Fortunately I have some notes from the BCW Project entry. Not an exact copie, but close enough now it's gone -- if anyone can add the ending, please do:
Thomas Venner was born around 1609 at Littleham near Bideford in Devon. By 1633, he had moved to London where he worked as a cooper.
In 1638 Thomas Venner emigrated to Salem, Massachusetts. He was admitted a member of the church at Salem in February 1638 and became a freeman of the town in March.
Thomas Venner planned to move to the Puritan colony on Providence Island in the West Indies, but this venture failed [aka NASSAU, BAHAMAS these days.]
In 1644 Thomas Venner moved to Boston, where he became a member of the Artillery Company. By this time he was married to Alice (d.1692) and had a son, Thomas. Two more children were born to them in Boston.
Around 1648, Thomas Venner organized the coopers of Boston and Charlestown into a trading company.
Thomas Venner returned to England from Boston, Mass., with his wife Alice (d.1692) son, Thomas and two more children in 1651. He found employment as a master cooper at the Tower of London and became leader of a militant Fifth Monarchist congregation at Swan Alley off Coleman Street. Like other members of the sect, Venner regarded the establishment of Cromwell's Protectorate as a betrayal of the millenarian cause.
Robert May, a contemporary of Pepys and author of "The Accomplisht Cook", took the mischief further when he instructed his readers how to make joke pies full of live birds and frogs poised to escape when the crust was cut, saying: ‘This never fails to make the ladies skip and shreek.’
Twelfth Night was a time for ‘mumming’, when masked actors performed traditional folk plays. And, shortly before December 1600, Queen Elizabeth commissioned Shakespeare to write Twelfth Night; it was first performed in 1602 at Middle Temple to bring festivities to a close. The play, centered on twins Viola and Sebastian, makes use of the general disorder of traditional Twelfth Night celebrations and features many gender and status reversals.
The 18th century added confusion over the date of Twelfth Night. There has always been uncertainty about it, depending on whether or not December 25 or 26 is considered to be the first day of Christmas, so Twelfth Night can be January 5 (the eve of Epiphany) or on the Twelfth Day, January 6 (which marks the coming of the Magi). The shift to the Gregorian calendar and the subsequent loss of 11 days complicated matters, as it meant the old Christmas day became Twelfth Night — so much so some celebrate old Twelfth Night on January 17.
Today, most regard Twelfth Night to be the evening of January 6 and the day in which, according to superstition, all decorations must be removed. But this was not always the case.
Before the Victorians, decorations were kept in place until Candlemas Day on February 2 and taking them down too early was considered bad luck, because many believed tree spirits lived in the holly and the ivy, which, if released outside prematurely, could adversely affect the harvest.
By the late 19th century, Twelfth Night was losing its sparkle. The rise of the Industrial Revolution meant employers were keen to have their workforce back in good time after Christmas and the New Year. ...
‘Twelfth Night may have lost its significance,’ observes Prof Martin Johnes, author of "Christmas and the British", ‘but it is quite typical of Christmas traditions. We imagine they are static and historic — and that is part of their attraction — but they shift and alter with our changing tastes and culture.’
Country Life Magazine sheds light on some of the confusions about Twelfth Night. Excerpts only -- read the article to find out how Queen Vicky and the Industrial Revolution messed up the fun:
Once a time of merriment when rules were subverted, Twelfth Night has lost its sparkle, says Vicky Liddell, as she digs into the colourful past of the Feast of Fools and finds some traditions have lived on.
For most of us, Twelfth Night is the day we tear down tinsel and wrestle a desiccated tree out of the house, but until the late 19th century, it was a time of feasting and merriment, second in importance only to Christmas Day. Fires were lit in the fields and revellers would go from door to door playing practical jokes on their neighbours. Also known as the Feast of Fools, Twelfth Night marked the end of the festive period and, in echoes of the ancient Roman mid-winter festival of Saturnalia in which social order was reversed, it gave everyone the chance to dispense with normal conventions. Today, as have festivals such as Shrovetide and Whitsun, it has lost its meaning and dissolved into a lacklustre end of Christmas.
