March 8, 1856 — Dinner for Pitmen, Britannia Iron Works, Chilton Moor, England

My friends,

I have invited you all to dinner today that we may become better acquainted — that you may hear from my own lips an assurance of the deep interest I feel in your welfare and that I may have an opportunity of expressing the pride and satisfaction I have in presiding over so large a body of intelligent and well-conducted people. I have asked all in my employ to participate in this feast and I bid you all a friendly welcome.

But I address myself principally to the pitmen, many of whose fathers worked under my ancestors. It is pleasing to trace back this bond of union which I fondly hope may be extended to the next generation and that their children may continue to serve under mine. I regret that since the management of these great concerns has devolved on me, I have not had health of strength to visit you underground as I could have wished. Indeed I have never been able to persuade Mr Elliott to promise to take me down and I am afraid I should hardly succeed in finding my way alone.

But I hope, nevertheless, I may be permitted to say, without vanity or presumption, that no collieries are more carefully looked after. Your comforts, your homes, and your schools have been anxiously watched over. The latter have long enjoyed a proud pre-eminence; and although I have refused to place them under government inspection and supervision, I know that they are well managed and it is your own fault if you take your children away too soon and thus deprive them of the benefit of the good education that is provided for them.

You well know how necessary that is for success in after life. We need not travel beyond the precincts of this building for instances of persons who have been the architects of their own fortune. It is the pride and boast of your head viewer that he was reared and nursed a boy in these pits and it must be encouraging to look around this great mining county and see many instances of men who have won their way to wealth and fame by labour and perseverance.

On the other hand, I am proud to say you have set an example to the whole trade. You were the first to return to the old-fashioned system of “binding” and you have worked on steadily when the men in adjoining collieries were on strike. You have seen them turned out of their homes, their furniture lying in the road, and they and their belongings seeking shelter, while you have been comfortable by your blazing hearths, in your peaceful homes, enjoying the reward of honest industry. Long may this happy state continue and may you ever feel how much your interests are entwined with those of your employer.

It is a subject to great thankfulness that these collieries have been for some time spared and exempt from any serious accident. Casualties will sometimes occur, notwithstanding all the precautions and vigilance of your overmen and your viewers; and here let me endeavour to impress strongly upon your minds how much depends on your own prudence and care.

I would I could find words, or had eloquence, to make this warning emphatic, for I regret to say the reports I receive of recklessness fill me with pain and alarm and I know that Mr Elliott has lately had occasion to visit most severely some fearful instances of negligence with the safety lamps that might have caused the most terrific results.

You see that, although I have not been down, I am well informed of what passes below. You are all aware of the circumstances I allude to and that these careless people have been punished — some by law, some by dismissal.

Let me implore and beseech you to be careful and watchful. Remember, each of you, that not only your own life, but those of hundreds, hang on a thread — the gauze of your lamps, the shutting or opening a door — and while you ask for God’s blessing on your undertakings, fail not to do all in your humble power to deserve it.

I advise you to frequent and support your Reading Rooms, your Mechanics’ Institutes, your Temperance Societies, to avoid the public house, to be orderly, industrious and religious.

“I speak not of men’s creeds — they rest between Man and his Maker.” Nor do I presume My friends,

I have invited you all to dinner today that we may become better acquainted — that you may hear from my own lips an assurance of the deep interest I feel in your welfare and that I may have an opportunity of expressing the pride and satisfaction I have in presiding over so large a body of intelligent and well-conducted people.

I have asked all in my employ to participate in this feast and I bid you all a friendly welcome. But I address myself principally to the pitmen, many of whose fathers worked under my ancestors.

It is pleasing to trace back this bond of union which I fondly hope may be extended to the next generation and that their children may continue to serve under mine.

I regret that since the management of these great concerns has devolved on me, I have not had health of strength to visit you underground as I could have wished. Indeed I have never been able to persuade Mr Elliott to promise to take me down and I am afraid I should hardly succeed in finding my way alone.

But I hope, nevertheless, I may be permitted to say, without vanity or presumption, that no collieries are more carefully looked after. Your comforts, your homes, and your schools have been anxiously watched over. The latter have long enjoyed a proud pre-eminence; and although I have refused to place them under government inspection and supervision, I know that they are well managed and it is your own fault if you take your children away too soon and thus deprive them of the benefit of the good education that is provided for them. You well know how necessary that is for success in after life.

We need not travel beyond the precincts of this building for instances of persons who have been the architects of their own fortune. It is the pride and boast of your head viewer that he was reared and nursed a boy in these pits and it must be encouraging to look around this great mining county and see many instances of men who have won their way to wealth and fame by labour and perseverance.

On the other hand, I am proud to say you have set an example to the whole trade. You were the first to return to the old-fashioned system of “binding” and you have worked on steadily when the men in adjoining collieries were on strike. You have seen to dictate on this momentous subject, beyond expressing my anxious hope that you will hallow the Sabbath and each attend your own place of worship.

That duty paid, you will better enjoy the rest and recreation which a Sunday afternoon should bring for yourselves and your families.

As a friend of religious liberty, I have not refused sites for chapels of different persuasions where the numbers have justified my doing so and I hope in a few months the church at New Seaham will be finished and available for the mining population settling there.

I wish you were nearer to Wynyard, which was lately visited by 600 members of the Stockton Mechanics’ Institute who applied to me for permission to see the house. They expressed themselves as much gratified and were most orderly, quiet, respectable and well-conducted.

And now, my friends, I will not detain you longer than to tell you how much pleasure it has given me to see you all here and to express my hope that you will remember and heed my words.

I feel deeply the responsibility of my position and have thought it right to advise and counsel you to the best of my humble power and I hope that while I am permitted to preside over you, we may each, individually and collectively, continue to do our duty in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call us.

Source: Newcastle Journal, 15 March 1856.