, it also forced them to widen the movement’s aims, to promote the democratisation of the DMA and, perhaps even more importantly, to move increasingly into the party political arena. The consequences of both these developments were crucial. The ILP-led rank-and-file movements were not only integral to explaining liberalism’s weakening grip on the minds of Durham miners. In adopting a militant rhetoric, and endorsing aspects of a syndicalist programme (industrial unionism, industrial militancy, democratisation of trade unions, union amalgamations, various forms of industrial action other than striking, federating of unions and especially the Triple Alliance), ILP activists were able to sideline any putative syndicalist threat. Lloyd George claimed that socialists would act as the ‘policemen’ of the syndicalists; the younger Durham ILP activists did not police, rather they were the syndicalists’ (very successful, albeit slightly pale) imitators.7 They imitated the South Wales syndicalists who had brought the minimum wage message to Durham in 1911 and who had made the minimum wage a central part of their revolutionary syndicalist platform in The Miners’ Next Step. Like the

Conclusion 275 South Wales syndicalists, who assumed leadership positions in their coalfield movement, Durham ILP activists appealed to essentially the same disgruntled miners in Durham; and with more success, in some respects. Certainly, the ILP managed largely to monopolise the discontent, helping to ensure that a specifically revolutionary movement in Durham remained comparatively small. The party’s ideological heterogeneity in Durham meant that it could successfully blur the boundaries between itself and the syndicalists, thereby keeping many sympathetic to syndicalism (to varying degrees) in its ranks. Unlike elsewhere, the ILP did not suffer from defections to syndicalism; George Harvey and Will Lawther were significant (and, it turned out, relatively short-lived) exceptions. The ILP could achieve this in Durham because the syndicalists, before summer 1911, remained comparatively few in number. There was as yet no equivalent of the South Wales Unofficial Reform Committee, instead only George Harvey’s SLP grouping. Harvey had been at Ruskin as the same time as Lawson but was unable to emulate Lawson immediately in using contacts to secure a checkweighman position by 1910, and from there launch his career as a rank-and-file ILP leader. This was perhaps because Harvey had left the ILP for the rather more marginal SLP at Ruskin while Lawson had not (though of course Harvey was eventually elected a checkweighman, in 1913). Yet, while some longer-term contextual considerations and the agency of the ILP leaders of the rank-and-file movement made conditions less propitious for the syndicalists in the Durham coalfield than in South Wales, there remained considerable potential on the left. Crucially, the syndicalists needed to find a means of operating within the popular rank-and-file movements, all the while retaining a critical voice that could promote debate and facilitate further radicalisation. For this, some form of unity around a basic syndicalist platform was all the more important, given their smaller numbers (in comparison with South Wales). The DURM saw an attempt at unity in autumn 1912, but it was short lived and, in any case, never fully realised. Efforts to promote dialogue and debate were hobbled by the syndicalists for while George Harvey seemed keener to differentiate his politics from Lawther’s than to promote commonality, so Lawther simultaneously attacked the careerists of the DFM. Lawther’s possibilities were further curtailed by his principled anarchist refusal to stand for any elected office inside the DMA; this despite the doctors’ fees campaigns of spring 1913 suggesting that leading Chopwell DFM activists were still happy to work with him, in spite of the personal attacks he launched on their rank-and-file movement leaders. Harvey won the argument within the SLP to allow him to stand for trade union office, which in turn helped widen his influence in the coalfield. Yet the SLP’s dual unionism did not seem particularly relevant to the Durham coalfield, which had a very well-established union machine that was capable, as the DFM showed, of having its rules amended to further democratise it – albeit through an arduous and difficult process – if faced with concerted opposition from the top. Lawther seemed undecided on this vital question, as he was influenced by both the IWW’s

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dual unionism and the South Wales syndicalists’ ‘bore from within’ approach. Thus arbitrary factors, including poor timing and ill luck, were significant in explaining the limits of syndicalist influence in Durham. Also vital, however, was agency, in that both Harvey and Lawther’s politics (the precise forms of syndicalism they endorsed), and how they applied them (an inflexibility in interpreting either party diktats or the specifics of ideological positions) in various ways resulted in a praxis that inhibited the formation of a coherent but flexible revolutionary alternative to the ILP within the DMA. The case of syndicalism in the Durham coalfield thus presents something of a paradox. If understood as the discrete actions of actual Durham syndicalists, it is clear that, while their achievements were real and important (establishing active propaganda groupings, Lawther’s Anarchist Club and Harvey’s personal standing), and their influence out of all proportion to their small numbers, they still remained on the periphery of the mass Durham rank-and-file movements. Yet those self-same movements owed a tremendous debt to syndicalist influence – specifically, the intervention of the South Wales syndicalists in the MFGB and (through their ‘missionaries’) Durham coalfield politics in 1911 and 1912, and their seminal text The Miners’ Next Step, which was almost certainly read by the leading Durham ILP activists and echoes of which were present in Lawson’s brilliant 1912 minimum wage pamphlet. The Durham rank-and-file movements, seen from the outside, could easily be mistaken as syndicalist-inspired. Indeed, the only meaningful difference – admittedly a significant one – was in their long-term aims; the syndicalists aimed for a form of workers’ control, while the Durham ILP activists desired state control of the coal industry (nationalisation). Overall, then, Durham syndicalists were comparatively uninfluential in considerable part because syndicalism itself – specifically the ideas and campaigns of the South Wales syndicalists – did have a significant impact in the coalfield. It was just that this impact was most felt among the younger generation of ILP activists. It is tempting to wonder how different the Durham coalfield’s politics in this period would have looked had syndicalism not established itself in South Wales, or, alternatively, had Lawson and a mere handful of other leading Durham ILP activists gravitated more completely towards overt syndicalism, and away from their party. But the ideological heterogeneity of the Durham ILP meant it was very capable of keeping many within its ranks who were to varying degrees sympathetic towards syndicalism. While the ILP followed the syndicalists’ example in using an aggressive class-based rhetoric and many specific proposals, at the same time it broadly rejected syndicalism’s longer-term goals in favour of its ongoing faith in parliamentary politics and the ameliorative capacities of the State. Thus, again, there are present both a high degree of ideological fluidity among activists as well as (in this case) one fundamental point of ideological demarcation. Still, the size, vivacity and aggression of the Durham rank-and-file movements certainly call into question the extent of the South Wales coalfield’s exceptionalism in this period.8