The Twelfth Night celebrations reached their apogee during the Tudor period when, among the aristocracy and nobility, the day was marked by masques and pageants. In 1532, at Henry VIII's court, 200 dishes were served and temporary kitchens were erected in the gardens of Greenwich Palace. Queen Elizabeth had her own gingerbread-maker, who created figures of her and her guests. Her grandfather, Henry VII, employed his own Lord of Misrule and an Abbot of Unreason to lead the revelry. Presents were exchanged and, right across the social scale, parties and family gatherings took place.
At the center of the festivities was a large domed fruit cake hiding a dried bean and a dried pea, which was given to all members of the household, including servants. Women were served from the left and men from the right. Whoever found the pea or bean in their slice was crowned ‘king’ or ‘queen’ for the evening, regardless of their social status. Sometimes, a clove was also introduced, signifying the role of ‘knave’. In 1666, Samuel Pepys admitted in his diary to finding a clove and secretly inserting it into his neighbour’s slice. What followed was an evening of misrule in which everything was turned upside down, even gender roles, and where rules had to be obeyed, however ridiculous.
By the Georgian era, the game had become more elaborate and unique sets of characters were available to purchase from entrepreneurial stationers. ...
As the last embers of the yule log burned in the grate, a special drink, ‘Lamb’s Wool’, made from crab apples, cider and spices, was drunk and riotous parlour games — such as snapdragon, which involved snatching raisins out of flaming brandy without burning one’s fingers — were played with glee.
In my last post I use the usual English shorthand of "Holland" when I think I should have said either "the United Providences" or "the Dutch Republic". (It's going to take years to clean up all my notes.) My apologies to my Dutch colleagues here.
That ignorance and vice were characteristics of such a condition of society goes without saying. It was inevitable when we remember the women were veritably yoke fellows with their husbands and brothers in this degrading service.
Here is evidence of an eyewitness to their work, which was to carry up to the surface in baskets or creels the coal hewn from the same, from which they were called “coal bearers." "Each bears a lamp fastened to her head to light the long upward ascent, and, laden with more than a hundredweight of coal, and bent forward at nearly a right angle to avoid coming in contact with the low roof, they ascend slowly along the flights of steps, and through the narrow galleries, and lastly up the long stair of the shaft; and when they have reached the surface, they unload at the coal heap and return. And such is the employment of females for 12, and sometimes 15 hours together."
It was estimated by Robert Bald, the distinguished mining engineer, that an ordinary day's work was equal to carrying of a hundredweight from sea level to the top of Ben Lomond.
These collier women — the coal bearers of the old Scotch Acts — were even more strongly marked by the slave nature in this part of the country than the men.
Hugh Miller says: “I have seen them crying like children when toiling, nearly exhausted under the load, along the steep upper stages of their journeys to the surface, and then returning with empty creels, scarce a minute after, singing with glee.
They were marked by a peculiar type of mouth; both the upper and under lip drooped forward, swollen, meaningless, void of marks indicative of compressive control of mind. It was the mouth of the savage in that humblest and least developed condition of which great weakness is an even more deplorable trait than the prevailing rudeness and barbarism.
I describe a state of things which has become obsolete in the district. Women are no longer employed as ^MiinuLltt of burden in our Scottish coal pits. The drooping mouth already has disappeared from among our collier population.
My description might be regarded as one of the fossils of the coal measures — a memorial of a condition of things become extinct — and such is the character borne by even the comparatively recent history of our Scottish colliers in general. It bears upon its front the stamp of obsolete ages, and of states of society long gone by.
This verse of a song, called "The Coal-Bearer's Lamentation," is said to have been often sung by the poor women of Duddingston and neighboring parishes when at their toilsome work: “When I was engaged a coal bearer to be. When I was engaged a coal bearer to be. Through all the coal pits I maun wear the dron brats. If my heart it should break, I can never won free!”
