I am a coal miner's daughter. I was brought up in a typical North Wales mining village, called Llay, which was purpose built in the early 1920's to house the workers at a newly constructed colliery of the same name.
It was not until I started pursuing my family history some 4 years ago that I realised how typical my upbringing was compared to Scottish children, nor did I realise how the Scottish coal mining industry shaped my destiny.
As my father was a miner, and all the fathers of my friends were miners, I thought little about the matter; it was just a village where we all lived and worked, and whenever I thought about my way of life I assumed that all children were brought up the same way.

The pit and the village obviously had an impact on my life.
Each night as I lay in bed I would hear the 10.00 p.m. "hooter" signalling the end of the afternoon shift. Strangely enough, I never remember hearing it at any other time, possibly because of the daytime noise.
Of course, all of the children, including myself, dreaded hearing the alarm which would signal an accident at the pit, and upon hearing it would run home as fast as we could, mainly I suppose for reassurance that everything was alright.
Most of the men in the village bore blue scar marks, the result of scratches being filled with coal dust before they healed. In the village there was a recreation ground, bowling green, football pitch and Miners Welfare Institute, all provided by funds deducted weekly from the earnings of the miners. I was always aware that miners who lost their jobs, also lost their homes, as the two were inextricably linked.

The one thing I did realise at a very early age was that there was no one else in our village, apart from my own immediate family, that had the same surname as me, Pryde. I did once ask my Grandad why this was and his answer was that "we came from Scotland". Like any child, this simple answer satisfied me at the time. It was not until many years later that I decided to follow up my interest in family history and I recalled my conversation with Grandad.

I fairly quickly established that my great great uncle had come down to North Wales from Scotland in 1875 in order to sink and then manage a local colliery called Gatewen. He lived in a large house called Broughton Hall, provided by his employers. In the late 1870's his brother, Alexander, known as Sandy, came to stay with him and Sandy fell in love with the maid who was employed at Broughton Hall. In the face of family opposition they got married and went onto to have 10 children, of which my grandfather was one.

I found this piece of news amazing, as all my father's family had been employed in coal mining, mainly as coal face hewers, as had my grandfather, and yet no one had ventured this piece of information. As I had grown older, I had discussed quite a lot about the family with my father, who was a well-read self-educated man. He never told me "fairy" stories, just real life ones and he once told me about "the underground vault in Utah, America, where the records for everyone were kept, in order that all our souls would be saved at the end of the world." Yet not once had he elicited the information about his great uncle coming from Scotland to sink and manage the pit at Gatewen?

My enthusiasm from this point increased. However, my surprise at the information about my great great uncle was little compared to my astonishment about what I subsequently found out about previous generations of the family, and I am sure that the results my research will strike a chord with other family historians.

I know now that my father's earliest known ancestor was one James Pride, as the name was then spelt, and he was born circa 1683 in the Prestonpans area of East Lothian, Scotland. Although I have not found the marriage of James to his partner Helen Selkirk, I have found the marriage of his brother, John Pride, to Christian Pride at Prestonpans on the 5th June 1693, which reads: -

"John Pride Collier under the Laird of Preston Grange and Christian Pride both in this parish declared ye purpose of marriag (sic) on Saturn=day the 29th by giving up ye names to be proclaimed on Sunday the 30th April 1693. Witnesses and Cautioners Alexander Stewart and William Duncan and consigned new pledges and were married on Monday the 5th June 1693 by Me James Osburne, Min'r at Kilmarnock who preached here."

The reference in the document 'under the Laird of Prestongrange' refers to the fact that in 1606 Scottish Parliament passed an Act making Scottish colliers into serfs (slaves). This Act declared "that no person within this realm (Scotland) shall hire or conduce any colliers or coalbearers without a sufficient testimonial of their master whom they last served, and the said colliers and coalbearers are to be esteemed repute and held as thieves and punished in their bodies for stealing themselves from their masters". In 1647 another Act made it illegal for colliers to change masters other than on 1st December annually.

During this period, when a child, boy or girl, was born to a collier, the parish minister, after conducting the baptism, would also stand as witness at the "arling" ceremony of the child being baptised. "Arles" were the coins given by the coalmaster to the father for the future labour of the child.

So this was the environment into which the eight children of my father's 5 x great grandparents were born, bound from birth to work in the coal mines and subject to punishment if they tried to even work for another coalmaster, without a testimonial from their current owner. These conditions prevailed for subsequent generations of the family. Two of the eight children born to James and Helen were George, born 17th April 1716 and Robert born around December 1710. George went on to have 14 children, one of whom, John, born 31st July 1755 in Liberton, Midlothian, was my father's 3 x great grandfather. George's brother, Robert, went onto to have amongst others, a grandchild, Walter, who was baptised in August 1765. Because of the restrictions placed on the families, all the children, and their children's children followed their parents down the mines. Indeed, we are talking about a time when women and children both worked down the mines, as the later testimony from Walter Pryde will prove.

In 1775 an Act was passed freeing some Scottish colliers from serfdom. However, the Act was passed to make employment in mines more attractive to others because colliers and coalbearers were becoming scarce and no person wished to join employment where they would be bound to their master. The provisions of the Act were therefore very restrictive to those already bound into coal working, in that they had to continue to be bound for between 3 and 10 years, depending on their age and also on them having found and instructed apprentices. Not surprisingly, the Act did little to attract new workers to the mines, and another Act was passed in 1799 stating that "as from the date of 13th June 1799 all bound colliers and coalbearers should be free".

