Norman Dunn's 'Hebburn and our Neighbours Forum'

Norman Dunn's 'Hebburn and our Neighbours Forum'
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Hebburn miners riots 1893

Posted by Brian on 24/3/2026, 7:05 pm

I came across this today . I'd never heard of the riots, up to 6000 miners clashed with both the police and the military trying to stop coal being moved.
Apart from odd reports online there seems to be very little about this.

Re: Hebburn miners riots 1893

Posted by Norman Dunn on 24/3/2026, 7:49 pm, in reply to "Hebburn miners riots 1893"

Times were tough in those days & all the hard working Striking Miner wanted was decent conditions & a wage they could live off hence the Strike.They even got paid with Tokens to spend in the Mine Owners shops which was disgraceful. But as can be seen they were classed as a MOB and ROUGHS while the wealthy owners lived like Millionaires protected by the Police.
Mr JS Roy kindly gave free breakfasts to the hungry Miners children in the Weslyan School rooms .

Re: Hebburn miners riots 1893

Posted by Malcolm on 24/3/2026, 7:55 pm, in reply to "Re: Hebburn miners riots 1893"

That's a great picture....and Hebburn "near Durham"? Somebody must have moved Hebburn, or Durham!
That's worthy of a bit of research...

Re: Hebburn miners riots 1893

Posted by Brian on 24/3/2026, 10:13 pm, in reply to "Re: Hebburn miners riots 1893"

Not just the Police Norman but the military too were turned out against the miners. Almost everything was linked to the mine. The company stores, the housing. If sacked you had no housing and no money as the majority of wages were paid in company tokens. In the North East one of the biggest mine owning families was the Bowes-Lyons the Queen Mothers family.

Re: Hebburn miners riots 1893 - Brian

Posted by Liz Dance on 25/3/2026, 8:33 am, in reply to "Re: Hebburn miners riots 1893"

Brian, you are correct about the Bowles- Lyons family, my late dad never ever forgot about that, whilst he was a Royalist, not a miner, he never ever liked the Queen Mother because of her family link to the mines treatment in days gone by.

Re: Hebburn miners riots 1893 - Brian

Posted by Malcolm on 25/3/2026, 9:15 am, in reply to "Re: Hebburn miners riots 1893 - Brian"

I recall my Dad saying that one of the railway lines that ran through Jarrow, past the end of Beech Street was known as the Pontop Line, or Bowes-Lyon line.
A snippet of family history: my grandad retired from the railway (he was a driver) but used to visit the signal box there, taking a mash-can & scones, to chat with old mates.
One day, as he exited the box, he was run over by a shunter, lost both legs, & died. That was in 1935.
By a strange twist of fate, his wifes' sister suffered exactly the same fate, in about 1910, she had been scavaging for coal that had fallen from wagons, near the rails. The wagons were being shunted, she slipped under the wheels, both legs fatally crushed!

Re: Hebburn miners riots 1893 - Brian

Posted by Mac Hardy on 25/3/2026, 9:40 am, in reply to "Re: Hebburn miners riots 1893 - Brian"

And we think we have it hard ? Must have been desperate in those days !

Re: Hebburn miners riots 1893 - Brian

Posted by Norman on 25/3/2026, 9:53 am, in reply to "Re: Hebburn miners riots 1893 - Brian"

What a terrible thing to hear Malcolm. How sad.

Can you remember the coal Lines that came down from the coke ovens and passed Monkton Village & then passed the slag heap, the Tube Works & Jarrow Park then on to the Staiths?
That was the Pontop Line & the trucks all had the word BOWES on them.The photo shows the lines mentioned.
A Hebburn Lad called Rob Jameson lost his leg when he fell trying to get on the moving trucks along with his mates. A lad called Winlow also lost a limb (not sure if it was an arm).

Re: Hebburn miners riots 1893

Posted by Liz Dance on 25/3/2026, 10:01 am, in reply to "Re: Hebburn miners riots 1893 - Brian"

We used to call the coal wagons the dilly wagons, they used to pass by the top of South Parade and Coxon Street in Bill Quay going down to the river with coal, it was a known thing that people who lived those streets ‘raided’ to wagons at night, funny thing was there was a Police House at the top of South Parade, strange the policeman who live£ there, I forget his name, never seemed to notice what was going on!!

Malcolm, that is a really sad story.

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