Chapter 6.

One, all too brief, record of a miner's life at Leadhills, is contained in the Gibson MSS, a collection of letters mostly written by William Gibson to his son Robert during the years 1834 to 1845, but lacking much of the period between 1836 and 1839. Gibson was a smelter and later a miner, but his letters are considered and articulate and demonstrate the high standard of education found among some of the villagers.

William Gibson was born in 1796, the son of Thomas Gibson an ore washer. The family were long in the village for a George Gibson was among the Earl of Hopetoun's miners in 1742 and a James Gibson was elected a member of the Reading Society in 1745. William married Mary Dinwoodie who was ten years his senior. Although the name is found among the Leadhills miners, she may have come from Moffat for she had relatives there. One of their children died in infancy but three survived. The eldest, James was born in 1815, Robert four years later, and Isabella in 1824; it was a small family compared with others at that time. By 1834 they were living at Muir House, a cottage on the road to Elvanfoot.

They seem to have been part of a prosperous village elite. Thomas could have been a washing master, and record shows William was well paid as a smelter for the Scots Mines Company. Most of his bargains also paid well when he later worked as a miner. His brother moved to Redruth in Cornwall where he had some, unspecified, business and later took a share in a mine. He was joined by a sister who married a Cornishman, Charles Tonkin, a master carpenter.

William's son, Robert, was in the Scottish tradition of the "lad o' pairts", for he went from the village school to the University of Glasgow. The first of the extant letters to him is dated October, 18th, 1834, and it may be supposed that the boy had come up to the University that term. The fact that he, and not his elder brother, had been given the opportunity of a university education reflects the amount of the schooling which the Leadhills children received. Not all families were able to take full advantage of it. There was an economic incentive to profit from the increase in activity around the mines during the summer months, and it may be supposed that it was the brighter sons of the better-off families who were encouraged to attend the school house all the year. In fact by the time Robert was studying Greek in Glasgow, his brother James was still trying to improve his writing and arithmetic at evening classes. The letters written by James himself show no envy, but a pride in his younger brother's achievements.

Robert had lodgings at 34 Kirk Street, Calton, sharing not just a room but also a bed with another student. Like other country boys at the university, he was maintained by his family who sent him food in a "little chest", which Robert then used to return his soiled clothing for the attention of his mother and sister. The chest was taken by the Leadhills carrier, William Cock, and it was usually sent to Glasgow one week and returned the next.

Robert's "laundry lists" show he had enough shirts to give him a change every day, and also stockings, neck cloths, underclothing, and "napkins" -large handkerchiefs. The food sent to him reflected the basic village diet of meal and cheese, but included scones and cakes of his mother's baking, butter when the cow calved, and mutton-hams and haggis when these were available.

Robert was also sent money to purchase tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco and soap to be sent back to Leadhills; goods which were probably of better quality than those in the village stores, and cheaper than if brought by the lead carriers. In December 1835 he was asked to send down two gallons of "strong whisky". The Gibson household were deeply religious but they did not abhor spirits.

To begin with Robert was entirely supported by his parents, but none of the letters urge economy. Instead, Robert was occasionally sent money "for himself", concealed in his returned clothing, and was told to write if he wanted more. In spite of the constraints of a credit based economy, and the fact of a considerable recession at the time, the Gibsons had ready money.

There is no clue as to any influence which might have provided Robert with a place in the University, or of anyone to whom he was especially indebted. The school master and the minister were interested in his progress, but this would be expected. G.S.Pryde quotes a figure of £15 to "live and learn" at a university in the 1820s. Such an outlay was a considerable sum but could have been within Gibson's own means.

Robert was joined in Glasgow by "Adam" a relative from Moffat, but there is no record of others from Leadhills at the University at that time. William Symington, the inventor and engine builder, had been at the University in Edinburgh many years before, but he had been supported by Gilbert Meason, the manager at Wanlockhead.

There are no letters from Robert himself in the collection but his career is reflected in his father's writings. It seems the first intention was that he would get a post as a teacher and for a time he did teach in Glasgow, thereby earning money for his own support. But in the end he qualified for the Ministry and was accepted as a Probationer by the Church of Scotland in 1840. Robert preached in many Glasgow churches during his probation, and then worked briefly in Manchester and Eaglesham. In 1844 received his first charge when he was ordained minister of the Free Church of Southwick and Kirkbean, Dumfriesshire, where he remained until his death in 1888.

