Mexborough and Swinton Times – Saturday 14 May 1904
Reresby Arms, Denaby Main
A Notable House
The following article appeared in the “Licensing World” on Friday last:—During the recent calamitous and futile strike at the Denaby and Cadeby Main Collieries in South Yorkshire—a stoppage lasting thirty-nine weeks, resulting in much misery and privation, and the ultimate eviction of thousands of men, women, and children from their homes by the colliery proprietors, who were their landlords—the “Reresby Arms” at Denaby Main gained a national if not a world-wide distinction. The only licensed house in the old village of Denaby, and the nearest licensed house by many hundreds of yards to the Denaby Main Colliery itself, it was naturally the headquarters of all who were concerned, directly or otherwise, in the disastrous and protracted labour dispute.
Locally, it became known for other and better reasons than because it was alternately the place of meeting of the ill-advised advisers and leaders of the men, the rendezvous of the company of Pressmen who swarmed in Denaby during the acute days of storm and stress, and the rallying point of the battalion of police to enforce the ejectment orders granted by the magistrates. The wives and children of the men on strike learned to know the “Reresby Arms,” as did also the local clergymen, the Catholic priest, the ministers of other denominations, and others who employed themselves to relieve the famine and distress which the strike occasioned as a place at which they never applied to receive only empty words without relief. Mr. Weston, who keeps the house, and his good lady were “instant in season and out of season” in helping, to the uttermost of their means, the work of keeping the wolf from hundreds of Denaby doors. Neither priest nor layman ever asked Mr. Weston and his wife for the wherewithal to feed the hungry mouths or clothe naked bodies in vain.
Not only during the strike did the “Reresby Arms” deserve its reputation as the house of a thoroughly white man. Mr. Weston has always been foremost in charitable work. The best collections for the local hospital come from the “Reresby Arms,” and when any poor fellow is hurt in the pit or lamed on the railway and a benefit football match or concert be organised for him there is always a sovereign to be readily obtained toward the fund from Mr. Weston. In yet another respect is the “Reresby Arms” unique amongst the licensed houses of the kingdom. The miners of Denaby Main are paid about two o’clock on Saturday, and the first call of many of the men who have just received their wages is at the “Reresby Arms.” At five o’clock, however, they are compelled to clear out and go home, for every Saturday the house is closed from five o’clock to six o’clock, and after six nobody with a black face is served in the house. Thus is the miner compelled to go home and clean himself, and the inference is that during his visit to his home his wife will have secured that share of his week’s earnings which is her due. Such a regulation, rigidly enforced as it is, undoubtedly results in loss to the landlord, but the benefit of it is felt and appreciated in hundreds of miners’ homes, and it is in itself a fact upon which those who condemn the public-house landlord as a mere soulless, money-grubbing brute may profitably ponder. Mr. Thomas Weston stops selling at the very busiest and best hour of the week in order that none of the women and children in Denaby village may have cause to blame the “Reresby Arms” for the lack of Sunday dinner and short commons during the week.
Mr. Thomas Weston, who has been landlord of the “Reresby Arms” for more than nine years, is vice-president of the Doncaster and District Licensed Victuallers’ Association, which he, with three other delegates, will represent at the Conference of the Licensed Trade to be held at Oxford next week. For eleven years previously he kept the “Bull’s Head” in Mexboro’, a township close adjoining the village of Denaby. His energy has not been exhausted in philanthropy, for he was one of the founders, and remains to-day the principal supporter, of the Denaby Main Football Club, which figures in the Midland League. The club to-day plays upon a field which he provided for them. Twelve months ago this popular landlord and his wife suffered a severe loss in the death of their only son and only child, who died of consumption, to whom, a fortnight ago, was erected in Mexboro’ Cemetery a magnificent marble monument.
The “Reresby Arms” was formerly a farmhouse and, indeed, part of the present premises was the granary of the farmstead, when the buildings followed the agricultural pursuit. It became a licensed house about 35 years ago, when the Denaby Main Colliery was opened, and it took the sign of the “Reresby Arms,” because it was part of the property of Sir John Reresby, then the Lord of the Manor of Denaby. His coat of arms and crest, the latter being the Cup of Maintenance, showing him to have been a member at one time of the Royal household, constitute the sign of the house. The male line of the Reresbys becoming extinct, the property passed by the marriage of the female heir with one of the Fullertons into their family, the present ground landlord of the “Reresby Arms” being Mr. J. S. H. Fullerton, of Thrybergh Hall, the Master of the Badsworth Hunt.