Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 15 September 1893
The Coal War.
Riots and Rumours of Riots.
Soldiers in the District.
Pits under Protection.
Miners Determined to Prevent Damage.
A Protest from Wombwell.
The Prisoners before the Magistrates.
Quietude almost Restored.
It was only to be expected that the lawlessness which reigned in the district last week would have the effect of creating something like a scare during the present week in the minds both of colliery officials and general public, in those districts which had not received a visit from the marauding gang of ruffians which committed so much damage and wrought so much havoc at Rockingham, Hoyland Silkstone, Wath and Featherstone, and this expectation has been amply fulfilled.
Although not reduced to the state of absolute panic which was everywhere discernable on that terrible Wednesday when the rioting took place at Wath Main, and rumours as to their next point of attack were as plentiful as leaves in Vallambrosa, yet considerable anxiety has been manifested in the neighbourhood, and particularly at the close of the past week and the commencement of the present. Something approaching a panic was occasioned on Friday afternoon last by the passage through Mexborough of the company of the 1st Dublin Fusileers that had been stationed at Wath since the preceding Wednesday. Obviously the destination of the troops was Denaby Main, and the glimpse of a civilian in the carriage containing the commanding officer, Captain Pearce, was sufficient to satisfy the Mexborough public that arrangements had been made for reading the Riot Act, and it was not long before, by that process of evolution and exaggeration which is peculiar when rumour is abroad, it was bandied from mouth to mouth that the mob were actually engaged in an attack on Denaby Main. In this office Friday is generally the day of rest of our reporting staff, and it was not with remarkable feeling of good will or pious expressions of opinion that one of our representatives started for Denaby to test the truth of these rumours. At this distance of time it is almost unnecessary to record the fact that on arriving at Denaby Main there was not the slightest foundation for anything of an alarming character.
True the colliery premises were garrisoned both with soldiers and police in preparation for the mob, but our representative, like Coleridge’s ancient mariner, who
“Could not see the Spanish fleet,
Because it was not there,”
saw nothing of the mob because on that afternoon it was the one thing missing. Everything else was prepared. There were thirty-five soldiers, nearly a hundred police, several barricades erected, and last, but not least, a magistrate armed with a copy of the Riot Act. All the materials for a first-class riot were at hand—with exception of the rioters. There was once a housewife who prepared to make a plum pudding, and who procured saucepan, pudding cloth, basin and egg-whisk, and who was compelled to abandon the attempt when she discovered that she possessed none of the ingredients for the manufacture of the savoury dainty. This was the situation at Denaby during the two hours and a half that our representative, notebook in hand, strolled about the colliery yard and waited for the show to open.
When a man sacrifices an afternoon which by custom he has learned to regard as a holiday for the purpose of attending a riot or any kindred function, he may be excused if he experiences some little disappointment when the anticipated entertainment is not provided. And the disappointment felt by our representative was shared by others at Denaby that afternoon. It appears that a telegram arrived at the colliery early in the afternoon announcing that the mob was marching to the pit, and the effect of that message was to induce the manager (Mr. W. H. Chambers) to place the pit in pickle for the lawless gang when it arrived. As the afternoon wore on and it became evident that the alarm created by the telegram was groundless, a feeling that the mob had not acted squarely in breaking faith with those who had been at such pains to prepare them a hearty reception, gained ground, and the failure of the mob to keep its engagement was taken to heart.
Possibly there was some reason for the openly-expressed regrets, accompanied as they were by the volunteered opinion that had the mob made for Denaby that day they would not have felt disposed to attack another colliery in a hurry, and when one has prepared a warm reception for the benefit of an unwelcome visitor it is naturally annoying if he does not come to experience its delights. The small boy’s chagrin when the elderly visitor does not sit down on the chair which is loaded with a bent pin is equally excusable, and serves also to explain the disappointment that was felt at Denaby Main when the mob, for whom everybody was waiting, did not fulfil its contract.
Gradually it began to dawn upon those who were responsible for the defensive arrangements at Denaby that perhaps the telegram which had induced them to garrison the pit was a hoax, and that the mob were doing damage in another direction, but the use of the telegraph exploded this theory as far as the immediate district was concerned, and so the police and soldiers waited until nightfall when they returned whence they came. Our representative followed suit, only to be despatched on his return to Mexborough on a riot-hunting errand to Wombwell.