The Gibsons' small-holding was large enough to make a major contribution to their livelihood, and the letters tell of the family's self sufficiency and domestic economy. Mrs Gibson had a spinning wheel which provided the yarn to be made up into blankets and underclothing, and her daughter made dresses and hats. There also seems to have been work for William out with the mines, and in November, 1834, he wrote "the Moffats has not paid" for some unspecified work he had done for them. The Gibson's home was probably superior to the majority of the miners' cottages for in 1834 they were putting timber floors in the loft and in "the room"; improvements which were not common in the village until nearly fifty years later.

There are enigmatic references to "carrying the bags". It is not known what this meant but it might be akin to "having to tighten one's belt". Even so, the whole tenor of the letters during Robert's first years shows the family was in comfortable circumstances and able to enjoy the pride of a son at university. As noted previously, the smelters could expect a regular wage of about 12/- a week, so Gibson had a reasonable income when he himself was at the smelt mill. An analyses of the bargains taken by him when he later worked as a miner shows the inevitable variations with average weekly earnings as little as 5/4 (26p) on one occasion. But by 1840 his partnership was adventuring and over the next two years their total earnings were equivalent to a gross weekly wage of 17/- (85p) to each partner.

The evidence is less than complete, and adventuring meant the partnership had to meet their costs, but the records do suggest that, until 1842, the Gibsons were relatively well off. Among the goods Robert was asked to purchase were quality textiles for dresses etc and, on one occasion, a "white furr" for his sister, Isabella, to "wear about her neck". In 1839 James Gibson wrote that he had got a "pretty green surtout coat in the first fashion from the tailor. The dresses and the coat point to status symbols in what was a classless society.

The Gibsons' assurance in their position in the community is perhaps also illustrated in a reference to a salmon netted in the Tweed. The fish fell to James's share and no doubt the family enjoyed such bounty but on that occasion it was given to Doctor Martin as "a compliment".

The letters refer to the food sent to Robert, and the family's daily fare was probably not dissimilar to that described in the Report on the Children's Employment Act in 1844. Breakfast must have been an important meal, and was based on porridge, butter-milk, and perhaps oatcakes. The miners probably had a "piece" during their shift, and the main meal, which included potatoes, butter-milk, and cheese or sometimes meat, was when they got home. Supper, taken late in he evening, was again oatcakes, scones, and buttermilk.

The investigator who visited Wanlockhead in 1844 wrote that a family there would consume 8 stones (51 Kg.) of meal and 1 stone of barley per month, figures which can be compared with the 8 lbs per head quoted for the weekly fare of English rural labourers in the same period. At Leadhills milk from the village cows made a major contribution to the miners' diet, and no doubt was also beneficial to their health.

Visitors to Leadhills who remarked on its isolation, claimed its inhabitants were out of touch with the world at large. The physical isolation of the village has its effect even today, but the lead carts provided a line of communication, and there was a movement of its inhabitants to towns and cities. An "old aunty" of William Gibson lived in Glasgow with her family; there were "uncles" in Edinburgh, and Mrs Gibson had relatives in Moffat.

Robert's parents and his sister travelled to Glasgow to visit him at various times, and there were also visits from other villagers who were in the city. A painting by Alexander Naismyth dated 1821 features "the Leadhills stage coach at Edinburgh", but although Robert visited the capital, there is no reference to the coach. The Leadhills carrier did offer a regular service to Glasgow and it was with him that the elder Isabella travelled when she set off in March 1840 to stay with her brother in Cornwall.

Most journeys were made on foot, and using such other transport as might be available. In 1840 Robert's mother travelled to Moffat returning part of the way in a cart and walking the rest. She eventually reached home "fatigued and with a sore knee". Some failed to complete such journeys as when in 1877, a Wanlockhead girl, Janet Miller, died in a snow storm when crossing the Shortcleugh on the way home to her sister's wedding.

Other villagers went farther afield. A friend of Gibson's, James Grierson, wrote from Buenos Aires that he had been travelling in the Andes "with a prospecting party". He was the same Grierson who made a fortune there and originated the Grierson Bequest. Other emigrants were a James Johnstone who had gone to America with his family; and a cousin of the school master who was in Tobago.

The Gibsons travelled as best they could, but the occasional journeys of the nobility were supported by a retinue of servants and something for the common folk to marvel at. In September, 1843, carting hay provided William with the opportunity of joining "hundreds from Leadhills and other places, all dressed in their best", to watch the Marquis of Douglas and his bride, the Princess of Baden, pass by on their way to Hamilton Palace.

There is nothing to suggest the Gibson household was not a lively one, but there is scant reference to holidays, or any merrymaking. The 1745 Diary, that earlier record of village life, likewise says little about entertainment, other than drinking parties, and it seems probable that social gatherings were limited to weddings, the New Year, and the occasional pay day.

