Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 October 2009
The Durham Miners Gala is an annual event at which the associated branches of the Durham Miners Association carry their banners to a rally held in the city of Durham. The imagery displayed on those banners is representative of the class struggle to create a trade union that would represent and protect individuals and communities against the vagaries of the unbridled capitalism of the nineteenth century. In this way a tradition (and culture) was created not by social or political elites, but developed from ground level to counteract attempts to subsume them into a dominant ideology that saw them as little more than serfs.
1. Beynon, Huw and Austrin, Terry, Masters and Servants: Class and Patronage in the Making of a Labour Organisation (London, 1994), 210Google Scholar.
2. Beynon and Austrin, Masters and Servants, 206.
3. “Lodge” is the term used within the DMA to describe the union organization at each individual colliery.
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6. Ibid., 191.
7. Ibid., 211.
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10. David Gilbert, “Conference Report: Community, Gender and Culture in Mining History,” University of Leeds, 1994: 47–55.
11. Gilbert, “Conference Report,” 49.
12. Tim Strangleman, Emma Hollywood, Huw Beynon, Katy Bennett, and Ray Hudson, “Heritage Work: Re-representing the Work Ethic in the Coalfields,” Sociological Journal Online (www.socresonline.org.uk) 4 (1999).
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17. Stephenson and Wray, “Emotional Regeneration,” 184.
18. Beynon and Austrin, Masters and Servants, 206.
19. Ibid.
20. Ackers, “Life After Death,” 163.
21. Beynon and Austrin, Masters and Servants, 167.
22. For example, see David Allsop and David Wray, “The Rise and Fall of Autonomous Group Working in the British Coal Mining Industry,” Employment Studies Paper 41, University of Hertfordshire Business School, 2002; Douglas, David “Pit Life in Co. Durham,” History Workshop Pamphlet (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar.
23. Ackers, “Life After Death,” 164–165.
24. Beynon and Austrin, Masters and Servants.
25. Stephenson and Wray, “Emotional Regeneration,” 191.
26. Hobsbawm, Eric, “Introduction” in Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terrance, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: 1983), 1–14Google Scholar.
27. This banner can be seen today in the headquarters of the Durham Miners Association in the City of Durham.
28. For example, see Beynon and Austrin, Masters and Servants; Colls, Robert, The Pitmen of the Northern Coalfield: Work, Culture and Protest 1790–1850 (Manchester 1987)Google Scholar; Moore, Robert, Pitmen, Preachers and Politics: The Effects of Methodism in a Durham Mining Community (Cambridge: 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29. Beynon and Austrin, Masters and Servants, 36.
30. Emory, Norman, The Banners of the Durham Coalfield (Phoenix Mill, 1998)Google Scholar.
31. Moore, Pitmen, Preachers and Politics.
32. Ibid.
33. Fragile banners were usually hung in the Colliery Welfare building in a place of honor.
34. For example, see Beynon and Austrin, Masters and Servants; and Emory, The Banners of the Durham Coalfield.
35. For example, see: Beynon and Austrin, Masters and Servants; and Strangleman, “Network, Place and Identities.”
36. For example, see Beynon and Austrin, Masters and Servants; and Emory, The Banners of the Durham Coalfield.
37. Emory, The Banners of the Durham Coalfield.
38. Many of these Aged Miners Homes can be seen today in the mining communities throughout Co. Durham.
39. Emory, Norman, The Coalminers of Durham (Pheonix Mill 1992), 155Google Scholar.
40. For example, see Emory, The Banners of the Durham Coalfield; and Garside, William RedversThe Durham Miners 1919–1960 (London 1971)Google Scholar.
41. Jones, Chris and Novak, Tony, “Welfare Against the Workers: Benefits as a Political Weapon,” in Beynon, Huw, Digging Deeper (London: 1985), 87–101Google Scholar.
42. Beynon and Austrin, Masters and Servants.
43. Mann, Michael, Consciousness and Action Among the Western Working Class (London 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
44. It was at the Orgreave Coking Plant, on this date, that the police diverted pickets into a field and charged them on horseback. In the history of the strike, this day is known as the Battle of Orgreave.
45. Gilbert, “Conference Report,” 49.
46. Stephenson and Wray, “Emotional Regeneration.”