Act 18
The Miners

The family story of mining, mainly
for ironstone, the primary resource behind the industrial development of
Cleveland
|
A
short summary of ironstone’s importance to Cleveland’s history |
Ironstone
The mining
of ironstone at scale in Cleveland was triggered by the 1850 discovery of the
Main Seam at Eston by John Vaughan and John Marley. This iron rush led to some
forty mines being established within two decades, supplying roughly one-third
of Britain's iron by the 1870s. Regional output reached its peak in 1883, with
about 6.75 million tonnes of ore processed. By this time, Cleveland was
considered the world's iron-producing capital. The industry drove the rapid development of Middlesbrough, which came to be known as
Ironopolis, and the construction of extensive railway networks and blast
furnaces. Local iron and steel were used for global projects, including the
Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Early mining
relied on the labour intensive pillar and stall method using picks and
blasting powder[1]. By the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, efficiency was improved through compressed air drills,
mechanised haulage, and better ventilation systems. The boom caused a massive population
influx, with workers arriving from across Britain and Ireland to live in
purpose-built pit villages like California at Great Ayton, Skinningrove, and
Eston. It was inevitable that the indigenous rural population, including the
now well spread Farndale family, would be drawn to the mines for work.
The industry
began a steady decline after World War I. By 1936, for the first time, Teesside
smelters used more imported ore than locally mined stone. The last mine, North
Skelton, finally closed in January 1964.
William and Mary
Farndale, the innkeeper of Egton, who we
met in Act 15, Scene 3,
later worked as an agricultural labourer with seven children. Three of their
family, part of the Whitby 5 Line,
were ironstone miners.
Their fourth son, William Farndale was an ironstone miner by 1871[2]. He lived with his wife Hannah and their family, the Loftus 3 Line, in a cottage in the flourishing and rapidly increasing town of Lofthouse in Cleveland, and now in the several occupations of Mr Mortimer and Mr Farndale. The property is in good repair, and contains a frontage of about 30 feet towards Lambs lane, and as the town of Lofthouse is rapidly extending in that direction, is well adapted for carrying on a large and successful business. Freehold building land, either for business or residential purposes, in the town of Lofthouse, is difficult to procure, and the present offers a very favourable opportunity to anyone wishing to secure a good business premises, or to obtain a safe and lucrative investment.[3]
Still an
ironstone miner in 1881[4], William was a mines deputy at the Loftus mine when he gave evidence on 9 May 1885
after a mining fatality. An inquest was held yesterday afternoon at the
Miners’ Hospital, Skinningrove, before Mr W Robinson, deputy coroner, on the
body of the man Henry Durham, who was killed by a fall of stone at Messrs
Pease’s Loftus mines on Wednesday last. The inquiry was attended by Mr Toyne,
president of the Cleveland Miners’ Union; Mr Atkinson, assistant inspector of
mines; and Mr William France, manager for Mrs Pease. George Mabbitt was working
with the deceased on Wednesday. During the day they found no faults, and just
finished work, the deceased, Wallace, and witness remaining to discuss where a
hole should be fired in the morning, when Durham, who was nearest to the face,
was struck by a falling stone and killed. He was not able to say whether stone
came from the roof or the face. After the last shot had been fired they thought
the roof was not good, but did not think it would fall so soon. They kept from
underneath as much as possible. Evidence was given by William Farndale, a
deputy, and the jury returned a verdict of accidental death.[5] Henry Durham died after a fall or
ironstone on 6 May 1885 and was about 34 years old[6].
Loftus mine,
the first mine to open in Cleveland, also known as Lofthouse and Skinningrove
mine, operated from 1848 to 1958 by J W Pease & Partners; Losh, Wilson and
Bell & Co; and Skinningrove Iron Company Limited[7].

William
died, a deputy overman, aged only 45, and was buried at St Leonards, Loftus on 22 February 1894.