Although Gibson noted visits to Glasgow by friends and relatives, this does not seems to have led to a wider social awareness, and he made no comment on the city. The teeming tenements, and the squalor and poverty in the Calton district where Robert lodged, seem to have made little impression on the visitors from Leadhills. In one letter William wrote of a conversation with a visiting preacher who had once worked as a missionary in the area of the Martyr Church. Seen from Leadhills this was no more than a "coarse laborious business". There is no suggestion either that the visitors brought contentious ideas back with them; probably they moved in the same douce circles in the city as they did in the village.

William Gibson does not seem to have been especially concerned with the poverty in Glasgow, or the gulf between rich and poor in the country at large. At the same time, he is revealed as a kind and compassionate man who was solicitous for the welfare of friends and relatives. He signed himself as "loving and affectionate", and there is no evidence of the conventional hard and undemonstrative Calvinist father. Equally, he was not soft hearted, but then it was not a soft hearted age.

Natural disasters did evoke a response in the village for the Day of Fasting and Prayer in 1847 was noted in the Mine Journal as being occasioned by the "Great Want of Food in many Parts", a reference to the almost forgotten Scottish potato famine, an event from which Leadhills and Wanlockhead did not wholly escape.

Some of the letters hint at little tensions. In 1834 the school master, James Brown, was involved in some unspecified dis-agreement, and Robert was cautioned "say nothing about the outcast (quarrel) between him and the big folk here to any person". On another occasion Robert seems to have been at odds with some of his relatives and his father urged that the best way to deal with the "offence" was to "pass it by".

William Gibson was an active member of the Reading Society. In 1833 he was an Inspector, the year following he was on the committee. .By 1841 he was Preses, but dissent among the members resulted in him being voted out of office the following year.. He was also a member of the Friendly Society and the curling club, but his evangelical stance on religious matters no doubt kept him out of the Kirk session.

The amount of pious sentiment expressed in Gibson's letters emphasises the role of religion in Scottish life. The sermon, often lasting two hours or more, was central to the service. It may have been narrow in context; but, in expounding and commenting on a passage of scripture, and convention denied any written notes, it offered a remarkable exercise in logical argument, and one which made for disciplined minds. Notestein remarks on the ability of the Scottish peasant to discuss points of religion, and Gibson's letters show that the sermons he listened to were relished and later discussed.

Such services were not only a part of William Gibson's world but also that of miners elsewhere in Britain for the dissenting churches were found in all lead mining communities. Their services might seem to offer little solace from the grind of work. There was no music, nothing of theatre or warm ritual. Instead they reflected that "painful process" which had led to religious democracy.

Although there seems no evidence that Gibson was concerned with political or radical issues, he was actively interested in church politics and he closely followed the events which led to the Disruption in 1843. In that year a group of evangelical ministers led by Dr Robert Chalmers, left the established Church to form the Free Church. The dispute was motivated by political as much as religious issues, for the main reason was dissatisfaction about the influence of the governing establishment in the Kirk's affairs.

Gibson's own religious views were sympathetic with the evangelists, and the spirit of the break-away movement was probably much in line with his own independent character. He was a founder member of a Free Church Association at Leadhills, and in August 1843 the members meet in an empty cottage for a service on the Day of Fasting, and where Thomas Hastings of Wanlockhead preached. This so alarmed the establishment that Gibson was warned not to attempt such a service again. After an abortive attempt to obtain use of the library, Gibson and sixty others joined Hastings' own Free Church congregation to worship "among the rocks".

The secession of 1843 meant that the dissenters had not only to find the money for churches and ministers but for also a whole new administration. It smacked of the religious revolts of the seventeenth century but it did not indicate any degree of social radicalism in the nineteenth. The Free Churchmen believed in good government rather than in any party interest, and Thomas Chalmers their leader has been described as a High Tory. He was much concerned in extending churches into working class areas, and Smout remarks how Chalmers believed that poverty was largely the result of moral failings, and it was up to the individual to improve his own situation. The tenor of Gibson's own letters reflect such views.

Smout also refers to these attitudes being evident in such books as the Rev. W.Blaikie's Lectures to the Working Classes, published in 1849. In it Blaikie claimed that bitter feelings about the "capitalists" were out of place, instead, the way for others to improve them selves was through self-denial, industry, and abstaining from indulgence. The Leadhills library obtained several of Blaikie's books, but if his volume of lectures was once among them, it is no longer on shelves. However, a copy of a later work, Christianity in Relation to Social Progress, remains.

