SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



brothering, * so named because the members of the union bound themselves 

 by a most solemn oath to obey the orders of the brotherhood under the 

 penalty of being stabbed through the heart or of having their bowels ripped 

 up.' 1 Many of the owners were magistrates or friends of magistrates ; 

 and so the military were called in, and in a very short time so many of the 

 leading strikers were arrested that 300 had to be accommodated in the 

 bishop of Durham's stables. When they had imprisoned the men the 

 masters were still helpless. Thanks to the mediation of the Rev. Nesfield, 

 a clerical magistrate, and of Captain Davis of the Carmarthenshire Militia, 

 a compromise as to date of binding was arrived at, but the bond still 

 remained, as the ' binding money ' often reached twenty guineas when 

 miners were scarce, and the miner could not refuse such an opportunity for 

 a carouse. 



From 1810 to 1830 the miners jogged along in the old way from 

 which the co-operative doctrines of their fellow miner Mackintosh were 

 unable to rouse them. The famous ' Tommy Hepburn,' co-operator and 

 chartist, was more successful, and 'Tommy Hepburn's Union' in 1830 

 swept into its organization the elite of the miners on both sides of the Tyne. 

 It was the first permanent fighting union, and after meetings at Black Fell 

 near Gateshead and upon Newcastle Town Moor, at which their manifold 

 grievances were discussed, the miners refused to renew the annual bond in 

 April, 1831, unless their grievances as to unjust weights, tommy-shops, unfair 

 rules, colliery houses, &c. were remedied. The strike ran its usual course. 

 The men destroyed all they could, and the owners used the military and im- 

 prisoned the miners who offended against the law, which despite the repeal of 

 the Combination Laws in 1825 6 was still against trade-unionists. How- 

 ever this time the men won a concession. The working-day for boys was 

 to be only of twelve hours' duration, and as the first victorious leader Hepburn 

 was extremely popular. He was intelligent and honest, and was one of the 

 first who realized the importance of popular sympathy. Perhaps this strike 

 would have been less violent had not the presence of the military alarmed 

 the men. The masters had not realized that a new era of trade-unionism 

 was dawning, and so they took all the old precautions.* 



The masters only saw in the union's strength an uncompromising hos- 

 tility, and so in 1832 they decided that only non-union men should be allowed 

 to work at the pits. This of course provoked a fresh strike, and despite 

 Hepburn's exertions outrages were committed, sometimes of an exceedingly 

 serious nature. The masters imported outside workmen, and the union 

 gradually went to pieces, until most of the men were glad to return to work 

 on any terms. Hepburn was a marked man. Sullen hatred or fear pre- 

 vented the miners from helping him to earn a livelihood, even as a pedlar of 

 tea, and at last he had to beg for work at Felling Colliery. He received it 

 upon promising to take no further part in trade-unionism. Everyone knew 

 he would keep his promise, but his counsel to the union men, ' to know how 

 to wait is the secret of success,' should cause him to be remembered as the 

 chief founder of the new order in Durham mining. 



1 Evidence of a colliery engineer in the Newcastle district before the committee on the Combination 

 Laws ; quoted in Hist, of TraJt Unionism, 79. 



' For a sympathetic account of Hepburn's union see Fynes, op. cit. ch. iv, v, and vi. 



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