William’s
brother, John
Farndale was a farm worker at Hunt House, Goathland, near Whitby in 1871[8], but when he married the 21 year old
farmer’s daughter, Susannah Smith of Pickering
at the Parish Church at Egton, on 7 September
1872, he was working as a miner[9]. He then worked as an agricultural
labourer for the last two decades of the nineteenth century[10], but by 1901, he had become an
ironstone mines deputy, living at 9 John Street, Loftus[11]. He may have followed his brother William into
the deputy role at Loftus mine after William died in 1894, or may have been
deputy of the nearby mine at Carlin How. He may also have worked at Cragg Hall
ironstone mine at Carlin How, which operated from 1871 to 1892, owned by Bell’s
Brothers and later at Carlin How mine, also known as Duck Hole, which operated
from 1873 to 1924[12]. In 1911, he was still the mines
deputy, aged 60, living at 19 Tees Street, East Loftus[13]. His eldest son, Thomas Smith
Farndale, was also an ironstone miner at Loftus and Lingdale[14]. His son John William
Farndale was an ironstone miner filler in 1901[15] and later became a farmer[16]. His son, George Farndale,
a blacksmith striker, was killed in action on the 27th of May 1917, during the
Battle of Arras, barely a month after arriving in France[17]. His son Harry Farndale
died on 14 August 1918 aged only 36 years[18]. Edith Farndale
was an inmate at the Guisborough Workhouse in 1921 and then the Stokesley Poor
Law Institution in 1939. By
1921, old John was a widower of nearly 70 years old and still working as an
ironstone miner deputy with Bells Brothers at Carlin How Mine[19]. He died aged 87 on 3 January 1939
and was buried on 7 January 1939 at Loftus
Cemetery[20].

A
third brother of this same family, Samuel
Sanders Farndale was a labourer of Egton,
when he married Mary Hogarth aged 17, at the Parish Church of Egton, on 29 May 1880[21]. By 1881, he was an ironstone miner,
aged 26, living with his new wife’s family at Hose Mires, Egton[22]. He was still an ironstone miner in Egton in 1891 and 1901[23] and by 1911, he was a fifty six year old miner, living at 43
Whitecliff Terrace, Loftus[24]. He died that year and was buried at
Loftus cemetery on 1 May 1911[25]. The Esk Valley ironstone mine,
originally part of the Egton Estate was not a success and closed by 1883 and
Samuel may have worked in the Grosmont Mine (operated 1858 to 1892) and the
Eskdale Mine (operated 1906 to 1908).

Some
members of the family took work where they could, sometimes taking works in the
mines. George Farndale was a tile maker in Stokesley by 1841[26]
but he was working as an ironstone miner at Middlesbrough
by
1861[27]
and was later a brick maker[28].
John Henry Farndale,
the son of Henry
& Elizabeth Farndale, was baptised on 13 April 1828 in
Stainton-in-Cleveland[29]. By the age of 13, in 1841, he was working
as an agricultural labourer with the Sleigh family at Cross Field House,
Kirklevington, south of Stockton[30]. In 1861 he was a boarder with Mr
Ackroyd and working as an ironstone miner at Ormesby[31]. He married Sarah Walker on 29
December 1862 in Hartlepool[32]. Four years later, at the age of 37,
he was killed on 9 March 1866 by a fall of iron stone at the Poston Mines,
Ormesby, Middlesbrough[33]. An Inquest was held on 10 March
1866. The incident seems to have been an isolated accident, since the records do not show it
as a mining disaster event.

The Ormesby
Ironstone Mine was sometimes referred to as Poston Mines in historical records
in the late nineteenth century. Ormesby mine was short lived and operated
between 1865 and 1892. It was built to extract an outlying deposit under
Ormesby Bank. The seam occurred quite near to the surface, and roof falls at
the site of the mine occurred relatively frequently. The leaseholders for 1865
to 1879, at the time of John’s accident, were Swan, Coates and Company, and
later from 1879 to 1892, Cargo Fleet Iron Company.