Conclusion 277 The DFM’s adoption of a more explicitly political aspect in its assault on liberalism after the minimum wage was won nationally took two main forms. First, it democratised the DMA, with the aim of promoting movement leaders within the union and weakening Wilson’s control of the institution. The second aspect was the wider rhetorical promotion of the Labour Party in Parliament as the crucial complementary corollary to the movement’s industrial activity. The DFM did achieve two important rule changes that, as it anticipated, aided its leaders to win positions inside the DMA. But, crucially, it also brought about the rule change in December 1913 that committed the union to full and exclusive support for the Labour Party. In so doing, the DFM finally overcame the ambiguity that Wilson had engineered over the MFGB vote on affiliation to Labour in 1908 by, crucially, winning the support of more lodges and ‘ordinary’ DMA members. In successfully channelling inchoate industrial discontent into growing support for a greater and firmly independent Labour parliamentary presence, the DFM ensured that the paper victory of the MFGB’s 1908 affiliation to Labour transformed into a real advance for the party inside the DMA. In terms of ideology, the rank-and-file movements reveal that a more militant and aggressive form of socialist politics was articulated by leading grassroots ILP activists. Given the nature of miners’ grievances, and how stratified the Durham mining workforce was, these activists’ primary aim was to define and propagate a language that could forge a new militant, independent and unified Durham mineworker identity, one that identified the coal owners clearly and unequivocally as a class with different interests to those of all Durham mineworkers, regardless of their particular grade, status and place of work. They required a discourse that could bind Durham miners together against the coal owners and, increasingly, against their own Liberal leaders. In effecting this, the rhetoric of the rank-and-file movements was rendered remarkably secular, offering little or no indication of the importance that various forms of Methodism played in the political formation of the overwhelming majority of the movements’ leading activists. Lawson the lay preacher was a particularly stark example, and certainly demonstrates that Methodism’s impacts on political formation could differ markedly from individual to individual. In Lawson’s case, and possibly that of many others of the militant Methodists in this movement (people like Harry Bolton, for example), it seems that activists were able to maintain their politics and their religion in quite separate spheres, avoiding the compulsion to find some way of reconciling the two when they appeared to be, ostensibly, irreconcilable. Those activists possibly indulging in rhetoric that was more militant (and more secular) than their actual ideological position must have done so correctly anticipating that their words would resonate with their audience, itself inevitably shaped profoundly by Methodism more than any other faith. Either way, it is necessary to dispense with the notion that only with secularisation could radical politics fully emerge; Methodism and radical socialist politics could quite easily

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co-exist in the ideological makeup of individual activists, albeit potentially offering a rather contradictory guide to political action. The rank-and-file movements’ growth revealed that their appeals to a basic class understanding could resonate in specific circumstances; that their discourse was capable of galvanising majority support among the DMA’s members. Understood in the narrow sense as a solidaristic Durham mineworker identity in conscious opposition to the mine owners (rather than as an ‘objective’ category), social class thus retains relevance as an important explanatory variable. Indeed, the prevalence and significance of ‘class’ language within the rank-and-file movements suggest that Beynon and Austrin’s claims about class replacing patronage only in 1926 in Durham require some revision, as it seems that the process was well underway in the Edwardian period and took a particularly acute form in the years immediately before the Great War.9 This is, however, far from claiming evidence of the elusive ‘revolutionary’ class-consciousness. Most of the militant Durham miner activist discourse in this period centred on relatively modest demands for a larger share of the coal industry’s profits, rather than arguing for the owners’ expropriation, as the South Wales syndicalists were doing. For the ILP activists, even nationalisation remained in the background, openly discussed only rarely and (as in Lawson’s case) as a measure to pursue only when the owners failed to reach a new, more acceptable settlement in portioning out the coal industry’s profits. In fact, it was not until October 1916 that DMA council passed a Spen lodge motion that ‘the time is now opportune for the nationalisation of the land, railways and mines’.10 Furthermore, capitalism in the Durham coalfield was clearly not in crisis during the Great Labour Unrest period. If anything, this was something of a golden age. The largest Durham coal owners were registering record coal outputs and massive (but not unprecedented) profits and dividends, which the eight-hour day, the minimum wage and widespread localised industrial unrest had not dented significantly. Indeed, the Eight Hours Agreement, in liberalising coal-drawing arrangements and proliferating the three-shift system, boosted potential coal production. Still, with the growing understanding that the coal owners represented a different class which, if not necessarily entirely antagonistic, had divergent interests from themselves came evidence of a transformation – albeit tentative and partial – of Durham miners’ attitudes and aspirations. Considering the hitherto dominant liberal and Methodist-influenced paternalistic discourse in the Durham coalfield, this was remarkable enough. The other major point about ideology was its tremendous diversity within the Labour challenge. Certainly, the militant rhetoric of the rank-and-file movements sharply distinguished its leaders (ideologically speaking), especially Lawson, not only from Wilson and other leading Liberals, but also from many of his apparent comrades inside Labour. Indeed, there were numerous strands of ideology represented among the heterogeneous Labour challenge in Durham. One grouping included newly converted former Liberals like William House, who had dutifully

Conclusion 279 moved fully over to Labour with MFGB affiliation in 1908 but whose loyalties remained divided. A second group included figures like Robson, who had been a sound ILP activist but who sought to distance himself from the party when, with the agent elections of 1911, he deemed it politically expedient to do so. As a full-time Durham official, Robson attacked many of his erstwhile colleagues leading the rankand-file movements and offered, in so doing, a useful case study of the dynamics that Robert Michels was writing about contemporaneously among the German Social Democrats. Robson, who was awarded an OBE for his war service (mainly for his recruitment activities, though he also sat on the National Coal Advisory Board in 1917), continued his move rightwards. In 1918, he supported the right-wing British Workers’ National League which endorsed the Lloyd George Coalition, though he did, a year later, attack Lloyd George’s vacillation over the Sankey Report, which had recommended nationalisation of the coal industry.11 Robson’s post-1914 political trajectory was not entirely aberrant. Indeed, all the pre-war rank-and-file movement activists who secured full-time DMA positions after 1914 also moderated their industrial politics in the post-war world, only to be faced by a new rank-and-file movement of the next generation of CPGB-influenced young militants (organised in the Minority Movement). With heightened tensions during the 1926 lockout, these younger activists recalled the DFM, claiming it had been the Minority Movement of its day, and condemning those who had emerged from it to lead the Durham miners in such an uninspired way.12 The enduring understanding of the politics of figures like W.P. Richardson and Lawson was consequently as advocates of moderation and conciliation rather than militancy. For Robson, this process began earlier and he ‘moderated’ faster and, arguably, to a greater extent. A third ILP grouping included figures like John Storey: important among the earliest Durham ILP activists who did not support the minimum wage campaigns after 1911 and who subsequently – and consequentially – fell away from the main group of coalfield ILP leaders. While of the same generation as Storey, Joseph Batey played an important, albeit secondary, role in the rank-and-file movements from 1911. Swan, Lee and Gilliland all also fell into this fourth grouping. But the main ILP leaders after 1911 were of a fifth category: a younger generation of ILP activists who cut their political teeth in that party and who had not first gone through liberalism and possibly the Liberal Party. In the three years from the minimum wage’s re-emergence to the outbreak of war, it was they who made the political running in the coalfield for Labour, and very successfully so. They were clearly of quite a different ideological type to the far more accommodating (with Liberals) House and, given some of Lawson’s revolutionary contacts from Ruskin, it is not surprising that their socialism was of a more strident and less compromising form. Indeed, of this grouping, which also included W.P. Richardson, Lawson’s politics were the most militant; his rhetorical flourishes were most likely to move away from the minutiae of the minimum wage issue itself and appeal to class understandings among his audiences. Lawson was the single most important ILP activist in terms of sheer

