Iron Awe: Demonstration day

Tuesday, 2 August 2011

The Cleveland Ironstone Mining Family of Kate Middleton (Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge)

At the wedding of Prince William & Kate Middleton on the 29 April 2011, much was made of the fact that one of Kate’s Great-Great-Grandfathers was a coal miner from Durham, there was no mention of Kate’s ironstone mining heritage. Below is a part of Kate's mother’s side of her family tree, surprisingly it shows a Middleton.

There were over eighty ironstone mines in Cleveland, the first one opened in 1847 and the last one closed in 1964; there were several mines in Brotton, and several more five miles away in Guisborough. Brotton ironstone miners organised the first union in 1872 and the same year the first Demonstration day or gala was held at Skelton, halfway between Brotton and Guisborough. Kate’s Great-Great-Grandfather Thomas Temple was an ironstone miner in 1871 and was living in Brotton in 1874, he would have been a member of the union and attended several of the yearly Demonstration days.

On a personal note, my great grandfather William Lawson, an ironstone miner, married Mary Robinson on Christmas day 1875 at Brotton Parish Church, a year after ironstone miner Joseph Temple’s Daughter Elisabeth was born in Brotton.

Sunday, 21 June 2009

Demonstration Day

In 1847 ironstone was discovered in Cleveland, and men came to work in the mines from all over Britain. Because of their different accents and cultures many of the men didn't get on, they found it difficult to unite and ask the mine owners for better conditions. In 1872, with the help of Joseph Shepherd, the men started the Cleveland Ironstone Miners Union and held their first Demonstration (gala) day, on the first of May that year. In 2004 a group of volunteers, including 350 children and young people from the Loftus area, made a film about events leading up to, and including the Cleveland ironstone miners first Demonstration Day.
Hummersea - Loftus Juniors - St. Josephs - Whitecliffe - Schools
Freebrough College (Rosecroft) - Banners
Lockwood Primary School - Sword Dancing
Neil Scarth - Ben Moore - Film Makers
Mick Benson - Volunteer Storyteller - Executive Producer

Eighty photographs and music from the film.
(1) Cleveland Iron By Jez Lowe.
(2) The Lord Is My Shepherd by Cleveland Police Brass Band.
(3) Sixteen Tons by Radical Mass and Frigile Minds.

Heartbreak Hill

In 1932, when the unemployment rate in East Cleveland was over 90%, James and Ruth Pennyman of Ormesby Hall near Middlesbrough gave land to out of work ironstone miners, one of these plots of rough land was close to Boosbeck and was nicknamed Heartbreak Hill. A friend of theirs, Rolf Gardinar, suggested a collective land scheme instead of allotments; similar to the one he had set up in Dorset, they also invited German and Scandinavian students to take part. The miners and students worked together to clear the land and joined together in cultural activities - music, dancing and educational talks, a young Michael Tippett became involved and wrote a balled opera called Robin Hood, this was performed in 1934 in the Boosbeck church hall.