George Farndale
was born on 8 March 1843 and baptised on 12 March 1843 in Brotton[34]. By the age of 18, in 1861, he was working as a miller with
the Child family at Kilton Mill[35]. He married Hannah Mary Walker, a
servant of Loftus and daughter of William
Walker, a blacksmith, on 9 November 1867[36]. By 1871 he was working as a
boilerman in Liverton[37]. By 1875 he was an ironstone miner,
living in Loftus[38]. In 1881 he was an ironstone miner
and the family were living at 2 Liverton Terrace, Liverton with his parents in law[39]. His father in law, William Walker,
had been summoned at Guisborough Police
Court on 20 May 1873 for a breach of contract as a mine manager in Brotton, but was the manager of Ormesby mines
from 1878 to 1881. We also met George in Act 14 as he
developed his skills to create a magnificent clock frame made of black walnut
and white maple and a fretwork duchese dressing table, which he showed at
exhibitions of the Skinningrove Miner’s Institute. He later joined the Loftus branch of the Cleveland Liberal
Association and the Order of Rechabites and became a picture framer in Middlesbrough.
My great
grandfather, Martin
Farndale of Tidkinhow was born at Fogga Farm near Skelton on 19 September 1845, the son of Martin and Elizabeth
Farndale, a farmer of Fogga[40]. He grew up in the around Brotton and probably went on working for his
maternal grandfather for some time, taking on some responsibility for looking
after his two younger brothers and his mother after his father died in 1862. By
1871 he worked for a farmer, John Rigg at Brough House, Brotton[41]. By 1873, he was an in door farm
servant but also started to work in the ironstone mines[42].
In a mining
dispute in 1873, an arbitration judgment was issued in the dispute between
the mine owners and the miners of Cleveland, one which has been looked forward
to with eager interest by all classes of the community.
As a
prelude to setting forth the text of this important award, all we need to do is
very briefly to recapitulate some of the leading features of the dispute
referred to. In March last an application was made by the miners of Cleveland
for an advance of 2d per ton upon their output of ironstone, being equal to
about 12% upon the rates then current; a demand being, at the same time, also
made by other classes of work when employed at the mines, for an increase of
10% in their wages. The masters’ reply to the men was that, looking at the
advances already given, and the wages earned, as well as the ability of the men
to earn more, they could not accede to the demand. At this, the Cleveland
owners formed themselves into an Association, upon similar a similar basis to
what had in 1872 being done by the collier owners of the county of Durham.
After
much negotiation and I'm sorry to say, a stoppage of production for a
considerable time in this great mining district, it was agreed, at a meeting of
representatives of miners and mine owners, held on the 28th of May, as follows:
“That it be left to an Arbitrator to determine whether the wages of the
Cleveland miners should be advanced or reduced, and to what extent, measured by
the standard of wages now prevailing in such industries in the north of England
as the Arbitrator may deem it reasonable to consider in making his award.”
The
contending parties requested me to undertake the duties of Arbitrator; And all
preliminary arrangements having been made, and the case on both sides prepared,
an Arbitration meeting was commenced at Saltburn on the 23rd of
June. Witnesses were examined by each party, and much valuable information was given
on both sides by means of extracts from account books, and by carefully
prepared statistical tables, upon every subject bearing upon the matter in
dispute. At the close of our settings, I was prepared to give my award.
There was
much uncertainty of opinion as to the time which elapses before an ordinary
labourer becomes a thoroughly practical miner. Upon the main point, however,
the workmen's witnesses confirmed, so far as individual cases can be said to
confirm the results of statistics taken over a wide range, the case made out by
the employers. Martin Farndale, an indoor farm servant seven months ago, was
now earning 7s 10d a shift. Richard Vayro, a farm labourer, after nine
months working in the mines, was earning 8s 1d a shift. These were said to be
exceptional, because they worked a “Pick Place”.
At this
time, mining was still a systematic pillar and stall operation where the
mine was laid out in a grid of tunnels. Each worker’s place was the
specific stall or working face where he was responsible for winning the
stone. Working at a pick
place, or having a place for your pick, meant being a skilled hewer
who had been allocated a specific section of the mine face to work.