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number of appearances on rank-and-file movement platforms between summer 1911 and August 1914. George Harvey and Lawther, younger again than Lawson et al., represented a much smaller (and rather divided) sixth faction who moved from the ILP to revolutionary politics in the pre-1914 period (though both stood as Labour candidates and developed close relations with the nascent CPGB in the early post-war period).13 The rank-and-file movements show quite clearly that the challenge to liberalism in the coalfield was mass and militant and that the socialism of ILP activists like Lawson was capable of being aggressive and uncompromising and, through the minimum wage, of speaking very effectively to ordinary miners’ material concerns. Attempting to obscure the boundaries between Liberals and Labour, a well-practised electoral strategy in the region in the early years of the LRC, was clearly not the only way to garner a substantial following. Indeed, as the Edwardian period drew on, the blurring of ideological boundaries with Liberals seemed to be an increasingly counter-productive strategy for Labour activists, as House found to his cost at the Houghton-le-Spring by-election in 1913. In sum, what actually happened on the ground in Durham was a long way from notions of an ILP hobbled either by an ethical socialism that was apparently incapable of appealing to working-class material conditions, or, equally, an unimaginative labourism that similarly shackled its unfortunate subjects to pre-existing and hitherto dominant liberal discourses. In some respects, however, the rank-and-file movements failed. The nature and extent of their shortcomings are also important in understanding Labour’s pre-war challenge in Durham. First was their apparent inability to dispense with Wilson, which was largely due to strategic reasons around the rank-andfile movement’s relative institutional weakness and the advantages offered by Wilson actually retaining his post. Wilson maintained, in spite of some reforms, an institutional dominance bolstered by an enduring loyalty among union members derived from his long years of work for the DMA. The strength of his position was evident in surviving (albeit very narrowly) a ‘no confidence’ vote over the Eight Hours Agreement in 1910. If he could not be removed over this, it seemed unlikely that any crisis could uproot him. But Wilson also served a useful purpose for the ILP where he was. It became increasingly easy for the movement to make political capital from his leadership. Wilson was the emblem of liberalism in the coalfield, there were no manifestations of alternative, more radical strains of liberalism able to harness some of the disaffection ranged against him and divert it towards updating and renewing the Liberal appeal. Liberal activists working inside lodges to curb the ILP’s advance, though sometimes successful in either monopolising control of lodge decision-making, or at least (as in the case of Marsden lodge) inflicting a sporadic series of setbacks for the socialists, nevertheless remained isolated: no initiative emerged from lodges to coordinate and consolidate the Liberals operating inside them, offering what the rank-and-file movements afforded the ILP. Furthermore, these Liberals received

Conclusion 281 no outside support. There is no evidence that Liberal Associations maintained correspondence of any sort with miners’ lodges; a stark contrast to the deluge of communications lodges received from the central DMA, the rank-and-file movements and even from the syndicalists. Second, the DFM failed to tackle the constitutional bias against representatives of the larger lodges who tended to be very active in the rank-and-file movements. This betrayed a continuing division in rank-and-file movements between the lodges of larger modern and smaller, older, collieries, with representatives from the latter in the unusual position of leading the post-1911 movements and seeking to retain their relative influence within both the movement and the union. The necessary and negative effect of this was to scupper several initiatives that the movement should have had a majority for, particularly in addressing the unrepresentativeness of the DMA’s rules in relation to the votes of largest lodges. The DFM could very probably have achieved more if it had acted with more unity in this crucial area. As significant were the wider political failures of the movement outside the DMA. The results of Houghton-le-Spring (March 1913) and North-West Durham (January 1914) by-elections suggest the movement was incapable of positively affecting (for Labour) the miner vote. The latter result, with many active DFM lodges in North-West Durham constituency, seemed a particularly marked failure. Yet the DFM had not designed concrete practical mechanisms to directly address the miner voter until spring 1914, after DMA endorsement for Labour had been won but also after the North-West Durham by-election had been lost. This was partly the unavoidable consequence of the demands of important but time-consuming union work. Many lodges seemed to see no practical and important connection between involvement in the rank-and-file movements and support for their local LRC. The rank-and-file movements spent little time trying to develop mechanisms to overcome the cultural reluctance among miners’ lodges to become involved in local LRCs, a phenomenon that impacted not only on overt political activity, but also in the industrial sphere, in the form of widespread (and sustained) lack of interest in trades councils. Other factors outside of the rank-and-file movements’ remit were, however, also significant in explaining the by-election defeats. There was a failure of the candidates – especially the indelibly tainted William House in Houghton-leSpring – to recognise and replicate the militant rhetoric that so resonated with a substantial section of the union’s rank and file. This was anathema to House’s more moderate politics. In North-West Durham, the most mining-dominated of all the Durham seats, Labour had a socialist but, importantly, not a (local) miner, as its candidate. The strong Irish or Irish-descended presence in both by-election constituencies was fundamental; Labour could not compete with candidates of the governing Liberals for their vote as it could not credibly offer Home Rule. In this sense, there was a growing disjuncture now between Durham miners’ dwindling endorsement of ideological liberalism and actual support for Liberal MPs, who

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could still fulfil long-standing, highly cherished demands. In any case, the voters who were most likely to also be among the rank-and-file movements’ constituency, – younger miners often from among the populations of more transient colliery workforces – were less likely to actually qualify to vote. It made sense for the DFM to concentrate on winning official DMA backing for Labour before searching for mechanisms to transform hypothetical support for Labour in Parliament to actual votes for Labour candidates at elections. Along with ideology, the other central themes of this study’s explanation are organisation and agency. Both were fundamental; the leading younger ILP activists’ aggressive ideology was necessarily brought to bear (and mediated) through formal institutions, be they the machinery of the central DMA, within lodges and through their own rank-and-file movements created specifically to articulate their demands. Behaving comparably to later Communist ‘front’ organisations, the latter were a far more effective vehicle than the ILP’s own organisation alone could hope to be. The rank-and-file movements consequently became the chief means to mobilise lodge opinion against the Wilson-dominated DMA leadership, building and consolidating influence among the lodges and allowing ILP activists to make considerable headway in the industrial sphere after the 1910 Eight Hours Agreement debacle. Significantly, the ILP’s support, as manifest through the rank-and-file movements, was greater than the sum of their concrete successes. This was due in substantial part to the biases of the DMA’s institutional machinery and the political skills of the ILP’s opponents among the agents. Nevertheless, the institutional shifts inside the DMA, effected by the DFM and the direct result of growing rank-and-file pressure (and achieved with ILP lodges still constitutionally underrepresented), suggested that the transfer of loyalties among DMA lodge activists and (usually) inactive ‘ordinary’ members was well advanced before the outbreak of war. It is clear that ILP-led lodges were ordinarily more democratic, and were democratising fastest. Undemocratic methods inside lodges were more likely to be employed by Liberals or moderates than they were by any (unrepresentative) ILP caucus. The DFM’s agenda of democratising the DMA was anticipated to benefit its own activists and, when reforms to this effect were eventually won, they did exactly this. Furthermore, the rank-and-file movements fostered the development of a symbiotic relationship between the industrial and the political; industrial action was encouraged by the apparent slowness of progress through parliamentary channels while, on the other hand (and as the national minimum wage agitation demonstrated), threatening industrial action could galvanise parliamentary intervention. Yet, as Joseph White pointed out, there was not a ‘zero sum’ relationship between organised labour’s fortunes in the industrial and political spheres. Socialist tendencies in both industrial and political spheres ‘might have grown together, despite the clear and irreconcilable theoretical differences separating them’.14 This was an especially pertinent observation for the situation in Durham, where the genius of the DFM/ILP leaders was to weld divergent

