This booklet is a product of a people's history workshop project, conducted In Bellshill with members of the Bothwellhaugh Ex-Residents Committee. This energetic committee, formed in 1977, is already responsible for the erection and maintenance of a war memorial and cairn at the north end of Strathclyde Park, on the site of the former mining village. Each June, it organises a Commemorative meeting at the cairn, followed by a very popular evening dance and get together, and in other respects it continues to promote the history and memory of Bothwellhaugh community (which to most people who lived there is affectionately known as 'The Pailis')

In 1983, the committee approached me to organise a 'living memory' project with the aim of preparing a publication which, it was hoped, would convey an authentic account and reflection of the atmosphere and experience of working and living in the mining village. Consequently, during 1983-84, a series of meetings were held in West End Hall, Westgateway in Bellshill, with the committee forming themselves into a history workshop under my direction. Conscientiously and passionately, workshop members contributed their reminiscences, and brought out photographs and other memorabilia which they and other ex-residents had collected. They also shared and helped to evaluate the results of my own researches into documentary source materials such as newspaper files and school log books, and together we negotiated and shaped the character of the intended publication.
And although the task of writing the booklet was my responsibility, workshop members eagerly read over the drafts to check for any inaccuracies and mistaken emphases, and after further discussion the final text was agreed.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 Hamilton Palace Colliery: Growth and Development 1884-1959

CHAPTER 2 Working Life at Hamilton Palace Colliery: Conditions and Experiences

CHAPTER 3 Strife and Struggle: Conflicts at the Colliery

CHAPTER 4 Housing and Living Conditions in Bothwellhaugh

CHAPTER 5 Schooling and Childhood Days

CHAPTER 6 The Colliery Village: Social Life and Character

APPENDIX

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER ONE

HAMILTON PALACE COLLIERY

GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT 1884-1959
In 1850, geological surveys of the estates of the Duke of Hamilton in and around the burgh of Hamilton and the Clyde valley below the town, revealed the existence of productive coal measures. Companies rushed to take up leases of this potentially lucrative coalfield, and for the next 100 years, successive dukes of Hamilton and Kinneil reaped a fortune in mining royalties from the coal-bearing area of the Clyde basin. From the early 1870s, the deepest and richest coal seams around Hamilton and Bothwell began to be exploited as the high price of coal and advances in mining technology -particularly in more powerful and efficient winding machinery -made the working of these seams both practicable and financially viable. Hamilton Palace Colliery, opened in 1884, was one of the latest of a number of new collieries to be developed in the Hamilton area in this period of large-scale mining operations.

Before the erection of Hamilton Palace Colliery and the building of company houses and a village settlement disrupted the rural calm of Bothwellhaugh, this small part of the Clyde valley was a dairy farming area, with acres of meadow and pasture land, low-lying and vulnerable to flooding. In 1881, James Baird, his wife and a domestic servant lived and worked at the farm of Bothwellhaugh. Nearby, at Raith farm, towards Bothwell, Alec Fleming farmed 80 acres. At the Bogs farm up the brae from Bothwellhaugh, two sisters kept milk cows and ran a dairy. Also close by, on high land above the banks of the South Calder Water which emptied into the Clyde below Bothwellhaugh, stood the 32-roomed Orbiston House, then the property of Neilson, coalmaster and ironmaster at Mossend.

Although Bothwellhaugh was itself as yet untouched by industry and mining, the surrounding area was dominated by collieries. Bothwell Park Colliery, owned by the Bairds of Coatbridge, and operating two of the deepest pits in Lanarkshire at this colliery, was situated about a mile away to the north west. The Underground workings of Bothwell Castle colliery bounded with Bothwellhaugh and the new Hamilton Palace Colliery. Half a mile to the north lay Douglas Park Colliery, where the owner John Wilson and Co. (already extensive colliery owners beyond Wishaw at Overtown and Law) operated two pits. Orbiston Colliery, less than half a mile above Bothwellhaugh, and owned by Mossend Iron Company, also operated two pits. Further to the west, beyond the Calder, the area was dominated by the North Motherwell and Braidhurst pits.

In the early 1880s, the Bent Colliery Company Ltd. which already worked Three pits in the Hamilton area, took out the lease of mineral rights at Bothwellhaugh. Hamilton Palace No. 1 pit was sunk and prepared during 1884 and early 1885, the colliery was formally opened in February 1884, and a year later began production. The essential details appear in the Inspector of Mines Report for 1885. The upper seam of soft, household ell coal was being mined at a depth of 550 feet, and the colliery was employing fourteen underground workers and six surface workers. This ell coal seam, seven feet thick, was among the thickest seams then being worked in the Lanarkshire coalfield.

No.2 pit appears for the first time in the Inspector of Mines Report 1886. That year, at the two pits, the colliery was employing a total of eighty underground workers and twenty two surface workers. In accordance with mines legislation, the colliery was equipped with two through air courses -No. 1 pit for 1,500 metres; No.2 pit for 2,500 metres. These ventilation regulations were all the more necessary since Hamilton Palace Colliery was classed as ~ fiery, i.e. gassy mine.

By 1891, Nos. 1 and 2 pits had been sunk through the full sequence of the productive coal measure to a depth of nearly 300 metres. No.2 developed as the long mine, extended for one and a half miles in a gentle rising gradient.

Until the 1950s, various types of coal were raised from nine seams throughout this colliery. Peak production was reached in 1913, when an average 2,000 tons a day of big ell and splint coal was being raised to the pit heads. The Palace Colliery produced the finest splint coal, which was in great demand as fuel for steam railway locomotives. Before 1914, Argentinian railway companies bought steam coal supplies from the colliery, and the Scottish railway companies also used large quantities of Palace splint coal. According to legend, use of this celebrated splint coal as fuel enabled the trains to run from Perth all the way to Beattock summit without requiring a stop to clean out the fire box, such was the quality of the coal.

On the eve of the Great War, Hamilton Palace Colliery was the Bent Company's jewel in the crown. Moreover, within the huge Lanarkshire coalfield, the Palace Colliery was third in the employment league table, as well as being a top tonnage producer. Rosehall Colliery, at Whifflet, Coatbridge, topped the league with over 1,300 underground workers; Earnock Colliery, above Hamilton, had over 1,120 workers; and the Palace Colliery came next with 1,100 workers, not including an additional 280 surface workers at the pit-head and office. This size of workforce remained quite constant throughout the boom war years until 1920, from which time prolonged bouts of depression, industrial troubles, geological and technical problems slowed down further investment in modernisation and in opening up the full potential from new coal faces; all of these factors combining to indicate the long-term decline of the colliery, and of the mining village at Bothwellhaugh.

Although machine coal cutters were increasingly being introduced into the Lanarkshire coalfield in the pre-1914 period, the electrically-driven coal cutter was first used at the Palace Colliery in 1917-18. For some years to come, the cutters were used only on a small scale, primarily in the Pyotshaw coal workings, where the seams were thinner and where hand-holed and hewn coal was more labour intensive and more costly to the company.
The Anderson and Boyes coal cutters, made at the firm's premises at Flemington, Motherwell, were the preferred models. As the Ell and Splint seams were thick, the coal was won by traditional methods, whereby a hewer and assistant worked together as a production unit. In contrast, where machine cutting was done was on the thinner Pyotshaw on the longwall system, with teams of workers placed next to each other along the continuous line of the coal face.