It was later
clarified. Sir, will you kindly allow me space in your paper to say a few
words in my defence, in connection with the late arbitration at Saltburn, as I
understand Mr Shepherd stated at a public meeting at Brotton that if the miners did not get the 2d
per tonne it would be on account of the evidence given by Robert Campbell. It
seems that the part objected to was that I was paying my mate 6s per day, the
average wage in Cleveland being 7s, therefore leaving 8s for me. He contended
that this injured our cause. Now, if the Cleveland miners will read and think
for themselves, they will see that truth did not injure our cause. Mr Shepherd
asserted that our average wage was 5s 11d per day; and the first two
witnesses he called on our side, Mr Farndale and Richard Nayro, those men
but a few months out of a farmyard, the one received 7s 10d per day, and the
other 8s 1d, so that the owners could not have called two better witnesses on
their part. Some say I should not have gone there; neither I should, but Mr
Shepherd sent a messenger to Eston on the Monday evening for the witnesses, as
he said that Mr Lee had asserted that the ironstone miner could work with his
vest on, while the collier worked in a state of nudity, and the steam rising
out of his back was greater than the heaviest explosion of powder in the mine.[43]
1872 was a
year of feverish prosperity in the Cleveland iron trade. A wage of 8s 1d was
roughly double what a miner would have earned only a few years earlier or
later. For context, wages in early 1872 started around 4s 6d and skyrocketed to
nearly 10s by the end of the year due to intense global demand for iron. In
1872, £1 had the purchasing power of approximately £146 today. This means his
8s 1d daily wage would be worth roughly £60 per day in modern terms. Since
miners typically worked 5 or 6 shifts a week, Martin was part of a labour
aristocracy with significantly more disposable income than agricultural
workers, who often earned less for an entire week's work. This level of income was
unsustainable. By 1874, the iron trade began to collapse, and wages for many
fell back toward 5s per shift as the industry entered a period of sharp
decline.
The
following year, in December 1874, Martin Farndale took a tenancy on a small
holding, a parcel of land of 135 square yards with the four stone houses built
on it[44]. However Martin was clearly
continuing to work as a miner as by 1877 Martin was described as a miner of
Brotton on his marriage certificate[45]. When he married Catherine Jane
Lindsay, the newly wedded couple moved to a cottage at Kilton Thorpe. He was
still working as a miner when their eldest son, John Farndale, was
born at Kilton Thorpe in 1878[46]. However when their second child, Elizabeth
Lindsay Farndale, was born in late 1879, they were still living at Kilton
Thorpe, and Martin was a farmer[47]. In 1881 Martin was again working as
an ironstone miner, aged 34 and still living at Kilton Thorpe[48]. Sometime in the next two years
Martin and Catherine and their young family moved to Tranmire Farm near Whitby where their next two children were
born.
|
The
engine of Cleveland’s Victorian development was its mineral supply,
particularly its ironstone. Individuals in the Farndale Story worked in an
extensive network of mines throughout the area |
|
The ruined site of the Kilton mine |
Coal
By about
1850, coal mining around Bishop Auckland was entering a period of explosive
growth that transformed the area from a traditional market town into a major
industrial hub. The
arrival and expansion of the Stockton and Darlington Railway (“S&DR”)
in the preceding decades was the primary catalyst for growth. It allowed land
locked coal from the Bishop Auckland area to be transported efficiently to the
coast for shipping, ending a previous reliance on expensive land carriage by
horse and cart. The
town's population grew rapidly, rising from 3,776 in 1841 to 5,112 by 1851.
This was driven by migrant workers from across the country seeking higher wages
than those found in agriculture. Much of the coal mined was converted into coke
in nearby ovens to supply the burgeoning iron and steel industries of
Cleveland.
While wages
were higher than in farming, the work was dangerous and involved long hours for
men, and often children who worked as putters, the gruelling task of
transporting coal from the coal face to the entrance of the pit shaft. Mining
families typically lived in tied cottages provided by pit owners, which often
included free coal but required them to surrender their home if they left their
job.
Martin
Farndale’s uncle, Thomas
Farndale, the son of George & Mary
Farndale of Easby, a farmer, was baptised at Stokesley on 17 February 1822[49]. He was a part of the generation
that transitioned from agricultural labour in Yorkshire to the high-risk,
high-reward environment of the Durham coalfields. His arrival in Bishop
Auckland coincided with the sinking of new shafts including the Woodhouse Close
South Pit in December 1850. In 1841 he had been working on the farm of his
uncle, Matthew
Farndale, in Kilton at the age of 15[50], but by 25 May 1850, he was a
pitman, when he married Isabella Bowes at the church of St Helen in Bishop
Auckland[51]. In 1851, at the age of 30, he was
still a coal miner, living with Isabella and his 2 week old son, William Farndale
in Bishop Auckland[52]. Their daughter Mary Ann
Farndale was born on 17 March 1853[53].

