Old Monkland Colliery wood hall?

[Andrew C.]

This is an extract from the Hendersons of Fordell papers at the Scottish Archives to give a flavour of the lives of mining communities. I am sure  the runaway couple are connected to my tree as I have  a Jaap and Beveridges marriage in Dalgety.

"Coaltoun 2d April 1772

We Thomas Jap and Robert Beveridge Colliers belonging to Fordell Colliery hereby become bound for Walter Cowan Collier also bound to said Colliery and now lying in Edinburgh Tolbooth that immediately upon his liberation he shall come home to his Masters Work and their work peaceably and faithfully in future, without giving the least molestation or endeavouring to raise Mutinies or other disturbances in the colliery. As also that the said Walter Cowan shall bring home Elspith Jap a Coal Bearer likewise belonging to Fordell Works and now working about East Lothian. All this we engage and come bound for under the penalty of two pounds ten shillings sterling to be paid to Sir Robert Henderson in case of failure.

Thos. Japp his Initials   TJ

Robert Beveridge his initials   R

John Latta(?) signed for Elspith Japp   (ink smudge)"

[Lodger]

This was too early to affect the Lanarkshire coalfields, miners here in Lanarkshire were not treated quite so badly, simply because the coal here wasn't really being extracted in an industrial scale until well into the 19th century. It began much earlier over in the east side of the country.
There were a few coal mines here, (not collieries) Coursington in Motherwell was one, its "coal book" for 1776 has survived and it shows that the mine really only supplied domestic fires in the parish.
The Duke of Hamilton brought in large amounts of poor Irish families to the Hamilton area during the 1820s (the start of the great religious divide in places like Larkhall etc.) but they were not, as far as I know, bound by any contract other than a "tied" house, a hovel in reality but still better than what they left behind in Ireland.

[RJ_Paton]

This was too early to affect the Lanarkshire coalfields, miners here in Lanarkshire were not treated quite so badly, simply because the coal here wasn't really being extracted in an industrial scale until well into the 19th century. It began much earlier over in the east side of the country.
There were a few coal mines here, (not collieries) Coursington in Motherwell was one, its "coal book" for 1776 has survived and it shows that the mine really only supplied domestic fires in the parish.
The Duke of Hamilton brought in large amounts of poor Irish families to the Hamilton area during the 1820s (the start of the great religious divide in places like Larkhall etc.) but they were not, as far as I know, bound by any contract other than a "tied" house, a hovel in reality but still better than what they left behind in Ireland.

It wasn't a contract that tied down the 18th century miners - the Coal Masters relied upon the Law, an Act of the Scottish Parliament from the 17th century - which made it a criminal offence for any collier to leave their masters employment unless with the masters permission. In 1770 the Carron Iron Works had various warrants executed against different Coal Masters (including the Duke of Hamilton) for "harbouring" colliers who had left their employment. This form of lifelong servitude was to come to an end around 1800 following the passing of  another Act of the UK parliament but throughout the 19th and early 20th Century various pieces of legislation continued to favour the Mine owners/ Mill Owners etc with regard to employment terms.

[Andrew C.]

"A 1606 Act "Anent Coalyers and Salters" had placed Scottish "coalyers, coal-bearers and salters" in a condition of permanent bondage to their employer.[1] Any such worker who absented from that employer and sought to work elsewhere was to be punished as a thief.[2] The Act also included provision whereby vagabonds could be placed unwillingly into the same compulsory labour.

Erskine May notes that these workers were thereafter treated "a distinct class, not entitled to the same liberties as their fellow-subjects".[3]

The 1775 Act noted that the Scottish coal workers existed in "a state of slavery or bondage"[4] and sought to address this. The main focus of the legislation was to remove the condition of servitude on new entrants to these industries, thus opening them to greater expansion. Although the Act noted "the reproach of allowing such a State of Servitude to exist in a Free Country", it sought not to do "any injury to the present Masters", so created only gradual conditions whereby those already in servitude in the mines could seek to be liberated from it."

From wikipedia

Although Acts where introduced to ease the burden on new miners it was not repealed in its entirety until only thirty years or so before the abolition of slavery. I don't want to get all political, but it does annoy me slightly when some revisionists seem to think we all should feel guilt about the slave trade, when many of our own ancestors lived in servitude. The  owners of property deemed that the "poor" whether they were white or black were their property, (this view is certainly not intended to belittle the obscenity of the slave trade, and I apologise if offense is taken at the comparison), where they could pluck children from inner cities and move them to mills to work themselves to death or in the case of many of our ancestors where bound to a master for their entire life, a commodity rather than a free person.   

[Lodger]

All those years I studied Scottish History wasted, I could just have read Wikipedia.

As I have already stated - this is the Lanarkshire Board and I presume the thread here is touching on Woodhall Colliery, something that did not exist in 1605, 1770, 1775 or at anytime before the last Act of Parliament outlawing the servitude of colliers.

The Dukes of Hamilton owned vast swathes of land in Lanarkshire, Stirlingshire, East & West Lothian etc. Carron Iron Works, last time I checked, was where it always was, on the banks of the river Forth, Stirlingshire. That may have been on land owned by the Hamilton family as part of the Kinneil Estate.

Please go back and check the original question on this thread, it only concerns the middle years of the 19th century onwards and has nothing to do with serfs and lifelong servitude.
If this did indeed happen in Lanarkshire (this is the Lanarkshire Board, just to remind people once again) where is the proof, forget about Wikipedia and hearsay, where is the actual written proof and where in this county of Lanarkshire did this happen?
If I can see evidence I'll be happy to hold up my hand and say "I was wrong" but, if, after the dates mentioned at the beginning of this post, there was such a situation in Lanarkshire, I would really like to know where.
No one is disputing what happened centuries ago in other parts of the country but, is it relevant to the original post concerning a family who only arrived in the country in the mid 1850s?
If it isn't relevant then why cloud the issue with it?

[Andrew C.]

No need to be facetious just a bit of chat. I think the conversation had moved on a bit from the original post, and my post was not meant to be relevant to Wood hall Colliery but just a bit of info. I don't think threads need to be totally narrow to the original post. 

[Lodger]

Well, that's where we disagree. I think rambling on with irrelevant information only confuses the original poster. Any one of us can Google "Scottish colliers" just as you did and read exactly the same information as you have posted here, I was never a fan of duplication of effort.
And, once more, I maintain that the "Colliers and Salters" alluded to in the Wikipedia article had nothing at all to do with the Lanarkshire Coalfield. That was all east-coast, I've lived in Lanarkshire my whole life and never saw a salt-pan!
I will say nothing more on this thread as it is totally unfair to the original poster.

[RJ_Paton]

I suggest you read "Slavery In The Coal-Mines Of Scotland" By James Barrowman, Mining Engineer
, which was Presented at the Annual General Meeting of the Federated Institution of Mining Engineers, on 14 September 1897.

While the report does not mention Woodhall Colliery it does mention several Lanarkshire mines and Coal masters and the use of this original piece of legislation to bind miners and other mine workers to a particular master in basically lifelong servitude.

added - just found a copy online at http://www.scottishmining.co.uk/429.html

[Lodger]

I did say that I would add nothing else to this thread but having just taken the trouble to read the link posted by Mr Falkyrn (or is it Mrs?) I suggest that he or she should take his own advice.

And thus it came about that the nineteenth century had dawned before it could be said in truth of Scotland, in the words of Cowper:— There are no slaves at home : then why abroad?


So, I was right, thank you for clearing the matter up. By the mid-19th century,  the time the original poster of this thread was interested in, no such conditions survived in the Lanarkshire Coalfield.