South Staffordshire and the Colliers

Introduction

Author: Anonymous

Journal: The Illuminated Magazine

Year/Volume/Issue: 1843, Volume 1, Issue 6

This short story serves as a social commentary narrated by a fictional woman shopkeeper. She tells of the happenings of the maltreated colliers in the area of South Staffordshire during a strike. Her detailed accounts and information provide a powerful insight into the effects of the Industrial Revolution on the working classes.

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South Staffordshire and the Colliers

Transcription

Of the terrible nature of a collier’s work the public are already fully aware; -- they know also the miserable wages they receive: --all the remarks which a woman can offer, on either subject, would be superfluous and tedious;--woman can only remark upon what passes around her, and, with her scanty means of observation, relate what passes more immediately within the range of her own narrow circle.

From the nature of the trade in which I am engaged, and the conspicuous situation of my shop, in the most thronged part of the northern entrance to the busy town of Birmingham, I was most particularly exposed to the visits of the colliers during the late calamitous strike: well aware of the entire justice of their demands, wondering at their patient forbearance, and feeling in my heart that they were perfectly justified in the course they had taken, of course it became my duty to do all that I could to comfort and assist them. As the first group departed from my door, I promised, in my own mind, that I would never allow one to go away unassisted. This, I afterwards found, was a vow of tremendous magnitude, and not to be kept by a person in my humble circumstances; accordingly, I should have had the mortification of failing, had it not been for the prompt and powerful assistance of two or three female friends, whose activity in collecting all the “omnium gatherum” of their kitchens, and confiding the same to me for distribution, to my infinite satisfaction, enabled me to perform my vow, and conferred happiness on many a family.

To the credit of the working men of Birmingham, they nobly contributed, out of their scanty wages, to the relief of the distressed groups of colliers which swarmed in our streets. They would desire them to attend on Saturday nights, at the various manufactories, and as they, the workmen, came out from receiving wages, every man regularly handed over his donation to the collier appointed to receive for each group. The great majority of the shopkeepers also did their duty, as members of that great human family of which these poor sufferers were part. But, alas! what shall I--what can I say--of our upper classes, our rich and influential neighbours, our aristocracy, in fact?--why, that, with some few bright exceptions, they acted up to the eternal character of an aristocracy--they were like the priest in the parable, “they passed on the other side;”--they not only did no good themselves, but they tried to prevent others. Placards were issued by the authorities, ordering all colliers found begging in our streets to be sent to prison. Still they came; and though, in obedience to the law, they did not beg, their anxious earnest looks, their odd attire, their strange and wondering straggling about the streets, sufficiently identified them, and needed no interpretation. They were frankly called into the houses and fed. Out came more placards, warning the inhabitants of the enormity they were committing in relieving misery. Of course these were treated with the contempt they merited. (The Birmingham people think with the Duke of Newcastle.) Then policemen were stationed at the northern entrance of the town, to intercept and detain them as they came in. That proved complete folly, for they came by circuitous routes, and the townspeople allowed them to sleep in stables, outhouses, &c. An acquaintance of mine used to “litter down” sixteen every night for a fortnight.

Thus much upon the state of affairs in Birmingham, during that memorable period; as to the state of the great mining district, from whence these poor creatures came, it was, and is, lamentable in the extreme. The human mind naturally rejects the alternative of begging as long as any thing remains; and, with this feeling (creditable to our nature), many a family avoided begging as long as they had a single article to sell; pawnbrokers had declined loans some time; even after all was gone, they have been known to stay in their naked homes until one or more of the children sickened, when the master-principle of woman’s nature being awakened, the mother would go forth to beg help, and the father would wander perhaps to Birmingham, or some other town, on the like errand.

That before they would do this, they would even rake up all the rejected offal and potatoe peelings from dunghills, is a fact.

It will be said that these relations, coming from themselves, are not to be relied upon. I can only say, that I am witness to the truth of every statement I make. I have known the mother of a family (father killed in a mine) beg a quarter of a peck of bran, tie it up, and boil it as puddings; and the whole family, consisting of the widow, three children, and the aged grandfather, subsist upon it for a week; at the end of that time they were beyond the wish for food, being all very ill, with the exception of the woman, who had eaten very little of it, as she emphatically said, “her tears had been her food.” The poor old man and one of the children died, and the mother, conquering her natural timidity, came out to beg.