Thomas
probably worked at one of the Auckland group of collieries which were at their
peak in 1850. He probably worked at St Helen's Auckland Colliery located just
south of the town, which was a major employer in the 1850s, operated by Joseph
Pease. This mine drew heavily from the local population.
Thomas died
of phthisis or tuberculosis in his early thirties in 1854 and Isabella had a
hard life bringing up two young children as a single parent.
Around 1900,
coal mining in the Aberford area near Leeds was transitioning from a source of
immense private wealth for the landed gentry. The industry was dominated by the Gascoigne family of
Parlington Hall, who owned extensive deep mines in the West Yorkshire
Coalfield. By 1900, however, their mining fortunes were beginning to decline
due to falling income and the eventual closure of several pits. A key feature of the industry was the
Aberford Railway, locally known as The Fly Line, a private standard gauge
line built to transport coal from the Gascoigne pits in Garforth to Aberford.
Operations included those in
Garforth, such as the Sisters Pit, which had faced significant flooding
disasters in the late nineteenth century.
By the age
of 15, Alfred
Leperton Farndale, known as Fred, was working as a pony driver at an
underground pit at Aberford. He died at the age of 16 and was buried at
Aberford on 13 July 1901. He was working at the coal mine at Garforth, southwest
of Aberford. The record of Garforth Colliery by the Durham Mining Museum shows
that on 11 July 1901, Farndale, A, aged 17, a driver, was run over by
a set of tubs when travelling out bye on engine plane. Tried to save his
pony.[54]
Alum
Alum production started in
Cleveland in 1616. Alum works had previously emerged in Constantinople and
Spain, under papal ownership and the first alum works in England began to
operate on the Isle of Wight in 1567. In 1609 James I promoted alum production
and took a monopoly over the industry for the Crown. In 1616 a contract was
agreed to build new alum works at Selby Hagg, near Skelton-in-Cleveland. By the Civil War and the
execution of Charles I, the Crown’s support for the industry declined, while
alum mines continued to emerge across England. This only flooded the market and
reduced profit. Selby Hagg reopened after the civil war in 1680 and alum works
at Saltburn-by-the-Sea
continued until 1720.
After a lull, the alum trade
briefly picked up again from 1765. The price had by then risen from £10 per ton
in 1736 to £24 per ton. John Hall Stephenson reopened the alum works at Selby
Hagg. By 1771 howevber the price had fallen back to 13s a ton and Selby Hagg
closed again in 1776. It was in this decade between 1765 and 1776 that Johnny
Farndale employed men to work at his Alum House.

John Farndale, ‘Old
Farndale of Kilton’ was an alum house
merchant. John
Farndale wrote My Grandfather, who was a Kiltonian, employed many men at
his alum house, and many a merry tale have I heard him tell of smugglers and
their daring adventures and hair breadth escapes.[55]
During the seventeenth century, two alum mines had been
opened, one on either side of Saltburn mouth; that on the West side by Sir John
Lowther and Edward Trotter, which was then leased to the King at a rent of £500
from Midsummer, 1670, and that on the East side, Saltburn, in the Parish of
Brotton, by John Turner, Sergeant-at-law, eldest son of John Turner, whose name
occurs so often above, likewise leased at a rent of £400 from Christmas, 1670.
