'Shot through by soldiers who charged the locked- out miners'

IN JUNE 1893 the mine owners demanded a 25-percent cut in the wages of about 480,000 miners after the selling price of coal had fallen by about 40 per cent. The Miners' Federation of Great Britain, which had about 250,000 members, resisted the demand and in the last week of July the employers locked the miners out.

The lock-out had been running six weeks when troops were called to Featherstone, a small W Riding mining ; town in Yorkshire, to deal with angry miners at Ackton Hall pit. crowds at the Doncaster race meeting. So he went off to Wakefield county police headquarters where the decision was taken to call troops from York.

Captain Barker and 28 infantrymen of the S Staffordshire Regiment arrived at the colliery at 4 p.m. but found no disturbance. Their arrival caused great excitement and by 6 p.m. huge crowds had gathered at the colliery after a march through the town.

Riot act

A deputation demanded the military should depart.

After some rioting Captain Barker agreed to go if the miners would leave the colliery premises. The soldiers, followed by the crowd, marched back to the railway station shortly before But a Pontefract magistrate, arriving on the scene shortly after, ordered the soldiers back to the colliery. An enormous crowd gathered once more and the Riot Act of 1714 was read.

The crowd was ordered to disperse. Remaining together for more than an hour meant they were liable to penal servitude for life.

By 9 p.m. the crowd had not dispersed. The magistrate ordered the troops to open fire. Two young _ men, James Gibb (22), and James Duggan (25), were killed and 16 others were wounded.

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Asquith-Home Secretary the shootings.

The two men are buried in a simple cemetery just outside Featherstone. On the gravestone of James Gibb the inscription tells how he 'was shot through by soldiers who charged the locked-out miners'.

The Featherstone shooting caused widespread anger among the miners. Featherstone Asquith' was the nickname given to the Liberal Home Secretary of the time.

Victorious

The miners' resolve strengthened and the lock-out lasted 15 weeks in all. In the end the miners were victorious. They returned on the old wage rates. No cuts had been inflicted. A step forward had been taken in the expansion and consolidation of mass trade unions.

Today, almost 80 years later, Ackton Hall miners are again locked in bitter struggle for a decent living.

Lord Masham has gone. But the sign- outside. the colliery which says the pit is held by the NCB on behalf of the people is viewed with some justifiable cynicism by the men on strike.

The shootings are embedded in the consciousness of Featherstone miners. Underground worker, Eddie Wilkes has worked at Ackton Hall for 30 years and he told us precisely where the men were buried and the name of the colliery manager of 1893.

'The lesson I draw from 1893 is this. Whenever you have a Tory government the working class is persecuted ind hounded,' he told us.

'I think the Tories are setting upon us in the same pattern as they used to deal with Africans 100 years ago, with threats, starvation and blackmailing.

'We're being taken back to Lady Astor's days. She said miners were earthworms and getting too much. But I'd take 7 per cent of any MP's wages-7 per cent of mine is nothing.

'In my opinion the TUC is not giving us the backing we expect. It's fine talking about sympathy, but we want more than that. But the Labour Party also let us down when they were in power, in my view.'