The extreme simplicity of these poor people struck me as extraordinary, answering every question with readiness and artlessness, except upon religious subjects. Although prepared for this, from what I know of the nature of their religious instruction, I own I was not prepared for such an amount of bigotry; well as I know the priesthood by whom they are taught, still the extreme narrowness of their views, and the canting, whining tone assumed, was grating and shocking to my ear, as soon as any thing was said that could be at all construed into bearing upon religious topics. Numerous and greedy as locusts, their preachers, teachers, class-leaders, &c., have ever contrived to make a comfortable living, and have thundered contentment in the ears of the credulous people so long, that, though they do not feel that contentment, they try to persuade the spectator that they do or ought to feel it.

Aware, then, of the course of instruction under which the credulity of these children of nature has been fostered, we can feel nothing but the deepest pity when we find them trying, in their coarse, clumsy way, to enlist our sympathies, by assuming the cant and whine of the religion, or the hypocrisy, or whatever it is, which they have been taught. “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth;” “all things are of God;” “the cross of Christ must be borne,” &c. &c., are sentences which they have learned by rote, and which it is evident they use to show us they are not reprobates, but which they are puzzled to reconcile with their actual sufferings, and know not whether to believe or not. Poor things, how should they? They are taught that they are chastened by the Lord, and their own observation contradicts it, for they feel only the cruelty and oppression of man. Hardy, well built, and vigorous, they come from the hands of their Creator; but wither and die under the wrongs piled upon them by their brother man. But it has ever been the trade of their spiritual instructors to keeps this out of sight; and we can have no feeling but sorrow for the victims of such a system.

The artlessness of their manners was conspicuous whenever I happened to say any thing which struck them as rather out of a woman’s province. Thus, as long as we talked about eating, drinking, or chapel, they seemed to think it was my concern, and addressed me as ma’am; but if I got upon the all-engrossing subject, the state of the country, iron, or coal trade, &c. &c., they invariably called me sir, showing (as I thought) that they were surprised into an acknowledgement that they thought such subjects foreign to “woman’s mission.”

That they are endued with that chief ingredient in all real religion--pure and holy gratitude--I have many convincing proofs. When, on Saturday night, they had money given to them, they always came to buy bread from me. Many, when they got work again, called with little tokens of their kind remembrance in the shape of geological specimens, tiny coal-hammers, and the like. One anecdote I must not omit.

I had gone to spend the afternoon with a friend, the first holiday I had had for some time; for during the long period of the strike, I never accepted an invitation, feeling it my duty to be found at my post. Now, however, the colliers were gone in, and I was at liberty to take a little recreation; accordingly I went out, leaving a young lady in care of the business. She was sitting reading, when a stout hard-featured woman, with a great basket on her arm, came into the shop with the inquiry--

“Bin you the woman o’ this shop?”

“No!”

She went out again, and commenced an examination of the building. Stepping in again, she said--

“I bin roight, tho’; I see I bin roight; the big flour shop, the little bread shop, the big gates, the pump, the pigeons, and the geese-i’-the-yard. Oh, yes! I bin roight; the missus wor koind to the colliers, wain’t hur!”

My young friend now began to comprehend her, and said, “Oh, yes! you’re right, but she’s out. Have you any thing to say to her?”

“Yes,” says the woman; “I’ve got a good gel (deal) to say to her. My son, Tummas Mally, hur knows my son (God knows I did not know her son from scores of flannel frocks who came every day), he tou’d me to be sure to call and tell the missus that he’d got work; he know’d she’d be glad to hear it.”

“Yes, I’m sure she will, if he’s got his full price.”

“He’s got his price, woman, and now we doan’t mean to be tommied any more, but come to Brummagem and buy what we want. This is my first coming; we’ve got money now, not tommy, so I bin come to buy up for the week.”

“Well, she’ll be very glad to hear it.”

“Ah; but I’ve got more to tell you. My son, Tummas Mally, have got two parrots, an’ he made up his mind, when hur was so koind to him, to gie hur one. He used to say, hur words cheered him up, and did him as much good as the victual hur gave him; and he said, if ever he got work, hur should have one of the parrots. Dun you think hur’d please to have him?”

“She’d be highly pleased with it, and set great store by it, I’m sure. Is it a crockery ware parrot, to stand on the mantelpiece?”

