Images of Industry: North Pennine Lead Miners in the Regency Period
Author Ian Forbes, HB, 174pp Price £24.00 + P&P available from usual
outlets inc www.moorebooks.co.uk
In the days before photography, a mystery artist turned out 67
watercolours, pen and ink and sketch illustrations of the life and works of
lead miners in the North Pennines. They portray the various stages of lead
ore mining, processing and transportation, and also social studies of the
miners themselves. PUBLISHED for the first time as a complete set, the
high-quality reproductions in this book illustrate the unique collection of
early 19th century North Pennine lead mining watercolours and pen-and-ink
sketches owned by the Science Museum Library in London.
Each illustration with its location and date is explained by the author,
who was for many years director of the Killhope Lead Mining Museum. These
give a great insight into the people who kept this important industry going
from the time of the Napoleonic Wars – the miners, carriers and agents who
worked in the dales of East and West Allendale, the upper reaches of the
Wear, Tees and Derwent in County Durham, and in the Alston Moor area of
Cumbria.
All proceeds from book sales will support future maintenance of the
Dukesfield Arches near Hexham, the remains of a once huge lead smelting
mill which has been recently conserved.
(From Northumberland Chronicle)
Ian viewed the pictures after they had been bought by the Science Museum
Library. He said: “I thought they were fabulous. There is nothing else from
that era pictorially which shows what it was like in the lead mining
industry. “Here for the first time we see depictions of working life in the
North Pennines from the time of the Napoleonic wars. We saw sacks of lead
ore on the backs of ponies and donkeys, the two-wheeled cart used for
carrying lead which we had known about from documents, the different stages
of lead ore washing.
“We saw life in colour, not the black and white past of early photographs,
with their stiff, formal poses, but miners in brightly coloured jackets and
trousers. “They shed a unique light on a period in our regional history.
“When the Dukesfield project came along it was an opportunity to do
something to get the collection into the public domain in the North East.”
The images show miners walking to work on a Monday morning, with their
cloth bags on their shoulders containing their food for the week they would
spend away from home.
Miners are seen working with picks, blasting and boring, pushing waggons,
“buddleing” the lead ore, breaking it with hammers, and filling a kibble,
or bucket. A group of miners is seen in conversation, another group meets
the mine manager, while two bloodied men fight in front of an inn, with the
image titled “The Effects of Alston Brewery.”
Another picture is labelled “November 5, 1813” This date was the coming of
age of Thomas Wentworth Beaumont, a member of a mine-owning family which
dominated the North Pennines industry. To mark the occasion, his parents
provided the miners with copious amounts of free beer and inscribed pot
mugs and the image depicts the inevitable results. Not for nothing did the
occasion become known as the Great Drink.
In Weardale and the Allendales the company founded by William Blackett. WB
Lead, descended through the generations to the Beaumont family. The other
major player in the North Pennines was the Quaker business, the London Lead
Company. Ian has been absorbed in detective work to tease more information
from the pictures. In “The Effects of Alston Brewery” the inn bears the
name of J Dawson. He was Jacob Dawson, landlord of the inn at Allenheads,
from at least 1791 to 1827. The Great Drink, says Ian, can only have taken
place in WB Lead territory, which covered East and West Allendale, and
Weardale. He says: “The biggest and most tantalising question of all is who
was the artist?” His choice is Joseph Crawhall. Joseph’s father, Thomas
Crawhall who died in 1812, was a lead mining agent for WB Lead. His sons
George, William, Isaac and Thomas followed him into the industry.
The exception was Joseph, who instead founded a rope works in Newcastle
which became the biggest in the region. He was also a talented artist.
“Joseph Crawhall had artistic talent and he was intimately connected to and
familiar with the lead mining dales,” says Ian.
If you need to leave the list, send the following message to [log in to unmask] -
leave mining-history
---------
|