Let us be thankful that not only in our parish, but throughout the British Empire so deplorable a condition of society has forever ceased to be tolerated.
In 1606, it was statute and ordained, under a penalty of £100, that no person within the realm should hire or employ colliers, coal bearers, or salters, unless furnished with a sufficient testimonial from the master whom he had last served; and further, "that sae mony colliers, coal bearers, and salters," as without such testimonial received such "fore wages and fees, should be esteemed, repute, and holden as thieves and punished in their bodies" "Pretty well," says Hugh Miller, "as a specimen of the class legislation of the good old times!''
This Act, however stringent as it may seem, was found insufficient; there was a class of persons employed in the pits whom it did not include; and so in 1661, it was further enacted, "that because watermen, who lave and draw water in the coal-heugh-heads, and gatesmen who work the ways and passages in the said heughs, are as necessary to the owners and masters of the said coal heugha as the coal hewers and coal bearers, it is therefore statute and ordained, that they should come under exactly the same penalties as the others, in the event of quitting their masters without certificate; and that it should be equally illegal, in the lack of such a document, for any person to employ them."
But even that was not considered sufficient. The poor coaI worker, discontented and miserable, grumbled at his lot, and wanted wages; but such an unreasonable demand, while it was nominally complied with, was practically denied, for it was further enacted that it should "not be lawful for any coal master in the kingdom to give any greater fee than the sum of twenty merks in fee or bountith" — a clause which, according to the interpretation of Lord James, fixed the large sum of 1/. 2 s. as the yearly wages of colliers and salters.
It was found that at times the poor men became uncontrollable, and refused to work on any terms, and so there was a further clause devised to deal with the difficulty, which ran as follows: "Because coal hewers within the kingdom, and other workers within coal heughs, with salters, do lie from their works at Pasche, Yule, Whitsunday, and certain other times of the year, which times they employ in drinking and debauching to the ffrecLt offence of God and prejudice of their masters, it is therefore statute and ordained that the said coal hewers and salters, and other workmen in coal heughs in the kingdom, work all the 6 days of the week, except the time of Christmas."
Thus were these poor people — men and women — treated.
"The inclinations and dips of the minerals were to the west, and nearly all at an angle of forty-five degrees from the horizon to the east, which always rendered the working of the coal an extremely difficult and dangerous process, and which in the end was the cause of the mines being given up, as they could not be kept clear of water." Hugh Miller, who knew the geological configuration of the neighborhood of these mines, gives an excellent description of their coal measures in his Geological Features of Edinburgh and its Neighborhood. The pits were closed long before his day, but from a careful examination of the strata laid bare in the quarry between Joppa and Easter Duddingston and other places further inland, he formulated his theory of the Midlothian coal basin.
Hugh Miller continues: ''The coal measures fill a great basin, which occupies the comparatively level space between the western slopes of the Garleton Hills, near Haddington, and the eastern slopes of Arthur Seat and the Pentlands. The surface is comparatively level, because the basin is full; ..." [The Garleton Hills, in East Lothian, Scotland, are a range of igneous hills, to the north of Haddington.-SDS]
"The workings of the several pits at Joppa followed the various seams in all directions, even to a considerable distance below the bed of the sea; and although the shafts have been long since filled up, frequent subsidences of the soil in recent years amply confirm the extensive nature of the workings. The influx of water, whether from the sea or otherwise, seems to have been a continual source of annoyance and expense.
“It is not yet fully 80 years” says Hugh Miller, writing in about 1855, “since they were slaves, as firmly bound to the soil as the serfs of Russia, and transferable, like the huts in which they dwelt or the minerals amid which they burrowed, from the hands of one proprietor to another. ... Profoundly ignorant — kept apart, by their underground profession and their peculiar habits, from the other people of the country — and withal not very formidable from their numbers, their liberty seems to have been taken from them piecemeal, mainly during the 17th century, by the Acts of Parliaments, in which, of course, they were wholly unrepresented, and by the decisions of a Court in which no one ever appeared for their interests.