The seams of Ell coal in No.1 pit had been fully extracted by hand-hewn methods by the 1920s. At several points, the colliery stretched below the Clyde and then up to Hamilton, but until the early 1920s permission was refused to conduct mining operations immediately below the mausoleum, which had been built in 1855 as a memorial for the 10th Duke of Hamilton. However, this policy was reversed when the Hamilton estate risked undermining the Mausoleum, deciding that the royalties value from worked coal beneath the Mausoleum was of more importance.

The gamble paid off, as the Mausoleum and Keeper's House, although sunk several feet due to subsidence, are still intact and apparently stable. Between 1923 and 1944 five seams of coal were worked out from below the Mausoleum and its immediate vicinity.

Surviving Palace miners who worked in this particular part of the colliery during these years will recall the central features of its mining history. Here, the Ell coal was extracted between 1923 and 1928; The main coal between 1929 and 1931 by a combination of stoop and room and by longwall organisation; the Pyotshaw in 1935 by longwall ~ and as the Pyotshaw was close to the main coal, the heavy machine coal cutter was prone to fall occasionally into the main coal workings beneath; the Splint coal between 1938 and 1942- the roof here was unstable; and finally, the thin 18 inch blackband which was mined by longwall and machine cutters in 1939-40.

From the early 1900s, both pits at the colliery were equipped with engine-driven steel rope haulage systems to enable the smooth delivery and return of hutches from and to the pit bottom and the workings. However, No.1 pit was more dependent upon pit ponies for auxiliary haulage to collect filled hutches from the coal face, before conveying them to the main haulage. In No.2 pit the main haulage system was more advanced and more extensive. It had a self-acting haulage which circulated hutches on rail roads which were built close up to the working faces.
This mechanised haulage was further developed through the coal workings in No.2 during the 1930s and 1940s, although a small number of pit ponies continued to be used for short distance haulage.

Around this period, hutches travelling in the main haulage area of No.2 pit had become more susceptible to smashes as the rails, which had been laid as long ago as 1901, were weak from years of usage. One old miner recalls that they were hardly as thick as his finger, and dangerously worn. The rails in the long mine were replaced at the close of the Second World War, when James Johnston was manager.
The condition of the haulage roads was also poor at this time, as water was getting at the sleepers, and miners were up to their knees in water. Earlier, the No.2 pit had been closed for several months in 1942. This had been due to flooding when one of the pump pipes clogged up with silt, impairing the work of the turbine engine.
The colliery had at least been spared from the damage and dangers of flooding during the long strikes and lock-outs of 1921 and 1926, when colliery officials had manned the pumps after safety men were withdrawn. Nevertheless, in the latter years of the colliery, more and more water from the Bothwell side penetrated into the No.2 self-acting, putting enormous pressure on the new electric pumps.

After nationalisation, the appointment of James Cowan (currently second in command at the National Coal Board (1986) as colliery manager was effective in securing for another few years the productive life of the No.1 pit. He was a first-rate surveyor, and under his direction fresh areas of winnable coal were found, areas hitherto left untouched due to improper surveying. Cowan also led the development of a completely new section in the Clyde valley area. This was the Drumgray coal, its seams of two and a half and three feet in thickness, which stretched the whole length of the colliery boundaries and beyond. In the late 1950s, two sections of Drumgray were being worked, together with older sections of other coal in the No.1 pit. A lot of the lower Drumgray was still available when the decision was taken to close down the colliery. There was no problem about taking it out, as the areas here were free from water-logging.

However, it was the notorious No.2 pit, increasingly in danger from flooding which gave the N.C.B. the reason or the pretext for closing down the colliery. With the pumps working at peak efficiency to take as much as 1,800 gallons of water from No.2, N.C.B. officials claimed that the pumping operations were excessively costly and of no avail to solve the problem. The colliery was declared 'uneconomic' and its closure ordered for May 1959.

In the late 1950s, the colliery workforce had dwindled to less than 500 men. By then, most of the active miners still living in Bothwellhaugh had left to work at other collieries or had been transferred. The closure of the colliery for a month, in May 1955 due to a mishap which wrecked the No.2 shaft and blocked the road connecting with the No.1 pit, had the effect of accelerating moves to other pits. The final closure came at the holiday weekend in May 1959, leaving ninety men to withdraw machinery and equipment, and to carry out demolition work.

CHAPTER TWO

WORKING LIFE AT HAMILTON PALACE COLLIERY

CONDITIONS & EXPERIENCES

Although the wide and rectangular-shaped mine shafts, and the haulage roads, were well constructed, the Hamilton Palace Colliery was known to be gassy. Accordingly, the Company was very strict about naked lights underground. However, in many parts of the pit workings, the ventilation system was still grossly inadequate as, for example, in section seven under the Mausoleum. David Meek, who worked here in the early 1930s, recalled the danger signals. The pit gas had a peculiar sweet smell which rose in the air, and once the miner detected it, could take the necessary precautions. The black damp was more insidious, as it came out of the pavement and did not smell. It was only detectable when it began to draw the air away from your lungs and made you pant and breathe heavily.

The miners used their safety lamp to test for 'gas, but the job of measuring and expelling foul air was the responsibility of the safety firemen who carried out inspections of all coal faces prior to preparation of the work place of the collier, and also when the coal was being extracted.

After the long stoppage due to the General Strike and the employers' lock-out of the miners between May and November 1926, conditions underground deteriorated noticeably, particularly in the innermost sections of the colliery, where safety work, maintenance and repair of faces and roads had been neglected. Here, dampness was more prevalent, and it was difficult to keep the Glennie oil lamp lit, which in any case was prone to smoking up inside, throwing out imperfect light.:

This added dampness problem, putting out the lamp, plunged the miner into a terrible darkness and was another safety hazard. It was also a loss in wages and working time as frequent trips were required, sometimes at a distance, to a lighting station.

Hamilton Palace Colliery was reputedly one of the last collieries in Lanarkshire to introduce the safety headlamp instead of the oil lamp. Many ex-miners among the elderly men in Bothwellhaugh suffered from the 'Glennie blink', their eyesight affected by nystagmus due to bad and fluctuating conditions of lighting down the pit. Even after headlamps were issued most face workers still carried their safety lamp.

The following account of pit work at the Palace colliery, based upon the experiences of one miner, may serve as an illustration of conditions at the coal face, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s. David Meek went down the pit as a boy of fourteen years and six weeks, in 1925, starting as a hewer's mate for his stepfather. The place they worked was in a splint coal section directly beneath the La Scala in Hamilton. This baptism as a face-worker involved a five month stint helping to take out the hardest coal he ever had to tackle during his entire life as an underground worker at the Palace. It was unusual for a boy to start as a hewer's mate in a stoop and room place, as David did. Most boys starting underground were put on to other oncost jobs such as drawing hutches and haulage work, but whatever job they did, the earnings were around the same, according to age. For a 14 year old, the wages were around 3/- a day in the mid-1920s, and a wage increase came on your birthday, after going to see the under-manager to secure your entitlement to an extra 1/- a day. David Meek's first wages were 4/- a day, which was a make-up wage. 'The hewer got paid for both of you, so he paid out your wage according to his estimate of your worth, and the total output achieved, with the added consideration that he was teaching you the skills of the trade'.

Whereas the Splint coal stoop, twelve feet and seven and a half feet high, was the first place of work, the next move, to the main coal seam at the far end of the pit, was a big change. Here, the work place was at a long-wall stooping, and the main coal was easy to get, although roof conditions and propping had to be given special attention, as this section was at the extreme of the colliery boundary. For David, this was not pick work, but shovelling waste, filling hutches, and clearing up falls after holing and cutting. Between the two of them it was possible to reach an output of up to 16 hutches a day with the main coal, whereas only ten hutches a day was the norm getting out the tough splint coal, and in some hard places only two.

He had learned how to wield and use the pick properly at the Splint coal - how to avoid jarring your arms and shoulders, allowing your hand to slide down the handle. Man and boy had first to take out the soft free coal between the hard Splint, then the Splint itself by the application of a 7lb. hammer and steel wedges.
Re-starting at the end of 1926, having stayed out during the long lock-out, he was again working Splint coal, in the No.5 section. David had turned 16 when his stepfather was not fit to go down the pit. He worked the place on his own, prematurely a fully-fledged collier, although he was prepared to admit later that he knew nothing about oncost work away from the coal face. He felt it to be a disadvantage without the practical experience of oncost work. Indeed, one of the most frustrating days of his working life as a young miner occurred when he was unexpectedly called upon to prepare and work with a pit pony at the task of drawing hutches. He had not been taught how to fit the graith on to a pony, or how to handle the animal while drawing, and the whole experience was a disaster.

From late 1926 until 1930, the young collier worked different shifts, also doing 'brushing'-preparation and repair work prior to hewing out the coal. This was mainly done on the afternoon shift, when you worked under the discipline of the pit deputy, who saw that you were particular about the placing and securing of the pit props. Shifts were long as, after the 1926 defeat, the shattered miners union was unable to enforce the eight hour day which had been won before the Great War. The morning shift, when the coal was cut down, was a long one, beginning at 6.00 a.m. and finishing at 3.15 p.m. It took another half hour to walk the roads before leaving the colliery. There was only one official break during this shift, a 20 minute break at 10 o'clock.

In 1931, David Meek switched over to the No.7 section to work the Pyotshaw coal, where machine cutting was being operated. Initially, he was engaged as part of a team to open up a new Pyotshaw face, and then as an assistant to the machineman on the undercutting shift. This was a complete change in conditions and methods of work. Making out a fresh coal face involved careful propping. The roof had to be secured by wooden straps, while vertical wood props were 'needled' into the top coal, which was soft.
Before the introduction of a new management team from Fife in the early 1930s, machine cutting had been a trial and error business, with a lot of waste in costs and efficiency. Whereas the skilled collier took care and knew how to leave the coal face in a good condition, untrained men were being employed as strippers to wedge out and breakup the coal which the machine had undercut on the previous shift. David Meek recalls that the first big wheel machine cutter brought into the Pyotshaw section where he worked, broke down and had to be left lying after two days. However, machine teams gained experience in the thin seam and the excellent Anderson and Boyes cutter worked without a major breakdown for the next three years.

Working on the machine run on the night shift was a particularly nasty job. As a back-end man, he hated every minute of this unpleasant work, clearing away the rock and coal fragments from the cutting tool, and putting in wooden gibs to support the undercut coal. Machine cutting teams had to contend with high noise levels, and with thick choking dust, especially in dry sections. At this time, there were no masks issued. and wet spraying had yet to be introduced.

Pulled along by a haulage chain. the machine cutter worked very slowly, and usually required a back shift and night shift operation to cut a long stretch to be stripped on the day shift, and also two holeborers for preparing coal blasting. On the day shift, the rippers took out the undercut coal, using pick, wedge and mash; the fillers loaded up the hutches; and the drawers pushed the hutches to the mechanical haulage. The hand drawing of hutches was the hardest work, for which there was an additional piecework payment of 1d. per 75 feet on top of the existing tonnage rate for the output of the team. A team of three workers -a stripper, filler and drawer -could, on a good day, reach an output of nine or ten tons per man.

The new management in the 1930s were ruthless taskmasters. They put machine work on to a more efficient though gruelling. piecework basis and expanded and rationalised the haulage system, which included a phasing out in the use of pit ponies. The ponies, which were stabled underground, were often temperamental and erratic in their behaviour at work. Pony haulage driving was a knack, but the best of the ponies were as good as automation. One particular pony, named Ginger, responded, almost like clockwork, to the cry 'Gee, Ginger!', would leave unattended with full hutches, and would make his way back alone with empty hutches. This animal, in common with many others, was also of value to the men in that it was acutely alert to potential hazards such as roof falls, and would stop to give warning.

Another story, from the 1930s, revealed the hard-line attitude of management who, on this particular occasion, appeared to be more concerned with the horses than the welfare of the men. Coming down to the No.2 pit one day, the manager witnessed a horse pulling empty hutches to the top of an incline. The men were flabbergasted to hear the manager's order to "Take that horse out of there, the poor beast'll get killed. Put on four or five men to push the hutches up the hill"... as if mindless to the risk to life and limb.

On the self-acting haulage in No.2 pit, one of the important skilled jobs involved jigging the hutches as they arrived. The operator had to work at speed, Clicking the hutches together in a line. The moving haulage stopped every twenty minutes or so, which allowed little time for rest periods; However, it was not unknown to commit minor acts of sabotage by deliberately jamming up the hutches in order to get an extra rest! Moreover, at this mine which rose at an incline of one in five feet, the transport was supplied by main and tail haulage running rakes of ten hutches. At the No.5 Blackband section, these hutches could be manoeuvred on to main haulage Even on that steep hill without having to stop the haulage. For some years, this Skill belonged to the efficient working team of two boys, namely H.Dickson and H. Sloan.

Although accidents and injuries, minor and serious, were common occurrences and industrial disease was an occupational hazard, the absence of sufficient surviving evidence does not permit accurate jud~ent of the health and safety record in Hamilton Palace Colliery over the 75 years of its productive life. One set of statistics which are available consist of a record of fatal injuries registered by the Mines Inspector in the official annual reports (Details for the Palace Colliery are shown at the end of the book, listing the years 1890-1914). From the beginning until the end of the colliery in 1959, there was, on average, at least one fatal accident per year, and although there were no single, large scale mining disasters there, the worst incident, in terms of loss of life and limb, occurred in October 1911, as the result of a winding accident. On this occasion, eight miners were in a cage descending the shaft to their place of work at a seam 95 fathoms down. Due to a lapse of concentration on the part of the unfortunate winding engineman, the cage descended uncontrolled at full speed to the pit bottom, and all the men were jolted, crushed and thrown. One man died of his injuries three days later, two men had to have a leg amputated. and the other suffered terrible spinal injuries.
It may also be recalled that, nearly fifty years later, in September 1959, After the Palace pits had closed, some Bothwellhaugh miners who had gone to work at Auchingeich colliery were among those killed in one of the worst disasters in Scottish mining history, when an underground fire claimed forty seven lives.

CHAPTER THREE

STRIFE AND STRUGGLE CONFLICTS AT THE COLLIERY

The Strike

As lads we ran aboot the braes
In wee bare feet an' ragged claes;
Nae such a thing as 'Dinna Like',
For then oor faithers were on strike.
Yet in these times they still could sing
While haulin' hoose coal frae the bing;
Nothing then tae waste or spare,
Still everyone would get their share.
They'd share their last with those in need,
There wisnae such a thing as greed;
A piece on jam was something rare,
An' no so much o' that tae spare.
We'd eat it new, we'd eat it stale,
And even dip it in oor kail;
Nae such a thing as 'Dinna Like',
We kent oor faithers were on strike.

Bob Young

From its origins in the mid 1880s until colliery nationalisation in 1947 Bothwellhaugh was a company village, where power was exercised by the General managers, colliery managers and under managers on behalf of the owners and shareholders. Among the leading personalities in powerful positions over the years was Robert Lang, or Bob Lang as he was more generally known. He had the longest reign of all the colliery managers at the Palace, from before World War One until his replacement in 1930.

