Before William’s Birth

Mining life before 1872

It is important to understand that prior to three years before WILLIAM English’s birth in 1875, miners had very little security. Miners’ Bonds tied them to their masters for a year, whether conditions suited or not, and they often found themselves in poor accommodation, unable to move because of the bond. This led to a largely itinerant life with no opportunity to put down roots in any particular location.

Until 1872 all the miners of Northumberland Cumberland and Durham were employed under the Bond system. This meant they contracted their lives away each year (or each month from 1844 to 1864) to a master. In return they received a bounty usually 2s 6d, (12.5p) to start work. Under the bond they were tied to a colliery continuously for a whole year. The system was a kind of legalised temporary serfdom. The miner however had no right to any work, but if he broke the bond then he was liable to arrest, trial and if convicted blacklisting, imprisonment or even transportation.

After 1809 the annual Bond was usually entered into on/about 5 April each year. The first few to sign up were given extra money, which was usually enough incentive to cause a stampede among the poverty-stricken workforce to make their mark. From 1809 to 1844 and later from 1864 to 1872 the only time a miner could lawfully move from bad working conditions or insanitary lodging to hopefully more salubrious ones with a better master was at the time of the bond, i.e. April.

Anything up to a quarter of the mining population of the three counties went on the march to a new start, a new life, elsewhere.

Thousands of families took to the road every April from 1809-1844 and 1864-72 with all of their humble belongings on a hired flat-cart, with or without a pony.

Tony Whitehead (1997) Lest we Forget – The Miners’ Bond

The English Family

This constant movement of miners makes it extremely hard to trace mining ancestors. If we begin by looking at WILLIAM’S forebears, and go back to his paternal great grandfather’s (GGF) illegitimate baptism in 1795 in Auckland St Andrew, we can plot the movement the family made from the 1810s. After 1809 the annual bond was usually entered into on/about 5 April. From his marriage in 1815 to Mary Turner, GGF William English was in the Tanfield area at Stanley and Kiphill until the birth of his first daughter in 1823, where we find him in Houghton Le Spring. More children are born between 1823 and 1834 when the family are found back in Auckland where the seventh son is baptised. At the 1841 census, they are living in Joint Stock Colliery Houses, Kelloe, Easington Hundred.

By 1851 GGF William English was living at 131 Corbridge Road, Tow Law, but by the 1861 census he’s moved again to 115 Long Row, Byers Green, Newfield, Bishops Auckland. His death is registered in the second quarter of 1863 at Weardale, Durham.

The Lawson Family

WILLIAM’S maternal grandfather John Lawson, was also a coal miner and subject to the same Bond restrictions as William English. I have been unable to find the marriage to his wife Rachael which was about 1812 and know nothing more about her except she came from Belfast as shown in the 1851 census.

His first two children were born in Fatfield, Chester Le Street and then a son was born in Sedgefield. By 1824 with the birth of another daughter, he is in Houghton Le Spring and he remains there until at least 1832, registering the birth of two more sons and another daughter.

In the 1841 Census he is recorded as a coal miner at East Hetton, Coxhoe

and in the 1851 Census he is living at the same address. Perhaps he worked for a good master with decent lodgings because he seems to have a stable family life and is certainly not moving about as many miners are known to have done.

The Wallace Family

By comparing the English family with the Lawsons it is immediately obvious that whilst the English were often on the move, the Lawsons appear settled, putting down roots in Ryton, from William Lawson’s marriage to Sarah Wallace in 1850. Ryton and in particular Emmaville continued to be the family home until well after WILLIAM had left for South Africa in the late 1890s. What created this stability at a time when most miners were on the move? It seems likely that at the time of her marriage to William Lawson, Sarah’s parents Philip and Margaret Wallace made the journey south to Ryton and simply stayed. On the 1841 Census Philip was a publican in Ford, Northumberland. In the 1851 Census however he is living in Ryton as a carter and the young couple are living with him.

As a carter, rather than a miner, Philip would have been free of the Bond, which at this time (1844-64) was monthly, and could have offered stability to his family. He did not return north but remained in Greenside Ryton until his death in 1867. His wife Margaret continued to live in Greenside. After Philip’s death she became a keeper of a lodging house and at the 1871 Census had two tenants in the Greenside house. Margaret died in the second quarter of 1879 aged 83, in Greenside, Ryton.

Emmaville

Her daughter Sarah was still living in the neighbourhood with her husband William Lawson and their children. The first mention of Emmaville appears on the 1861 Census . And by 1871 the address is given as 23 Emmaville Cottages, Ryton. This address recurs until her death in 1893. William is found on the 1901 census at Miners Cottages Home, also in Ryton. 

William Lawson and Sarah Wallace married on 20 July 1850 and had a settled life in Greenside and Emmaville, Ryton, bringing up their children there for over 40 years.

On the move

Five months earlier on 2 February 1850 Thomas English married Ann Ridley.

Both Thomas and Ann make their mark. Ann must have been heavily pregnant which perhaps accounts for the Register Office wedding rather than the church. Their first son William was born two months later in April 1850.

Although both William Lawson and Thomas English, both miners, were baptised in Houghton Le Spring and maybe even knew each other, they had very different lives.

