Chapter 4.
THE MINERS EARNINGS AND CONDITIONS.
A. The Bargain System.
Any consideration of a lead miner's earnings is influenced by the circumstances which set him apart from the worker in the factory and the mill. In the first place, lead mining was never seen as a craft industry, and the medieval miners founded a tradition of proud independence. Secondly, the miner worked in a small autonomous, isolated, group, and instead of getting a regular day wage, his earnings came from the work bargains he made with the mining company. Bargains whose earnings were subject to deductions for candles, powder, etc, and were paid infrequently, requiring subsistence in the form of food, or cash, on credit.
By the mid eighteenth century the miners worked a nominal 6 hour shift, six days a week. But the whole ethos of bargain working was its independence and the miners seem to have expected a considerable latitude as to how they arranged their time. By the century's end they were expected to be "regularly at work", and in 1780 the men who Gilbert Meason found absent from his mines on a Saturday were sacked.
Bargain working was a form of contract piecework peculiar, but not exclusive, to metalliferous mining. A group, known as a partnership or a "pares", and led by a "taker", would make a contract, a bargain, with the mining company, as represented by the overseer, to carry out a particular task for an agreed rate of payment. The men would have a relatively free hand as to the way they set about their work and would provide their own tools. When the bargain had been completed and accepted, the group would be credited with the amount it earned, but debited for the cost of consumables and the money owed for subsistence. The collier was also paid for his produce, but the availability of a coal seam meant the arrangement was more akin to piece-work.
If the bargain was not accomplished the men got nothing for their work. This was generally implied, but Hunt quotes a bargain in Weardale where it was expressly stated. Viz -
"Let a bargain .. to cut across to a vein in the
Low Hazel Sill at £15. But if it so happen they
do not cut a vein, then they are to have nothing
for cutting across "
Miners worked on contract in the metal mines of mainland Europe in the middle ages, and by the seventeenth century bargains were being worked in Britain, at least by the skilled men. At Wanlock-head a few of the pickmen were on "taskwork" in the 1680s, and by the 1740s all the Scots Mines Company's miners were working bargains at Leadhills. The large number of volumes which remain of Company's Bargain Books perhaps give undue emphasis to its own procedures.
The system produced an elitist workforce, proud of its perilous vocation, always cherishing hopes of success, and prepared to endure appalling conditions if the vein promised reward. Although often regarded as a creation of the metalliferous mining industry, bargains were also taken by the men in slate quarries and this industry too experienced many of the problems the system created. But the hard won bounty of non ferrous ore veins made the bargains to work them the most speculative, and a correspondent to the Mining Journal in 1861 asserted the lead miner was prepared to stake not only his hope but also his skill and his health.
At the same time, bargain working not only created a hieracy of skill but also encouraged a spirit of enquiry which set the lead miners above other workmen.
Most bargains were for driving levels, tutwork or fathomwork; or for raising ore, tribute work. The former were rated per fathom mined. For example -
"2nd January 1767
To John Alexander and three more to drive 5 fathoms
to the West in the new level in Corbiehall Vein .. at
25/- per fathom .."
The tribute bargains might be rated by the amount of ore raised:-
"21st March, 1740
Bargain made with Robert Brown and partners to raise
ore .. at Pearson's shaft, on the North side of the
2nd Sump at ten shillings per bing. .. The partners
to work this bargain fair and not hide any ore in
sight at ye end."
or by the tons of lead produced, tontale (sometimes tontail) bargains ;-
"13th March, 1786
To Robert Hastie and seven partners to raise ore ..
in Susanna Vein .. at three pounds per ton of
smelted lead."
Tribute is a widely used term but one that specifically app-lied to an arrangement where the miners were paid a given percentage of the value of the ore they raised. Bargains rated on tonnage of lead, tontale, could result in payment being delayed until the ore was smelted. They did have an advantage to the mining company in that they avoided problems of estimating the value of poor quality ore, and they also meant the smelters were prompted to work proficiently in the interests of their fellows.