Conclusion 283 industrial and political tendencies into what appeared, at least, to be a coherent whole, harnessing and moulding popular miner discontent to steadfast, uncritical and oft-repeated support for the Labour Party in Parliament. The Durham ILP’s central role, through its rank-and-file movement activists, suggests that the party deserves far more than a ‘walk-on part’ in terms of understanding Labour’s immediate pre-war challenge.15 Agency, too, is crucial in explaining outcomes; but agency understood as the behaviour of political actors in the material world. As has been demonstrated, agency could be exercised positively to bring about particular ends by socialist activists as much as it could by Liberals. There was certainly nothing inevitable in the emergence of mass rank-and-file movements based around basic class understandings. In developing and framing a class discourse and mounting a campaign around it, the ILP activists enhanced ‘class’, forging a solidarity between different grades of mineworkers that did not inevitably exist, as the strife between the hewers and the militant putters (and other classes of lads – occasional in some collieries, persistent in others) who bypassed lodge procedures and officials and struck spontaneously (and without notice) revealed. Even then, of course, this movement-generated solidarity could be fragile and incomplete, but the point about agency remains. Had this generally younger and more militant generation of ILP activists not behaved as they did, the outcomes in terms of their organisation and their own standing within the coalfield, as well as Labour’s wider position and future prospects, would undoubtedly have been rather different. The agency of the other central political actors is similarly crucial; the leading Liberals, and most importantly Wilson’s, steadfast refusal to modify his Gladstonian agenda and the revolutionaries’ sectarianism and dogmatism all also offer facets of the explanation of outcomes. The world that shaped Wilson’s politics was fast disappearing, as developments within the coal industry placed increasing strain on paternalistic-based notions of shared interests between master and men. Still, there remained ways that, ideologically and practically, the Liberals could have fended off successfully the challenge from the rank-and-file movements. That they did not, was not inevitable, but because of the energetic activity of ILP activists in harnessing the favourable elements of the context (and bypassing the unfavourable ones) and using them to advance their challenge to liberalism. Clearly, the industrial unrest that swept the coalfield after 1910 potentially threatened Labour’s political project; the party was certainly not bound to inevitably benefit. Labour made so much headway inside the DMA in these few years as a result of the actions of ILP members intelligently working under what were in several respects difficult conditions to effect their own ends. Naturally, they benefited, too, from the failings in ideology and praxis of their political enemies both on their left and right. While the 1915 agent elections heralded a new era inside the DMA, which moved into its new purpose-built headquarters in Red Hills in the same year, the struggle

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for ideological and actual control of the institution was not over. Indeed, no sooner was T.H. Cann ensconced as the new general secretary than there was a renewed ILP lodge-led attack, specifically on the DMA’s acquiescence in further wage reductions (3.75% since the outbreak of war), and more generally on its continued pursuance of Wilson’s conciliation strategy, even though he, and the Conciliation Board itself, had both now gone. The revolt was headed this time by Washington Glebe lodge; it had been involved in the early radical lodge alliance but was not active in the DFM after the 1912 strike. Its case illustrates the complex processes in lodge politics, as different factions fought for ideological, and actual, control.16 The 1915 gala, had it happened, would likely have had a rather varied platform of invited speakers, as among the nominees were Victor Grayson, Tom Mann, and even the Irish revolutionary James Connolly (soon to be executed after the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland), though Churchill and even Lord Kitchener were also nominated.17 A year on from the Washington Glebe revolt, Cann was forced to defend himself in his monthly circular from renewed personal attacks by the DFM, denouncing it as coming ‘from the safe position of irresponsibility, to criticise and destroy’.18 Cann was battling the same enemies as Wilson: disunity and distrust of his leadership and industrial philosophy and an apparent epidemic of unofficial lodge strikes in the later stages of the war.19 On the wider political plane, the outbreak of war ensured that the anticipated 1915 general election did not happen. The possible impact of the DFM’s simple but brilliant electoral strategy to outmanoeuvre the Liberals in the county using the minimum wage issue can only be speculated at, though the experience of Oxhill lodge and their radical Liberal MP Aneurin Williams in summer 1914 does suggest that the strategy offered potential for success. Longer-term effects, too, were complex. Certainly, one of the main DFM demographics, miners too young or too mobile to qualify for the pre-1914 franchise, suggested a strong generational element and pointed to a promising future for Labour in the postwar mining districts of County Durham. Labour’s winning control of Durham County Council in 1919, the first such council in the country to be taken by the party, suggested that the future promised immediately before the war was already being realised. Yet, outcomes were not this simple. There turned out to be no straightforward relationship between the DMA institutional support won by the DFM’s energetic activity and securing Labour votes from Durham miners. For instance, Labour’s patchy inter-war record in South Shields (albeit with a relatively small percentage of miner voters) belied the DMA’s pre-war optimism over the party’s prospects there. Notwithstanding these complexities, it remains clear that the hitherto largely ignored (or misrepresented) post-1910 Durham rank-and-file movements demand a central explanatory role in debates about political change. They demonstrate that, in the hands of intelligent and dedicated activists, the minimum wage could be a highly potent ideological weapon in significantly undermining central tenets of economic liberalism, even in as doughty a stronghold of the ideology as

Conclusion 285 Durham. On an individual level, involvement in the rank-and-file movements was the essential determinant of who would colonise the DMA’s main official positions after 1914 – younger militants like W.P. Richardson and activists of an older generation like Batey who understood how the political landscape was altering and were prepared to go along with the young Turks. In nurturing a Labour-supporting culture both inside the union and among diverse coalfield communities, and in consequently weakening liberalism’s political stranglehold in Durham, these movements demand a new understanding of the ILP/Labour challenge as more complex, fluid, vital, militant, aggressive and effective than has been recognised. Considering the economic and political importance of the Durham coalfield in the national picture, the rank-and-file movements’ achievements were crucial for the progress of Labour’s nationwide ambition to become the new progressive force in British politics. While the ‘rise of Labour’ is one of the largest historiographical debates in modern British history, it is remarkable how little we still know about the dynamics of political change in many of the most significant geographical/ industrial battlegrounds. If we accept that politics, if it is to be fully understood, is as much about grassroots processes involving ‘ordinary’ people and carried through by activists little known or unknown outside their immediate circles of activity as it is about the decision-makers of Westminster, then grassroots studies retain their relevance. Indeed, as a grouping of younger historians have shown in recent years, it is only through exhaustive discrete case studies that we can hope to arrive at a more nuanced and empirically grounded understanding of these complex, profound and still fascinating historical developments. Notes 1 See Lawson’s defence over allegations of his careerism in Stanley News, 31 October 1912. 2 Durham Chronicle, 17 April 1926. 3 Mason, A., and J. Saville, ‘Galbraith, Samuel’; in J. Bellamy and J. Saville (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 1 (Macmillan, 1972), pp. 126–128; Bellamy, J., and V. Mason, ‘Lee, Peter’, and Potts, A., and J. Saville, ‘Richardson, Robert’, both in J.M. Bellamy and J. Saville (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 2 (Palgrave Macmillan, 1974), pp. 230–233, 320–322; Saville, J., ‘Herriotts, John’, Bellamy J., and M. ‘Espinasse, ‘Swan, John Edmund’, both in J.M. Bellamy and J. Saville (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 3 (Palgrave Macmillan, 1976), pp. 101–102, 178–180; Mason, A., ‘Gilliland, James’; in J.M. Bellamy and J. Saville (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 4 (Macmillan, 1979), pp. 82–83. For more on Durham MPs in the 1930s, see Mates, L.H., The Spanish Civil War and the British Left: Political Activism and the Popular Front (I.B. Tauris, 2007). 4 Lawson, J., A Minimum Wage for Miners: Answer to Critics in the Durham Coal Fields (ILP Publication Department, National Labour Press, 1912), p. 7. 5 DRO, D/DMA 30, DMA special council, 10 June 1911; DRO, D/DMA 17/51/11, Hamsteels lodge, full meeting, 19 April 1911; DRO, D/DMA 17/61/1, Hylton lodge,

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6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19