Lang had a reputation as a hard man, but during his time as colliery manager, the real boss in Bothwellhaugh was Stewart Thomson, who had an even more formidable reputation among the workers and the villagers. As a young man in the 1890s, Thomson was secretary of the Hamilton Palace Colliery Co-operative Society, which ran a store in the village. From this promising start, Thomson rose in status and became chief cashier at the colliery, a position which he wielded as all-powerful general manager of company affairs.

He lived in the best house in the village, at the former Bothwellhaugh farm. Apparently, he made it his business to know everything that was going on in the village and had his spies and stooges to keep him well informed on the movements and attitudes of the workforce. He was widely regarded with hatred and fear, and has been variously described as colliery trouble shooter, unofficial village police chief, and boss man. His power base was as chief cashier, where he was in charge of wages and where he was in strict control of the allocation of company houses. Yet, although the powers and influence of Thomson and other managers could be formidable in relation to work discipline and social conduct in the village, their power over working lives and over village life was not complete.

Here, perhaps the main countervailing power to the demands of owners and managers was the local branch of the Lanarkshire Miners Union. However, it must be said that, on many occasions, especially in 1921, in 1926 and thereafter until the early 1930s, it had to fight for its very existence in the face of bitter defeats againt hard-line owners and managers. A brief indication of some of these notable episodes and flashpoints of conflict may be given here, to illustrate the involvement of Bothwellhaugh miners in local and national issues.
In January 1919, during a period of militant unofficial action, in which striking miners besieged the union headquarters at Hamilton and demanded firmer leadership against the colliery owners, Hamilton Palace Colliery was the scene of a fracas. Palace miners were involved in the unofficial strike, although not in the violence which followed. Flying pickets from Blantyre, Burnbank and Uddingston broke into the lamp shed at the colliery pit head and smashed safety lamps and other equipment to prevent miners from going to work underground, and to intimidate the management. Nine miners - none of them local men - were arrested and, appearing before the sheriff at Hamilton court house, were convicted on charges of mobbing and rioting. The police sergeant who, single-handed, had resisted the attack on colliery property, and had been hurt in the incident, was given a merit award for his courageous, if foolhardy, devotion to duty.

During the national strike and employers lock-out in early 1921, Palace Workers were involved in the industrial action. According to union instructions, safety men were withdrawn from the pits to put pressure on the owners. At the colliery, mass meetings and rallies were held. The men met to decide what action to take against the introduction of blackleg labour which the management, with police help, had smuggled in to work the electric generators and pumps. While troops were stationed at many pits throughout the country, the situation at Bothwellhaugh also became highly inflamed when a detachment of Volunteer army reservists, dressed in mufti and carrying full army equipment marched into the colliery and staged a provocative demonstration. The miners protested vehemently about the presence of this 'defence corps', and after a delegation had registered a protest at Hamilton Barracks, the force was withdrawn. However, soon after, a fresh batch of soldiers were sent to the colliery to protect blacklegs and property and the miners, furious but restrained, did not intervene.

The Palace miners came out in the General Strike of May 1926, and endured the months-long lock-out which followed. In contrast to union policy in 1921, this time safety men were not withdrawn, but instructed to do only their normal duties. Accordingly, the safety men proceeded to undertake their usual tasks of maintaining underground roads and operating pumps. However, the Bent Colliery Company were determined not only to see necessary maintenance work done, but to bring in blacklegs to do other oncost work and even to hew coal at the face. Again under police escort, raw, untrained scab labour was brought in from outwith the village. Irrespective of risks to safety, and of damage to coal faces, scabs were paid 30/- a ton for hewing and bringing up splint coal, and £1 a ton for main coal. Only in October, when the prolonged lock-out had begun to take its toll on morale and some local men had, for the first time in twenty three weeks, gone back to work where there were serious disturbances at the Palace colliery. Locked-out miners, often backed up by their womenfolk, were already determined to take drastic action to prevent the drift back to work, but the incident which first brought matters to a violent head was the sudden sacking and victimisation of the safety men who had worked throughout the dispute. Their abrupt dismissal occurred when they refused to carry out the dictate from management to perform other work, such as bringing coal to the pit head and thereby refused to scab on their fellow trade unionists.

The miners union retaliated at this point by blacking the jobs of safety firemen, and physically tried to prevent scabs being brought in for this essential work. In a number of instances, blacklegs were intercepted and assaulted on their way home from the colliery and seven Palace men were charged with violent picketing. The next morning, with passions at fever pitch, a crowd of around 500 men and women gathered in a mass picket outside the rows, in wait for the strikebreakers coming up from the night shift. The police, anticipating trouble, were already present in some strength, having been reinforced from Motherwell and Hamilton. Just as several Lanarkshire Tramways motor buses were approaching the road by the Co-op store, with the intention of picking up and driving away the night shift men, the crowd rushed the vehicles. Four of the buses had windows smashed in before the police, batons drawn, broke the blockade and beat a clear passage for the buses.

During the same episode, a section of the angry crowd had pursued and attacked two local men who were being escorted back home from the night shift. Once again, order was restored with the use of the baton, and arrests were made. At the ensuing trial at Hamilton, nine men and one woman were charged on various accounts, including mobbing and rioting, incitements to violence, and physical assault. Among the accused, William Wallace was given two months hard labour in prison, convicted for assault; and Andrew and Joseph Collins each got thirty days sentences. Joe McMillan, who was also convicted, had already been badly beaten about the mouth while in police custody. John Strain, whom the police had picked out as a ringleader of the crowd and had batoned down, was also convicted. His wife, who had been driven to fury at witnessing her husband subjected to Police retaliation, was alleged to have further incited the crowd against the blacklegs and the police, and was sentenced to a £2 fine, or ten days in prison.

After the 1926 defeat, conditions for the workers rapidly deteriorated at The colliery. Bob Lang and Stewart Thomson made sure that the best union men were victimised and permanently blacklisted. Many of the men and their families were forced to leave the village and the area, to find work elsewhere. The tide of emigration increased as more Bothwellhaugh folk joined other former residents in America and Canada, in Australia and New Zealand and in other parts of the British empire overseas. Management control was asserted over wages and conditions, and a hire and fire policy was conducted. Collective bargaining by the miners union became impossible and the local branch broke up.

The union was replaced by a management. nominated pit committee, and non-union men were appointed as checkweighmen at the pit head. This meant that the union lost its important bargaining power over wage and tonnage rates, with the result that production workers were frequently being cheated of their agreed earnings. As the pit committee was in collusion with management, there was no official vehicle by which the men could appeal against grievances. The same people also put a stop to the installation of Pithead Baths in 1929. They canvassed the colliery before the vote was taken, advising the men against it, and so the offer from the Miners Welfare Society was lost. Niggling disputes became more prevalent and, in the years between 1927 and 1935 when depressed demand for coal led to increased unemployment and short time in the pits, idle days were frequent.

By 1930, miners trade unionism had staged a revival, taking shape at Bothwellhaugh in the form of local branch of the unofficial, breakaway and left-wing militant United Mineworkers of Scotland, which was gaining strength in Fife and in parts of Lanarkshire.
There was a good response, and the breakaway union had several hundred members in the village: Bellshill militants, and some Palace men, circulated a rank and file pit paper called The Hawk, a duplicated sheet which ridiculed managers, foremen and stooges, attacked the capitalist system and private ownership of the mines, and advocated nationalisation of the mining industry under workers control. The colliery management -the new team of Clark from Fife -already had experience there of the United Mineworkers of Scotland and of their leaders such as Abe Moffat. In order to resist the menace of unofficial and militant trade unionism at Bothwellhaugh, they decided upon a strategy of making terms with the lesser evil, by asking the moderate Lanarkshire Miners Union to reform a branch. In this way, they hoped to head off the U.M.S. and at the same time to give management recognition to the official miners trade union for the first time since 1926.