The Scots Mines Company advised their agent, James Stirling, never to employ men on day wages "if a reasonable bargain can be set", and he appears to have greatly favoured the system. He divided his workforce so that each group got bargains for specific tasks, and seems to have seen no disadvantage in the independence the system gave the miners. Since his aim was for a "sober and industrious" labour force, he perhaps believed they could be left to get on with their work.
It is not known what, if any, guidelines were given to the over seers as to the setting of bargains. Records show the terms could vary and some partnerships fared better than others; perhaps contributing to divisions within the community.
The system perpetuated the casual work pattern of the pre-industrial era and can be compared with cottage industry in that it gave the worker a feeling of proprietorship and personal independence, promising him "the liberty to indulge himself".
Benefits to the mining companies were that the system linked the men's fortunes with those of their masters, and substituted the discipline of payment by results for that imposed by factory walls. This made it possible to manage a large number of miners with the minimum of supervisors, and at Leadhills and Wanlockhead there could be no more than two overseers to as many as two hundred men.
The feature of the traditional bargain was that it was seen as the product of negotiation between a group of men and the management, and, as Hunt, points out the men did not bargain for their labour but for the results of that labour. The arrangement promised reward by reason of easier ground ahead or the lucky find of rich ore, but there might be little reward for work in a barren vein.
The inherent speculation of the system also meant earnings could vary widely. and in her book about the Welsh slate workers, Lindsay points out that there was no point of reference in bargain working, and therefore no immediate awareness of a reduction in earnings. The system could hide a low aggregate wage, and mining companies liked to quote the highest figures so as to show how well their men were paid. It also encouraged managements to insist that any negotiation about wages was with individual bargain takers, leading to a situation which inverted the social control of Stirling's day. Instead of managing the individual by dominating the group, the group were now dominated via the individual.
In spite of its manifest defects, the bargain system was nevertheless favoured by the men themselves. It implied a degree of freedom in working practices, and offered an expansion of earnings in a way daywages did not. There is record of trouble at a Welsh lead mine when an attempt was made to introduce daywages there. But by the mid nineteenth century the infrequent payments which the system encouraged, and its dependence on credit, became irksome. And the emphasis on individual negotiation became a weapon to be used against the men when they attempted to combine.
J.A.Thorburn suggests that "freedom for his own enterprise" was one of the factors which discouraged combination among the lead miners. And in his study of the Pennine miners, Hunt refers to the desire to form trade unions being weakest in those industries where workers were agents, and not just participants, in the production process, and where they aspired to a degree of profit from their own efforts.
* * *
The bargain partnership supplied their own tools, so were prompted to care for them, but the system encouraged hasty and careless work. Drifts might be misaligned and uneven and rubbish left in the way of other miners, and the Leadhills Bargain books contain many entries exhorting the partnerships to "keep a level sole", and not to "damnify" the waygates.
Bargain working could also encourage conspiracies aimed at increasing earnings. Raphael Samuel quotes a Cornish miner who is said to have remarked, "The whole art of mining is fooling the captains", and in the slate quarries it was claimed that an inexperienced or lazy overseer was "as clay in the hands of the men".
Datum points could be moved so as to make the amount of work done appear greater than was the case, and there could be "fraudulent combinations in the dark chambers of the mine" to up-grade ore, or to conceal evidence of a rich vein so as to work it at a good price. When he visited Leadhills in 1776, the Rev. William Gilpin was told how George Lothian's miners had tried to conceal evidence of rich ground; and in 1839 men were gaoled for adding ore from an easy pitch to one which carried a higher rate.
There could also be abuse on the part of the management. Bargains might be set by verbal agreement, and in the 1830s it was claimed that, when they were later written up, the terms could be "altered to the men's prejudice". Such practices invited distrust by both sides.
A hard bargain might be followed by an easier one; or, on the other hand, a partnership could be denied a change in rates by being sent to another vein. Tutwork demanded considerable skill, but might offer no possibility of finding a vein of ore. Men at both Leadhills and Wanlockhead were in any event moved around by the overseers, but the change of miners between fathom-work and the more lucrative tontale bargains has not been explored.