The Great Labour Unrest general meeting, 8 June 1911; DRO, D/DMA 327/2, Marsden lodge, joint meeting, 26 March 1911; Blaydon Courier, 1, 15 April 1911; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 29 March 1911; 5, 10, 15, 17, 19 April 1911; 1, 16 May 1911; 3, 5, 12, 13, 21 June 1911; 12 July 1911; Durham Chronicle, 7, 14 April 1911; 5 May 1911. Church, R., ‘Edwardian labour unrest and coalfield militancy, 1890–1914’, Historical Journal, 30:4 (1987), pp. 841–857. Durham Chronicle, 5 April 1912. As does the comparative responses of Durham and South Wales to the Spanish Civil War. See Mates, L.H., ‘Durham and South Wales miners and the Spanish Civil War’, Twentieth Century British History, 17:3 (2006), pp. 373–395. Beynon, H., and T. Austrin, Masters and Servants: Class and Patronage in the Making of a Labour Organisation (Rivers Oram Press, 1994), p. 348. D/DMA 30, DMA council, 7 October 1916. Saville, J., ‘Robson, James’, in Bellamy and Saville (eds), Dictionary of Labour Biography Vol. 2, pp. 323–324; Pugh, M., ‘The rise of Labour and the political culture, of Conservatism, 1890–1945’, History, 87:288 (2002), p. 532. The Miners’ Voice, No. 25, supplement in the Workers’ Life, 15 July 1927; Durham Chronicle, 14 August 1926. Douglass, D., George Harvey: Pitman Bolshevik (Pelaw, Gateshead: Follonsby Miners’ Lodge Banner Association, 2011); Mates, L.H., ‘From revolutionary to reactionary: the life of Will Lawther’ (MA thesis, Newcastle University, 1996). White, J., ‘1910–1914 reconsidered’, in J.E. Cronin and J. Schneer (eds), Social Conflict and the Political Order in Modern Britain (Croom Helm, 1982), p. 92. Cohen, G., ‘Myth, history and the Independent Labour Party’, in M. Worley (ed.), The Foundation of the British Labour Party: Identities, Cultures and Perspectives, 1900–39 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), p. 108. Harvey, G., ‘Industrial unionism and the mining industry’ (Miner’s Hall, Wardley colliery Pelaw-on-Tyne [printed by Bealls Ltd, Newcastle], 1917), p. 106. NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/39, DMA minutes, circulars etc., July–December 1914. NEEMARC, NUMDA/1/6/41, Cann’s monthly circular, May 1916. Webster, F., ‘The Durham miners: a sociological interpretation’(MA thesis, Durham University, 1974), pp. 259–264.

Bibliography

Note: London is the place of publication unless otherwise given. Primary Sources Public records/official publications Cabinet Office Papers (TNA) Coal Industry Commission, Reports and Minutes of Evidence on the First Stage of the Inquiry Vol. 1 (HMSO, 1919) Coal Industry Commission, Reports and Minutes of Evidence on the First Stage of the Inquiry Vol. 2 (HMSO, 1919) Coal Mines (Northumberland): A Bill to Restrict Work in Coal Mines to Certain Hours of the Day (HMSO, 1914) House of Commons Debates (Hansard) House of Lords Debates (Hansard) Miners’ Eight Hour Day Committee, Final Report Part II (HMSO, 1907) Report of HM Inspector of Mines for the South Durham District, 1906 (Harrison and Sons, 1907) Report of HM Inspector of Mines for the South Durham District, 1910 (Harrison and Sons, 1911) Report of HM Inspector of Mines for the Northern Division, 1913 (Harrison and Sons, 1914) Report on Strikes and Lock-outs and on Conciliation and Arbitration Boards in the United Kingdom in 1913 (HMSO, 1914)

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288 Bibliography Usworth and Washington Glebe lodges (DRO, NEEMARC and DMA offices, Red Hills) Felling Police Superintendent copy letters (TWAS) Independent Labour Party (BLPES) Miners’ Federation of Great Britain (NRO) Ruskin College (Ruskin College archive, Oxford)

Personal papers Francis Johnson (BLPES) Jack Lawson (PGAD) Will Lawther (TWAS) Lord Londonderry (DRO) Robert Shotton (DRO) Sam Watson (DRO)

Newspapers and periodicals Anarchist Blaydon Courier Chester-le-Street Chronicle Durham Chronicle Durham County Advertiser Evening Mail Freedom (Newcastle) Evening Chronicle Herald of Revolt Heslop’s Local Advertiser Industrial Syndicalist Labour Leader Manchester Guardian Newcastle Daily Chronicle Newcastle Journal Nineteenth Century Nineteenth Century and After North Mail Northern Democrat Plebs (National Council of Labour Colleges) Shields Daily Gazette Socialist Stanley News Syndicalist The Times Workers’ Life

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290 Bibliography Michels, R., Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy (Kitchener, Ontario: Batoche Books, 2001 [English trans. first published 1915]) Richardson, T., and J.A. Walbank, Profits and Wages in the Durham Coal Trade, 1898–1908 (Darlington: Northern Echo, 1908) (reproduced from articles in Northern Echo, 4, 5, 6 February 1908) Richardson, T., and J.A. Walbank, Profits and Wages in the British Coal Trade, 1898–1910 (Newcastle: NAAC, 1911) Smillie, R., My Life for Labour (Mills and Boon, 1924) Unofficial Reform Committee of the SWMF, The Miners’ Next Step, reprinted with an introduction by Dave Douglass (Doncaster: Germinal and Phoenix Press, 1991 [first published 1912]) Webb, S., The Story of the Durham Miners (1661–1921) (Fabian society, 1921) Welbourne, E., The Miners’ Unions of Northumberland and Durham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923) Wilson, J., A History of the Durham Miners’ Association, 1870–1904 (Durham: J.H. Veitch and Sons, 1907) Wilson, J., Memories of a Labour Leader: The Autobiography of John Wilson, JP, MP (Caliban Books, 1980 [first published 1910]) (no named author), ‘Industrial democracy and national fuel policy – a miners’ programme’ IWC Pamphlet No. 8 (Nottingham: IWC, n.d.) (no named author), ‘The Pœtsch freezing process in mining operations’, Science 14:343 (30 August 1889), pp. 142–143

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Index

Note: page numbers in italics indicate references to tables; bold indicates illustrations Ablett, Noah 6, 72–73, 131, 149, 176, 248, 250 ‘abnormal places’ 5, 47, 154, 171, 175 , 213 Adair, John 126, 130, 221n58 Adams, Tony 16 Aged Mine Workers’ Homes Association 52, 62, 128, 150 agency (and structure) 15–16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 24, 25, 69, 170, 247, 250, 275–276, 282–283 anarchism 4–5, 8–9, 12–13, 18, 23, 73, 150, 192, 194, 203, 205, 230, 240, 249–250 Anderson, Perry 9 Annfield Plain 70, 102, 111, 131, 167, 238 Armstrong, John 111 Asquith, Herbert 217, 231, 260 Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn 121, 236–239, 254, 257, 260 Austrin, Terry 52, 278 Bainbridge, Henry 186, 189, 253, 271 Bantman, Constance 12–13, 243 Barren, Robert 69, 88, 128 Barron, Hester 28 Barron, Thomas E. 125, 200–201, 202, 203, 210, 245, 247, 251 basis (1879) 43, 45, 76, 77, 78, 82, 83, 123, 135, 153, 158, 164, 211, 215, 216 Batey, Joseph 70, 75, 76, 77, 78, 80, 82, 83, 84, 91, 124, 125, 131, 178, 186, 203, 209, 254, 262, 270, 271, 279, 285 Béliard, Yann 13