“It was the old Scottish Parliament and our present Court of Session that made the colliers slaves; and the salters or salt makers of the north-eastern shores of Midlothian were associated with them in bondage."
There seems to be no doubt that this was so, and it arose from the immense territorial power of the coal proprietors, who were virtually the authors of the Acts and the prompters of the decisions, and in proof of this we quote a few passages from these iniquitous laws bearing out our statement.
Comments
Third Reading
About Monday 7 January 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
Fortunately I have some notes from the BCW Project entry. Not an exact copie, but close enough now it's gone -- if anyone can add the ending, please do:
Thomas Venner was born around 1609 at Littleham near Bideford in Devon.
By 1633, he had moved to London where he worked as a cooper.
In 1638 Thomas Venner emigrated to Salem, Massachusetts. He was admitted a member of the church at Salem in February 1638 and became a freeman of the town in March.
Thomas Venner planned to move to the Puritan colony on Providence Island in the West Indies, but this venture failed [aka NASSAU, BAHAMAS these days.]
In 1644 Thomas Venner moved to Boston, where he became a member of the Artillery Company. By this time he was married to Alice (d.1692) and had a son, Thomas. Two more children were born to them in Boston.
Around 1648, Thomas Venner organized the coopers of Boston and Charlestown into a trading company.
Thomas Venner returned to England from Boston, Mass., with his wife Alice (d.1692) son, Thomas and two more children in 1651. He found employment as a master cooper at the Tower of London and became leader of a militant Fifth Monarchist congregation at Swan Alley off Coleman Street.
Like other members of the sect, Venner regarded the establishment of Cromwell's Protectorate as a betrayal of the millenarian cause.
@@@
in our Encyclopedia,
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Twelfth Night
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
Robert May, a contemporary of Pepys and author of "The Accomplisht Cook", took the mischief further when he instructed his readers how to make joke pies full of live birds and frogs poised to escape when the crust was cut, saying: ‘This never fails to make the ladies skip and shreek.’
Twelfth Night was a time for ‘mumming’, when masked actors performed traditional folk plays. And, shortly before December 1600, Queen Elizabeth commissioned Shakespeare to write Twelfth Night; it was first performed in 1602 at Middle Temple to bring festivities to a close. The play, centered on twins Viola and Sebastian, makes use of the general disorder of traditional Twelfth Night celebrations and features many gender and status reversals.
The 18th century added confusion over the date of Twelfth Night. There has always been uncertainty about it, depending on whether or not December 25 or 26 is considered to be the first day of Christmas, so Twelfth Night can be January 5 (the eve of Epiphany) or on the Twelfth Day, January 6 (which marks the coming of the Magi).
The shift to the Gregorian calendar and the subsequent loss of 11 days complicated matters, as it meant the old Christmas day became Twelfth Night — so much so some celebrate old Twelfth Night on January 17.
Today, most regard Twelfth Night to be the evening of January 6 and the day in which, according to superstition, all decorations must be removed.
But this was not always the case.
Before the Victorians, decorations were kept in place until Candlemas Day on February 2 and taking them down too early was considered bad luck, because many believed tree spirits lived in the holly and the ivy, which, if released outside prematurely, could adversely affect the harvest.
By the late 19th century, Twelfth Night was losing its sparkle. The rise of the Industrial Revolution meant employers were keen to have their workforce back in good time after Christmas and the New Year. ...
‘Twelfth Night may have lost its significance,’ observes Prof Martin Johnes, author of "Christmas and the British", ‘but it is quite typical of Christmas traditions. We imagine they are static and historic — and that is part of their attraction — but they shift and alter with our changing tastes and culture.’
https://www.countrylife.co.uk/out…
Bring back the Feast of Fools!!!
About Twelfth Night
San Diego Sarah • Link
Country Life Magazine sheds light on some of the confusions about Twelfth Night. Excerpts only -- read the article to find out how Queen Vicky and the Industrial Revolution messed up the fun:
Once a time of merriment when rules were subverted, Twelfth Night has lost its sparkle, says Vicky Liddell, as she digs into the colourful past of the Feast of Fools and finds some traditions have lived on.