At many metal mines the bargains were made at an open auction among men who had previously inspected the pitch. An arrangement which, it was remarked, invited them to "bid against each other and lower their wages". At Leadhills and Wanlockhead the bargains were always set underground and, although Stirling was advised that "no bargain be set until after public notice is given", in reality a take it or leave it situation seems to have prevailed and there is no reference to any provision for arbitration.
Numbers in a partnership could be as many as twelve, allowing the miners to work three shifts. Bargains could also provide support for widows and those unable to work, and in such cases the name and status of the recipient i.e "widow" or "invalid", was included among the partners. Young men, known as forehead labourers, worked on behalf of the beneficiary, and the latter seems to have got about 7/12ths of the lad's share. However the investigator who visited Wanlockhead in 1844 to assess the operation of the Children's Employment Act, saw the employment of young men on charity bargains as a "tax on their exertions". He wondered if it was not a hidden condition of entry to the mines, a practice ostensibly banned by previous legislation. In the 1870s discontent among the lads themselves was to add to voices of complaint at Wanlockhead.
Charity bargains were favoured by the mining companies, and on one occasion the rate for one at Leadhills was raised because of the number of "old men and widows" it supported. Such bargains were dependent on high employment so could give little assistance when men were laid off. In any event it was probably the skilled pickmen who got the best ground so as to maximise production. They gained the greatest reward and were an elite whose earnings might be four times that of their less able fellows.
The lack of immediate supervision seems to have discouraged the overseers from taking any real interest in working practices and safety. Threats from subterranean water or loose ground were left to the judgement of the partners themselves. Such problems had to be resolved within the group, testing not only their skills but also tempting their discretion, and the challenges of the mine perhaps left little enthusiasm for challenges to authority.
Taking a bargain whose rewards might not be received for more than a year did not necessarily mean the men would keep hard at work every day. The freedom which was inherent in the system meant there was a temptation to take time off, perhaps to attend to the smallholdings; or to take the day easy with the intention of making up the work tomorrow. In continuing the work pattern of medieval industry the bargain system inherited a pace that could vary from intense busyness to idleness and, in spite of efforts to ensure regular working, such ways long continued.
* * *
An extension of the bargain was to "adventure". In 1719 Kalemeter wrote that some of the Earl of Hopetoun's miners might "agree to pay their own expense and make lead to sell at 6d per 16lbs when of good quality", and in 1735 the Scots Mines Company sometimes set "a portion of ground to a man of skill to find what he can". Adventuring was later defined as those bargains taken at the miners' own "risk and expense", and where the company provided no equipment not already in the mine. So the men funded their work as best they could and were paid for the lead eventually smelted from the ore they raised. The possibility of a lucrative find meant there could be quarrels as to "who saw it first", and in 1745 Matthew Wilson was asked to mediate when different miners claimed a vein in Balegill.
Adventuring could also be undertaken in the men's spare time or when work was slack. There is a reference to a Leadhills miner applying to use water from one of the leats to wash ore he had collected from old wastes, and at Wanlockhead in 1844 it was remarked that miners could make extra money by working informal "contracts". But when the shift time there was increased to 8 hours in 1870 the privilege was withdrawn.
The majority of adventure bargains were however specific to the working day. In 1835 one of the overseers at Leadhills recorded how he had gone underground with a miner who had asked to be allowed to "make a new trial" on the vein; and the following year adventurers asked to be allowed to abandon a fruitless bargain, having made "a fair trial".
The arrangements seem to have similarities with the way the so called "free miners" worked in some English mines, and with the "poor men's ventures" worked by co-operatives in Wales. But, once accepted, the company's adventure bargains at Leadhills were under the close control of the overseers, and did not imply the partners had any right to credit for the allowances for meal and meat which were made ahead of the occasional pay day. Much seems to have depended on the overseer. For example in October 1835, Thomas Weir recorded -
No estimate can be made of this partnerships prospects
of ore but I think there is no risk in giving each of
them the allowance of beef money.
