Mexborough and Swinton Times August 10, 1907
A Denaby Presentation
The announcement that a public presentation is to be made to Capt M. E. W. Pope, a member of the family so prominently identified with the great Denaby and Cadeby Main colliery, is more significant than it appears at first sight.
It signifies the presence of a really good feeling, which cannot but conduce to the welfare of one of the most important industrial and commercial concerns in the country.
The dark days that came to Denaby a few years back are happily passed away, never, we trust, to return, and the peace and prosperity of the mining village finds a reflection of material benefit to adjacent towns, where more money is circulated because of the big business done by Denaby and Cadeby.
When we hear local complaints of bad trade, we wonder how Mexborough, Swinton, Wath, Wombwell, Conisborough, Denaby and Hickleton would fare without the neighbouring presence of the collieries.
The miner is notoriously free with his money. He works hard to earn it, and when he spends he spends liberally. His dress is familiarly dated when returning from work, but his earnings are clean, and he scatters abroad the fruits of his toil in the way that tends to be prosperity of the community in which he moves.
Roughly speaking, it is no exaggeration to say that miners spend £25,000 per week within a radius of a dozen miles from Mexborough.