[SA Chris]

Leave it for life in a tenement and work in a factory, shipyard or mill?

[andy popp]

Imposed on cheap Welsh labour by wealthy capitalists.

Something I'm interested in - and perhaps Andy might have an insight into
So what was stopping the Welsh miners from leaving this clearly awful industrial environment?

Not my area at all, but in a broad sense they were free to leave - and did. Indeed, in an exchange with Paul Pritchard earlier today he told me about a group of around 300 Welsh slate miners who established a town called Bangor in Tasmania in the later nineteenth century. Labour also frequently left the industry during disputes and then decided not to return.

Slate quarry labour was organized on a "gang" system, and so they were in effect subcontractors, not employees. So they weren't contractually tied. Some may have lived in tied cottages (pure speculation), as some agricultural labourers did, and this could form a strong barrier/discentive to mobility. Truck systems could tie labour to an employer but I doubt this was a factor and certainly not by the second half of the C19th. The Poor Law could also tie people to a locale (you were only eligible for "outdoor relief" in your own parish) but again very unlikely to be a factor after the law's reform in 1815.

So if people could move, why didn't they? Community. Pride. We see these factors strongly at work in coal mining communities over very long periods of time - and coal mining was another very unpleasant and dangerous job (in 1913 439 died in the single worst British mining accident). I expect most Welsh slate miners also spoke Welsh and so faced language barriers too.

[seankenny]

Not my area at all, but in a broad sense they were free to leave - and did. Indeed, in an exchange with Paul Pritchard earlier today he told me about a group of around 300 Welsh slate miners who established a town called Bangor in Tasmania in the later nineteenth century. Labour also frequently left the industry during disputes and then decided not to return.

Slate quarry labour was organized on a "gang" system, and so they were in effect subcontractors, not employees. So they weren't contractually tied. Some may have lived in tied cottages (pure speculation), as some agricultural labourers did, and this could form a strong barrier/discentive to mobility. Truck systems could tie labour to an employer but I doubt this was a factor and certainly not by the second half of the C19th. The Poor Law could also tie people to a locale (you were only eligible for "outdoor relief" in your own parish) but again very unlikely to be a factor after the law's reform in 1815.

So if people could move, why didn't they? Community. Pride. We see these factors strongly at work in coal mining communities over very long periods of time - and coal mining was another very unpleasant and dangerous job (439 died in the single worst British mining accident in 1813). I expect most Welsh slate miners also spoke Welsh and so faced language barriers too.

Thanks Andy, some very interesting insights there.

I don't know much about mining communities other than the usual cliches, but there does seem to be something about that life that creates bonds that were very hard to break. It's very telling that when the Welsh miners did decide to take advantage of the mobility that living inside the British Empire offered, they went to Tasmania en masse rather than as individuals seeking their fortune.

[seankenny]

Leave it for life in a tenement and work in a factory, shipyard or mill?

Well, yes! We know that a lot of people found the new cities preferable to the countryside because they chose (and continue to choose, in China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, etc) to make that move. And cities were not static places, there was a wider range of jobs, unions, workers education, the possibility of marrying up, general mobility.

So I'm wondering what it was that kept them tethered to the slate mines. A level of poverty worse than the Irish who came during the Famine? Some kind of cultural bonds that made stepping out incredibly difficult? A lack of contacts in the big cities to whom they could turn for help?

Btw this post should be before my reply to Andy but I can't use computer too good.

[SA Chris]

As Andy said, language, although there were larger industrial cities in South Wales, but also sense of community, acceptance of your lot, and not a lot of desire for / belief in upward mobility.

Straying off topic, but I think this is part of the reason why so many young men joined up in the early days of WWI; many had never even left their home town, and going to war was seen as something new and exciting. 

[andy popp]

I don't know much about mining communities other than the usual cliches, but there does seem to be something about that life that creates bonds that were very hard to break.

In this respect its worth noting that miners, though very akin to other mass industrial employees in most aspects of their experience of work, actually lived in rural/village communities or contexts. I would much prefer to ascribe a lack of mobility to positive motives (e.g. community) over negative ones (lack of belief/ambition).

We tend to have a very negative view of Victorian cities as Dickensian hellholes, but they simply did offer more opportunities, especially over time, as the cities themselves changed, occupational profiles changed, and as generations experienced mobility. The son or grandson of a farm labourer who moved to the city in 1850 might have found themselves a clerk working in a clean and comfy office by 1900.

[Oldmanmatt]

My house, is built on the site of the worst of the old farm cottages, for the farm attached to Cary Castle estate. They were only demolished 35/40 years ago and our house takes the same footprint as three of those cottages and some more besides.
Thats one three bed detached on a site that housed three families at the lowest end of the farm employment scale. Next door to us, are two cottages that once housed a higher echelon of farm hand and family. They’re tiny.

My Grandfather grew up in Coventry. One of thirteen children (only ten of whom made it past the age of five) in a single room and one mattress (no bed) for them all. His Father, gassed in the trenches, could only manage basic work at (I think) a foundry and his mother (a Romani) took in washing to feed the kids.
He was evacuated to Buckfastleigh, at 12 years old, spent the war there. His “home” was destroyed, father killed and the family rehoused.
At the end of his evacuation, he returned to Coventry for the few weeks remaining before his 16th birthday and then returned to Buckfastleigh.
He made no bones whatsoever about which was the better life.
Then got conscripted into National service in the Navy, of course…
The stories Great grandma Glover and my Grandfather and his siblings told of the slums of Coventry were almost gothic in their creeping horror. Eventually, the whole lot ended up in Devon (and all either RN or RM).

[seankenny]

As Andy said, language, although there were larger industrial cities in South Wales, but also sense of community, acceptance of your lot, and not a lot of desire for / belief in upward mobility.

Part of me finds this a perfectly reasonable explanation. But another part of me says you could say the same about people rural India and yet tens of thousands of people arrive in Mumbai and Delhi from the countryside every day. So I guess mining communities must show these traits to an unusual degree, in fact to a degree I personally find incomprensible; my own family background is marinated in the liberal, free-wheeling Britain that existed alongside more cloistered communities.

Or... perhaps there were material considerations we're unfamiliar with, eg did the slate boomtime coincide with the long depression of the late 19th century? All I can conclude is that my knowlege of Victorian Britain is a bit woeful.

[seankenny]

I don't know much about mining communities other than the usual cliches, but there does seem to be something about that life that creates bonds that were very hard to break.

In this respect its worth noting that miners, though very akin to other mass industrial employees in most aspects of their experience of work, actually lived in rural/village communities or contexts. I would much prefer to ascribe a lack of mobility to positive motives (e.g. community) over negative ones (lack of belief/ambition).

We tend to have a very negative view of Victorian cities as Dickensian hellholes, but they simply did offer more opportunities, especially over time, as the cities themselves changed, occupational profiles changed, and as generations experienced mobility. The son or grandson of a farm labourer who moved to the city in 1850 might have found themselves a clerk working in a clean and comfy office by 1900.

Yes, this. My great x ? grandfather joined a factory as a clerk and ended up marrying the owner's daughter, good work on his behalf and not the sort of opportunity that would have arisen in the countryside I'm sure.

When I was working in Bangladesh I had a very interesting chat about factory workers in Dhaka with my Bangladeshi colleague. He reckoned that there was a fairly substantial class of new arrivals working in garment factories who had thrown off the shackles of village life, for example cohabiting rather than getting married, ignoring caste boundaries, etc. Cities are exciting.

[mrjonathanr]

It’s a common phenomenon. Exodus to the cities transformed the social landscape of Spain in the C20, from one where people predominantly lived in rural villages rather than cities to the reverse.

[SA Chris]

Part of me finds this a perfectly reasonable explanation. But another part of me says you could say the same about people rural India and yet tens of thousands of people arrive in Mumbai and Delhi from the countryside every day. ......... All I can conclude is that my knowledge of Victorian Britain is a bit woeful.

to quote Hartley - The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there

My knowledge of British history is even more woeful than yours I expect.

[petejh]

Imposed on cheap Welsh labour by wealthy capitalists.

Something I'm interested in - and perhaps Andy might have an insight into - is how much labour mobility was possible in the era of the slate mines? I mean, at one time everyone in the UK lived in the countryside or small towns, and then a huge number of them lived in big cities, so clearly people did move. I know from my own family history that my ancestors on one side moved from Norfolk to Leeds in the early 19th century, and on the other side from Ireland to Manchester somewhat later. In fact of the Manchester lot my direct ancestor was the only one of his family not to go to America in the Edwardian period.

So what was stopping the Welsh miners from leaving this clearly awful industrial environment?

Like Andy said I think a lot did leave. I met a group of climbers in the Andes who were from the Welsh colony in Chilean Patagonia. All very latin-american looking, but with names such as Iewyn Davies and Thomas ap Griffith : )
The ones who didn't leave and worked in the quarries, maybe they were the frogs in the slowly boiling pot. Why does anyone stay where they are? Perhaps they liked it there. People aren't the rational actors of economics but nor are they completely helpless. There's enough fuzziness in the margins to end up exploited by others who see weak people as opportunity, or doing very well for yourself by taking opportunities. 

[SA Chris]

Bolting can now be seen as damaging the site!

[Offwidth]

It must have been incredibly dangerous work, wonder how many lives were lost?

There's a route named '362', it's how many quarry workers died just in Dinorwig.

Immense and terrible as that number is, I'm actually a little surprised it's not higher.

That said (and I might be about to make myself really unpopular), we don't need to make erroneous comparisons to the Atlantic slave trade/slavery in the Americas to acknowledge the sufferings endured by Welsh slate mining communities. The comparison doesn't stand and doesn't serve either group well.

Yet the companies controlled pretty much every aspect of the lives of families who worked for them and like slaves that was because their lives were regarded as commodities. I always find the museum visit very moving.

https://museum.wales/slate/

[andy popp]

For these interested, here is the relevant UNESCO page: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1633/

Clicking on the document tab gives access to the nomination document and the management plan (as well as other materials). I've downloaded and very briefly scanned the nomination document - it looks to be a fascinating piece of work and likely to answer many of the questions we were ineptly stumbling towards yesterday, particularly what it was that these people found of value in the culture, communities and lives they built in the region. From a first glance, I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more.

Unsurprisingly, there is quite a bit of emphasis on the importance of leisure and tourism - including "adventure tourism" - to the region's economy today, as well as mention of "mountaineering" as one of the earliest forms of tourism in the area. Similar points are made in the management plan, which I've looked at much more briefly.

It's worth noting that all six "elements" of the site (which cover much more than the quarries) are already in designated areas of landscape protection, most (All? Not totally sure on that point) as part of the National Park, the highest form of landscape protection in the UK. The site is highly diverse and dispersed and has multiple different owners. Designation as a Unesco World Heritage site has no impact on current ownership structures. Make of that what you will. As I said, I've only given any of it the briefest of skims.

Finally, I wish people would stop making the comparison to enslavement - it's wrong.

[petejh]

The link to UNESCO gives a good overview of the various sites. I recommend reading the 'supplementary information' document for a flavour of the history of the area. It's nice to see it globally recognised in this way.. but I also share Habrich's cynicism about the potential for a UNESCO badge of honour to totally fuck up climbing in some areas of the quarries.

If I needed to bet on just one public body to find a way to really fuck things up for the average climber/outdoor enthusiast who just wants to go about things without being hassled, then Gwynedd county council would be high in my list (probably just behind the Great Orme country park). If I can see the potential for big tourism money in a UNESCO badge then so can Gwynedd council - guided tours, parking fees, more limitations on access to 'protect the heritage'.. is it fair enough..?

