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 supplies 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 barn.'

At the dissolution of the monasteries 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 monasteries 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 role 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 from King James VI to Mark Ker's son in 1587 and 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 coal. The men were paid to deliver the coal to the pithead and generally employed their wives and daughters to carry the coal in 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 by the coal owner, theoretically 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 criticized 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 new 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 rate fluctuated greatly and could be as little as 5/- (25p) a day or as high as 21/- (£1.05) 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 money was paid for death caused by suicide, debauchery, dueling 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 regatta 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 aging 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 West Bryans Mines, belonging to the Most Noble Marquis of Lothian: "We employ near 400 persons in the Bryan’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’er wild 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 15/- (75p). a week at that time, and it went much farther in the markets. Butcher meat was 2½d (1p). and 3d (1p). per heavy pound, and meal 23/- (£1.15), the load. Colliers have always drank hard; not so much now, as whisky, 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 2/2d (11p). 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 East Bryans. 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 112 lbs (50Kg). it can t be more. I work 12 hours, and rest a bit when the engine stops. I change myself sometimes; when I go to the night-school, not otherwise. I go three times a week, I am trying the writing; can't shape many letters at present. Father is dead: mother and four of us work below. The two young ones six years and four years of age, are under care of a neighbour, who receives 1/- (5p). per week. We have one room in which we all sleep at the East Houses."

Thomas Duncan, 11 years of age, trapper. "I open the air-doors for the putters; do so from six in 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 I 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 I was taken down and could read then. Mother has always worked below: but father has run away these five years”.

Medical Return from John Symingston. Esq., Surgeon. Gorebridge. district 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/- (10p) instead of 8d (3½p).

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 River 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 wagons were still horse-drawn long after the steam engine was predominant elsewhere.

Introduction | Contents | Chapter 2