Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 08 September 1893
The Wath Main Riot.
Reckless and Wanton Damage.—Fire.
Fiends of Mischief at Work.—A Gang of Drunken Ruffians.
The Police Arrive and Capture Ten Prisoners.
Anarchy has reigned in certain districts of the West Riding during the week. The list of outrages perpetrated by rioters has rapidly increased, colliery after colliery being visited by a howling, shrieking, intoxicated gang of ruffians, that have carried fire and desolation in their train.
On Monday the inhabitants of Mexborough were considerably alarmed by the news that the spirit of lawlessness had been manifest at Manvers Main, but the reassuring news that the damage done was but slight, and that the rioters responsible for it had apparently satisfied themselves with their small accomplishment, served to restore tranquillity.
On Wednesday the alarm was however renewed, and this time with greater intensity. News came that the riotous assembly which had occupied the afternoon of Tuesday by a series of outrages at Rockingham, Hoyland and Mitchell’s Main, had actually wrecked the Manvers Main Colliery, and were marching on Denaby via Mexborough. The rumour was sufficient to create a panic. Tradesmen hastened to close their shops, those with shutters protected their windows, and excited and anxious groups of townspeople thronged the streets.
Mexborough rapidly assumed the appearance of a town undergoing a siege, and there was that peculiar sensation of panic, mingled with apprehension and a certain sort of determination to resist, which is always visible in the face of threatened danger. Some of the bolder spirits set off for Manvers Main to ascertain the truth of the disquieting rumours, but the courage of more than a few could not have been of a very determined description, for they speedily returned, and added to the growing alarm by the disclosure of purely imaginary details.
Gradually however, it became known that the rioters were not at Manvers Main but at Wath Main, and although this was regarded as being too near to be pleasant, it was accepted with considerable relief until it was supplemented by the information that they were marching on Manvers Main.
It was at this juncture that I and another “knight of the inky finger,” a brother pressman, decided to walk over to Wath and brave the perils of assault and battery, and if needs be, plunder. When the spirit of mischief is abroad, the person of the pressman, usually more sacred even than that of the cloth, is by no means safe, and with the recollection of broken heads served out impartially to pressmen and policemen alike by rioters in other quarters, it required some little courage for a couple of men, who cannot boast of more than twenty stone of fighting weight between them, to undertake to poke their prying eyes and enquiring tongues into places where policemen fear to tread.
And as we walked along it was in no wise reassuring to receive such friendly advice as, “Don’t thee goa, mate, thee’ll get thy ‘ead broken,” or to be informed that “they’re lookin’ for thee, for puttin’ all them lees int’ paper,” but we are not men to turn back at trifles, and we went boldly forward.
As a specimen of the sort of stories that were being brought into Mexborough all the afternoon, I might mention that just before we reached Wath crossing, we asked a youth who was hurrying towards Swinton if he knew where the rioters were, and he replied that they were in Nash Row. In a few moments—perhaps I ought to say minutes, because we walked no faster than we were forced—we turned into Nash Row expecting to meet with the terrible gang of depredators who are ravaging the countryside, and we met a few women and children who were as prolific of kindly advice as those whom we had passed in Swinton and Mexborough.
But it was not long before the smoke that was rising in the direction of Wath Main assured us that there was something unusual going on there, and taking advantage of the pressman’s privilege to go where he pleases, we trespassed on several railway lines for the purpose of taking short cuts. We arrived at Wath Main to find the first instalment of the riot ended, and the destructive gang vanished. I think they must have heard that I was coming.
At the time of our arrival they were regaling themselves in Mr. Spedding Whitworth’s field, with some of Mr. Whitworth’s bread and cheese and beer. But their handiwork was plainly visible in the colliery yard. The office windows were most scientifically smashed, glass and sashes being beaten in. A mass of torn correspondence and account books strewed the yard, and in the offices, drawers were broken open and their contents littered about the place, while the furniture was in many instances reduced to matchwood.
From the underground manager of the company we learnt the cause and the effect of the riot. It seems that the mob met at Winterwell at half-past ten in the morning where they held a council of war. Here Denaby was singled out as likely to provide material for a day’s amusement, and Denaby would probably by this time have been in the same state of unpicturesque confusion as Wath, if the news had not arrived that the Midland railway men were filling from the “ruck heap” at Wath Main. Denaby was saved, but what was Denaby’s gain was Wath’s loss.
