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Early Coal Mining in Newbattle
The earliest records of coal mining in Scotland are contained
in a charter granted to Newbattle Abbey in 1210 for lands
held by the Abbey at Prestongrange in East Lothian. The
monks needed coal particularly for the saltpans they had
established at Preston. The pans were kept boiling day and
night. Three gallons of sea water produced a pound of salt.
The easily-won coal by the shore was soon exhausted and
supplied were carted in from the lands close to Newbattle
Abbey via the Salter's Road or Salter's Way. Part of the
road still carries this name.
The monks were active traders and had a harbour built at
Prestongrange for the export of coal, wool and hides and
the import of luxury goods (wines, spices and fine cloth).
Newbattle Abbey owned thousands of acres of land and the
monks were notably efficient farmers, though the monastic
farms would have been largely in the hands of tenant farmers.
Rents and tithes were paid in kind (wool, hides, grain,
etc.) and delivered to a central place called a grange for
storage in granaries and barns. Newton Grange was one of
the granges of Newbattle Abbey. The word 'ton' or 'toun'
is Anglo-Saxon for farm or township and so Newton Grange
means roughly 'The granary at the new tarni.'
At the dissolution of the monastnes in 1560, the abbot
of Newbattle Abbey was Mark Ker, second son of Sir Andrew
Ker of Cessford. It's unlikely that he was in fact a monk.
The vast wealth of the great monastnes had frequently been
diverted into private hands and the title abbot was a sinecure.
Mark Ker became a Protestant at the Reformation. He took
the ride of Commendator ('Protector') of Newbattle Abbey
and became effective owner of extensive lands in East Lothian,
Midlothian, Peebles, Lanark and Fife. Ownership was formally
granted in a charter trom King James VI to Mark Ker's son
in 1587 arid a descendent of his became Marquis of Lothian
in 1701. The title, and much of the land, have remained
in the Ker family right up to the present day.
In those early days, coal was dug in small quantities from
drift mines and shallow bell pits. When problems were encountered
(roof falls or flooding) the workings were abandoned and
another pit or mine was begun. Much of Newbattle parish
is riddled with abandoned pits, though mostly there is no
visible evidence of their existence. The Rev. John Thomson
said in 1839, "There are coal pits and consequently
roads leading to them in almost every field." In the
mid eighteenth century there were pits at Bryans and Langlaw
belonging to the Marquis of Lothian. Langlaw employed seven
colliers and Bryans employed thirteen colliers, besides
two oncost men, an overseer and two female bearers for carrying
down pit props and carrying out icdd. The men were paid
to deliver the coal to the pithead and generally employed
their wives and daughters to carry the coal to creels up
wooden stairs to the surface.
By an Act of Parliament in 1606, no coalmaster could hire
any colliers or coalbearers without written authority from
the master whom they had last served. In effect, collier
families were serfs virtually owned by the coalmasters and
included in the valuation and sale of collieries. If they
ran away, they could be reclaimed and fined (if caught within
a year and a day). Parents of new-born children were given
a present (arles) by the coal owner, theoritically to bind
the child to the colliery. In fact, there was no legal means
of enforcing this until that child had worked for a year
at the pit, but colliers had neither the knowledge, the
means, nor the will to fight such punitive conditions.
There was usually a company shop (called a truck shop or
tommy shop) at each colliery. In 1755 the overseer at Bryans
Colliery paid the Marquis of Lothian the large sum of £41
a year for the exclusive right to run a truck shop at Bryans.
Advances in wages were readily paid to the colliers and
the largest part of any advance had to be spent in the company
shop where clothes, food, alcohol and hardware goods could
be. bought and where prices were uncommonly high. A condition
of permanent debt was thought to be a good way to oblige
men to remain at the pit. More often, it led to colliers
doing a 'moonlight flit' to escape increasing debt. Frequently
an inducement was offered by a rival coal owner to tempt
men to move to their own works.
The truck system was widely criticised and an attempt was
made to suppress it by means of the Truck Act of 1831 but
it continued long after that.
There was a serious shortage of colliers in the late eighteenth
century and, despite high wages, men could not be attracted
into the industry because of the taint of bondage. The influential
coal owners, therefore, pushed through Acts of Parliament
in 1775 and 1799 in an attempt to loosen the ties of bondage
and recruit more labour.