“Bless you, no! it’s a real, live parrot; we’ve got two, as a young mon brought from over the seas; we’ve got a young ‘un, and an ould ‘un. It’s the ould ‘un; he can say anything a’most; poor fellow, he wor a’most clammed (starved) this turn; neighbours often tou’d my son to bring him an’ sell him, but he hadn’t the heart; he a’ways said, the missus here should have him, if hur would, and he should often call and see him. To-day is Monday; and my son means to bring him next Saturday as ever comes; so I wish you good bye, Miss, and be sure you tell the missus; remember my son’s name bin Tummas Mally.”

I need not say that, when told all this on my return home, I treated it as a joke, though why such a joke should be played upon me, I could not think. Impatiently my young friend and myself waited for Saturday to see if Tummas Mally would keep his work. True as steel, however, he made his appearance with Polly, who is now an especial favourite with us, and instead of being a starved handful of feathers, is rich in plumage, and saucy in speech, calling out lustily, “Come here, poor collier,” and answering the question of “Who are you,” with “I’m Tummas Mally the poor collier, who are you pray, a policeman?”

I must leave this pleasing part of my subject, and proceed to say that I made the most minute inquiries of every group, asking the relative prices of every article of consumption as sold by the retail dealer, and as doled out at the tommy or truck shops. From all I have learned, that in Bilston the first article of life, bread, is charged as shilling loaves, weighing at most of the tommy shops 5 lb., at others nearly 6 lb., never exceeding that weight; this bread is exceedingly coarse and bad; (our bread made of best seconds flour weighs 4 lb. 51/2 oz., and is sold for sixpence halfpenny; and even the brown, or inferior bread is much better than the Bilston shilling loaves.) Fearing to be deceived on this point, I have frequently quitted the shop, and have overheard them saying to each other, “How nice this bread is; it’s brown, but it’s so good, ours don’t seem like bread to this.” Coarse cloth, such as working shirts are made of, is charged tenpence a yard; I have seen a sample, and declare I could buy as good anywhere for fourpence; miserable bacon, which a man described to me as “salted fat pork,” so badly cured and wet, that the water oozed out, ninepence per pound; same price for cheese which could be bought anywhere else for fivepence. One of our townspeople attends Bilston market with bacon and cheese; and his articles at fivepence are so superior to what is got at the truck shops for ninepence, as to be the subject of frequent comment, being taken from house to house to be compared, and how freely descanted upon we need not say.

Here follow a list of prices as I received them from a collier’s wife, and which has been fully corroborated by others; in fact, I have found no disposition to exaggerate,--on the contrary, when told that I earnestly desire the truth, the answer has always been to the effect, “We’n sooner tell thee under than over, because they sha’n’t say we be’en telling lies on ‘em.”

“In the first place we must have ten shilling a week tommy; if we get any more in the week we may have the money.”

“How much does your husband earn?”

“About twelve, sometimes thirteen shillings, (but we’re much better off than some); if we were to get a pound we must still take ten shillings tommy; but very often he only earns ten, and then we’ve no money.”

“What rent do you pay?”

“Eighteenpence a week, but we owe a great deal; we could not pay it, no how.”

“But I thought they could not force you to take truck instead of money; you could lay a complaint before a magistrate.”

“We know that; but if we do we can never get work of any pit after, for they be all magistrates themselves, or related, or friendly, or something; whether there is an understanding among them or not, we can’t say, but it looks very like it, for if a man refuses to take truck, he is discharged, and no other pit will employ him; they don’t want men there, they say.”

“What is the price of flour?”

It is always very inferior, and charged eightpence per bushel more than best seconds anywhere else; coarse brown sugar, like sand, eightpence halfpenny; halfpenny a pound advance upon the current price of soap, and a whole penny in quality; commonest black tea, fivepence halfpenny per ounce; very fat bacon, eightpence (selling here at fivepence), tolerably good, ninepence; ham, a shilling; cheese, eightpence. This woman assured me that for the sake of having a little cash she has many times walked to Birmingham to sell her sister for sixpence, sugar which had been reckoned to her at ninepence a pound; and it is a notorious fact, that often when they have got their week’s flour, they cannot muster a halfpenny to buy yeast, and that is the practice to leave a piece of soap or pound of sugar in the hands of the publican as security, until they can by some means raise a halfpenny to redeem it.

The Butty Colliers (kind of second in command) generally keep public houses; the mistress of one addresses a collier's wife with, “Why don’t you have some ale? you suckle a child--you ought to have some.”

“I’ve got no money.”

“Oh, go to your tommy-shop and bring me a pound or two of sugar, and I’ll let you have some good ale, such as you ought to have always.”