At half-past eleven o’clock the mob had reached the Wath Main colliery and entered the yard, where they set about the task of demolishing the offices. A force of police arrived—a puny force of twelve men, but these by a bold rush cleared the yard. The mob however quickly realised the insignificance of the enemy’s force, and returned to the yard, where they made a prisoner of the underground manager and one or two of the deputies. Again the police charged, and succeeded in rescuing the captives, but they could not hold their ground.
With a volley of stones they drove back the custodians of the law, and using the hedge stakes with which they were armed, and which in the hands of a half-frenzied mob are no mean lethal weapons, they contrived to batter the police into a realisation of the fact that discretion is the better part of valour. The police made themselves scarce, and the mob set to work to complete the wreck of the offices and seek other outlets for their mischievous spirit.
Next door to the offices lived one of the colliery officials, Mr. Hindley and his family. The rioters smashed the windows of the house, but the inmates held a table in front of the door, and for a time kept them out. Eventually they discovered that there was no one in the house but women and children, and they sought elsewhere for material on which to exploit their riotous faculties.
They bethought themselves of fire. In a trice they had collected a heap of tar barrels and set them alight, and they also set fire to the “ruck heap,” the coal heap, and the tar tanks. With the latter of these they almost fell a serious accident, for when the tar was well ablaze they were stricken with the desire to play at firemen, and they commenced throwing water on the flames. The effect was to generate a sufficient quantity of carbolic acid gas to cause an explosion, the report of which frightened even their mischievous spirits, and they decided to let the tar alone.
But they found several waggons that had been filled from the “ruck heap;” these they emptied and in one case overturned. Then they discovered several corves which they fired, and then I believe they felt hungry and departed, intent on demanding, and, if necessary, taking a supply of beer from Mr. Whitworth.
As I have said they got it on demand. During their absence, which the police unfortunately construed into a final departure, the officers of the law, by dint of the utmost exertion, succeeded in putting out the various conflagrations in various parts of the yard, and this accomplished the police for some reason disappeared.
When we arrived at the colliery there was not one in sight. My colleague and I were talking to the underground manager, and were learning the facts which I have sketched when the news arrived that the rioters were coming back, and in a few minutes the pit yard was full of them.
I have since been asked whether I thought any of them were colliers. Undoubtedly many of them were roughs of the everlasting unemployed order, but that there were many of them colliers was self-evident from the manner in which they knew their way about the pit, from the manner in which they set to work to commit damage, and from their evident knowledge of the purposes for which the various appliances that fell in their way were used.
Most of them were mere lads—some quite small boys, and by no means the least backward of them were one or two women, one of whom was the most horrible and depraved looking creature I ever set eyes on.
A glance or two at the demons, valiant from strength of numbers and courageous from the strength of Mr. Whitworth’s beer, as they swarmed into the pit yard, and at the style in which they recommenced operations was enough for me, and I think it was for my colleague. Accordingly we retired to the Midland Railway bank, from whence we could see what was going on.
Apparently, the first work was to smash every pane of glass that remained unbroken, and missiles and hedge-stakes speedily did this. Then the furniture was pitched out of the office windows, papers, books, and everything else inflammable followed, and the whole was converted into one huge bonfire in the centre of the colliery yard.
Meanwhile others had fired the saw mill, and soon two great volumes of smoke ascended, followed afterwards by flames that shot up high into the air. There were about a dozen of us congregated on the railway bank, like a body of scouts watching the disposition of an enemy.
Suddenly we were startled by a terrible thud, followed by a low booming that grew gradually fainter and fainter; then came another and another. The rioters had burst open the gates at the head of the shaft and were throwing the corves into the pit.
A colliery official standing near me breathed the pious wish—although he hardly breathed it piously—that some of them would tumble in after them. It is not known at present that any of them did, although from the unprotected state of the great black yawning chasm when I saw it half an hour later it would not surprise me if the next party that descended the shaft found the mangled remains of several rioters at the bottom.
Plenty of them were drunk enough to have fallen in. Having started two or three fresh fires on the premises the mob set to work to smash everything breakable that was within reach. More than once parties of them made their way up into the head gear, and tears were expressed in my neighbourhood that this go next. But they contented themselves with emptying waggons and littering the contents about the yard, while a few spent their spite in a futile attempt to smash a boiler with hedge-stakes.
During all this time a savage accompaniment of shrieks and yells had rent the air, and from the railway bank the mob could be seen, like the fabled sprites of the fiery tale, dancing round the fire they had created.