Bell, Sir Hugh 61, 172 Bell, John 164 Bellamy, Joyce 74 Berger, Stefan 16, 192 Berry, Dave 12, 243 Besant, Annie 79 Beynon, Huw 52, 278 Biagini, Eugenio 14, 17, 19, 51–52, 54 Birtley 60, 76, 83, 84, 111, 186, 208 Black, Lawrence 15 Bolton, Harry 73, 74, 75, 241 British Medical Association 207–209 Brown, Geoff 8 Burgess, Keith 10, 55 Bythell, Duncan 74 Campbell, Alan 18 Campbell, R.J. 74 Cann, Thomas Henry 52, 53, 89, 104, 122, 131, 155, 190, 254, 270, 284 Cassidy, Peter 221n58 cavilling 47, 165, 171, 172, 188 Central Labour College 6, 71, 72, 73, 247 Challinor, Ray 8, 9 Charlton, W.B. 131 checkweighman 67, 69, 70, 71, 73, 76, 77, 84, 124, 126, 152, 166, 169, 170, 175, 186, 189, 229, 234, 270 Childs, Michael 258 Church, Roy 10–11, 18, 55, 242 Churchill, Winston 123, 130, 284 Clegg, Hugh 7, 10, 19

Index 305 Clements, R.V., 54 coal companies 5, 52, 56–61, 135, 138n18, 152, 172, 217 Bell Brothers 61, 172 Birtley Iron Co. 106, 111 Bolckow Vaughan 59, 60, 119 Broomhill 158 Consett Iron Co. 60, 61, 104, 172 Harton 58, 60 Horden 60, 62 James Joicey 58, 60, 72, 105, 106, 121, 122 John Bowes and Partners 60 Lambton (and Hetton) 49, 58, 59, 60, 61, 110 Londonderry 59, 60 North Bitchburn 58 North Brancepeth 61 Pease and Partners 50 Priestman 112 South Durham 58 South Hetton 60 Thrislington 58 Weardale Steel, Coal and Coke Co. (previously Weardale Iron and Coal Co.) 59, 60, 61, 108 Wearmouth 59–60 coal drawing 46, 102, 105, 106, 115, 118, 119–120, 127, 134–135, 158, 159, 278 Coates, Ken 7, 8 Cole, G.D.H. 6 Cole, Matt 16 collieries (specific) Adelaide 118 Alma 58, 72, 146, 217 Axwell Park 112 Beamish 58 Bearpark 118 Boldon 62, 63 Bowburn 118, 126 Brancepeth 105, 108 Chopwell 63–64 Dawdon 59, 154 Dean and Chapter 59 Easington 59, 88 Elemore 106, 109 Elvet 60 Eppleton 109, 188 Felling 104–105

Handen Hold 72, 97n111 Heworth 49, 105, 188, 213 Horden 60, 62, 112 Hylton 60 Lumley New Winning 60 Mainsforth 46 Marley Hill 111 Murton 135 Ouston Winning 60 Pelton Fell 118 Ryhope 113 St Hilda 145 Seaham 46, 113, 236 Sherburn Hill 109, 213 Silksworth 113 South Garesfield 104 South Hetton 105 South Pelaw 118 Tanfield 58 Thornley 135 Thrislington 118 Twizell 58, 72 Usworth 62, 154, 175 Waldridge Fell 118 Washington Glebe 48 Waterhouses 62 Wheatley Hill 135, 226 Wingate 59 Communist Party of Great Britain 8, 20, 26, 75, 243, 279, 280, 282 Connolly, James 4, 284 constituencies Barnard Castle 59, 80, 112, 129, 271 Bishop Auckland 51, 111, 129, 131 Chester-le-Street 58, 80, 90, 112, 129, 131, 255, 261, 271 Durham City 129 Gateshead 53, 78, 89, 111, 121, 128, 129 Houghton-le-Spring 51, 129, 261, 271 1913 by-election 254, 256–257, 258, 260, 280, 281 Jarrow 72, 80, 112, 128, 129, 255 Mid-Durham 51, 90, 128, 270 North-West Durham 129, 236, 239, 262 1914 by-election 254, 257–258, 260 South-East Durham 112, 129 South Shields 130, 262, 284 Sunderland 80, 128, 130

306 Index Cook, A.J. 193, 247 Cook, Eli 71, 103, 106–107, 125, 157, 221n58 Collins, Lord 123 Conciliation Board 43, 76, 77–78, 82, 83–85, 92n5, 123, 157–158, 160–161, 174, 211, 213, 284 Conservative Party 2, 15, 51, 78, 80, 89, 111, 129–130, 261 councils 69, 70, 71 Durham County Council 17, 69, 70, 71, 81, 128, 218 County Average 47, 57, 62, 155, 171–172, 188, 210, 215–216, 231, 238 Cronin, James 9, 10, 11 Crooks, Will 80, 151 Darlington, Ralph 13, 21, 243 Daunton, Martin 29, 42, 44 Davidson, James 124 Davies, D.K. 245 Davison, George 72–73, 195, 240 de Leon, Daniel 4, 6, 202 disorder (riots, coal raiding, looting) 5, 62, 111, 112–113, 117, 149, 167, 243 dividends 61, 152, 172, 238 Douglass, Dave 8, 18, 23, 66, 219n10 Dublin lockout 4, 240, 241–242 Durham, Earl of 50, 58, 85–87 Durham Coal Owners’ Association 58, 60–61, 117, 138n18, 213 Durham colliery mechanics 64, 71, 83, 131 Durham Forward Movement 19, 197–200, 225–229 assessment of first year 210–219 and doctors’ fees agitation 207–210 origins and aims 185–195 political impact/ strategies 251–261 and second Romer award 231–235, 239 Durham miners’ gala 74, 79–80, 81–83, 85, 88, 102, 126, 133, 146, 149–152, 187, 191, 193–194, 195–199, 211, 217, 225–226, 203–231, 237, 240–241, 244, 262, 269n197, 284 Durham Miners’ Reform Association 76–77

Durham Mining Federation Board 55, 64, 82, 85, 90, 131, 164, 208, 244 Durham Unofficial Reform Movement 200–206, 222n93, 249 Edwards, Enoch 197 Egan, Dave 8 eight-hour day 1, 18, 43, 56–57, 58, 77, 79–80, 85–89 Eight Hours Agreement 187, 257, 271–272 dispute over (1910) course of 105–117 longer-term impacts of 117–136 origins of 101–105 eclipse of campaign against 157–163 Elliott, W.G. 175, 178 Emery, Norman 18, 92n10 Fair, John 16 Fairclough, Norman 27 Ferguson, John 158 Fielding, Steve 15–16 franchise 14, 51, 52, 64, 236, 258 Francis, Hywel 21 Freeden, Michael 21, 237 Furness, Sir Christopher 59, 135, 158–159, 173 Galbraith, Samuel 52, 53, 74, 122, 169, 228, 254, 270, 271 Geary, Dick 25, 28 Gilliland, James 69, 73, 74, 84, 127, 186, 226, 254, 261, 270, 279 Grayson, Victor 2, 82, 149–150, 193–194, 284 Gregory, Roy 19, 89, 171, 226, 255, 257 Halévy, Elie 6 Hall, Valerie 16 Hardie, Kier 1, 77, 80, 81, 85, 89, 126, 192, 194, 237 Harvey, George 8, 72, 103, 123, 134–136, 151–152, 176–177, 192, 193, 194, 201– 202, 204–207, 229–231, 233, 234–235, 239–240, 242, 244–251, 261, 263n23, 280 Hay, Colin 41n144

