SWALEDALE - Portrait of North Yorkshire Mining Community
This is an improvement on his book, the Hidden Side of Swaledale,
but that was so dire that this is no great achievement. Once again, the
book, with its large format and high quality paper, has been beautifully
produced by Frank Peters. It would be peevish not to admit that the
book reads much better than the Hidden Side, but basic errors
abound. For example, Hardy refers to characters without
introduction and regularly changes their names. He remains convinced
that the London Lead Company was active in the dale. He clings to
an early, incorrect date for the building of the Octagonal smelt mill and
is unaware that the cluster of buildings at the Old Gang Mill is actually
two smelt mills. All these errors show a lack of knowledge of easily
accessible secondary sources.
He muses at length about the course and purpose of Hard Level and
concludes that it was driven after a fatal accident at Old Rake Whim
in May 1778. If so, then it was truly prescient as the level was begun
a year before the accident! He does not give a source for the claim
that the accident was at Old Rake Whim and the Grinton Parish
Registers only tell us that, on the same day, two men were “killed in
the lead mines at Old Gang”. He refers to a map, drawn in 1821,
by Francis Gill. Not bad, even for a Gill, as the man died in 1801!
He returns to his pet piece of conspiracy theory - the cover up (by the
bosses, of course) surrounding the supposed events at Water Blast
Shaft. In Hidden Side we were told that 24 miners were killed here
after blasting into water. We are now told, depending on what page
you read, that this involved “a handful of miners”, “the loss of many
lives” or “a gigantic human tragedy”. Hardy’s “considered
judgement” is that the accident took place, according to his “strong
suspicion”, in the early 18th century. This date appears to be
favoured because of “the viciousness of these times”. We are even
treated to nine verses of doggerel on the subject of ‘Water Blast
Vein’ from the author’s pen! In these times when the crime of
Holocaust denial features strongly in historical debate, perhaps there
should be a new one of Water Blast denial - for which I want to head
the list of offenders!
You’ve probably guessed that I do not recommend this book, but if
you insist on wasting your money it is available from Frank Peters for
£15.95
Mike Gill
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Mike Gill
President and Recorder of the NORTHERN MINE RESEARCH SOCIETY
Britain's foremost mining history society at:-
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/~RBurt/MinHistNet/NMRS.html
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