The conflagration which they had started at one end of the block of buildings containing the offices, had been supplemented by another at the small detached office at the end of the block. Mrs. Hindley and her sister-in-law, who have before been mentioned as living in the house next to the office, became alarmed at the spread of the fire and commenced to remove their furniture.
Poor Mrs. Hindley, who was near confinement, was in a sad state of mind, while those on the railway bank, who knew of her condition and could appreciate the danger which she ran, were well-nigh distracted with anxiety on her account. But they were powerless to help her, and could only pray for the arrival of the police, or curse the neglect of the authorities in not providing a military force—which they did frequently.
When the mob was satisfied that the fires were well alight and that the work of destruction was assured they began to troop away from the yard in large numbers. About 300 however remained and continued to hack and splinter all the woodwork they could reach, but so quietly did they go to work that one might have supposed that the colliery yard was entirely clear.
Just as we, on the railway bank, were almost despairing of the arrival of assistance, the welcome news arrived that about forty policemen were coming up the railway. It was true. At this time my colleague and I were standing at the extreme side of the colliery yard watching the miscreants at work.
Four youths were in the large weigh house hacking at a door, and realising the prospect of their capture red-handed, we went back to meet the police and inform them of the near proximity of some of the rioters. Major Hammond, who commanded the force, repaid this compliment by enquiring audibly if we were rioters, and but for the timely announcement of Inspector Barrett that we were members of the press we might have fallen victims to a mistaken zeal on behalf of law and order.
The police did not take us prisoners, but they made such a clatter that they warned the four rioters in the weigh house of their approach and all of them got clear off. Then the police dashed into the yard at a double, but instead of keeping together and closing the means of egress to the men in the yard, they squandered all over the place.
Some pursued the rioters in the yard and others chased them, after they had escaped across the fields. They made ten prisoners—a motley crew—and as they were brought together and handcuffed in couples, one or two from the combined effects of beer and a blow on the head could hardly stand.
One man was respectably attired, another who wore a suit of engineer’s “bluettes” was a man of sixty years of age. Most of the rest were as rough as they are made, and looked desperate enough for anything from pitch and toss to manslaughter.
The connection of several with the riots was established beyond doubt when they were searched, and various articles stolen from the colliery offices brought to light. One youth possessed a bundle of invoices—perhaps he dreamed of being able to collect the sums they represented.
One of the captives taken by the police was a Wath lad, named Brittain, who was recognised by the women who had remained in the yard, as having merely come upon the scene to help the Hindleys to “flit” from their doomed dwelling. I don’t think the lad had done any rioting, and if it is due at this juncture to say that the underground manager does not believe that any of the Wath Main men had anything to do with the riot damage.
Having searched their prisoners, the police dragged them away, and a Midland goods train happily passing at the moment, it was stopped by signal, and the men conveyed to Rotherham.
Then attention was turned to rescue work. Most of the furniture had been brought out of the Hindleys’ house, some of the youngest of the desperadoes having relented sufficiently to lend a hand in this, and a waggon being obtained the goods were carted away to temporary refuge.
Mrs. Hindley was escorted by Dr. Burman and her sister into a place of safety. The colliery officials lent a hand in the salvage of the furniture, and they also succeeded in saving the ambulance carriage which was contained in a coach house, next to the burning stable.
The mob had by this time collected and made for Station lane, but it seemed to have abandoned its fighting attitude, although when it halted on the railway bridge to witness the arrival of a company of the 1st Royal Dublin Fusiliers, commanded by Captain Pearce, it hailed their advent with derisive jeers and a few stones, which were however badly aimed.
The soldiers almost immediately marched to the colliery, giving Major Hammond the opportunity to withdraw the police, which were marched into Wath for the protection of the village.
It was about half-past four when peace was finally assured by the arrival of the troops, the district having been in a state of siege since eleven in the morning, and during all that time having been practically unprotected.
The county authorities have suffered somewhat in reputation as far as the inhabitants of Wath are concerned, while the colliery company for the same cause have suffered to the extent of about £4,000. When I left the pit yard everything destructible had been destroyed, and the offices were doomed to destruction by the fast spreading fire.
For about three hours my colleague and myself had been in the presence of personal danger and a disagreeable smoke. I perhaps need not apologise for the fact that as soon as the opportunity presented itself we retired to a spot where we could slake our thirst, and that subsequently we returned to Mexborough, bringing news that restored the confidence of the townsfolk, and having, as another account describes of the riot graphically puts it, witnessed a scene that can only be likened to Hell let loose.