The bulk of local miners thus came back into the Lanarkshire Miners Union by the mid 1930s. However, there were still provocations made by a hard-line management which was determined to keep trade unionism weak at the pits. For instance, in March 1933, two union men were sacked. The response was a widespread strike for their re-instatement, backed by the Lanarkshire Miners Union. In February 1936, despite repeated efforts by local officials of the L.M.U. over 100 Bothwellhaugh pitmen had still not joined the union. On that occasion, 800 Palace men came out on strike for the principle of 100% trade union membership. There continued to be a non-union rump at the colliery, re-inforced by management policy of encouraging the practice of sub-contracting in oncost work such as 'brushing the roads'.
Until nationalisation, this was a running sore which allowed certain men to gross high earnings while, in many cases, there were no guarantees to prevent them from underpaying their teams of assistants. Then, in 1947, the local N.U.M. forced the management into the position of persuading the small number of non-union men to either join the union or else lose their jobs. The outcome was a 100% closed shop.

Chapter Four

HOUSING AND LIVING CONDITIONS IN BOTHWELLHAUGH

In Bothwellhaugh, which was one of the largest mining villages in the Clyde valley coalfield, the houses were the property of the mine owners, the Bent Colliery Company Ltd. The first rows which the company built for the colliery workforce and their families were situated close to the pit head. This group of rows, built in the late 1880s and early 1890s, comprised Calder Place, Haugh Place, Store Place and the Square, Clyde Place, Roman Place and Park Place. The second phase of house building was developed to the west towards the Clyde, consisting of Avon Place, Douglas Place, Hill Place, Brandon Place and finally Raith Place, in 1904-05.

In 1910, this total of 458 colliery houses accommodated 965 of the workforce, besides their families and dependants. At this date, another 240 of the workforce resided in rented housing in the vicinity, some at Hamilton, at Bothwell, Uddingston and at Motherwell. On the whole, workers housing and facilities at Bothwellhaugh were of a better standard than the typical damp and insanitary, single-storey miners' rows which had been built earlier in the 19th century in the Bothwell, Bellshill and Motherwell areas. The houses at the Palace colliery were two-storey tenements and, in accordance with the latest building regulations, had been designed with damp-proof courses and floor ventilation. Originally, many of the 350 room and kitchen two-apartment houses had a scullery and water closet even if, in some cases, a neighbour had to share. The smaller number of three-apartment houses -27 in all -also had indoor toilets and scullery space. However, there were 80 poorer, single-room houses, including Store Place and the Square.

Some of these houses had an indoor supply of water, while others had neither an indoor sink nor a toilet, the tenants having to draw water from the street tap and share a dry midden privy out in the back yard. In the village, the dry middens, with a wooden spar to sit on, were demolished by the end of the 1920s, and replaced with water closets. The Company provided and organised the scavenging service for the houses, and on a daily basis emptied the ash-pits and household refuse. Tenants of the newer, more desirable houses at the west end of the village -at Hill Place, Brandon and Raith -did not have outdoor washhouses, but instead had an indoor coal-fired boiler opposite their water closet at the scullery entrance to their houses. The other rows were provided with washhouses, shared out, on average, among five stairs of tenants. Up to twenty householders would have to know when to take their turn on the morning and afternoon rotas for using the washhouse. As the houses had no indoor bathroom, the washhouse was, until the 1920s, the only place in the village: where you could go for a proper bath. Otherwise you had to make do at home with a wash at the sink or in the big enamel tub placed in front of the kitchen fire. If you chose to have a bath in the washhouse, you put up a screen cloth over the little window, not only for privacy, but to let people know that the place was temporarily being used.

Later on, the Miners Welfare had public baths installed. A bath here cost a shilling, but they were never as popular, or as cheap, as the washhouse bath. It seems incredible that pit baths and showers were made available at the colliery only as late as the 1950s. Apparently, even then, the management had held out against the installation of baths on account of the winding down of the productive life of the colliery, and did not consider it worth while bothering. Instead, surface workers and men and boys returning from work at the pit had to wait until they walked or journeyed home -in the case of those men who did not live in the village-before taking off their soiled clothes and washing themselves. Pit clothes were hung over the brass rod and the fire guard, and the women especially saw that the domestic fires were always on, to supply kettles of hot water for washing and cooking. At first, the houses were lit with oil lamp and candle, and with the light of the fire.

By the 1930s, most householders took advantage of the opportunity to have gas installed, paying for its use by putting a penny a time into the meter. Later, the miners' union committee had a hand in canvassing for the introduction of An electricity supply for the houses. Throughout the eighty years of the village, the great majority of its residents experienced an upbringing and adult life in the two-apartment, 'but and ben' houses. And although by modern standards, Bothwellhaugh workers lived in cramped, overcrowded conditions, this was generally accepted as a fact of life.
Rightly, they considered themselves better housed and accommodated than most of the mining families in the area, and for that they were grateful. For small and large families alike, sleeping arrangements in the room and kitchen houses almost invariably meant the use of set-in or wall-recess beds, with both rooms occupied: and, where necessity dictated, putting four or five children into one bed. The two most sought-after rows were Raith and Brandon, which were roomy and to that extent more suitable for larger families. However, at least until the mid 1930s, allocation of houses in the village was not made according to criteria such as the size of families, or even the ability to pay higher rent.

For many years, it was the village boss, Stewart Thomson, who exercised close control over house allocation and he was inclined to favour pro-management workers for the tenancy of the better and larger houses. When the miners union committee in the 1930s successfully insisted on having a say in house allocation, the worst cases of favouritism and unfairness were eliminated and a more equitable, pointage system came to be introduced. From the late 1930s, a start was made to move out some of the biggest families to new schemes in Bellshill. The process of re-housing was intensified from 1948 onwards, when the county sanitary authorities imposed a closing order on the village.
This drastic measure resulted from two particular health hazards threatening the inhabitants: the first being a backflow of raw sewage from the Clyde; the other problem arising from a partial failure of the main water supply to certain rows near the colliery pit-head. Although the colliery still had a few years of economic life to run, this sanitary problem effectively sealed the fate of the village in advance of any colliery closure. Many of the houses, over the years, had been hit by dampness problems and tenants complained about the presence of bugs in the walls, which spread among the bed linen and the furniture. This was not a bad reflection upon the cleanliness of families generally. It was correctly observed that you did not have to be a dirty person to get house bugs, as they spread irrespective of the care and concern taken by families to avoid this pest. Families who were moving house had to fumigate their belongings before occupying another house outside the village. However, if some houses were 'hoachin' wi' bugs', this was a nuisance which people had to live with. Exposure to untreated sewage seeping into the lower houses close to the Clyde was a problem on an entirely different scale, involving the possibility of disease and death.
When drainage pipes had been laid at the end of the 19th century from the west end of the village down to the Clyde, no allowances had been made for placing the drains at an angle. The cess pipes carried more or less straight out into the river. When the Clyde was in flood, the bottom houses at Roman Place were exceptionally vulnerable to flood water and raw sewage lapping at or near the foundation.
With the intention of avoiding the responsibility and expense of water and drainage repairs, the Bent Colliery Company tried to unload and sell the village to the local authority. By then, the council had proceeded to build a new water pipe column for the village, to replace the corroded pipes and ensure a supply to all the houses, although the Company refused to comply with the council's request to pay for leading off pipes from the new column to the houses. Following nationalisation of the coal mines, the National Coal Board took over the houses and the tenancies. However, as more of the houses were being vacated, they were not all boarded up. Some were re-let to incoming miners and families, from Blantyre, Burnbank and from Bedlay, but the village community was already in its death throes. By 1960, with the colliery closed and most of the rows lying empty, Bothwellhaugh took on the appearance of a ghost town. By 1966, the last of the villagers had been dispersed and the houses were demolished. The area lay derelict until its conversion into part of Strathclyde Park in the early 1970s.