Which suggests others went without.
Funding in any event might have to be found by the men themselves. In 1837 a partnership borrowed £100 in total from a Leadhills merchant, William Swan, to meet the costs of working an adventure bargain allowed by the Leadhills Mining Company. Village shopkeepers seem to have lent money for several such enterprises, and those which proved unsuccessful meant the partners might find themselves in the Small Debt Court in Lanark.
All mining companies were concerned lest a lucky find allowed the men excessive earnings; the sort of bonanza made by a partnership of Welsh miners at Talargoch when they earned £120 in a month from a rich pitch. In 1839, William Borron, agent for the Scots Mines Company, tried to counter this possibility at Leadhills by setting terms of three months for adventure bargains, and in the case of one made in 1840 he stipulated: "If the bar-gain men make above 15/- then 20/- per ton shall be deducted from the price".
The essence of the bargain partnerships were that all worked together; the taker may have put his name to the contract but he worked with the rest. A study of the names of Leadhills men taking bargains in the 1830s and 40s shows that men could go from one partnership to another and, when a bargain had been completed, the miner who had taken it might move to being a partner and another come forward as the taker. Differences in earnings created a social hierarchy but there are no references which point to recognised peer groups, or a desire for prestige.
The ore washing was also carried out at bargain rates and the way this was organised at Leadhills is an example of an arrangement known in other industries as "the butty gang", for the washing master took the contract and then paid the washers a day-wage to prepare the ore. In fact figures noted by Matthew Wilson show the washing master was among the most highly paid. The skilled washers might earn 7/6 (37.5p) a week, the labourers about 5/- (25p), and the boys got around 1/9 (8.5p), but Wilson calculated that, after his men were paid, the master could be left with 25/-(£1.25) a week during the washing season. The season was perhaps no more than nine months but it earned the washing master as much as the overseers, who had a salary of £40 p.a. This may be compared with the 200 guineas (£210) given to James Stirling in 1735, and the £100 the assistant manager received in 1792.
The tradesmen, carpenters and smiths, were on day wages, as were the levelmen, those who kept the access levels and shafts in repair. In the 1840s the former had 12/- (60p) a week, the level men 13/-(65p)
In 1735 it was agreed that a miner might "throw up his bargain if he and his labourers cannot get 6 pence to 8 pence a day", suggesting a minimum wage of 3/- to 4/- per week. However an examination of the payments made for driving an adit at Leadhills in the 1760s shows the miners involved earned on average about 8/3 (42p) per week gross. The figure can be compared with the £20 per annum, 7/6 (37p) per week, quoted for wages at Leadhills in the Statistical Account of 1790, so could be a fair assessment of optimum earnings at that time.
The last years of the eighteenth century were times of poor harvests, high prices for food, and low prices for lead. A reduction in bargain rates led to a strike among the Weardale leadminers in 1795, but at Leadhills the Scots Mines Company decided to hold down the cost of the grain credited to the men. After 1800 a buoyant lead market allowed rates to be increased, and the miners were said to earn as much as 10/-(50p) per week. The smelters always had more and bargain records show their net weekly earnings could be 12/- (60p) and above.
These figures have to be seen in terms of the inflation which resulted from the Napoleonic Wars. Although 10/- a week was an adequate wage in 1800 it would have been less so a decade later, and in 1818 a correspondent to the Clydesdale Magazine remarked -
Here a man will bring up a family of six children on
a wage of 9/- a week without assistance from the
parish, which he considers degrading.
The tone suggests that 9/- was regarded as being on the poverty line.
By the 1830s the cost of living had recovered but the price of lead fell because of cheap imports. In 1836 the Leadhills men claimed their earnings were no more than £18 pa. 7/- (35p) a week, but two years later the Scots Mines Company made a "regulation" to the effect that the miners would be "entitled" to earn £26 per annum. It is unlikely that many achieved as much, and in 1841 the investigator for the Royal Commission on the Employment of Children (Children's Commission) was told that the wages at Leadhills were only half those "obtained by a family in South Britain". Burt quotes figures equivalent to earnings of as much as £40 pa in the Cornish mines, but the investigator's remark has to be seen in the context that the Leadhills and Wanlockhead miners lived rent free.