In 1842 the Children's Employment Commission was appointed by Parliament to enquire into the employment of children in mines and collieries, with Sub-Commissioners being appointed for each area. The Sub-Commissioner for the East of Scotland was Robert Hugh Franks and he took the following statement from Walter Pryde, who was at that time aged 81 years, described as a coal hewer: -

"I have not wrought for six years. Was first yoked to the coal work at Preston Grange when I was nine years of age: we were then all slaves to the Preston Grange Laird. Even if we had no work on the colliery in my father's time we could seek none other without a written licence and agreement to return. Even then the Laird or the tacksman selected our place of work, and if we did not do his bidding we were placed by the necks in iron collars, called juggs, and fastened to the wall, or made "to go the rown". The latter I recollect well, the men's hands were tied in face of the horse at the gin, and made run round backwards all day. When bound the hewers were paid 4d. a tub of 4cwt., and could send up six to eight tubs, but had to pay their own bearers out of the money, so that we never took more than 8s. to 10s. a week. The money went much further than double would do now. There are few men live to my age who work below. My wife is 82, and she worked at coal bearing until she was 66 years of age. We are very poor, having had to bring up 11 children; five are alive. Sir John allows us a free house and coal, and the Kirk Session allows us one shilling per week each. Should die if it were not for neighbours and son, who have a large family, and can ill afford to give".

This one testimony alone confirms the ongoing condition of miners. Part of the punishments endured by the miners are mentioned here. The 'juggs' or iron collar referred to was fixed to the pit bottom, the iron collar then being secured around the neck of the miscreant collier, who was restrained in this way as long as the coal master desired. Being made to "go the rown" referred the circular way in which a horse, by means of gearing, raised the coal, the offender being tied to face the horse and walk backwards.

Most of the Franks Report Evidence was given by children and this shows not only the terrible conditions in which they had to work, but also the reasons for them being there, even after the 1799 Act freed the colliers. Many children worked because of economic necessity, either as bearers for their fathers, so that the money earned was kept in the family, or because their fathers had died at a fairly young age, mostly due to "black spit", pneumoniciniosis, a lung disease brought on by the constant work in the dust laden atmosphere. To die aged about 45 years was common and coal miners were considered to be old at 50 years of age.

As a result of the Commission's Report in 1842 the Children's Employment Act banned boys under 10 and all females from working underground.

In 1811, John Pryde, grandson of the John Pryde born 1755, and great grandfather to my father, was born in Liberton. On the 1851 census John is shown working as a coal miner, with his son John, aged 13 being shown as a Collier's Assistant. However, the elder son David, who went on to sink and manage Gatewen Colliery, is shown as a scholar, aged 16, so this was the first evidence of the family beginning to move away from the generations of a child following his or her parents down the mine. On the 1861 census, John, the father, is shown then as a Colliery Contractor. A Colliery Contractor would undertake to supply a number of men to work the coal face and this practise began after the 1799 Act and continued up to Vesting Day in 1947 when coal mines were nationalised. The system clearly suited the coal masters, making recruitment, and firing, simpler. John Pryde died in 1864 aged 52 years.

David and his brother Alexander subsequently came to North Wales, and Alexander, or Sandy, had his ten children, one of which was my grandfather Richard Pryde born 1885. Richard Pryde was never more than a coal face worker. As he lived in the village I have very strong and clear memories of him, even though he was already nearly 66 years old when I was born. I have obtained evidence that he was still working in 1955 when he was 70 years old. At this point he was assessed at a Medical Board for an injury to his left knee. He had previously injured the same knee, as a result of accident when he was working as a ripper at the pit bottom in 1954, and had then been assessed as 7% disabled for life. Although the Consultant's Report is quite clear in that the second accident meant that the loss of mobility in his left knee had increased to 20%, the Medical Board came to the conclusion that this was not enough of a difference to increase his assessment and this was to remain at 7%.

So to my father.
As he was the eldest child of six, although he passed a scholarship at the age of 14, there was no possibility of him continuing his education and he started work with his father. Almost unbelievably, he started his life as a collier at Gatewen Colliery, the very colliery that his great uncle founded some 46 years before.
In 1943 he was buried underground following a fall of coal and when he was rescued it was found that he had shattered his leg and he was off work for 10 months. As a result of this injury he was unable to bend his leg ever again but this did not prevent him from continuing to work down the mine. He hated the work, but loved the camaraderie of his fellow workers. He worked on the coal face for all of his working life, until he transferred to a local steelworks aged about 55, because of the pending closure of the last remaining mine in the local area. For the last 3 years of his life he was unable to walk, due to complications in his leg that he had injured some 40 years before. He died, aged 75, of emphysema, brought on by the coal dust in his working environment.
Despite it all he remained a happy, fulfilled man, who believed it was his duty and his right to work to provide for the well being of his wife and children.
I know that he did not know of his Scottish coalmining ancestry, but I know that he would have relished the details, as I do. He would have been proud to have known how his forebears lived and worked, as I am proud of him, and I dedicate this article to the memory of Joseph Anthony Pryde, a coal miner - my Dad.

© Eve Pryde-Roberts 2001