Another alum mine was opened in Marske by Anthony Lowther and demised to Sir
Hugh Cholmley, Sir Nicholas Crispe and others, likewise at a rent of £400 from
Christmas, 1672.[56]
Jim Wingham
says that Turton’s references to mines at the mouth of Saltburn are misleading,
confusing the place of refinery and the place of mining. Alum deposits were up
the valley of the Saltburn Gill and the alum was dug and carried down the
valley by packhorse to behind Cat Nab where it was refined and purified at Old
Saltburn and then shipped out to the Tyne or the Thames docks. There is a field
today on the road to Brotton called the Kelp House Field where seaweed was
dried and used in the refinery process and Alum House Field originally faced
Cat Nab Cottage. Both the two alum mines referred to by Turton closed down in
about 1720 as demand for alum fell.[57]
|
The
alum trade in Cleveland |
Peter Appleton has concluded
that the large house, Mill Farm, that now stands between Cat Nab and the road
from Saltburn, would seem to occupy the site of the alum house complex at Old
Saltburn[58]. He supports this
conclusion with reference to an estate map[59] after a survey by Watson and Seagrave. The map shows the alum
quarry at Selby Hagg, with steeping pits and a cistern, at the place now
referred to as Haggs Farm on the modern ordnance survey map.

The alum refining process
began at the quarry where shale was recovered by pickaxes and broken into
smaller pieces using mauls. It was then piled into large heaps, known as
clamps, on a brushwood base. The clamp was then burnt and more shale was added
until the heap was about 25 metres high. The burnt shale was then moved to
steeping pits in the quarry floor and fresh water leached the soluable salts
out of the shale. It was the resulting liquified concentrate that was run along
conduits to the alum house.
Alum Houses such as that of Johnny Farndale would then have taken the
concentrate through the next part of the process. The excess water content was
evaporated off to achive the desired specific gravity (often measured by seeing
whether an egg would float in the substance) and alkalis were added. The
alkalis caused waste products to deposit as sediment. The remaining liquid was
then run off into large casks and crystallised. The crystals were then broken
off and rinsed with spring water and then dissolved in boiling water to create
a saturated solution. Ammonia was added to help the crystallisaton process.
Originally the ammonia was provided by human urine and there was a bouyant
trade in the product. Barrels were left in the streets of such places as Guisborough for households to deposit their chamber pots and Thomas
Chaloner of Guisborough sold his own urine for 1d per firkin. An alternative to
urine was seaweed, which may have been used at Saltburn, although some believed
seaweed to be inferior in its effect. The near final product was then run into
very large casks to roach, the end product being saleable crystals.
The close proximity of Johnny’s Alum House to the Old
Saltburn shoreline where ships were regularly beached to load up at low tide,
meant that the final saleable product could quickly be exported from Johnny’s
works. Sloops were beached on the low tide shore to be loaded and then
refloated at high tide for export.
Conditions for the alum workers were generally dreadful.
Particularly during the quarry phase, the burning heaps gave off clouds of
sulphorous smoke. It was sometimes like working on an active volcano. Employees
were often not paid for months on end. The alum workers were described as poor
snakes, tattered and naked, ready to starve for want of food and clothes.
The primary use of alum was as a mordant to fix dyes in
natural fibres such as wool and linen. It was used in dyeing and tanning and
also as Epsom salts.
Jet
There are
over 300 recorded jet mines across the North York Moors and Cleveland Hills.
The industry peaked between
1860 and 1880 after Queen Victoria’s endorsement of jet for mourning jewellery
following the death of Prince Albert in 1861.
Jet mines
across and around the moors although numerous were small and individual mines
tended not to acquire names or documentary records. During the nineteenth
century hard jet fetched a good price and it was mined extensively in East
Cleveland and along the edge of the moors between Roseberry and Kildale. The
mines typically took the form of parallel drifts into the side of hills, with
headings also driven at right angles to the original drifts at regular
intervals, so that the plan of the mine looked like a chequerboard, with square
pillars of rock left in place as support.
The semi
precious mineral is found in thin lenses in the jet rock generally at some
depth below the alum shales. It was extracted in Victorian times from numerous
small drifts driven into the hillside. There are spoil heaps at Gribdale Gate,
just east of Great Ayton and
evidence of some open cast mining. There was intensive jet mining in Bilsdale,
Bransdale, and Rosedale.