Index 307 Hay, William Ferris 195, 202, 248–249, 250 Haywood, ‘Big’ Bill 250 heckling 27, 81, 104, 122, 124, 149–151, 195, 197, 226 Henderson, Arthur 80, 81, 112, 226 Herriotts, John 70, 75, 81, 165, 186, 219n5, 225, 271 Hindess, Barry 15 Hinton, James 9 Hird, Denis 6, 72 Hobsbawm, Eric 8–9, 15, 52 Holton, Bob 8, 9, 18, 26, 176, 230, 242, 243, 246 Home Rule 3, 7, 51, 54–55, 63, 111, 257, 258 House, Alderman William 53, 79–80, 83, 88, 89, 90, 104, 111, 122, 123, 124, 158, 160, 162, 191, 195, 198–199, 208, 226, 229, 241, 257 housing (miners’) 43–44, 48, 59, 61, 68, 76, 84, 154, 274 Howell, David 11, 18, 21, 77 Hunter, Richard 87 Hyman, Richard 10, 13, 23 Independent Labour Party branches, 80, 81, 126, 148, 256 Bearpark 125 Chester-le-Street 126 Chopwell 64, 73, 148, 201 Edmondsley 81 Gateshead district 71 Hamsterley 126 Langley Moor 76, 126 Murton 126 New Brancepeth 81 Stanley 81, 186 Usworth 71 Westwood 126 Willington 81, 88 Industrial Syndicalist Education League 3, 4–6, 8, 241, 249, 250 Industrial Workers of Great Britain 205 Industrial Workers of the World 4, 202, 250, 275 Institute for Workers’ Control 7, 8 Irish Transport Workers’ Federation 4, 240

Jackson, T.A. 75 Jaques, George 76, 87, 98n139, 118–119, 126, 193, 226 Jeffrey, John 107, 126 Johnson, John 43, 53, 56, 78, 89, 104, 111, 113, 122, 164 Joicey, James 57–58, 80, 134, 150, 154, 204 joint district board 168, 173, 174, 188, 212, 216, 218, 239, 273 see also Romer, Sir Robert Joyce, Patrick 15, 17, 52 Keeble, S.E. 74, 194 Kendall, Walter 8 Kirk, Neville 16 Kitchener, Lord 284 Kropotkin, Peter 73, 79 Labour Representation Committee 1, 3, 77–78, 89–90, 211, 255–256, 261, 280 laid out 48–49, 175, 210 Lancaster, Bill 16, 269n197 Larkin, Jim 4, 231, 240–241, 262 Lawrence, Jon 14 Lawson, Jack 19, 22, 62–63, 71–75, 146, 152, 153, 157, 161, 165, 171–172, 173, 177, 185, 186, 189, 191–192, 194, 197, 198, 199, 206, 217, 218, 221n58, 228, 232, 235, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 262, 271, 285n1 Lawther, Will 63–64, 68, 72–73, 75, 176, 193, 194, 195, 200, 202, 203, 205, 210, 230, 239, 240, 241, 246, 247–248, 251, 271 Laybourn, Keith 14, 16 Lee, Peter 40n129, 63, 69, 73–74, 80, 81, 84, 128, 209, 270–271 Lee, Rob 28, 64 Lloyd George, David 2, 168, 170, 197, 217, 262, 274, 279 lodges and internal democracy 226–228 and radical lodge alliance (ILP) 88, 128, 137, 157, 163, 210, 216, 254 and representation inside DMA 55, 161–163, 233–234

308 Index lodges (continued) and solidarity 28, 49, 67, 85, 101, 104–105, 113–114, 117, 134, 137, 197, 233, 241, 244–245, 272 (specific) Addison 121, 175 Alma 73, 107, 111, 166, 217 Andrew’s House 132, 149, 244, 255 Auckland Park 162 Axwell Park 222n93 Beamish Air 105, 221n58 Bearpark 82, 90, 124 Bewicke Main 84 Blaydon Main 234 Boldon 71, 88, 113, 227 Bowden Close 106 Brancepeth No. 2 105, 108 Brandon 69, 102, 111 Browney 169 Chilton 201, 203 Chopwell 65, 66, 67, 68, 78, 81, 88, 90, 106, 127, 162, 176, 190–191, 199, 200, 201, 222n93, 230, 233, 240, 247 Cornsay 69, 108 Craghead 83, 107 Croxdale 109, 162 Dawdon 68, 88, 104, 158, 219n5, 252 Dean and Chapter 88, 106, 110, 112, 164, 170 Derwent 111 Dunston 89 Easington 88 East Hetton (Kelloe) 104, 108, 109 East Stanley 82, 106, 166, 169 Esh Winning 62, 169 Felling 84, 88, 127 Follonsby 229–230 Greenside 162, 212, 214–215, 222n93 Hamsteels 77, 116, 120, 121, 128, 131, 149, 239 Handon Hold 97n111, 103, 107, 158, 176, 177, 202, 205 Harraton 104, 173 Harton 127 Hebburn 78, 85, 127 Hetton 104, 158, 232 Heworth 88, 109, 127, 158, 222n93, 232 Hobson 78, 82, 107, 125, 160

Horden 68, 73, 88, 112, 115, 117, 162, 239 Houghton 78, 109, 213 Hylton 116, 117, 121, 127–128, 161, 252, 261 Langley Park 114, 116, 131, 147, 158, 212 Littleburn 114, 126 Littletown 170 Lumley 6th 49, 110 Lumley New Winning 161 Marley Hill 158 Marsden 62, 64, 68, 76, 88, 104, 110, 113, 116, 117, 121, 127, 131, 132, 149, 152, 159, 162, 163, 165, 173, 191, 197, 203, 206, 207, 209, 210, 212, 217, 226–227, 241–242, 252, 254, 255–256 Morrison 83, 107, 112, 116, 120–121, 122, 131, 162, 232 Murton 112–113, 114–115, 116, 117, 146, 202, 207, 208, 257 Old Sherburn 170 Ouston E 69, 106, 108, 120, 127, 164 Oxhill 106, 115, 121, 131, 148–149, 173, 209, 210, 237, 242, 244, 255, 260–261 Pelton Fell 104, 112, 177 Philadelphia 110 Randolph 110, 127 Ravensworth 65, 106, 162 Redheugh 166, 169, 212–213 Roddymoor 89, 169 Ryhope 69, 127, 167 Sacriston 212 St Helen’s 222n93 St Hilda 70, 77, 78, 82, 88, 125, 158, 162, 166, 176, 202, 203, 207, 208, 210 Seaham 104, 127, 166 Shield Row 186 Shotton 112, 113, 116–117, 158, 229 South Garesfield 222n93 South Hetton 112, 113, 116, 117 South Moor 111, 112, 122, 128, 217 South Pelaw 76, 124, 176, 202, 205 Spen 78, 278 Swalwell 114 Tanfield Lea 106, 111

Index 309

Thornley 102, 108, 162 Thrislington 147 Trimdon Grange 48, 84, 108, 116 Tursdale 108, 213 Twizell 107, 125, 145, 152, 156, 171, 252 Ushaw Moor 62, 105 Usworth 48–49, 71, 88, 109, 110, 113, 127, 133–134 Victoria Garesfield 222n93 Waldridge Fell 82–83 Wardley 8, 77, 88 Washington Glebe 82, 84, 108, 109, 111, 116, 118, 125, 128, 149, 159, 166, 173, 174, 205, 206, 209, 210–211, 217, 242, 254, 284 Waterhouses 100n208, 213 Wearmouth 159, 234 Wheatley Hill 69, 108 Windlestone 70, 158, 219n5 Wingate Grange 69, 88 Wooley 169 Londonderry, Lord 85–86, 154, 167, 170 Lucas, Lord 87 MacDonald, Ramsay 1, 3, 190, 193, 196, 197 MacDonnell, Lord 123 McHugh, Declan 16 Macintyre, Stuart 9–10 McKay, Frank 67, 87, 199, 234 McKay, Ian 13 McKibbin, Ross 14, 16 Mann, Tom 3, 4, 6, 79–80, 136, 195–196, 197, 241, 250, 284 Martin, David 74 Martin, M. 173 masculinity 165–166, 182n109 Mason, Tony 68 Meacham, Standish 7 Metcalfe, G.H. 131 Methodism 49–51, 52, 53, 73–75, 194–195, 248 Michels, Robert 22, 279 migration 31, 63, 64, 80, 258 Miners’ Federation of Great Britain 2, 3, 5, 6, 17, 19, 46, 55, 56, 57, 77, 78, 88–89, 90, 119, 124, 131, 135,

