Going back to Richard’s original question.
The fact that mines were being worked in a rural area meant that at times
when the mines were profitable; labourers preferred to earn higher wages
and either went to the mines or demanded higher wages for agricultural work.
(I’m afraid that the reference gremlins have been at my notes again, but
John Tuke c1790 gives examples, I think in “A Journey through the North
Riding of Yorkshire”)
Poverty in mining areas is complicated by attitudes of the time and the
productivity of the mines. It seems almost inevitable that during the 18th &
19th centuries mines were worked beyond the limits of pay-grade ore. Other
mines were also opened up close to profitable ones on slight occurrences of
ore which were really just geological anomalies and should have been
ignored. All this led to a relatively large population hanging on for better
times; or with nowhere else to go or do.
Joseph Townsend was a man of the establishment and the social elite who
looked on the poor as being put on earth to work for the rich and nothing
more. William Chaytor, ‘one of the social elite’ wanted to work a mine in
Wensleydale where a group of miners were working, he was incensed that once
they had made a decent wage they stopped for a week or so spent it an ale
house. Not a sensible thing to do, but what would William have spent it on? A
fine carriage, clothes, port and brandy?
It also in Joseph Townsend’s time that John Wesley was preaching,
especially in mining areas. It was his influence which probably had the greatest on
the miners. The spread of Methodism had a considerable moderating effect
on the poor and brought the first education of the poor, which enabled them
to budget the families income.
Ian Spensley
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