CHAPTER FIVE

SCHOOLING AND CHILDHOOD DAYS

In the early years of the village, the Bent Colliery Company set up a small School to cater for school-age children from the ages of five to thirteen. Before 1900, its classroom space had already become hopelessly cramped, and more rooms and desks were required to accommodate the growing number of children who belonged to incoming colliery workers. The school came under the management of Bothwell School Board, which decided to build an extension. This enlarged public school, with a separate infant department was opened in 1902. It was a mixed, state school, and Roman Catholic parents had the choice of taking their children to it, or withdrawing them to attend a denominational school outside the village. Throughout the years, the number of pupils on the school roll reflected the growth and decline of the colliery and of the village community. At its opening in 1902, there were 379 pupils. The number rose to over 500 in the 1914-18 period, and thereafter began to decline, to 175 in 1948, to 64 in the 1963-64 session, and finally in 1965 to a residue of only 10 pupils, by which time it was -in the words of an article about it in the Daily Mail -a 'ghost school' in a ghost village.

The school remained grossly overcrowded until after 1918. In 1906, for instance, the two classrooms in the infant section contained a total of no less than 168 pupils, which must have made school hours more unpleasant for children and teachers alike. It is no wonder that the school log book refers to the frequent turnover of female staff in the infant section in the early 1900s, as the working conditions were so unattractive. In 1909, the report submitted by His Majesty's Inspector for Schools recommended the withdrawal of part of the annual state grant to the school as a penalty against the Bothwell School Board for its failure to provide more desks, classroom space, and adequate, permanent teaching staff. The physical environment of the school was also unfavourable and distracting as the building was situated immediately beneath a coal bing and close to the noise of the pithead workings and railway sidings.

On more than one occasion the bing was on fire and smouldering, giving out a strong odour and noxious fumes. In December 1907, the problem was acute, and the headmaster informed the School Board and the local authorities of the 'burning refuse heap' which the colliery proprietors were content to ignore. Nothing was done, and the offensive bing was burning itself out through January. School life continued in the shadow of the great bing until the very end of The life of the village. In 1964, it was removed to make 'dyke' for a stretch of the new M74 motorway nearby and all through late 1964 and early 1965, the headmaster in his log-book complained of the constant disruption to lessons and patience caused by the noise from the heavy scrapers which were busily removing the million ton bing from behind the school. The bing had indeed formed an impressive landmark and loomed large. The story goes that one schoolboy, during the geography lesson, had been asked to remind the class which mountain was the highest in Scotland. The boy had looked puzzled, but suggested the hopeful answer, 'the Palace bing, sir.'

In the early years of the school, heavy rainstorms were frequently a disruptive influence. The roads in and out of the village were easily flooded and on many occasions, pupils got an unexpected half-day holiday as a precaution. Their delight must have increased when afternoon sessions, which were often given over to religious instruction, had to be abandoned.
More seriously, problems arising from illness and epidemics affected the regularity of school routines and attendances. In the first decades of the 20th century, there are frequent references to fever epidemics among the children. For example, in September 1903, measles closed the school for a fortnght and ,when it was re-opened, half of the pupils were still absent, whereupon It was decided to close for another two weeks. One of the worst years for absences due to illness was 1911, when scarlet fever, diptheria and measles were prevalent in the village.

As in other mining areas, the bitter experience of long periods of poverty and hardship bore down on many children. In 1926, for example, during the lock-out months of the coal dispute, needy parents applied to the Education Authority for boots for the children and for free school dinners. Log book entries during October 1926, referring to 'ill shod and ill clad children' require no further comment on the privations which then prevailed.
At other times when work and wages were not plentiful, Bothwellhaugh parents had to resort to the Parish Council to obtain clothing for their children. For boys, this 'parish suit' consisted of a worsted jacket and trousers, usually grey. Tackety boots were also supplied. They were available from Marshall's at Bellshill Cross, which shop also stocked pit boots. The parish boots were a 'ton weight, and had little holes punched on the inside in the shape of a shamrock, to prevent your parents from pawning them'.

Nevertheless, there are memories of village children in the 1920s and 1930s who never had boots or shoes throughout their school days. Instead, they went barefoot or else wore thin 'guttees', and did not possess proper footwear until they started work. For Bothwellhaugh children in the inter-war years, school subjects were still the basic, traditional ones reading, writing, spelling, composition, arithmetic, some history and geography, and religious instruction with heavy emphasis on bible stories and readings. Older girls were taught domestic subjects, including cookery, while boys were taught woodwork. At various times, 12 year olds in the supplementary class travelled to Uddingston Grammar School or to Bellshill Academy for woodwork, and for cookery lessons the girls went either to Uddingston or to Muiredge School. A long-serving headmaster, Mr. Brown, also trained up a reputable village school choir, although it is alleged that the pupils were 'press ganged into it.'

Among the teaching staff, there were the usual strict disciplinarians and some, like Johnny Walker and Robert McCouver, were feared. For many years, a feature of school life was the frequent visits from Band Of Hope lecturers. Mr. Crosbie, and then Mr. Sutherland constantly reminded Pupils of the evils of alcohol. However, on occasion, a school excursion would break into the routine of the classroom. Perhaps an excursion one day in March 1936 is still vividly remembered by some former pupils who had the opportunity of a school outing to Old Kilpatrick to see the newly-launched Queen Mary departing from the Clyde. Beyond school hours. there were plenty of organised and home-made activities for youthful release and recreation. Annual highlights were the gala and sports days, Sunday school picnics and Rechabite outings in the summer, or camping up the country with one of the uniformed organisations.

For many years, colliery manager Robert Lang was also patron of the first Bothwellhaugh troop of the Boy Scouts. However, in the '20s and '30s, the Boys Brigade were reckoned to be a bigger attraction, due apparently to the greater emphasis on sports and less reliance on needing to buy and wear a full uniform. The Boys Brigade dances were always very popular. There was also a flourishing Girl Guides who camped every year and raised funds from the likes of whist drives and fancy dress parades. Among the boys, there were the interminable football games, with umpteen on each side, playing until 10 o'clock in the summer evenings, and not on the big football field, but on the drying green area in front of Raith Place.
Many of the boys, like 'Sodger' Smith, had feet as hard as nails, and they could play football barefoot, as well as kick a can. Sometimes, if the boys were playing football in the swing park between 4.00 p.m. and 5.00 p.m., Dr. Georgevitch, who was a good player, would come over and have a game when the surgery hour was not busy. The travelling Indian clothes men who came to the village were also known to join in the football sides and in other games. Games like tig and 'lie low, Joe' for boys and girls alike could also be played under the street lights on dark evenings. The den for hide and seek would be under one of the electric lights supplied by the colliery generators. At other times, it was not unknown for foolhardy youngsters to trespass over the colliery fence to take coal from the company waggons, and even if coal was relatively cheap at 10/- for half a ton in the 1920s, it was a daring steal as well as being useful at home.

