Reports

South Tyneside Meeting - March 2005 "Coal, Steel and Ships, the Jobs we have Lost" by David Bell A Report by Margaret Stafford

David Bell entertained us tonight- a Jarrow lad, he was virtually on home ground and sadly the written word cannot reproduce the rich dialect and strong voice but I`ll try and give you a flavour of this evening's entertainment.

His topic was "coal, steel and ships, the jobs we have lost". Coal was the life blood of the region in the pre Industrial Revolution period. Before the railways, coal was transported on waggonways-initially on wooden tracks and then on steel. A chauldron held 2 and a half tons of coal-1 can still be seen at Causey Arch. Each was hauled back up the waggonway by a horse-the inspiration for the song "Clap your hands for daddy".

The coal was loaded onto flat bottom barges-keels. In 1800 Newcastle out of a population of 30,000 there were 1500 keel families-many who have origins in the North east will have keel families in their antecedents. Men and women worked the keels-keel bullies and keel dotters.

A keel could hold 8 chauldrons and would then run down to the mouth of the Tyne where the bigger ships waited-too big to risk the silted river. Up to about 1820 it was possible to walk across the Tyne at low tide. Most of the coal was bound for London where it was known as sea coal-not the black dust we all remember from our local beaches but a reference to its arrival by sea.

The keel men were generally ruffians-David felt he could say that as he is a direct descendant ! For them a booze up was a spree and such events spawned many local songs. The versions we know today have been cleaned up-Catcheside Warrington for example took many local songs and made them fit for the audience in the local music hall.

South Shields had one of the oldest music halls in the world-in Wapping Street, where the seamanship centre is now-run by "catgut Jim".

When the keel men were on a spree they had keel bards with them who entertained with pipe or fiddle-one of the most famous being Blind Willie Purvis-we owe a debt to him for the survival of many of the old songs including "Dance to your Daddy". He may not have written them but he kept them alive before his own death in 1832.

The coming of the railways led to the demise of the waggonways and also brought another "invasion"-the Irish-apparently Jarrow was "green" (Catholic) and Hebburn "orange" (Protestant) and David recalled as a child hiding behind the shipyard walls as the Orange Parade went past and throwing stones to try and knock off the bowler hats. Again many Northeasterners will have Irish blood.

The Irish brought with them another tradition of singing including "working on the railway". The coming of the railway meant coal could be transported so much quicker but the coal fields of the north east suffered because of the distance from London as Nottinghamshire and the Midlands prospered.

Then along came a man of vision Charles Palmer-known as Charlie to his workers apparently ! He leased a piece of land at Jarrow which had belonged to Simon Temple who had built frigates for the navy for the Napoleonic Wars (and after whom Temple park is named).

Charlie was born in King Street South Shields in 1822, his father having been a shipmaster on the Baltic timber routes. Charlie was sent to the finest education establishment locally-Dr Bruce`s Academy in Newcastle. It was here he was able to (in modern parlance) network and make acquaintances which would serve him well in the future. He then studied business methods in Marseilles.

Palmer and his brother George built steam colliers-iron ships with screw propellers-many felt they would sink after launch . In 1852 the John Bowes was built-with sails as an economy measure and also to reflect the superstition surrounding such a departure from tradition-could these ships succeed ? The ship cost £10,000 at a time when the average collier cost £800-£1,000. It was named after a local pitowner who built the Bowes Museum and who had also frequented Dr Bruce`s Academy.

The ship made its money back within a year and in that time Palmers' had built 18 more. They carried 3 times as much coal and whereas a collier brig had taken up to a month to get to London and back, the steam colliers could do the trip in 5 days. So of course a lot of collier brig owners went out of business. Incidentally for those who are local there is a model of the John Bowes in the museum at South Shields.

Jarrow became a boom town but also virtually a company town as Palmer built houses, hostels and started a building society. Having been let down once by a supplier which cost him an Admiralty contract Palmer also expanded his shipyard to enable him to be self reliant -he shipped iron ore from the Cleveland Hills via Port Mulgrave (between Redcar and Whitby) to the yard where it could be smelted and used to build the ships which carried the coal which fuelled the transport to bring th e iron ore.

He was employing 6,000 men within 10 years and his success and the founding of the Tyne Improvement Commission in the same year the John Bowes was launched led to the demise of the keelmen-many of whom found jobs working on the dredging of the river.

Sir Charles died in 1906 and the yard began to decline after World War 1. By the 1930s there was a worldwide glut of shipyards and the National Shipbuilder`s Security Company was formed to buy up and close shipyards. Palmer's was one of its first purchases. There was a condition that the yard must be demolished and not used for shipbuilding but Sir John Jarvis bought the yard and used it for shipbreaking-creating jobs but they were backbreaking and not well paid-£2 2s for 48 hours with a bonus of 2 packets of Epsom Salts for the acetylene cutters !

One of the jobs was to break up the Olympic, the sister ship of the Titanic. Some of the panelling can be seen at the White Swan at Alnwick. One of the men who worked on the job is still alive with tales to tell. It is alleged many folk who paid their shilling to view the sale catalogue left with bits of the ship and they can be seen at various points in the area.

One man apparently used the tiles to build a swimming pool in his back garden but after the story came out someone came along and dug up his garden and stole the lot- so our lips are sealed!

All in all we enjoyed a fascinating mixture of song, poetry and local anecdotes.