12 - The Strike of 1819: A Partial Victory

Summary

After the turbulence of 1809 the keelmen settled into a state of apparent tranquillity. They did not join the seamen in their great strike of 1815, much to the relief of the authorities, who had feared that the great bodies of keelmen, pitmen and waggonmen, thrown out of work by the strike, would join the seamen. The prospect was alarming, but, although the strike lasted for six weeks, such a junction of forces did not take place. Keelmen, pitmen and seamen tended not to interfere in each others’ industrial disputes. Indeed, stoppage of the coal trade on which so many workers depended for their bread could provoke hostility towards the strikers on the part of those not involved in the dispute.

Meanwhile, vessels ‘of almost any burthen’ were increasingly being loaded by the spouts and a new device, known as ‘the drop’, whereby the colliery waggon was lowered over the ship and emptied directly into her hold. The employment of the below-bridge keelmen was thus being steadily eroded, and the revenue of the keelmen's charity correspondingly decreased at the very time that heavier demands were being made upon it. After payments had been made to the superannuated, widows, orphans and the sick, the balance against the fund rose from £47 13s in 1815 to almost £162 in 1818. This was a matter of concern for all the keelmen, not just to those employed below Newcastle bridge.

On 27 September 1819, a year marked by widespread economic and political discontent, the keelmen enforced a strike. In a petition to the coal owners and fitters they complained that they had suffered ‘very great privations from want of employment, chiefly owing to the vend by spout having increased so much of late’. They therefore begged that no ship be allowed to load more than six keels (48 Newcastle chaldrons) of her cargo at any spout. This meant in practice that loading at the spouts would be restricted to small vessels, ‘such as formerly could alone go under them’. The petitioners further requested that a penny on every chaldron vended by spout be donated to their charity, which, they claimed, could not continue without their employers’ assistance. Finally, they called for enforcement of the eight chaldron keel-load, ‘the danger being very great in stormy weather or strong tides if the keels carry more than that quantity’.