CHAPTER SIX

THE COLLIERY VILLAGE SOCIAL LIFE AND CHARACTER

The pattern of working life among families in the village was dictated by the demands of the colliery, whether it involved pitmen working underground, or the likes of women and boys at the pithead screens and washery, or men and women workers making pit props at the colliery sawmill. It was true also of the womenfolk at home, performing endless hours of 'unpaid' labour from early in the morning to late at night, seeing to the various needs of their wage-earning family, and their growing children! many of whom were destined for colliery work in due course.

In the formative years of the company village up to and beyond the Great War, the colliery owners and management also intervened to set the tone for social and cultural behaviour among their employees and families. They actively promoted and prescribed, applauded and rewarded those kinds of activities and pursuits which they regarded as respectable and reputable, namely church-going and godliness; sober living; outdoor sports such as organised football; and the discipline and initiative which was learned from membership of uniformed organisations like the Scouts, the Guides, or the Boys Brigade.

They were also inclined to approve of any amenities and recreations which provided alternatives to the evil temptations of betting, gambling and drink. In accordance with this insistence upon certain approved values and activities, the company helped to promote some indoor and outdoor recreational facilities for the workforce and their families, although it can hardly be said that they spent much money on this provision.
In the early years, a small library and recreation room opposite the company store at Store Place was provided by the owners, although the Colliery Hall at Calder Place was in greater use as a public amenity, serving many purposes. Weddings and other social functions were held here, as were whist drives, dances and concerts. The local Rechabites, Shepherds and Salvation Army met in the 'wee hall', and the silver, pipe and flute bands rehearsed in the 'big hall'. Sometimes, as in the 1920s, local 'big wigs' like J. Wilson Paterson from Bothwell would require the Hall for functions organised by the Tory Unionist Association; and the Scout troop, which he patronised, would organise Christmas treats for the older people the old girls receiving a packet of tea and the old men some tobacco, after they had enjoyed a dinner on the Hall premises.

A much larger premises, the Miners Welfare Institute, built by the colliery owners in conjunction with the workforce, was opened in August 1924: It consisted of a big hall, reading room, smoking room, a well-equipped kitchen and baths. Apparently, in the early years of its existence, the Welfare was shunned by many of the miners. They were suspicious of the motives of the owners in opening up the Welfare, and wished to steer clear of contact with company stooges and blacklegs who frequented the place.
This did not prevent the Institute from being a good-going concern, and a successful silent cinema show was held there three evenings a week. After the advent of the 'Talkies', the cinema shows were abandoned, and in the 1930s, an extension was added to include a billiard room with three tables, a carpet bowling room, and another games room, all activities being financed on a membership payment basis. This arrangement continued until the eventual closure of the Institute in 1966. The hall was also used for the likes of whist drives and dances.

Hamilton Palace Colliery Co-operative Society, registered in August 1886, was not a creation of the company, but of the local mining community who, as loyal customers and share holders, supported and sustained the Society as their own collective property. The Co-op store, as in many other places, was the sole or major shopping centre in the community, as well as a 'gossip shop'. From a modest though encouraging start in 1886 with 39 members and a dividend of 11d in the £ on sales, the Co-op rose in prominence to 196 members in 1891; to 460 members in 1909; and to over 600 members in 1919. By then it employed 26 workers and at 3/- in the £ it paid out one of the most generous dividends in the country. With low dividends, membership held up through the difficult 1920s and 1930s, and in the mid 1960s, it was still very much a viable concern with 660 members, a staff of 24 workers, and a dividend of 2/11d in the £. Soon thereafter, as the pits closed and the village declined, so also did the Co-op.

It was the policy of the Hamilton estates and of the Bent Colliery Company to prohibit the sale of alcohol in the village. There was not a single licensed premises in the village until the Welfare finally secured an application in the early 1960s. Bothwellhaugh was 'dry', but it is doubtful whether the enforcement of this policy deterred the practice of drinking, as beer and spirits were easily available elsewhere. Re-inforcing the prohibition on pubs, the local churches, the Rechabites and the Salvation Army kept up the crusade against the evils of drink.
Before a Church of Scotland was built in the late 1920s, services were held on Sundays in the Hall at Calder Place. This mission was an outreach of the Bothwell Parish Church which also recruited a Hamilton Palace Sunday School and a Bible Class in the 1890s. Bothwell Free Church, too, held mission services in the village on Sunday evenings, and mothers' meetings on a weekday evening.

Catholics, who were in a minority in the village, went to Mass in one of the nearby towns. In the summer of 1920, when a religious revival of a fundamentalist kind was sweeping through many localities in Scotland, there was a popular response to tent services held by Brethren preachers in Bothwellhaugh. Demand for a regular meeting place provided the impetus for a Gospel Hall. Supported financially and morally by the colliery management, the hall was built in April 1921, converted from a Red Cross army hut brought in from Glencorse. At this particular time, when coal mining was slack, several local miners spent busy shifts in the voluntary erection of the Hall. Mr. Fleming of Raith Farm pitched in with free supply and use of his horses and carts for the purpose of bringing over loads of pit ash to raise the ground and provide a safe foundation on the site. Missionary preachers came to the village quite regularly and preached to full halls on their visits. For outdoor sports and recreation, the company agreed to provide some facilities. They included a bowling green, a field serving as a public park, and a football pitch adjacent. However, by 1914-18, the football ground was absorbed by encroaching filtering ponds from the colliery, and a new football pitch was created further west over the railway. Palace United, one of several junior and amateur teams in the village, played here. Palace Rangers had played earlier on the original pitch.

The public park area was also converted to make way for allotments at the end of the Great War. In 1917-18, wartime food shortages prompted the government to urge home production of vegetables and to encourage self-sufficiency. This was the circumstance which gave rise to the setting up of allotments at Bothwellhaugh, and not, as the story goes, to satisfy some 'back to the land' natural inclination of Irish and Lithuanian incoming workers who had come from peasant backgrounds.

For some Palace miners and their families, flower and vegetable plots were a source of competitive pride, and the highlight of the year was the Bothwell Horticultural Society show in autumn, to which the villagers entered exhibits. For example, in 1926, Charles Murray, a Lithuanian and miner with a large family, won the silver cup for keeping the best allotment in the Bothwell area. Another Bothwellhaugh miner, William McCombe, won the allotment cup in 1925 and was a regular prize winner generally.

Other Palace miners were great 'doggy people:, reared whippets and trained them up for the races. This was a fiercely competitive activity and besides going frequently to race track at Blantyre, the dog owners and their supporters travelled to other racing events in Glasgow and further afield.

Pigeon racing also occupied a lot of devoted attention, and although there were no pigeon lofts as such at the Palace, a half section of coal cellar was the usual home of the birds. Other miners, like old Danny McGregor, who kept canaries were also known to use them down the pit to detect early warnings of gas.

For many years, Bothwellhaugh was acclaimed (at least by the locals) for its concert party entertainments and musical talent. A galaxy of performers displayed talent and commitment and some, like the singing Chappell sisters, went professional. David Anderson, 'big Davie', who became a local councillor, was a concert party leader of long standing, and a fine bass singer who turned down the chance of going professional. In 1926, he and his brother Andrew did much to organise local entertainments to keep up morale during the dispute. They and other 'greasepaint boys' did songs and sketches and the flute, mouth organ and melodeon bands toured the areas outside the village; with collecting cans for the soup kitchens. Tom Campbell, who could play scintillating musical solos on the spoons and the bones, performed in many concert parties and informally during the 1920s.

