Thomas Hepburn Miners Leader

Each day I pass Saint Mary’s churchyard at Heworth roundabout. I see the stone dedicated to those who lost their lives in the Felling Colliery disaster of 1812, entire familles from eight years of age. In that same cemetery lies the grave of Thomas Hepburn, who founded the Northern Union of Pitmen in 1831. His gravestone reads, "this stone was erected by the miners of Northumberland and Durham and other friends". It’s the ‘other friends’ that has such power.

Conditions in collieries in the nineteenth century were hard and a cursory glanceat colliery records reveals a frightening death toll. Jarrow’s Pit was no exception: January 25th. 1817, forty two men and boys killed and in a near duplication of events in August 1830, a further forty two lost their lives, leaving, on that occasion, twenty-one widows and sixty six fatherless children.

It is into this picture that the story of William Jobling must be seen. Mineworkers had to sign an annual contract known as a ‘bond’ which meant that they had to stay at a particular colliery for a year and a day. As most pitmen were illiterate they would make their ‘X’ on the bond and the viewer or manager of the colliery would add the mans’ name.

From the beginning of the nineteenth century, miners had voiced their dissatisfaction with the conditions of their bond and in 1810 they eventually went on strike. It was not, however, until the establishment of the Northern Union of Pitmen of Tyne and Wear, led by Thomas Hepburn, that any permanent union organisation existed.

Hepburn was a Wesleyan Methodist, as were most pitmen. He was also a lay preacher and could also read and write courtesy of the classes organised by the Methodist church. In April 1831, he led the pitmen in another strike. He wanted boys to work only a twelve hour day as they had been working sixteen hours. He also sought the abolition of the ‘Tommy Shop’ system. This was a system whereby pitmen were paid in ‘Tommy checks’, vouchers which could only be used in company stores at prices greatly unfavourable to the pitmen. Battles ensued between pitmen and the militia. Hepburn, at his meetings pleaded with his men to keep a peaceful strike. These meetings were held at Black Fell, Boldon Colliery and Friars Goose, Gateshead and on one occasion, twenty thousand pitmen met on Newcastle's Town Moor.The strike lasted until September 1831. Some concessions were gained: Hepburn was made a full-time official but there was still bitter opposition to the unions. In April 1832 there was another strike among pitmen of Northumberland and Durham, when the pitmen refused to sign there annual bonds. Once again there was violence. Cuthbert Skipsey, a miners’leader in North Shields was shot and killed by a constable. The judge recommended leniency and he was given a six month sentence with hard labour.

On June 11th., 1832 at 5.00 p.m. Jarrow pit men, Ralph Armstrong and William Jobling were drinking in Turners pub in South Shields. On the road near the toll-bar gate, near Jarrow slake Jobling begged from Nicholas Fairles, a seventy-one year old well known local magistrate. Fairles’ refused. Armstrong, who had followed Jobling, attacked Fairles with a stick and a stone. Both men ran away leaving Fairles’ seriously injured on the road.. Two hours later Jobling was arrested on South Shields beach where horse racing was taking place. Armstrong, an ex-seaman, apparently returned to sea.

After his arrest Jobling was taken to Fairles’ home and was identified as having been present but that he had not taken part in the assault. Jobling was returned to Durham Jail and when Fairles died of his injuries on June 21st, was charged with murder. Jobling was tried at Durham Assizes on Wednesday August 1st. The jury were fifteen minutes in reaching their verdict-guilty. Judge Parke in his summing up attacked the unions, "Combinations which are alike injurious to the public interest and to the interests of those persons concerned in them...I trust that death will deter them following your example". The sentence was that Jobling be publically executed and his body be hung from a gibbet erected in Jarrow Slake, near the scene of the attack.. The judge continued, "I trust that the sight of that will have some effect upon those, who are to a certain extent, your companions in guilt and your companions in these ‘illegal proceedings’ which have disgraced the county. May they take warning by your fate". Jobling was the last man gibbeted in the north.

Jobling was hung on August 3rd. Hepburn asked his men not to attend the hanging and held a meeting on Boldon Colliery. After Jobling was taken from the scaffold his clothes were removed and his body covered in pitch. He was then riveted into an iron cage, made of flat iron bars two and a half inches wide. His feet were placed in stirrups from which bars of iron went each side of his head and ended in a ring by which his cage was suspended. Jobling’s hands hung by his sides, and his head was covered with a white cloth. In a four wheeled wagon, drawn by two horses, on Monday August 6th, his body was taken to Jarrow Slake escorted by a troop of Hussars and two companies of Infantry. The gibbet was fixed upon a stone weighing one and half tons which was sunk into the slake, and the heavy wooden uprights were reinforced with steel bars to prevent it being sawn through. At high tide the water covered four to five feet of the gibbet leaving a further sixteen to seventeen feet visible.

Isabella, Jobling’s wife, had a cottage near the slake and would have been able to see her husband clearly for the three weeks he was displayed. On August 31st when the guard was removed Jobling’s friends stole the body. His whereabouts have never been discovered.

By September 1832 , the strike had petered out and the union was almost non-existent and did revive but not for some years and the annual bonds were not abolished until 1872.

When the union died, Hepburn tried to sell tea from door to door, but anyone buying from him risked losing his job. Eventually, starving, Hepburn went to Felling Colliery and asked for work. He was offered employment provided he had no further dealings with the unions. He conformed and devoted the remainder of his life to educating pitmen. In April 1891 Isabella Jobling went into South Shields Work House, and died there, too senile to recall her husband. Much of Jarrow’s slake has been reclaimed, Jarrow’s colliery closed in 1852 and now there is no indication of where it stood, two schools stand near its former site.