Gibson's own political views remain an enigma and it is especially unfortunate that the letters for the period of the strike in 1836 are missing, for his comments on this disturbance might have clarified questions not only as to his own radical attitudes but also those in the village. One letter does give a tantalising hint for, writing on the 27th November, 1842, Gibson referred to an unspecified event which had taken place a year before, and went on

the same diabolical characters is puffing up the

men at present to petition the Earl of Hopetoun

to give them enough wood as will make trows to

bring in Glennery scar water to supply the village.

The remark must make some comment on Gibson's own social values; so who were the "diabolical characters"? Was it the on-going religious dispute that set him apart from them. Or, was it that his Calvinism condemned what he might have regarded as pretentious actions by fellow villagers; even although pursuing what seems a laudable activity aimed at improving the conditions in the community.

In fact the key to the enigmatic remark lay in the reference to the previous year, for the 23rd of November 1841 was the centenary of the founding of the library. As will be more fully recounted in a later chapter, the library committee led by Gibson, planned to celebrate the occasion with a dinner, and the Baillie, Robert Martin was to be the principal guest. However the agent for the Scots Mines Company, William Borron, had quarrelled with the Earl of Hopetoun and saw Martin as the latter's representative so he threatened to withdraw his support.

As a result the library members were split into "pro" and "anti" Borron factions. The former secured the advantage by taking the keys to the building, and it was perhaps the embarrassment this caused which led Gibson to dub those concerned as "diabolical". In terms of their securing water, Gibson perhaps did not so much condemn their action as its hidden motives. Although of benefit to the village, the petition for a water supply may have been prompted by Borron in order to embarrass the Earl. The petition promised benefit for the village, but in Gibson's eyes it was for the wrong reason.

Gibson himself was not in any way a "company man". He described the management as "tyrannical" and it is also significant that when he referred to Borron and the overseer, Thomas Weir, he never gave them the title "Mr" which he bestowed on others in authority. The omission can offer a deliberate insult to incomers, but Weir's forebears had lived in Leadhills for generations.

Clearly Gibson had no sympathy with those who paid court to Borron, but on the other hand there is nothing to suggest he favoured any sort of common action to alter the administration which ruled his working life.

Although Gibson gave himself the title "smelter", there is no record he took any smelting bargains after 1834 when he worked as a miner. In 1840 he was asked to go back to the smelt mill, apparently with a veiled threat that he would be refused other work if he did not comply. His reaction to this was a spirited "I don't care. We have aye been provided for, and aye will yet." He was prepared to "leave the rest to Heaven", as the library bookplate proclaimed, and his independent attitude perhaps exemplifies that of many others, and perhaps points to a faction who were neither "company men" nor looked to taking action to effect change.

Leadhills was described as "inhabited only by miners", but there was a bourgeoisie in the village which probably included the "big folk" already referred to. The records of the curling club are a clue to their numbers, for as well as the minister, doctor, and school master, it had nine members who were given the appellation "Mr". In 1845 the clerk to the Kirk Session gave the baker, Andrew Anderson, the title "Mr" so those who enjoyed such status included the shopkeepers..

During the 1830s and '40s Leadhills suffered a reduction in living standards occasioned by the fall in the price of lead; the effects of Borron's administration, and the dispute between the mining companies. In 1841 the investigator for the Children's Commission stated "all here are very poor", and it seems probable that Gibson himself had no regular work in the mines after July, 1842, for this is the last mention of him among the bargain records.

By then the letters to Robert no longer ask him to make purchases of groceries in Glasgow. Instead his parents looked to the money he was able to send to them. His post in Manchester carried a salary of £80 a year, said to have been twice what he earned from teaching, so he was in a position to repay the money his father had put out on his education. Such re-payments seem to have been in the nature of occasional gifts rather than regular financial support.

The money Isabella earned making dresses and hats must have been important to the domestic economy, and in 1842 Robert was asked on two occasions to get "white dunstables" (a plaited straw used in hatmaking) for her. However the small-holding was perhaps the mainstay of the household.

There is no reference to the amount of land Gibson worked but in 1834 he had a hay stack which must have contained about 4 tons, so he perhaps had about 5 acres of meadow. In 1843 he wrote how he had been hay making and that "it has been a thrang and busy time with me this year". He also had ground for potatoes and kept a cow. In 1839 the family got a sheep with their "mart money", but the following year Mrs Gibson paid £2 for a "fat ewe", and it was suggested that Robert should pay for it. It could be that Gibson was no longer eligible for credit at the store, and the ewe was for slaughter for salted mutton. On the other hand the high price might mean the animal was with lamb. He had already exchanged a bull calf for a heifer, so it and the ewe suggest he was increasing his stock.

