This song has a true story - and can you really call yourself a folk duo if you don’t have a true story song about the plight of miners from the 1800’s?
This song was brought to our attention by a post from Ray Padgett on facebook (don’t you love the modern age? Back in the day this would involve renewing a library card while desperately hoping the librarian doesn’t recognise you as the person that borrowed ‘Organisation for Dummies’ and then lost it).
Anyway, it’s a great piece of Yorkshire history and gave rise to a proper folk musician right of passage - we can officially retire now, knowing we have done our bit for the plight of 19th century miners. Here’s the story:
In 1893 the price of coal dropped by 35%.
Greedy pit owners soon set their eyes to slashing the already impoverished workers' wages by 25%.
At a demonstration in Wakefield the Yorkshire Miners' Association leaders said 'No reduction will be submitted to. We intend to stick to what we have got. We got it by conquest and it will have to be taken away from us by conquest.'
In June 1893, the mine owners locked the workers out across West Ridings 253 pits. Around 80,000 miners stopped work. The strike began peacefully until strikebreakers were hired to move the coal and miners began to assemble at the collieries where coal was being loaded onto railway wagons.
On September 7th word spread across Featherstone that coal was being moved at Ackton Hall Pit and locals gathered to confront the managers. Local police were out of town that day as they had been sent to the Doncaster for the races. Soldiers from the 1st battalion of the south Staffordshire Regiment were drafted to maintain order. The Riot Act was read by local magistrate, Bernard Hartley, and the soldiers were deployed to disperse the crowd.
At this point the miners were suffering from hunger, but they remained determined. The crowd is said to have greeted the soldiers by chanting 'We would rather be shot than hungered to death!' and refused to disperse.
The soldiers were instructed to fire warning shots above the crowd's heads. The second volley of shots wounded eight people. Two young men were killed - James Duggan (25) and James Gibb (22).
History lesson aside, here is the song: