Description:One of the many treasures found in the Sutherland papers are a series of well thumbed time and wages books form the late 18th to the early 19th centuries. The books are roughly 7x6 inches, and give details of payments to workmen and women employed by various “Butties” in mines on land owned by the Duke of Sutherland.
These early books show names of coal mines situated in and around Longton now known as Normaccott, Meir Hay, Sandford Hill and Foley. On the first page of each book the writing is of a superior nature with names spelt correctly and headings clearly defined. The second and subsequent pages are written in a different hand, but on all of the pages the details of payments and profit are written by whoever wrote the first page.
One of the books we studied concerned Knowles Colliery which was being worked by Stokes and Co (the Butty). The daily wages paid varied from 2s 6d (13p) for the colliers down to as little as 5d (2.5p) to labourers. We found evidence of a woman working at this mine, her name was Hannah Moore. Hannah was paid 10d (5p) per day.
The workers normally worked six days per week. They were paid the same wage each day which tends to suggest that they achieved their contracted coal output. At the end of the week the agent acting on behalf of the Duke would pay Mr Stokes (the Butty) a certain amount for each ton brought to the surface. The agent would then reduce this figure to take account of various running costs.
The Butty would be charged for candles, wear and tear of tools and the cost in coal and etc for the running of the Gin Engine.
The remaining monies were then given to the Butty who would pay the workers. The difference between what the agent paid Stokes and what Stokes paid the workers was profit to Stokes. The books show that from time to time he made very little money, however there were occasions when he would make considerable amounts, indeed in one particular week we looked at, Stokes was paid £5 19s 0d, this was a huge amount of money at that time. It is difficult to be accurate as to the tonnages produced. They are described in the book as “132 got”. From a business plan put together in 1812 by Burgess we found a calculation that suggests that a “getting” or a “got” may in fact may be equal to one ton. (If anyone can give a more accurate figure, we would be grateful)
The record of days worked show that the employees rarely missed a shift. When they did they were encouraged to work two shifts the following day. This suggests that the length of a shift was fixed. It is unlikely that this would have been more than eight hours as anything greater than eight would have made it almost impossible for the worker to have gone home after his shifts then returned the following day. The fact they worked so regularly suggests they must have lived fairly near to the mines for transportation would have meant walking
Further research in the books indicates that Stokes and Co were responsible to the Dukes agent for a number of mines at this time.
The image above shows a page from the Knowles Colliery Time and Wage Book for January 1795.