Rumour, ever busy, had reported that Wombwell Main had been set on fire, and rumour was once more a little too previous with its statements. The natural tranquillity of Wombwell had in nowise been disturbed during the day, except by rumour. A statement that a large body of men had assembled in a field at Jump, and had decided to make a raid on Wombwell Main had gained considerable currency, and Wombwell Main had been prepared, like Denaby, for the worst. In addition to the half-hundred Fusileers stationed there, a force of twenty-seven cavalry had been obtained from Barnsley, and these, like the Fusileers at Denaby, had spent the greater part of the day waiting for something to turn up, and that something did not occur.
Of course, with all these tales of rioting flying about it would not be at all the proper thing if Manvers Main had escaped association with one or more wild rumours of pillage, fire and destruction. Nevertheless Manvers Main passed a quiet Friday, the peacefulness of the day only being disturbed by numerous telegraphic and telephonic inquiries from police officials and others, which necessitated the stereotyped reply of “all is perfectly quiet here.” And so passed Friday, a day of rumours without end, a day whereon the disciples of Ananias had their fling, and St. Munchausen reigned supreme.
It may be taken for granted that rumour manufacturers and rioters are as sensible to the attractions of football as other people, for Saturday was singularly free from disquieting reports. But the many able bodied perverters of the truth who appear to apply their misguided talents to the manufacture of circumstantial and imaginary details for the purpose of alarming the public and persecuting the pressmen of the neighbourhood, did not entirely give us the rest of which we stood in need, although as far as this district is concerned they confined their exertions to the resurrection of the Denaby scare.
A messenger, who ought certainly to have been detained in custody for his trouble, informed the police that a desperate gang was in the neighbourhood of Bolton-on-Dearne. Consequently there were more police preparations at this badly threatened but yet uninjured colliery, and on Saturday evening a force of fifty dragoons was sent to augment the police force. But again the upholders of law and order had their trouble for nothing; there was not the least semblance of a riot nor a sign of a rioter.
Contrary to expectation Sunday was a peaceful day, rumours appeared to be taking a rest and the rioters who during Friday and Saturday at all events, had done far less than report had credited, did not create any necessity for the devout to attend church under escort. The evidence that even rioters are disposed to respect the Sabbath should be the means of ensuring a succession of quiet and tranquil Sundays in the future. But if the gentlemen who are so ready at the present time to relate what they have heard, or what somebody else has been told that somebody else has heard, or seen, were not working on Sunday they returned to business with increased energy on Monday.
And once more Denaby was the centre of all the wild and improbable stories circulated with a liberality worthy of a better cause. The manager of the colliery appears to have realised things for the expected outbreak of alarming news on Monday, for on Sunday night a force of fifty of the Royal Suffolk Rifles from Barnsley arrived at the pit, while on Monday there were further arrivals of police and cavalry. There was a regular relay of magistrates and riot acts, no fewer than four justices of the peace, Mr. G. Walker, of Conisborough; Mr. R. Stockill, of Doncaster; Col. Cooke, Lord Halifax, and Mr. G. B. C. Yarborough being in attendance at different times during the day, prepared to read the few lines necessary to justify the act of treating the mob to a dose of lead.
But, notwithstanding these hospitable preparations, the rioters did not put in an appearance, and once more the soldiers and police waited in vain. At half-past three thirty-five of the rifles went by train to Wath to relieve the Fusileers there; they having been ordered elsewhere, and their passage through Mexborough station was seized as a peg whereon to hang another story of outrage at Wath. This time it was rumoured that Mr. Spedding Whitworth’s brewery was being sacked in return for his kindness to the mob on the previous Wednesday, but unhappily for the reputation of the rumour there was absolutely no truth in the statement.
After the experience of the past few days we should imagine it will be difficult to induce any of the inhabitants of Mexborough to believe anything. They have certainly been taken in enough lately to make them confirmed sceptics for the rest of their lives.
Having failed to correctly prophesy the hour and date of the attack on Denaby Main, the humourists or humourists who have enjoyed themselves for the space of three days at the expense of soldiers, police and pressmen, broke out in a fresh place on Monday. It was their pleasure to circulate on Monday evening, before the fairy tales connected with Denaby Main and Whitworth’s brewery had been entirely disproved, a suggestion that the rioters, with the idea of dodging the bullets of the rifles and the sabres of the cavalry, were engaged in tearing up the Midland railway with a view to wrecking railway trains in lieu of colliery offices. But railway officials are not so easily disturbed as colliery managers, and the Midland railway did not patrol the line with dragoons nor summon the assistance of the rifles.
