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100 Guineas Reward [Coal Mining Broadside]
Publisher: Preston & Heaton, Printers, Newcastle upon Tyne;
Date of Publication: 1831
Stock Code: 5576
Broadside approximately 27 x 21 cm. Single sheet printed in bold type with title underlined. Edge very lightly toned and faint creases from historic folding otherwise remarkably clean and bright. A Near Fine copy. The background to this broadside is the 1831 Miners’ Strike. Miners were employed under the bond system to work for a colliery for a year's term at a time, often under punitive and harsh conditions; in 1831 Thomas Hepburn founded a Union of Northumberland and Durham miners and in April, the end of the bond term, the miners put down their tools in a largely non-violent protest for better working practices and conditions. The mine owners were understandably concerned that the protest could escalate and they capitulated in the first major victory for unions in the coal trade, resulting in a number of reforms including the reduction of working hours to 12 for boys. This broadside reports that "Some evil-disposed Person or Persons did maliciously and feloniously CUT A ROPE attached to the Inclined Plane leading from the Engine at Prospect-Hill to Shields Road on Cramlington Colliery Railway" and the huge reward is an indication of how seriously the authorities viewed the sabotage, and feared that violence would spread at a time of political and industrial unrest. £150.00