Here commences a wholesale domestic tragedy; a growing love for drinking on the part of the woman, with all the dissimulation necessary to conceal it, and a spirit of recklessness produced in the man, by finding that with all his labour he only becomes worse off and more involved.

This state of things I became acquainted with, in a sort of recriminatory dialogue between a collier and his wife; he observing that many of the women liked the system, because the landladies were always ready to help them in these sorts of contrivance--and by these means they got a little ale, though at the same time they knew the ruinous consequences of it; the woman retorted, by saying, “that the landlords used every art to get them to spend every farthing of what was over their tommy score, when they went to be paid.”

“Do you then receive your wages from public houses?”

“Not in every case, but very generally--and then our money must always be changed at the bar, and we must have a quart of ale, and we often stop and drink more, tempted by the sight of some nice hot joint of meat, which they promise us a bit of--if we drink like men.”

I have one honourable exception to the long list of tyrant masters, and really it is quite refreshing to speak of him.--“My master,” said a Bilston collier, “is a good man; he pays us at six o’clock on Saturday nights; neither he nor any of his butties keep shops; we have our money, and go where we like to spend it--but his master, pointing to a companion, never reckons with them till six or seven weeks after the work is done, and by that time they have eaten it all out at the shop--and more to it.”

One master publicly declares, that he gets more by his two truck shops than by his two blast furnaces.

Some few years since, a friend of mine built a row of houses at Bilston, which are exclusively tenanted by colliers. He has received no rent from any for a very long time, and says, that knowing they have no money, and that even in work, under the present system, he is certain they could not pay him--he cannot find it in his heart to take their miserable furniture, and turn them out, so there they continue to live--my friend’s property being a positive loss to him.

Butter six weeks since in Birmingham, was selling at one shilling, and by these shops, one and fivepence per lb. Meat bought on the Friday, not being eatable, the woman took it back--it was changed certainly--but on the Saturday the man was told they had no farther occasion for him, and he has been unable to obtain work at any other pit.

If this is not grinding the face of the poor, I don’t know what is.

I have said that the simple honesty of these people is proverbial, and under their circumstances, quite marvelous. I freely trusted them with dishes, jugs, handkerchiefs, &c., which were always duly returned, sometimes a distance of fourteen miles,--but candour compels me to say, there is one district which must be the exception to this high moral character; and it is most extraordinary and curious to observe how exactly the boundaries of this exception are defined. I allude to the region called Old Hill. It would be an interesting question for the consideration of philosophers, why the natives of this particular spot should be afflicted with such greasy palms, that everything seems naturally to stick to them; and why they also have such a propensity to quarrel, that a family is scarcely to be found, without one or more of its members having “got into trouble,” as it is called, from one or other of these causes. This disposition of the natives is the more to be wondered at, as of all the country round, their zeal in all religious matters is the loudest and most obtrusive. No where are the preachers so energetic: chapels and meetings abound, and as to singing hymns, (or as they call it, shouting,) I need only repeat the common saying--“that you may hear an Old Hill meeting three miles.” They seem to rush eagerly to these exercises, as to some amusing excitement; there also is all their finery displayed. The whole district being, as one may say, one large cinder heap, is very dusty, and the women’s petticoats are therefore worn exceedingly short, fully exposing a pair of well greased leather lace-ups, a gown of the gaudiest colours, with an unsullied white apron, while the neck is always decorated with a string of paltry beads, or a band of black velvet. Owing to the constant practice of carrying heavy baskets of coal on the head, the females acquire a stiff, perpendicular gait; from the same cause the throat becomes thick and muscular, which renders the decorative part of their dress anything but becoming.

Such is the costume at Easter and other festivals, when there is more than common going on at the meetings, &c. &c. At such times, if you enter any of these places, you are overpowered by the strong smell of peppermint. The chief shopkeeper of the district declares, that when they were in work, he has sold a quarter of a hundred weight of peppermint lozenges, on one Easter Monday--the girls saying that “it did for scent as well as suck.”

That a mercurial desire to appropriate every thing to their own use prevails in this particular division of the mining district, is a singular fact, and will be readily recognised by any acquainted with the locality; a total absence of shame or feeling on the subject is also prevalent; they do not seem to think it is a crime. A droll anecdote occurs to me. A young acquaintance commenced shopkeeping there, and after a short time killed one of his pigs; his landlord, who lived next door, gravely telling him that he must take the carcass into the house, and sit up all night to watch it. M---- treated the matter very lightly, saying, they could not break in without his hearing.