It is perhaps significant that Gibson put his savings towards the well being and comfort of his family, rather than setting himself up as a shopkeeper. He might have done so for by 1844 five miners had opened shops which "owed their origins to accumulations (of savings) and offered a profitable investment".

Robert's attainments took him away from the village, and by 1840 his brother James was also impatient to leave. Many Leadhills' boys left to find posts as clerks and James was seeking a position in the Post Office in Glasgow. However, this fell through and two years later he was in Islay and getting married there. It may be noted that William Borron's father, J.A.Borron, had taken a lease of the Islay lead mines in 1836.

Of some 43 extant letters written by William Gibson, no less than 37 make some reference to illness or death in the community. Even so, all the Gibsons lived into old age. In spite of his years in the smelt mill, William reached sixty; his wife died in her seventieth year; Robert died aged sixty nine; James seventy one; and their sister, who it seems never married in spite of the allurement of the "white furr", reached sixty five.

This longevity contrasts with records of another Leadhills' family, the Tennants. They married in 1853 but of their eleven children seven died under five years of age, and only two daughters lived to marry and have children of their own.

Large families were the norm and death was no stranger in any household. But, compared with the Tennants, the Gibsons profited from their small family, and had they had more children it is perhaps unlikely any would have got to the university. On the other hand, a family of three must have increased the burdens of work in the home and on the small-holding.

What sort of man was William Gibson and to what extent does he represent the other miners? He was not "cruppen doon" with any sense of inherited servility, and his morality and strength of character shines from his writings. The letters to his son, Robert, also demonstrate his evangelicalism, so would this have affected his attitude to social issues ? In letters written in January, 1836, three months before the strike, he had pointed to the dissatisfaction over bargains and had criticised the management. But he also reminded his son that mankind were "sinful creatures in a state of wretchedness", and "Christ (was) the way of salvation".

There are differing views as to the effect of religion on the attitudes of British miners, and its place in the social rousing of those at Leadhills must be debatable. J.H.Plumb points out that there was no overt radicalism in Wesley's preaching, and J.Rule notes that the efforts of the Chartists were opposed by Methodist miners in Cornwall and the concept of suffering as a vehicle to salvation meant the miners there "laboured and endured". On the other hand, Hugh Jones notes the contentious Welsh miners of Talargoch were "in the habit of attending some Dissenting place of worship", and R.S.Moore finds that many of the trade unionists among the colliers of County Durham were Methodist preachers. At Leadhills and Wanlockhead there is some evidence that Free Church members were among those miners who were prepared to voice complaint, and an Elder of that church was on the 1909 Strike committee.

The Gibsons were among the mining aristocracy, so was there in fact a perceived social hierarchy ? Some miners were described by the investigator for the Children's Commission as being "comfortable", and of "a higher order of intellect" than the rest. After the dispute occasioned in 1841 by the library "jubilee", critical comments were made in the Reading Society's minutes implying the committee did not represent "operative miners". Since Gibson was seen as being at fault, it could be supposed this was aimed at him. He was undoubtedly a miner, but were his standing and circumstances seen as setting him apart ?

Gibson's own letters do suggest he was conscious of his status and could show a certain snobbishness. One evinces his pleasure on hearing that Robert had been referred to as a "splendid fellow", and another how he had dined with some of Glasgow's wealthier ministers and had been "driven home in a carriage". Gibson may have been pleased that Robert was moving up the social ladder, but there is nothing to suggest he himself aspired to join "the big folk", and he cautioned Robert "do not run to their call". He was his own man and he himself was not going to "run" to Borron's dictate. But although he must have given the 1836 strike his support, there is no evidence to suggest he was among its organisers. Whether this affected his standing amongst his fellows, as implied in the comments in the Reading Society's minutes, can be only conjecture

In 1833 John Muir, an agent for the Marquis of Bute who was operating the Wanlockhead mines at that time, described the miners there as "incredibly simple considering how near they are to the manufacturing districts". It seems unjust to describe William Gibson as "simple", for he could have argued points of religion with the best, but if Muir meant most of the miners in the two villages were socially and politically naive, then there is nothing in Gibson's letters to suggest otherwise.

He can perhaps be compared with the skilled Scottish artisan of the mid nineteenth century. Both were comfortably off, god-fearing, interested in church affairs, and bookish, if perhaps distrusting anything romantic. They had no need to force their children into work, and could afford be considerate of their welfare and concerned with their education. Both valued a respectable morality and supported local institutions. Above all they were their own men and would resist any action which seemed to threaten their independence.