A year after the birth of their son William, Thomas and Ann English are living with Thomas’s older brother John, (born 1816, so 12 years older than Thomas) and himself married with a year-old son, in Tow Law as shown in the 1851 Census . Two more sons are born. George, baptised 31 October 1851 in Thornley and Henry, WILLIAM’S father born in Durham in 1854.

By the time of the birth of their daughter, Margaret, in the final quarter of 1858 the family had moved to Tanfield and at the 1861 Census are at the Isle of Man colliery, Isle of Man, Tanfield. This colliery was once near the hamlet of Stanley but now is almost in the centre of town. Although the name has disappeared, local street names Peel, Ramsey and Douglas are good indications of where Isle of Man was. The street names are clear on maps from the 1950’s but have since disappeared, subsumed by the new Civic Centre. We know Thomas and Ann were in this location until the third quarter of 1861 for the birth of their daughter Mary Jane, but by the birth of their next child they were on the move again, this time to Hexham where their fourth son Ridley was born in 1866. Their address given for his birth on the 1871 census is given as Hawsley but this is more likely to have been Horsley, a village one mile north west of Wylam, mis-recorded by the enumerator.

In 1869 they are on the move again. In the fourth quarter of 1869 a daughter Dorothy’s birth is recorded at Tyneside, but the 1871 census records she was born at New Delaval. Their address for the 1871 Census is 10b Double Row, Horton Woodhorn, Northumberland.

In 1872 the Miners’ Bonds are abolished.

On the 1881 Census day, 3 April, the family is living at Togston, near Alnwick, Northumberland and Thomas is the manager of a coal mine, so has obviously benefited from not having to change pits so often. Here he must have thought he could begin to put down roots. Sometime between the 1881 census and that in 1891, however Thomas died. I’ve not yet been able to find his death – there are quite a few Thomas English’s in the area who are likely. By April 1891 census, Ann is a widow living at 101 and 103 Askew Road, Gateshead with two of her daughters who have set themselves up as fruiterers.

There is more detail regarding WILLIAM’S four grandparents and information from sources by clicking on the links below:

Thomas English 1827 – c1890

William Lawson 1827 – 1903

Ann English (nee Ridley) c1831 –

Sarah Lawson (nee Wallace) 1832 – 1893

Wylam

Henry, the third of Thomas and Ann’s sons was born in Tow Law in 1854. His son WILLIAM is the author of the Journal.

Let’s open it.

The first paragraph provides a basic family history and details of WILLIAM’S birth at Wylam in Northumberland on 29th December 1875.

He was the first child of Henry and Margaret English (née Lawson), married at St Mary the Virgin Anglican Church at Ovingham, the next village west of Wylam on 27 February 1875.

The Lawsons were a well established family in the Ryton area, first at Greenside from the early 1850s, then later at Emmaville, (first mentioned in 1861). It’s worth noting however that although Margaret’s father, William Lawson (1827-1903) was baptised on 3 June 1827 at Houghton le Spring, he tells census enumerators he was born at Wylam or Ovingham. Margaret was born in 1852 at Greenside and grew up there with her mother Sarah, her brothers William and Ralph and sisters Isabella, Jane and Elizabeth.

WILLIAM’S sister Sarah Ann was born three years later in 1878 in Wylam.

Margaret who was born in 1852 in Greenside and grew up there with her mother Sarah, her brothers William and Ralph and sisters Isabella, Jane and Elizabeth.

There was no parish church at Wylam until St Oswin’s was built in 1886 by which time WILLIAM and his family had left the area. This explains why they married in Ovingham, but as to how the young couple came to be in the area of Wylam itself was something of a mystery. As we have seen, Miner’s Bonds had been abolished in 1872, so there was no reason for Henry to be tied to any one particular place, but his previous known address in the 1871 Census was at 10b Double Row, Horton Woodhorn with his parents, Thomas and Ann and siblings William, George, Margaret, Mary Jane, Ridley and Dorothy. The Woodhorn Museum and Heritage Centre provides great information about the social history of a mining village in Northumberland.

What made the family move to Wylam?

As we know, Margaret’s family was firmly established in Ryton, so it would have made more sense for them to marry and settle there. If we look at the wider English family however, we can see that George, Henry’s older brother (baptised 31 October 1854), married some months after Henry and just before WILLIAM’S birth in December 1875. We know that by the 1881 Census he was living in Wylam where he is named as a general labourer, although in 1871 at Horton Woodhorn both he and Henry are recorded as coal miners.

His wife, Isabella Watson, was the younger daughter of a policeman and although born in Wooler, had spent most of her youth with her sister Eleanor and brothers John, William and Andrew in the border country, Paston, Kirknewton, near Ford, Northumberland. By 1871 however, Eleanor Watson and her brothers and sisters had moved to West Wylam. We’ll probably never discover how George and Isabella or Henry and Margaret met, but Isabella’s presence in Wylam seems reason enough for George and Isabella to settle there and for his brother and wife to join them. It is also possible that Margaret, knowing that her father had been born in Wylam, perhaps felt a family connection to the place.

It’s strange however, that although at Number 61 on the Wylam 1881 Census schedule we find Henry, Margaret and their two children William and Sarah Ann, and at Number 89 George and Isabella appear, their daughter E Watson English is living with Eleanor Watson at Number 11 . Was she simply looking after the child or had she adopted her? She appears on the 1891 census with her parents and siblings, but I cannot find her birth.