“Oh bless you, they wouldn’t mind that at all.”

Disregarding the warning, M---- hung the pig up in the kitchen, locked the doors, and went to bed; not so his anxious landlord, who sat by the fire listening to the pattering of rain. Presently he heard his active neighbours busily at work removing the brickwork from under his parlour window, under the mistake that he had added his little sitting room to my friend M----’s house. No concealment, no silence was observed, the bricks as they were pulled out were thrown on a heap, amid the chatter of many voices, male and female. The old man, throwing his wife’s shawl over his head, to screen him from the rain, ran into M----’s back yard, calling out, “They’n come for thy pig, they’n come for thy pig!”

“You shan’t have it, if you are come for it,” said M----, throwing open the window and presenting a gun.

“Oh do’e shoot, oh do’e shoot,” cried the old man, in and agony at sight of the gun, “I’m disguis’n in my wife’s shawl.”

Peals of laughter now arose on every side, some who were standing round the palings of the back-yard calling to M---- to shoot, while those in the front seemed to consider the mistake they had made as capital good fun. “We’n broke into the wrong house, what’n ye think?” was the signal for roars of laughter, and they all seemed to enjoy it amazingly. M----, however, being more serious, came to the front window with his gun, when his neighbours, wishing him “good night,” withdrew; and as the next morning everybody knew all about it, and appeared to think it an excellent joke, there was no more said about the matter.

Hitherto, I have only spoken of the men; I am now about to remark on the present condition of the masters, particularly in the iron trade, whose good or bad condition is inseparably connected with the coal trade.

About five years since, the iron masters of Scotland began to be aware of the advantages of their position, as compared with those of South Staffordshire, two great natural advantages involving a third, the ore of Staffordshire yielding 35 percent, while that of Scotland yields 74. The Scotch ore has only to be removed from the hills on inclined planes, while that of Staffordshire is dug out of the earth; and finally, the richness of the Scotch ore renders the tedious and expensive process of calcining almost unnecessary. The iron masters of Scotland, of course, made the most of these advantages, but at the same time wished to agree with the Staffordshire masters as to price, as, by that means, they (the Scotch) would realize an enormous profit, whilst the Staffordshire men would be able to keep their heads above water. To this end a deputation was sent, which was met at Wolverhampton with derision and contempt; some few of the smaller fry of masters were inclined to reason the matter, but the leviathans of the trade would hear of no arrangement: the deputation left them, with a promise that, within three years, they should be so undersold in their own market (Wolverhampton) that it would be impossible for them to stand under it; the period named has not yet arrived, for this took place about two years since, but the promise is fulfilled to the letter. To meet the continual reductions of the Scotch, the masters here have, from time to time, resorted to the miserable expedient of lowering wages; till now, at two shillings a day and two days work a week, it is impossible to make any farther reduction, and they are now selling their stock at ruinous prices and at a downright loss.

The iron masters are generally supposed to be wealthy--but my own impression is, that the supposition is anything but correct. If, instead of great wealth, we were to read great credit, we should, perhaps, be nearer the truth. My idea is, that by the universal mode of giving three months bills for every thing, they manage to live, as one may say, three months beforehand; then, as they are all connected in some shape or form with the truck system, the goods obtained by three months bill are doled out at an enormous profit to the workpeople, in lieu of, or in part of wages, so that by the time the bill becomes due, the iron may be turned into money, and the credit of the master sustained.

That the whole district must eventually close, the masters well know, They say so themselves with grave faces; they know that if the Scotch would not agree with them, the Belgian is ready to step in and undersell both.

The face of the whole district is changed. Instead of looking smoky as it used to do, there are no works moving, and a solitary smoke here and there alone indicates to the passing traveller the character of the interesting country around him. To enlarge upon this state of things with reference to the immense population is quite superfluous; it is painful, it is disgusting, it is revolting to enumerate the miseries this portion of squandering--spendthrift--bankrupt--luxurious--”merrie England.”

How To Cite (MLA Format)

“South Staffordshire and the Colliers.” The Illuminated Magazine. 1, 6 (1843): 330-334. Ed. McKay Jacobsen. Victorian Short Fiction Project. Web. [Here add your last date of access].

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Edited by: Jacobsen, McKay: section 1, Fall 2015

From: 1843, Volume 1, Issue 6 (The Illuminated Magazine)