148–149, 150, 151, 153, 155, 156, 158–161, 163, 164–165, 166, 168, 170, 173, 177, 178–179, 190, 199, 211, 212, 229, 230, 231, 232, 239, 248, 253 minimum wage 3, 4, 17–19, 30, 56, 57, 62, 75, 76, 77, 78, 83, 86, 132, 145, 174–177 Minimum Wage Movement 179n3 campaigning (to March 1912) 153–157 and minimum wage strike 163–173 origins of 147–153 see also Durham Forward Movement mining safety (disasters) 50, 62, 86–87, 103, 126, 132, 134, 237 Mintz, Jerome 9 Moore, Robert 18, 50, 52, 194, 258 Moore Ede, Canon William 72 Morgan, Kevin 13 Nairn, Tom 9 National Insurance Act (1911) 2, 195, 207–210, 217 nationalisation 6, 7, 76, 192, 199–200, 201, 206, 237, 259, 278, 279 Neal, Robert 112, 122 Neville, Thomas 84 Northumberland miners 16, 17, 18, 45, 63, 64, 70, 82, 89, 90, 130, 126, 150, 159–160, 188, 204, 205, 214–215, 239, 248, 261 Ollier, George 166 Osborne Judgement 2, 126, 131, 229 Outram, Quentin 18, 242 Packer, Ian 16 Page Arnot, Robin 8 Palmer, Sir Charles Mark 80 Palmer, William 91 paternalism 31, 50, 52, 61–62, 112, 167 Pattison, C. 192 Peacock, John 91 Pease, Sir Joseph 59 Pelling, Henry 5, 7, 10, 14 Phillips, G.A. 7 Plebs’ League 6, 240 postmodernism 14, 24, 28

310 Index Pribićević, Branco 8 Price, Richard 9, 10, 11, 24, 25, 52, 175 Price Hughes, Hugh 74, 194 profit-sharing (co-partnership) 59, 172–173, 260 Pugh, Martin 16, 36n73 Pughe, Rev. David 88 Quail, John 8, 248 Readman, Paul 15, 16 Reece, John 107, 122 Rees, Noah 149 Reid, Alastair 11–12, 14, 17, 19, 25, 28 Richardson, Robert 69, 71, 73, 80, 271 Richardson, Thomas 70, 73, 74, 75, 76, 80, 82, 83, 125, 132, 148, 172, 196, 197, 200, 218, 257 Richardson, William Pallister 40n129, 71, 73, 153, 155, 160, 164, 165, 169, 171, 185, 186, 198, 208, 216, 217–218, 221n58, 224n162, 252, 253, 261, 270, 279 ‘rise of Labour’ debate 13–17 see also Gregory, Roy; Tanner, Duncan Roberts, Matthew 15, 16 Robertson, J.M. 226 Robson, J. (Greenside councillor) 212 Robson, James 40n129, 69, 71, 73, 80, 91, 124–125, 128, 131, 160, 196, 198, 229, 253, 254, 260, 279 Romer, Sir Robert 174, 175, 185, 188 see also joint district board rules (of DMA) 49, 51, 66, 72, 76, 77–78, 81–82, 85, 89–90, 115–116, 119, 120–121, 125, 133, 161–162, 173, 189, 197, 208, 211–212, 214, 217–218, 225, 233–234, 246, 251–253, 270, 271 Ruskin College 6, 8, 28, 71–73, 149, 189–190, 247, 248, 252, 253, 262 Samuel, Raphael 8, 28 Savage, Mike 15, 16 Seaham Harbour 157, 158, 191 Shotton, Robert 28 Simm, Matt 80–81, 191, 199 Sires, Roland 6–7

Smillie, Robert 149, 257 Smith, Adam 238 Snowden, Phillip 3, 80, 81, 85, 133 Social Democratic Federation 2, 4, 8, 79 Socialist Labour Party 4, 9, 18, 32n6, 73 see also Harvey, George South Wales miners 5–6, 8, 11, 16, 17, 18, 20–21, 44, 45, 47, 57, 70, 87, 126, 132, 135, 136, 148–149, 150, 151, 152, 163, 169, 171, 193, 194–195, 198, 199, 200, 230, 231, 240, 242, 243, 245–251, 276, 286n8 Spain, Jonathan 51 Spanish Civil War 286n8 Spennymoor 159, 169, 197, 259 Stedman Jones, Gareth 15, 16–17 Storey, John 76, 83, 84, 91, 118, 124, 164–165 Stuart, G.H. 258 Swan, John 70, 81, 91, 124, 186, 239, 270, 271 syndicalism 3–6, 14, 32n6, 73, 149–152, 195–197, 229–231 and doctors’ fees agitation 210 and Eight Hours Agreement dispute 132–136 high-tide in Durham 200–207 historiography of 6–13, 14, 18, 20–21, 23 influence in Durham coalfield 242–251 and Osborne Judgement 131 and second Romer award 239–242 Tanner, Duncan 14, 16, 17, 19–20, 22, 38n97, 101, 161, 163, 171, 190, 192, 193, 198–199, 200, 216–217, 235, 236, 255, 257 Taylor, J.W. 71, 80, 90, 112, 131 Temple, Andrew 124, 152, 153, 157, 176, 186, 189–190, 196, 216, 221n58, 224n162, 225, 252, 253 Thompson, E.P. 9, 11, 12, 16, 21, 22, 28, 52 Thompson, John 117, 124, 165, 254 Thorpe, Wayne 11, 132 Tillett, Ben 2, 3 Todd, Selina 28 trades councils 56, 256 Trades Union Congress 1, 55, 189

Index 311 Treble, John 18 Triple Alliance 6, 7, 259 Trotter, Thomas 217 Tsuzuki, Chūshichi 8 van der Linden, Marcel 11, 132 van der Walt, Lucien 13 Vaughan Wilson, Matt 13 Vernon, James 15 Voluntary Political Association 131–132 wages pooling 188, 219n10 Walbank, John A. 76, 148, 172 Webb, Beatrice and Sidney 3, 22, 52, 237 Welbourne, Edward 18, 54, 66, 77 White, Joseph 9, 11, 282 Whiteley, Sam 69, 102, 125, 130 Whiteley, William 217 Williams, Aneurin, 260

Williams, J.E. 18 Wilson, Charles 262 Wilson, Havelock 5, 81 Wilson, John 17, 18, 43, 50–52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 76, 77, 78, 80, 82, 83, 84–85, 88, 89, 90, 91, 102, 104, 112, 113, 114, 115, 118, 120, 121, 122, 123, 128, 131, 132, 133, 149, 150, 151, 155, 156, 157, 159–160, 163, 164, 165, 166, 168, 173, 174, 195, 196, 204–205, 206–207, 211, 212, 226, 231, 233, 234–236, 240–241, 270 winding time 101, 112 Wing, Tom 257, 260 women 45, 80, 103, 122, 126, 150 Wren, Robert 212 Zeitlin, Jonathan 10, 11, 12, 23, 24–25, 28, 132