Probably the railway folks have grown case-hardened against the rumours. Perhaps the rumour never reached them, although it gave the gossips of Mexborough something fresh to talk about, and the timid folks a fresh cause for apprehension and alarm.
On Tuesday the alarmists lost considerably ground. They could invent nothing new, and no one would be frightened by the stale old fables of the previous days. And as though to encourage the inhabitants into the belief that all was as snug as a bug in a rug the military gentlemen kept clattering to and fro through the town all day. A troop of dragoons passed through three or four times in an aimless sort of fashion, and during the afternoon the rifles, who had proceeded to Wath, marched through to Denaby, the men providing a quick march by singing vociferously that martial and most classical air “Ta-ra-boom-de-ay.” About an hour afterwards they returned in the same order but in the direction of Wath. Why they were put to this contradictory piece of exertion it would be difficult to explain unless, indeed, their commanding officer desired to emulate the achievement of that brilliant tactician,
“The grand old Duke o’ York,
Who had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of a hill,
And marched them down again.”
However these frequent and imposing shows of military force provided something in the shape of an attraction for the sight-seers of Mexborough, all of whom, since the lock-out, there has been no dearth, and soldiers even when no other use can be found for them are always something to look at.
On Wednesday there were no rumours nor the ghost of one, and it is probable that the tradesmen of the town, now spared the necessity of speculation and uncalled for anxiety, will be able to lend themselves to the task of aiding in the work of relief for those thrown out of employment by the lock-out, a class that have almost been forgotten in the prevailing panic.
Denaby Main is apparently threatened no longer, and the work of removing the huge stock of coal on the pit bank has almost been completed by the Midland Railway Company. Of course it was the fact that the stock was being moved at this colliery which lent colour to the many threats and rumours concerning the pit, and it was the determination of the Midland Railway Company to have the coal filled at any price, riots or no riots, which brought about the attendance of the military at the colliery, and the preparations to die hard to cause the deaths of some of the mob.
Now that the coal is almost gone, and in a few days will have gone completely, there is a hope that Denaby will be allowed to rest, and, having survived so many threats, will escape further menaces.
It would seem that, notwithstanding the generally accepted adage that threatened men live long, the colliers of the districts which have been chiefly concerned in the rumours of the week are getting a trifle tired, seeing the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, and there is a disposition on their part to put an end to all the threats that have been levelled at the pits where they work, if the chance is afforded them.
When it was reported at Bolton-on-Dearne that the mob intended to use that village as part of their marching route for Denaby, the colliers of that district promptly armed themselves with hedge-stakes, and went forth each man like a second “bold Horatius” to dispute the passage. And at Denaby the locked out men have been quite as eager in their enquiries for the whereabouts of the mob as the soldiers and police themselves, and had the rioters made their way to Denaby, it is very possible that in their determination to protect their pit from damage, the miners of that district would have robbed the soldiers and the police of the fight for which they had been spoiling three whole days through.
At Wombwell Main the men have passed a resolution pledging themselves to prevent damage if possible and they have also protested against the statement that many of the riotous mob, of whom so much has been said and written, hail from Wombwell, a protest which is rather unfortunate seeing that several of the rioters in custody for the outrage at the Wath Main, have given addresses at Wombwell and the immediate neighbourhood.
By the way, concerning the prisoners in custody for the Wath riot and who were brought before the magistrates at a special sitting on Tuesday, it is satisfactory to learn that the police believe one of them to be an arch ringleader, and it is to be hoped that the police have made no mistake about the matter. There has been a good deal of local feeling aroused concerning the arrest of a young man named Sheridan, and it has been alleged that he took no part in the riot. In which connection it is somewhat unfortunate that he happens to be one of those whom Mr. Hickmott asked the bench not to release on bail, the ground of this application being that he was one of the ringleaders. It may, however, serve to restore public confidence in the magistracy and a little belief in their intelligence, that at Tuesday’s hearing the rioters who had been granted bail on the previous Thursday were refused the conditional freedom for which more than one of them applied.
Quietude is now almost restored in Mexborough. At the time of writing there is not a rumour afloat worth listening to, and folks are talking of riots as matters of ancient history. The movements of the mob have ceased to be a matter of public interest, and we verily believe that nothing short of the sound of artillery will induce the Mexborough people to again believe there is anything on at Denaby or Manvers Main. There has been too much crying “wolf” this week.