The market recovered a decade later and a report of wage levels at Wanlockhead in 1844 indicated that some miners had 12/- (60p) a week and the smelters about 14/- (70p). In the second half of the century average wages rose to a nominal 20/- (£1) per week, and stayed around this figure into the 1900s.
References to average wage levels are in fact misleading for there could be considerable variation in earnings. The report of the 1864 Mines (Kinnaird) Commission noted "it is difficult to give a statement of wages in consequence of the speculative nature of this work." An examination of the bargains taken by the Leadhills' miner William Gibson show his partnership's earnings varied from about 17/- (85p) a week per man to 5/4 (26p) and Smout refers to some miners getting as little as 4/6 (22p) per week in the 1830s and 40s.
The independence by the bargain system meant production was in the hands of the miners themselves. Theirs was the skills; theirs the achievement. But they also chose their own pace. The advent of industrialisation, and the effect of an increasing economic growth, led to a need for the kind of control and costing which was being achieved in the factories. Bargains not only involved the speculation of the quality of the vein, but the overseer had to consider the rate in terms of the price of lead. There was no difficulty when prices stayed fairly constant, but it became a problem when they began to fluctuate.
This led to subtle changes in the way the bargains were defined. At Leadhills the emphasis moved towards contracts based on time instead of output, and there was a greater emphasis on the miners being seen as "working steadily". The Scots Mines Company's regulation allowing nominal earnings of £26 p.a. carried the rider that the men would only be entitled to this if they
perform during their 6 hour shifts, exclusive of the
time spent in going and returning, sufficient work to
the satisfaction of the manager.
At the time, many bargains had a clause which required "the partners continue to work as they have done before" to qualify for the agreed rate, suggesting the men concerned were perceived as trustworthy. In 1839 a bargain carried a note to the effect that the men would get an extra 5/- "providing the ground be cut in 3 months", but this was an incentive which does not seem to have been continued.
The men now sold their time rather than the fruits of their labour, and in 1838 the overseer noted how he had calculated the earnings from a bargain, and found the miners working on it had "12/- (60p) a week", probably seen as equivalent to the prescribed £26 per annum. In 1840 labourers were to have an extra 6d so as to give them 11/-(55p) per week, and in 1841 a smelting bargain was rated to give the men 13/- (65p).
If the rate was disputed, then the men could lose their subsistence allowance for meal etc. and in 1839, William Gibson's son, James, wrote to his brother "those that does not sign their bargain on Monday gets no meal on Tuesday .. it is shameful here now". At Wanlockhead in 1845 miners lost their jobs and homes when they refused a bargain even though James Stewart, the agent, said more money would be "thrown on the ground". And in 1870 it was said that any miners who questioned the rates would find there "was no more work for them".
The miners might have built their cottages, but that did not automatically mean they could always live in them. The Leadhills miner who was discharged in 1745 had to leave the village and when the Duke of Buccleuch took over the mines at Wanlockhead he declared that any miners who left his service "must leave this place".
No doubt he hoped they would travel to more distant mines for landowners were concerned lest unemployed miners and their families would become a burden on the poor fund. An Irish landlord complained he had to "keep half the village from starvation", when work at the lead mines near Bangor stopped in 1846.
* * *
In his observations on the Scotland of the eighteenth century, Lord Cockburn wrote "masters always keep their workmen in debt", and into the nineteenth century the mining companies at both Leadhills and Wanlockhead made a "general pay" once a year and settled twelve months in arrears. One reason given was that the companies looked to sell the lead raised to provide the cash to pay the wages, another was that a more frequent pay could lead to "great mistakes".
Not only was there a long time between the pays, but even into the nineteenth century there was no regular pay day. In 1839 a miner complained that not only did he not know when the pay would be made, but he doubted if the management themselves knew.