The minister of Newbattle had very little sympathy for
the colliers. In the First Statistical Account of the parish
(1795) he wrote, "Limestone and coals are found in
abundance in this parish, the whole of which may be said
to be under-laid with them. The coal, particularly, produces
every year above £1000 of free profit; and yet we
felt as much as many others, the recent scarcity of that
necessary article. This evil was not, as some have supported,
an effect of the increasing demand. The truth is, that the
colliers can earn in three days as much as may support them
very fully through the week; they become dissipated and
untractable; they insist upon making their own terms; and,
if the abuse of that liberty which was lately extended to
them, could be admitted as a sufficient reason for abridging
it, many restrictions might be suggested which would be
useful both to the public and themselves."
Freedom lured away substantial numbers of miners and failed,
at first, to attract new7 recruits into the coalmining industry
(times were prosperous due to the Napoleonic War). Substantial
bounty payments were therefore made by coal owners to encourage
colliers to sign long contracts (up to two years) to work
at their pits. The end of the war with France in 1815 led
to much unemployment in Britain and made recruitment of
men into coal mining much easier.
There was a daily minimum wage for a specified tonnage
of coal produced by each man. This was called a darg. the
rated fluctuated greatly and could be as little as 21- a
day or as high as 5/- when coal was scarce and demand high.
Piece rates were paid after the darg had been reached. Deductions
were made for house rent, school fees, lights, tool sharpening
and for the doctor. Coal was supplied free but the men had
to supply their own tools and provide labour, usually their
wives and children, to get the coal to the shaft bottom.
Wages were paid fortnightly on 'Pay Friday' and some men
never got back to work until Tuesday or Wednesday after
that weekend! As a form of insurance in case of sickness
many workmen joined Benefit Societies. For an annual subscription
of a few shillings a year, a small weekly wage was payable
in the event of being off work through illness. Funeral
expenses were also paid. The two main local societies were
the Langlaw Carter's Friendly Society. The rules were strict
- no money was paid for illness "induced through drink,"
no public houses were to be visited whilst off sick, no
spirits were to be taken unless recommended by a doctor
and no funeral monev was paid for death caused by suicide,
debauchery, duelling or law. Membership was restricted to
men under 38 years of age.
On the second Friday of July, the Friendly Societies of
Newbattle had their annual Play Day when, led by a band,
the members in their regaha and carrying banners marched
through Easthouses to Dalkeith and then back to Newton Grange
via Newbattle. The Play Day was a holiday for the pit and
the school children. The procession took place in the morning
and for the rest of the day there were 'the shows' to be
enjoyed at Newton Grange, dancing on the green and a celebratory
meal in the colliery schoolroom in the evening. Collier
families in New-battle parish seldom applied for poor relief,
generally being able to support their ill or ageing relatives
through their own efforts or through their subscription
to a Friendly Society.
There was growing public concern in the early nineteenth
century about the deplorable living conditions of collier
families. There was agitation to ban women and young children
from working underground and in 1840 a Parliamentary Commission
was set up to review the evidence. Here are some of the
submissions made by employees of the Marquis of Lothian.
Mr Gibson, Manager of the East and WestBryants Mines, belonging
to the Most Noble Marquis of Lothian: "We employ near
400 persons in the Bryant's mines; 123 are females; about
40 of the males are under 18 years of age, say from 8 to
18; they are chiefly employed at drawing coals on the railroads
below. Colliers are not restrained by any agreement here
beyond two weeks; on their leaving we give them free lines
to any other colliery that they may flit to, on being paid
any money we may have advanced. Children are certainly taken
down too early; it is a bad picture, but it is the fault
of parents themselves."
John Wilson, late overseer to the Newbattle colliery: "I
am 66 years of age, and have been 40 years on the Marquis's
work; have had 20 children; only 11 in life; have only one
son at the coal wall, and he would not have gone but he
married a coal-bearer when scarcely 19 years of age. Colliers
are more careless,and have more liberty than other tradesmen;
they take their children down too early, more from habit
than for their use. When both parents are below, they think
they prevent them running o'erwild about. Few women here
stay at home; they work below until the last hour of pregnancy
and often bear the child before they have time to wash themselves.