William Appleton
Farndale worked as a jet miner at Eston in 1871[60]. The most concentrated area of old
jet shale workings is found directly above the main Eston Ironstone Mine
complex (NZ 566 185). Jet
was also mined and quarried near the Eston Nab outcrop (NZ 568 183). The Jet
Rock layer of the Whitby Mudstone Formation outcrops here, just below the
sandstone cap that forms the Nab's cliffs. Numerous small, often collapsed drifts are regularly spaced
along the northern hillside between Eston Bank and Lazenby Bank. These follow
the natural outcrop of the Jet Rock as it contours around the hill.
Whinstone
Whinstone
mining was a defining industry that transformed the village of Great Ayton into an industrial hub[61].
Running
through Cleveland, roughly east to west, there is a ridge which marks the line
of igneous dyke. This is composed of very hard rock called dolerite or
whinstone. This stone has been extensively mined and quarried since the mid
eighteenth century. The production of cuboid setts occupied many men and boys.
These, with their regular shapes, can still be seen around Great Ayton. Most of the whinstone was
taken out of the area by rail and much of it was used for road surfacing in
places such as Leeds. Extraction had ceased
by the 1960s.
or
Go Straight to Act 19 – Dark
Satanic Mills
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[1] The pillar and stall method used pillars of the ironstone to support the roof, and the ironstone was extracted around the pillar. Once the material in the stalls had been excavated, the pillars continued to support the rocks above. Miners would sometimes return to the workings to take ironstone from the pillars, a dangerous practice which often caused accidents.
[2]
1871 Census.
[3]
Whitby Gazette, 22 November 1873.
[4]
1881 Census.
[5]
Northern Echo, 9 May 1885.
[6] Henry Durham, Durham Mining Museum.
[7] Loftus Ironstone Mine, Durham Mining Museum, East Cleveland Image Archive.
[8] 1871 Census.
[9]
Marriage Certificate, Egton
Parish Records.
[10]
1881 and 1891 Census.
[11]
1901 Census.
[13]
1911 Census.
[14] 1901, 1911 and 1921 Census.
[15] 1901 Census.
[16] 1921 Census and 1939 Register.
[17]
Military records, Death
Certificate, letters, Whitby Gazette, 22 June 1917.
[18]
Burial index, Find a
Grave index.
[19] 1921 Census.
[20] GRO Volume 9d page 496, Monumental
Record.
[21] Marriage Certificate.
[22] 1881 Census.
[23] 1891 and 1901 Census.
[24] 1911 Census.
[25] Loftus Parish Records.
[26] 1841 Census.
[27] 1861 Census.
[28] 1871 and 1881 Census.
[29] Stainton Parish Records.
[30] 1841 Census.
[31] 1861 Census.
[32] Marriage Certificate, Durham Chronicle
and Durham Conty Advertiser, 2 January 1863.
[33]
Death Certificate.
[34]
Brotton Parish Records, Birth
Certificate, Baptism Certificate, GRO Volume 24 page 392.
[35]
1861 Census.
[36]
Marriage Certificate.
[37]
1871 Census.
[38]
Son‘s birth certificate.
[39]
1881 Census.
[40]
Skelton Parish Register.
[41]
1871 Census.
[42]
Northern Echo, 11 July 1873.
[43]
Northern Echo, 11 and 25 July 1873.
[44]
Teesside Archives, Reference
U/AA/1/38.
[45]
Marriage Certificate.
[46]
Brotton Parish Records.
[47]
Brotton Parish Records.
[48]
1881 Census.
[49] Stokesley Parish Records.
[50] 1841 Census.
[51] Marriage Certificate.
[52] 1851 Census.
[53] GRO Volume 10a page 102.
[54] A Farndale, Durham Mining Museum.
[55] A Guide to Saltburn-by-the-Sea, John Farndale, 1864.
[56] The alum farm together with a history of the origin, development, and eventual decline of the alum trade in north-east Yorkshire, Robert Bell Turton, 1938, page 191.
[57] Saltburn by the sea, A Town in Time, Jim Wingham, 2021.
[58] The Alum Folk, Peter Appleton, 2023.
[59] A map of an Estate belonging to John Hall Stephenson Esq lying at Skelton and Brotton in Cleveland in the North Riding of the County of York, 1773 kindly provided by Tees Archaeology.
[60] 1871 Census.
[61] Whinstone Mining, Great Ayton History Society.