A comprehensive account of the everyday lives of the keelmen of Tyneside, and their struggles and industrial disputes. For hundreds of years the keelmen, the "keel lads o' coaly Tyne" celebrated in the north-east folk song "The Keel Row", ferried coal down-river to the estuary and cast it aboard ships bound for London or overseas. They were "the very sinews of the coal trade" on which the prosperity of the region depended. This book charts the history of the keelmen from the early seventeenth century to the point where technological advances made them redundant in thecourse of the nineteenth century. It describes how the importance of their work placed them in a strong position in industrial disputes, especially since they could shut off the coal supply to London. It examines their numerous turbulent battles with rapacious employers and unsympathetic magistrates (often themselves involved in the coal trade), their struggles against poverty and eventually against redundancy, and their attempts to gain redress in Parliament and in the law courts. The book also describes the squalid conditions in Sandgate where, as recounted in the folk song, many keelmen and their families lived with a reputation for independence and savage roughness but exhibited impressive solidarity both as an early industrial labour organisation and as a tightly-knit, mutually supportive, and highly self-reliant community. The book will be of interest to social and economic historians, labour historians, maritime historians and all interested in the history of the North East. JOSEPH M. FEWSTER was, until his retirement in 1997, Senior Assistant Keeper in Durham University Library.

The murkier side of eighteenth-century politics is vividly revealed in the letters edited here. In the mid-eighteenth century, the borough of Morpeth, in Northumberland, was one of many where established vested interests, whether corporate or aristocratic, faced challenges from below. The documents collected here illustratethe struggle between the "sons of liberty" fighting to restore the freemen's "independence", and the earl of Carlisle, striving to maintain his control of the representation. Over two hundred letters reveal secret deals, rioting pitmen, electoral gerrymandering, and legal chicanery, providing fascinating insights to further our understanding of late eighteenth-century politics. A full introduction puts the letters into their local and national context, andthey are accompanied by elucidatory notes.

Edition, with full notes and introduction, of documents fundamental for our understanding of a major group of workers. "There is in Newcastle upon Tyne of keelmen, watermen, and other labourers, above 1800 able men, the most of them being Scottish men and Borderers which came out of the Tynedale and Reddesdale." Thus begins a report of 1638 lamenting yet another "strike", which opens this volume. For hundreds of years, the coal of the north-east of England was transported down the River Tyne by keels - shallow-drafted barges, with a large sail, and a single giant oar. The work of manning such vessels from the point at which coal reached the river, to where the crew of the keel loaded it into sea-going ships bound for the east coast, for London, and further afield, was hazardous, unpleasant, very physically demanding, yet poorly rewarded. The struggles of the keelmen to improve their lot, retain their livelihoods, and maintain themselves and their families in sickness and old age gained them a reputation as unruly, even dangerous. Yet they also demonstrated a close working solidarity years before trade unionism was established, as well as providing independent charitable support for themselves. This volume brings together much varied primary source material relating to the keelmen from many local and national archives. Letters from the city of Newcastle's local authorities to Cabinet Ministers from Robert Harley, through the duke of Newcastle, to Robert Peel, complaining of the keelmen's behaviour, and demanding government support in dealing with them, are a constant theme. But the keelmen also had their supporters, including the writer Daniel Defoe. Covering over 200 years of keelmen's activity, the volume covers strikes, riots, prosecutions (of rioting keelmen but also those who proclaimed "Bonnie" Prince Charles king of England in 1750), impressment by the Navy - keelmen were in high demand - and the efforts to establish charitable foundations for the men and their families, concluding with the decay of their "hospital" in 1852. A full introduction to the volume sets all these documents in the context of their times.