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MINING-HISTORY  2000

MINING-HISTORY 2000

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Subject:

John Hardy's Latest Book

From:

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Date:

Sat, 29 Jan 2000 17:18:31 -0000

Content-Type:

text/plain

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text/plain (58 lines)

      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

--------------------------------
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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