Women go below 10 and 12 days after confinement in many
cases. Few coal-wives have still-born children. Accidents
are very-frequent, more from carelessness than otherwise;
no notice is ever taken, for when people are killed they
are merely carried out and buried, and there is very little
talk about it. Children rarely ever go to school after once
down, if they do the fatigue prevents them from acquiring
much education. I do not think colliers are better off than
they were 46 years ago. I could earn 15s. a week at that
time, and it went much farther in the markets. Butcher meat
was 2 1/2 d. and 3d. per heavy pound, and meal 23s. the
load. Colliers have always drank hard; not so much now,
as whiskey, their only drink is much dearer."
John Syme, 16 years old, coal-hewer: "I get two tons
of coals down in a day, of the rough coal, which I've 2s.
2d. a ton. I generally work nine and ten days in the fortnight;
rarely less than nine. Go to work when it suits me."
Jane Brown, 13 years old. putter: "Has been wrought
12 months in the EastBryants. My employment is pushing the
carts on the iron rails; the weight of coal is the cart
is 7 to 8 cwt; a hundred-weight is 100 Ibs.; it can t be
more. I work 12 hours, and rest a bit when engine stops.
I change myself sometimes; when I go to the night-school,
not otherwise. I go three times a week: am trying the writing;
can't shape many letters at present. Father is dead: mother
and tour of us work below. The two young ones six years
and tour years of age, are under care of neighbour, who
receives Is. per week. We have one room in which we all
sleep at the East Houses."
Thomas Duncan, 11 years qt age, trapper. "I open the
air-doors for the putters; do so from six m the morning
till six at night. Mother calls me up at five in the morning
and gives me a piece of cake, which is all I get till I
return; sometimes I eat it as 1 gang. There is plenty of
water in the pit: the part I am in it comes up to my knees.
I did go to school before 1 was taken down and could read
then. Mother has always worked below: but father has run
away these five years.
Medical Return from John Svmingston. Esq.. Surgeon. Gorebridge.
disvict of Newbattle, Arniston. Mid Lothian: "In reference
to the diseases of the adult population in our collieries
there is no peculiarity existing amongst them more than
in the surrounding population, except in the male, and that
consists in the affection of the lungs peculiar to colliers,
commonly known by the name of "collier's consumption,"
attended with black expectoration, which disease generally
prevents the collier from continuing his underground operations,
almost as soon as other workmen may be reckoned in their
prime- Such is the only peculiarity of disease in the collier."
The report was truly horrifying and consequently legislation
was passed in 1842 forbidding females of any age and boys
under ten years from working underground. Thereafter, ponies
were used to haul the hutches of coal underground at the
Newbattle pits.
Forty years later, Alexander Mitchell, social reformer
and first provost of Dalkeith wrote. "The results of
the Act have been most gratifying. The wives and daughters
of our colliers now retain no traces of the previous bondage
but mingle freely with and in education and deportment are
quite equal to the female members of our industrial families.
The creel has disappeared from modern life, but man will
still remember the ungainly appearance which it gave to
them every Saturday as, with bent frame, unsteady step and
lack-lustre eye, they tottered homeward bearing in that
unsightly hamper the provisions of the week to come."
There was little incentive for Midlothian coal owners to
increase production before the mid eighteenth century. Roads
were so bad that carts could only be used in summer. In
winter, goods (including coal) had to be transported by
packhorses carrying loads of one cwt. each. Much better
roads into Edinburgh were made after 1750, mainly to enable
coal to be more easily transported to the city. Even after
that, the insubstantial coal carts carried only twelve to
fifteen cwt and the journey from New-battle to Edinburgh
and back took a whole day.
The completion of the Union Canal in 1822 allowed great
quantities of coal to be brought from Stirlingshire and
places further west to Edinburgh much more cheaply and easily
than from Midlothian.
In 1826 the Marquis of Lothian's factor, Mr McGill Rae,
wrote to him in alarm about the increased tolls to be charged
at Dalkeith. A cart with a ton load would hence forth have
to pay 2/- instead of 8d.
Plans were going ahead for a railway to carry Midlothian
coal cheaply to the city. The Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway,
with branch lines from Fisherrow and Dalkeith, was completed
in 1831. Its southern terminus was at Dalhousie Mains, close
to the Newbattle Colliery but separated from it by the nver
South Esk. The line carried Midlothian coal to Edinburgh
and manure back to the country. Later, a passenger service
was introduced. It was called the 'Innocent Railway' supposedly
because there were never any accidents on the line (although
there were accidents). The name may owe more to the fact
that its waggons were still horse-drawn long after the steam
engine was predominant elsewhere.
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