For most of us, Twelfth Night is the day we tear down tinsel and wrestle a desiccated tree out of the house, but until the late 19th century, it was a time of feasting and merriment, second in importance only to Christmas Day.
Fires were lit in the fields and revellers would go from door to door playing practical jokes on their neighbours. Also known as the Feast of Fools, Twelfth Night marked the end of the festive period and, in echoes of the ancient Roman mid-winter festival of Saturnalia in which social order was reversed, it gave everyone the chance to dispense with normal conventions. Today, as have festivals such as Shrovetide and Whitsun, it has lost its meaning and dissolved into a lacklustre end of Christmas.
The Twelfth Night celebrations reached their apogee during the Tudor period when, among the aristocracy and nobility, the day was marked by masques and pageants. In 1532, at Henry VIII's court, 200 dishes were served and temporary kitchens were erected in the gardens of Greenwich Palace.
Queen Elizabeth had her own gingerbread-maker, who created figures of her and her guests.
Her grandfather, Henry VII, employed his own Lord of Misrule and an Abbot of Unreason to lead the revelry.
Presents were exchanged and, right across the social scale, parties and family gatherings took place.
At the center of the festivities was a large domed fruit cake hiding a dried bean and a dried pea, which was given to all members of the household, including servants. Women were served from the left and men from the right. Whoever found the pea or bean in their slice was crowned ‘king’ or ‘queen’ for the evening, regardless of their social status.
Sometimes, a clove was also introduced, signifying the role of ‘knave’. In 1666, Samuel Pepys admitted in his diary to finding a clove and secretly inserting it into his neighbour’s slice. What followed was an evening of misrule in which everything was turned upside down, even gender roles, and where rules had to be obeyed, however ridiculous.
By the Georgian era, the game had become more elaborate and unique sets of characters were available to purchase from entrepreneurial stationers. ...
As the last embers of the yule log burned in the grate, a special drink, ‘Lamb’s Wool’, made from crab apples, cider and spices, was drunk and riotous parlour games — such as snapdragon, which involved snatching raisins out of flaming brandy without burning one’s fingers — were played with glee.
About Thursday 5 November 1663
San Diego Sarah • Link
We now have a place to post miscellaneous slavery-related information:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/news/2…
It's not in the Encyclopedia, but under "Most recently commented-on Site News Posts".
About Wednesday 3 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Royal African Company (RAC)
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
@@@
We now have a place to post miscellaneous slavery-related information:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/news/2…
It's not in the Encyclopedia, but under "Most recently commented-on Site News Posts".
About Thursday 22 December 1664
San Diego Sarah • Link
We now have a place to post slavery-related information:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/news/2…
It's not in the Encyclopedia, but under "Most recently commented-on Site News Posts".
About Monday 4 April 1664
San Diego Sarah • Link
We now have a place to post slavery-related information:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/news/2…
It's not in the Encyclopedia, but under "Most recently commented-on Site News Posts".
About Monday 23 November 1663
San Diego Sarah • Link
We now have a place to post slavery-related information:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/news/2…
It's not in the Encyclopedia, but under "Most recently commented-on Site News Posts".
About Thursday 17 October 1661
San Diego Sarah • Link
We now have a place to post slavery-related information:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/news/2…
It's not in the Encyclopedia, but under "Most recently commented-on Site News Posts".
About Tuesday 11 June 1661
San Diego Sarah • Link
We now have a place to post slavery-related information:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/news/2…
It's not in the Encyclopedia, but under "Most recently commented-on Site News Posts".
About Sunday 29 October 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
In my last post I use the usual English shorthand of "Holland" when I think I should have said either "the United Providences" or "the Dutch Republic". (It's going to take years to clean up all my notes.) My apologies to my Dutch colleagues here.
@@@
We now have a place to post slavery-related information:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/news/2…
It's not in the Encyclopedia, but under "Most recently commented-on Site News Posts".
