Industrialising Communities: A Case Study of Elsecar Circa 1750-1870 by Nigel Andrew Cavanagh A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Sheffield Faculty of Arts and Humanities Department of History March 2017 Abstract This thesis takes as its subject the village of Elsecar in Yorkshire. In the period circa 1750-1870 this small rural hamlet was developed by the local landowners, the Earls Fitzwilliam, into a thriving industrial village, with an economy based on the twin industries of coal-mining and iron-smelting. As a well-documented example of a rural/industrial complex, Elsecar offers the historian the opportunity to view in microcosm the processes of social and economic change as a consequence of industrialisation, issues of national significance in the context of late eighteenth and nineteenth century social history. Using the records of the Earls Fitzwilliam as its main research material, this thesis examines the social and economic aspects of industrialisation as they affected the village and, in particular, the ways in which they influenced the development of a specific village community during this period. In so doing, the thesis engages with ideas of social cohesion, identity, class, gender and their relationships to structures of power, authority and the environment. These issues illuminate the central themes of the thesis, which are the relationship between structures of authority, the agency of the villagers and the physical environment in creating the idea of community. In examining these issues, this thesis argues that community is a form of site-specific social identity, and that the development of the industrial community of Elsecar in the period 1750-1870 is the story of the emergence of a powerful sense of place and identity, rooted in the particular collective histories and experiences of the villagers. Acknowledgements My love and thanks are due, first and last and always, to my wonderful wife Amanda, for indefatigable love, tolerance, enthusiasm and support over the last four years and for her amazing proof-reading abilities. I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Karen Harvey, for her help, guidance, criticism and advice throughout my PhD studentship and also my secondary supervisor, Dr. Robert Shoemaker, for his cogent help and advice. Thanks are also due in large measure to my collaborative partner, Dr. John Tanner of Barnsley Museums Trust, for his friendship and his enthusiasm for both Elsecar and my work. I would also like to thank again Professor Sarah Foot, Dr. David Crossley and Dr. Marilyn Palmer, all of whom went beyond the call of duty in encouraging and supporting my PhD studentship application. Thanks are due to the staff and students of the Department of History at The University of Sheffield for making my studentship such a rewarding and enriching experience and particularly to my fellow PhD students, Laura Bracey, Nicola Walker, Kate Davison and Elizabeth Goodwin, for their friendship, support, advice and discussion. I would also like to thank the many students, academics and conference delegates that I have met and had fruitful discussions with over the last four years. In a practical sense, I would like to thank the staff of the Western Bank Library at The University of Sheffield, Sheffield Local Studies Library, Sheffield Archives, Barnsley Discovery Centre, Wakefield Archives and Rotherham Archives for their help and support in accessing documents and materials. Similarly, the staff of Barnsley Museums Trust have been universally friendly and enthusiastic and it has been a pleasure to work with them. I would also like to thank Amy Ryall, Dr. Suzanne Lilley and Dr. Charlotte Newman of TAG 2015, Dr. Diana Newton of Teesside University, Alex Hitchen of the Sheffield Early Modern Studies Group and the members of the Sheffield University 19th Century Studies Group, for giving me the opportunity to air my ideas in public on various occasions. Finally, thanks are due to my friends and family for their understanding and patience over the last four years, including Mark Bailey and Mike Briggs, and my Elsecar friends Christine Cameron, Glen Shephard, Callum Tart, Chris Jones, Steve Grudgings and the members of the Friends of Hemingfield Colliery. Finally, love and thanks go to my dad, Dr. Eric Joseph Cavanagh, for his support and for urging me to do a PhD in the first place. This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my mum, Betty Ripley Cavanagh (1929-2009). She would have been proud. Industrialising Communities: A Case Study of Elsecar Circa 1750-1870 Contents Introduction 1 The Village of Elsecar 1 The Changing Village 3 Elsecar: Previous Research 8 Aristocratic Enterprises 16 Paternalism 20 Community 23 Identity and Class 27 The Environment: Space and Place 35 The Collaborative Doctoral Award, the Sources and the Scope of the Project 47 Research Aims 49 Chapter One: Authority and Lordship at Elsecar, 1750-1870 58 Introduction 58 The Earls and Paternalism 59 The Sources 