Credit in goods or cash tided a miner over a hard bargain, and meant he did not have to manage a large cash payment. The infrequent pay day may have been acceptable in the sort of subsistence economy which belonged to the eighteenth century, but the whole arrangement became irksome as the nineteenth century advanced.
In Stirling's day "necessitous workmen" could be given their bargain earnings out-with the general pay but the practice does not seem to have continued. In August 1836 a miner "demanded" the money earned by his bargain since the lead produced had been smelted, but this was refused by William Borron on the grounds that it would constitute a "special arrangement" and as such would have to be sanctioned by the directors. The level of debt this situation created led the Sheriff of Lanark to remark in 1838 that he had "frequently to give Delays to (the Leadhills) workmen in the Small Debt Court".
By the 1860's the Leadhills men who were in regular work were being paid quarterly, but the yearly pay continued at Wanlockhead, and in 1869 Alexander Macdonald, the colliers' leader, urged that the Truck Commission should visit the mines. Its members did so the following year, and pronounced the arrangement as "extraordinary", and not "a system of the payment of wages". In essence it was not a just system.
The complexity of a partnership's debts to its fellows, and to the mining company, meant paying a couple of hundred men might take two or three days, so the yearly "pay" was something of an event. Unlike the coal masters, the Scottish lead companies do not appear to have provided casks of ale to make the pay day a celebration, but it was not unusual for the men to make the day following into a holiday. There is record of the Wanlockhead miners celebrating at Sanquhar after their pay day in 1774, and even in 1835 the overseer at Leadhills recorded, "No working as the men paid yesterday".
* * *
The miners' family was an economic unit, a collier's wife and children contributed to his income, and Burt points out that at one time women worked in the lead mines where there was no alternative. There are records of women working as bearers in Wales in the seventeenth century, and on the washing floors there until the early 1800s. At the Cornish tin mines, women worked as "bal maidens" washing ore into the 1900s, but any employment out with the mines was preferable since it provided an income when the industry was depressed.
Textiles provided such work in some mining areas, and there was a particular tradition of domestic out-work, spinning and later embroidery: "tambouring" or "flowering", in South West Scotland, and which provided an income for some of the women and young girls at Leadhills and Wanlockhead. The girls fared no better than their brothers who worked on the washing floors, for they might be as young as eight, and were said to work a twelve hour day, earning perhaps 2/6, (12p) a week when they reached "full ability". This may be compared with the English straw plaiters whose earnings as given in the so called Chandler scale of 1837, amounted to 8d (3p) at eight years rising to 3/6 (17p) at sixteen.
It was admitted to the investigator for the Children's Commission that the long hours "sickened them a bit", so how was the necessary work discipline achieved ? In the "3rd Lecture" recorded in his manuscript history, the Rev. Hastings of Wanlockhead made a curious reference to the whip as a foundation for obedience, and a collier girl perhaps spoke for all those oppressed by the poverty of their parents when she exclaimed to the Children's Commission - "Like it? We were belted 'till we liked it". As an old mill worker is said to have remarked, "our parents were the hardest taskmasters".
In spite of the legislation which followed the 1842 Report, the employment of children created covert industries which have left little record of the ages of the younger employees, or the hours they needed to work for an acceptable level of earnings. In his evidence for the Children's Commission, the washing master at Leadhills stated "the lads here will do, and do to the time, what is required of them". All about the mines were brought up to accept without question endless days of unremitting toil and, perhaps like the labourer the Wordsworths met at Grassmere, they "neither murmured nor thought it hard".
There was also work within the village for weavers, dressmakers, tailors, and shoe and clog makers. Bargain references such as "John Paterson, shoemaker", and James Miller, mason", indicate that many tradesmen also worked as miners. All were part of an economy that included the produce from small-holdings, and the money the women made by flowering. Money that to some extent cushioned the uncertainties of bargain working. Leadhills may have had its poor but even in the desperate years of the dispute between the mining companies there was not the abject poverty that was found at the Tyndrum lead mines where, it was said, hungry men "had no force to their work".