About Friday 26 June 1663
San Diego Sarah • Link
We now have a place to post slavery-related information:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/news/2…
It's not in the Encyclopedia, but under "Most recently commented-on Site News Posts".
About Monday 5 October 1668
San Diego Sarah • Link
We now have a place to post slavery-related information:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/news/2…
It's not in the Encyclopedia, but under "Most recently commented-on Site News Posts".
About Wednesday 4 November 1663
San Diego Sarah • Link
We now have a place to post slavery-related information:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/news/2…
It's not in the Encyclopedia, but under "Most recently commented-on Site News Posts".
i have just posted more info. on the Scottish miners there:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/news/2…
About Samuel Pepys and Slaves
San Diego Sarah • Link
Turns out I had posted information from another source about slavery in Scotland back in 2020:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
About Friday 8 February 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
We now have a place to post slavery-related information:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/news/2…
It's not in the Encyclopedia, but under "Most recently commented-on Site News Posts".
About Monday 28 August 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
We now have a place to post slavery-related information:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/news/2…
It's not in the Encyclopedia, but under "Most recently commented-on Site News Posts".
About Samuel Pepys and Slaves
San Diego Sarah • Link
CONCLUSION
That ignorance and vice were characteristics of such a condition of society goes without saying. It was inevitable when we remember the women were veritably yoke fellows with their husbands and brothers in this degrading service.
Here is evidence of an eyewitness to their work, which was to carry up to the surface in baskets or creels the coal hewn from the same, from which they were called “coal bearers."
"Each bears a lamp fastened to her head to light the long upward ascent, and, laden with more than a hundredweight of coal, and bent forward at nearly a right angle to avoid coming in contact with the low roof, they ascend slowly along the flights of steps, and through the narrow galleries, and lastly up the long stair of the shaft; and when they have reached the surface, they unload at the coal heap and return. And such is the employment of females for 12, and sometimes 15 hours together."
It was estimated by Robert Bald, the distinguished mining engineer, that an ordinary day's work was equal to carrying of a hundredweight from sea level to the top of Ben Lomond.
These collier women — the coal bearers of the old Scotch Acts — were even more strongly marked by the slave nature in this part of the country than the men.
Hugh Miller says: “I have seen them crying like children when toiling, nearly exhausted under the load, along the steep upper stages of their journeys to the surface, and then returning with empty creels, scarce a minute after, singing with glee.
They were marked by a peculiar type of mouth; both the upper and under lip drooped forward, swollen, meaningless, void of marks indicative of compressive control of mind. It was the mouth of the savage in that humblest and least developed condition of which great weakness is an even more deplorable trait than the prevailing rudeness and barbarism.
I describe a state of things which has become obsolete in the district. Women are no longer employed as ^MiinuLltt of burden in our Scottish coal pits. The drooping mouth already has disappeared from among our collier population.
My description might be regarded as one of the fossils of the coal measures — a memorial of a condition of things become extinct — and such is the character borne by even the comparatively recent history of our Scottish colliers in general. It bears upon its front the stamp of obsolete ages, and of states of society long gone by.
This verse of a song, called "The Coal-Bearer's Lamentation," is said to have been often sung by the poor women of Duddingston and neighboring parishes when at their toilsome work:
“When I was engaged a coal bearer to be.
When I was engaged a coal bearer to be.
Through all the coal pits I maun wear the dron brats.
If my heart it should break, I can never won free!”
Let us be thankful that not only in our parish, but throughout the British Empire so deplorable a condition of society has forever ceased to be tolerated.
About Samuel Pepys and Slaves
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 3
In 1606, it was statute and ordained, under a penalty of £100, that no person within the realm should hire or employ colliers, coal bearers, or salters, unless furnished with a sufficient testimonial from the master whom he had last served; and further, "that sae mony colliers, coal bearers, and salters," as without such testimonial received such "fore wages and fees, should be esteemed, repute, and holden as thieves and punished in their bodies"
"Pretty well," says Hugh Miller, "as a specimen of the class legislation of the good old times!''