Then, and later, Bothwellhaugh's amateur entertainers did unstinting work for charity, for example at Hairmyres Hospital. In more recent times, Joe Griffiths led a popular harmonica band which performed at many local venues, in the tradition of the concert parties which they had admired in their youth. For Palace folk, one of the favourite music hall venues was the Hamilton Hippodrome, which supplemented their home-grown entertainments. It will already be obvious that Bothwellhaugh had its fair share of personalities, rogues, and worthies.

Some individuals played an important part in the life of the village; others less so, who were better known for their peculiarities. Among the indispensable characters were Nurse Lindsay, a midwife for many years, who also practised homoeopathic medicine; and Nurse Whiteford in the period after 1917. The various doctors who, at different times, treated Palace folk where also well regarded. Among them were Walls, Hamilton, McPherson, Denness and Djorgevitch. The soft hearted, but generous Katie McNamee, who cleaned the doctors' surgery, was in the habit of buying gifts -like a toaster or a pail -for all and sundry who were getting married.

An example from another walk of life was Tam the Lum,the local chimney sweep who used a long brush and big ball weight which could prove a menace to the wellbeing of grate and range. He was also a practical joker with an inventive streak who would, for example, fill handlebars of his bike with hot water, and fool the boys into thinking he had installed central heating. In contrast to this nonsense, a person like Isaac McCully was widely regarded as one of the most serious and clever men who ever lived and worked in the village. In the 1930s, he was a highly respected checkweighman at the colliery, and a very capable secretary of the local branch of the miners union. He had never done pit work, but nevertheless had accumulated an amazing knowledge of underground working and, on behalf of an aggrieved miner in dispute over conditions, could present and fight a case as well as any lawyer. He was easily recognisable with his jacket pinned up, minus an arm which he had lost in a rail waggon accident on the colliery line.

The story of the village would not be complete without paying tribute to one man above all others, and not already mentioned -Mr. John Gunn, J.P. He was an honest, upright and compassionate man; a life-long member of the Co-op Society, which he served in several official capacities; and a long standing member of the Labour Party. He served on the committees of various organisations which were formed in the village and could be relied upon to provide leadership. No-one was turned away from his door when advice or help was needed, and he served the community throughout his life, with devotion and dignity, and without personal ambition, ending his working life as a highly respected traffic warden. Also, tribute is due to old villagers overseas -the likes of Joe Whiteford, Thomas McWhinnie, and Miss Mabel McKinstry -who helped to keep alive an interest in the history of the village. Finally, despite, and perhaps because of, considerable hardships and troubles, older ex-residents often speak warmly of the vital sense of community spirit and neighbourliness which pervaded this tightly-knit mining community.

These values, which were forged by the working people themselves, have largely disappeared; and, whatever the reasons for their disappearance, this absence is regarded with regret.

When all is said and done about the former mining village of Bothwellhaugh, such observations made by the people who lived there over the years have greater foundation than mere nostalgia.

Appendix

HAMILTON PALACE COLLIERY FATAL ACCIDENTS 1890-1914

DATE	NAME	OCCUPATION	DETAILS
20 Feb 1890	Robert Gregory	Miner	Fall of roof at coal face
13 Feb 1891	Robert Moonie	Brusher	Fall of roof at coal face
1 Aug 1891	Sam Dickson	Miner	Fall of roof at coal face
7 Oct 1892	Pat Cunningham	Miner	Fall of roof at coal face
20 Mar 1893	Thomas Connelly	Screenplant Attendant	Killed by moving wagon
13 Apr 1894	Sam Warmington	Miner	Withdrawing props, roof caved in
15 Nov 1895	James Wilson	Miner	Fall of roof at coal face
25 May 1895	John Wilson	Shaftsman	Crushed in shaft
14 Oct 1895	Elizabeth Findlay	Stone Picker	Fell through hole in floor on to revolving conveyor
19 Aug 1896	John Lynas	Haulageman	Fall of roof on haulage road
6 Nov 1896	James Connelly	Miner	Roof fall
30 Oct 1897	John McGroaty	Miner	Killed by runaway hutch on haulage road
6 Dec 1898	Hugh Nelson	Pumper	Crushed by machinery below pump
10 Oct 1899	William Armour	Boy Miner	Killed when shot ignited gas at coal face
1 Jun 1900	Joe Chereahewski	Miner	Fall of roof at coal face
13 Feb 1900	John Buchan	Miner	Fall of roof at coal face
23 Dec 1901	Alex Ogilvie	Miner	Fall of roof at coal face
12 Apr 1902	William Neil	Drawer	Struck by broken cuddie tree while lowering hutch
9 Jun 1903	Peter Sim	Pony Driver	Fall of roof on way to coal face
19 Jun 1903	Peter Wilson	Miner	Withdrawing props, roof caved in
24 Jun 1904	John Cook	Miner	Crushed by roof fall
20 Oct 1904	William Meeke	Oncost Worker	Crushed by collapse of brick archway
15 Mar 1905	John Ferguson	Miner	Fell down blind pit along with hutch
13 Aug 1906	Edward McCormack	Miner	Fall of roof at coal face
10 Dec 1906	Adam Cummings	Miner	Roof fall when broke through old workings
17 May 1908	James Russell	Labourer	Crushed against buffer whilst braking wagons
19 Sept 1908	John Timbin	Screen Attendant	Caught by moving machinery and bevel wheels
31 Mar 1909	Arthur Dickson	Roadsman	Killed by runaway hutch
18 Oct 1909	John Gallacher	Miner	Roof caved in while opening new place
15 Jul 1910	William Buller	Miner	Fall of roof at coal face
2 Oct 1910	Andrew Wallace	Miner	Fall of roof at coal face
18 Nov 1911	Charles Clark	Miner	Fall of roof at coal face
4 Oct 1910	Adam Barr	Oncost Man	Crushed in winding cage accident
9 Dec 1911	Thomas Nicholls	Oncost Man	Withdrawing props, roof caved in
14 May 1912	Alex Rankin	Oncost Man	Buried under roof fall
12 Aug 1912	John Bell	Roadsman	Killed by large stone in roof fall
23 Sep 1913	John Smith	Miner	Killed by falling props in roof fall
2 Oct 1914	Robert McCart	Haulageman	Crushed in shaft while repairing bellwire

Researched by David Meek. from Inspector of Mines Reports. pps 30-31

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Reports of H.M. Inspector of Mines. 1882 -(Parliamentary papers).
Hamilton Advertiser (Hamilton Public Library).
Motherwell Times (Motherwell Public Library).
Handbook: Hamilton Palace Colliery. 1918 (in possession of David Meek).
Report on the Housing of Miners. 1910. I. Wilson, Medical Officer of Health for Lanarkshire. (Mitchell Library, Glasgow).
The Effects of Large Mining Subsidence on the Mausoleum Keeper's House, Strathclyde Park. I. p M. Wilby. (Report in possession of R. Duncan).
Hamilton Palace Colliery Co-operative Society - extracts from annual statistics taken from central file at Co-operative Wholesale Society H.Q., Manchester.
Census Enumerator's Returns. Bothwell Parish. 1881 (microfilm copy: Hamilton Public Library).
Bothwellhaugh Public School (formerly Hamilton Palace Colliery Public School) Log Books. 1902-1965 -(in Strathclyde Regional Archives, Mitchell Library, Glasgow). pge 32

Last updated June 2005