63 The Nature of the Earls' Authority 65 The Paternal Gaze 70 The Role of the Stewards 74 Negotiating Authority: Petitions for Help 84 Conclusion 95 Chapter Two: Welfare Provision: Alternatives to the Fitzwilliam Paternalist Model 98 Introduction 98 The Role of the Parish Authorities 100 The Poor Law: Historiography 101 The Sources 105 The Committee 109 The Petitioners 113 The Relationship Between the Poor Law Authorities and the Earls Fitzwilliam 118 Options of the Poor 121 Magor Cusworth's Gathering and the Simon Wood Colliery Accident Fund 127 Conclusion 134 Chapter Three: The World of Work 136 Introduction 136 The Sources 139 Women's Employment 141 Evidence for Women's Employment: The Census Data 144 Other Evidence for Women's Employment 150 The Mining and Industrial-related Employment of Women 155 Economic Exclusion and Gender 164 Male Employment 168 Conclusion 177 Chapter Four: Kinship, Conviviality, Gender and Conflict 180 Introduction 180 The Sources 182 Family Composition and Extended Families 185 Outside the Home: Drink and Sociability 196 Working-class Masculinity and Conflict 205 Women, Conflicts and Disputes 219 Conclusion 226 Chapter Five: Space and Environment 229 Introduction 229 The Spaces of the Changing Village 230 Domestic Space? Elsecar Workers' Housing 242 The Landscape of Danger 252 Gendered Space? 260 Conclusion 266 Chapter Six: A Sense of Place? Respectability and Protest in Elsecar Circa 1830-1870 269 Introduction 269 The Respectable Village 271 Rational Recreations 279 A Village United? Benjamin Biram's Farewell Presentation 289 Place, Identity and the 1858 Coal Strike 296 The 1858 Strike 301 Conclusion 309 Conclusion 312 Introduction 312 The Past in the Present?: Elsecar, Heritage, Public History and Collaboration 322 Bibliography 336 Unpublished Primary Sources 336 Printed Primary Sources: Miscellaneous 337 Printed Primary Sources: Newspapers and Magazine Articles 338 Secondary Sources: Books 339 Secondary Sources: Articles 343 Unpublished Secondary Sources 354 Internet Sources 355 Appendix 1: Tables Relating to the Hoyland Poor Law Committee 356 Appendix 2: Tables Relating to Employment in Elsecar, 1841-1861 361 List of Figures Figure 1.1: Location Map of Elsecar (extract, not to scale). 3 Figure 5.1: William Fairbanks Jnr, 'A Map of the Collieries at Elsicar [sic]', 1757 (extract, not to scale). 232 Figure 5.2: Fairbanks' Survey Book, 1757 (extract, not to scale). 233 Figure 5.3: Fairbanks' Map of Hoyland, 1771 (extract, not to scale). 234 Figure 5.4: Map of Nether Hoyland Parish, 1818 (extract, not to scale). 235 Figure 5.5: Map of Elsecar, 1814. 237 Figure 5.6: Ordnance Survey First Edition 6" County Series Map, Yorkshire Sheet 283, 1855 (extract, not to scale). 238 Fig. 5.7: The Planned Industrial Village: Plan of Saltaire, circa 1870 240 Figure 5.8: Map of Elsecar, 1859 (not to scale). 242 List of Tables Table 2.1: List of Hoyland Parish Officials and Committee Members, 1818-1848. 356 Table 2.2: List of Decisions Recorded in the Hoyland Poor Law Committee Minute Book, 1838-1848. 358 Table 3.1: Female Employment in Elsecar, 1841. 361 Table 3.2: Female Employment in Elsecar, 1851. 361 Table 3.3 Female Employment in Elsecar, 1861. 362 Table 3.4: Male Employment in Elsecar, 1841. 363 Table 3.5: Male Employment in Elsecar, 1851. 364 Table 3.6: Male Employment in Elsecar, 1861. 365 Table 3.7: Birthplace of Miners Living in Elsecar, 1851. 366 Table 5.1: Occupants of Old Row, Elsecar, 1841. 252 1 Industrialising Communities: A Case Study of Elsecar Circa 1750-1870 Nigel Andrew Cavanagh Introduction The Village of Elsecar During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the small hamlet of Elsecar became the focus of a sustained programme of industrial development. By 1870 it had grown into a sizeable village that contained collieries, an engineering works, two extensive ironworks, a canal, extensive railway communications and other ancillary industrial concerns, such as coke ovens. This industrial development was complemented by an expansion of the village infrastructure and amenities, which by 1870 included terraces of workers' houses, public houses, purpose-built retail shops, schools, a church, a miners' lodging house, a public reading room and a market place. Although similar patterns of development and growth can be discerned in numerous communities throughout Yorkshire and the north-east of England, Elsecar was unusual in that its development was instigated, planned, controlled and financed by the local landowners, the second Marquis of Rockingham, and his successors, the 4th and 5th Earls Fitzwilliam. Under the control of this aristocratic dynasty, Elsecar became in effect a planned industrial settlement, numerous elements of which, such as the provision of planned workers' housing, presaged the development of mid-Victorian planned settlements such as Saltaire. The circumstances of Elsecar's development make it an important case study through which to consider the social impacts of industrialisation.