This Act, however stringent as it may seem, was found insufficient; there was a class of persons employed in the pits whom it did not include; and so in 1661, it was further enacted, "that because watermen, who lave and draw water in the coal-heugh-heads, and gatesmen who work the ways and passages in the said heughs, are as necessary to the owners and masters of the said coal heugha as the coal hewers and coal bearers, it is therefore statute and ordained, that they should come under exactly the same penalties as the others, in the event of quitting their masters without certificate; and that it should be equally illegal, in the lack of such a document, for any person to employ them."
But even that was not considered sufficient. The poor coaI worker, discontented and miserable, grumbled at his lot, and wanted wages; but such an unreasonable demand, while it was nominally complied with, was practically denied, for it was further enacted that it should "not be lawful for any coal master in the kingdom to give any greater fee than the sum of twenty merks in fee or bountith" — a clause which, according to the interpretation of Lord James, fixed the large sum of 1/. 2 s. as the yearly wages of colliers and salters.
It was found that at times the poor men became uncontrollable, and refused to work on any terms, and so there was a further clause devised to deal with the difficulty, which ran as follows: "Because coal hewers within the kingdom, and other workers within coal heughs, with salters, do lie from their works at Pasche, Yule, Whitsunday, and certain other times of the year, which times they employ in drinking and debauching to the ffrecLt offence of God and prejudice of their masters, it is therefore statute and ordained that the said coal hewers and salters, and other workmen in coal heughs in the kingdom, work all the 6 days of the week, except the time of Christmas."
Thus were these poor people — men and women — treated.
About Samuel Pepys and Slaves
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
"The inclinations and dips of the minerals were to the west, and nearly all at an angle of forty-five degrees from the horizon to the east, which always rendered the working of the coal an extremely difficult and dangerous process, and which in the end was the cause of the mines being given up, as they could not be kept clear of water."
Hugh Miller, who knew the geological configuration of the neighborhood of these mines, gives an excellent description of their coal measures in his Geological Features of Edinburgh and its Neighborhood. The pits were closed long before his day, but from a careful examination of the strata laid bare in the quarry between Joppa and Easter Duddingston and other places further inland, he formulated his theory of the Midlothian coal basin.
Hugh Miller continues: ''The coal measures fill a great basin, which occupies the comparatively level space between the western slopes of the Garleton Hills, near Haddington, and the eastern slopes of Arthur Seat and the Pentlands. The surface is comparatively level, because the basin is full; ..."
[The Garleton Hills, in East Lothian, Scotland, are a range of igneous hills, to the north of Haddington.-SDS]
"The workings of the several pits at Joppa followed the various seams in all directions, even to a considerable distance below the bed of the sea; and although the shafts have been long since filled up, frequent subsidences of the soil in recent years amply confirm the extensive nature of the workings. The influx of water, whether from the sea or otherwise, seems to have been a continual source of annoyance and expense.
“It is not yet fully 80 years” says Hugh Miller, writing in about 1855, “since they were slaves, as firmly bound to the soil as the serfs of Russia, and transferable, like the huts in which they dwelt or the minerals amid which they burrowed, from the hands of one proprietor to another. ... Profoundly ignorant — kept apart, by their underground profession and their peculiar habits, from the other people of the country — and withal not very formidable from their numbers, their liberty seems to have been taken from them piecemeal, mainly during the 17th century, by the Acts of Parliaments, in which, of course, they were wholly unrepresented, and by the decisions of a Court in which no one ever appeared for their interests.
“It was the old Scottish Parliament and our present Court of Session that made the colliers slaves; and the salters or salt makers of the north-eastern shores of Midlothian were associated with them in bondage."
There seems to be no doubt that this was so, and it arose from the immense territorial power of the coal proprietors, who were virtually the authors of the Acts and the prompters of the decisions, and in proof of this we quote a few passages from these iniquitous laws bearing out our statement.