Slate and the Penrhyn Strike

SLATE AND THE PENRHYN STRIKE

KEY STAGE 2

Where was the biggest handmade hole in the world in the 1800s? In north-west Wales, near Bethesda. This huge crater was made at the Penrhyn slate quarry by workers digging slate out of the ground. Slate is a type of rock. Because it can be split into smooth, ﬂat, thin sheets of stone, slate is excellent for making tiles for roofs. It is hard-wearing so it makes good ﬂoors too. In the nineteenth century it was an important material for buildings. It was made into many things, such as blackboards, pencils, work surfaces and gravestones.

Slate quarries in Caernarfonshire and Meirionnydd in north-west Wales were small businesses until Richard Pennant expanded the quarry at Penrhyn in the 1780s. He was made a nobleman, and known as Baron Penrhyn. In the nineteenth century the Penrhyn quarry was the most important slate quarry in the world. The Pennant family became extremely rich from selling the slate that was dug out by the men working in the slate quarry. In 1837 the Pennant family built a magniﬁcent home near Bangor, called Penrhyn Castle. Even Queen Victoria stayed there and a special bed was made for her out of slate.

Many people from other parts of Wales moved to north-west Wales to work in the quarries and on the new railways that were built to transport the slate. Many came to work in the seaports like Porthmadog that were made bigger in order to take the slate by sea all around Britain and to other countries. Places like Bethesda, Talysarn and Blaenau Ffestiniog grew much bigger. Places that had been hard to get to became easier to visit and tourists came to admire the scenery near Bangor and Llandudno. Money from the slate industry helped to develop holiday resorts along the coast of north Wales.

The Pennant family of Penrhyn built roads, schools, churches and houses for their workers. But work in the slate quarries was dangerous because workers had to break lumps of slate away from huge cliffs of rock. The men were exposed to the weather and worked very long hours. Instead of complaining one by one they got together in a group called a trade union to make their protests more effective. But the man who was Lord Penrhyn at this time refused to pay attention to the trade union. To show how unhappy they were with their conditions, the workers went on strike. This meant they stopped work. When this happened Lord Penrhyn had no slate to sell. The strikers hoped this would force him to raise their wages. Then the workers would start working again and Lord Penrhyn could continue making money.

There were several strikes in north Wales in the 1870s and 1890s but in 1900 a strike began that became known as ‘The Great Strike’. It was one of the longest and most bitter industrial disputes in British history.

Usually, in a strike, the workers and the employer, sooner or later, have to bargain to ﬁnd a solution to the disagreement. But in The Great Strike there was little give and take. The

© Crown Copyright 2012 1/2 SLATE AND THE PENRHYN STRIKE quarrymen stopped work for 3 years and 7 months. They earned no wages and life was very hard for them. Lord Penrhyn tempted some men back to work by offering money or housing. The anger between those who stayed on strike and those who went back to work made many communities unhappy for a long time. In the end the strikers had to give up and go back to work. But Lord Penrhyn did not win either because the customers who used to buy his slate had gone to other suppliers during the strike and also the demand for slate was falling. Many workers had to leave to ﬁnd work somewhere else. Industry and business in north-west Wales was badly affected.