The 'adventure tourism' mentioned in the UNESCO management plan almost certainly relates to the Go Below guided 'underground adventure', who's owners have the lease for Cwmorthin mine (one of the 6 elements of the UNESCO site) . And not to your next big lead of Flashdance. Go Below pay corporation tax, rent to the large leaseholder company, bring in tourism money to the area, employ many local mine guides. You mr/mrs climber, don't.

Don't forget Dean Potter soloed Delicate Arch - UNESCO world heritage site - and the climbing community lambasted him..

[andy popp]

The 'adventure tourism' mentioned in the UNESCO management plan almost certainly relates to the Go Below guided

The various zip line operations get multiple mentions.

To be clear, I'm not saying everything will be just fine and dandy - I no longer know the area well enough, and certainly not the local politics, to have any real perspective. I just wanted to provide the information.

[teestub]

How much of the quarries actually has agreed access for climbing and how much is just climbed on anyway? None of the quarries look to be on access land.

[SA Chris]

Don't forget Dean Potter soloed Delicate Arch - UNESCO world heritage site - and the climbing community lambasted him..

He was lambasted because there is an agreement with NPS to allow access to other climbing in Arches NP on the understanding that the named formations are not climbed on. The fact that it is a UNESCO site as well is irrelevant.

[petejh]

I'm pointing out the obvious potential for a greater focus on climbers in place like Dinorwig, as a result of gaining international recognition for its important heritage. Rarely is an increased focus from public bodies with 'heritage' to protect a positive for climbers, as Habrich points out. Hopefully Gwynedd council won't be dickheads.. feeling lucky?

[SA Chris]

I get what you are both saying, just pointing out the irrelevance of the Potter reference.

[duncan]

My first thought on hearing the awarding of world heritage status was ‘what will it do for access?’ It’s always been on an informal basis and raising the profile of a place is rarely good news for this kind of arrangement as Pete and others have said.

The parallel with Arches NP was that access was similarly formally informal. Pre-Potter, the informal agreement was don’t climb the arch on the Utah licence plate (and other famous bits). People did but kept quiet about it. Dean Potter did and publicised it with a film. It was the latter that was the real issue. Potter claimed he abided by the letter of the law, which was vague, but he sure as hell wasn’t abiding by the spirit of the arrangement. The park authority took note of this and formally banned climbing on named features and placing fixed anchors. The latter effectively ended new routing.

Yes, this. My great x ? grandfather joined a factory as a clerk and ended up marrying the owner's daughter, good work on his behalf and not the sort of opportunity that would have arisen in the countryside I'm sure.

When I was working in Bangladesh I had a very interesting chat about factory workers in Dhaka with my Bangladeshi colleague. He reckoned that there was a fairly substantial class of new arrivals working in garment factories who had thrown off the shackles of village life, for example cohabiting rather than getting married, ignoring caste boundaries, etc. Cities are exciting.

I’m not a historian but I’m from a family of migrants (Ireland and Scotland) and married to one so take an amateur interest in this.

Over the last 150 years in the UK, with surprisingly little variation over that time, 2/3 of people move in the early part of their life but most moves are local: to a different street in the same city or nearby town in the same county. Welsh mining communities are behaving similarly to the rest of the country. People like Andy, Sean and I who moved away from our homes are a minority. This behaviour is probably over-represented in climbers and their families. Folk move further away from home in the US, perhaps in other countries too. Discussion here and here.

[andy popp]

Over the last 150 years in the UK, with surprisingly little variation over that time, 2/3 of people move in the early part of their life but most moves are local: to a different street in the same city or nearby town in the same county. Welsh mining communities are behaving similarly to the rest of the country. People like Andy, Sean and I who moved away from our homes are a minority. This behaviour is probably over-represented in climbers and their families. Folk move further away from home in the US, perhaps in other countries too. Discussion here and here.

All very true Duncan, though obviously significant longer range migration did take place.

If anyone wants to read more I can recommend historian Alison Light's Common People: The History of an English Family, which tells the story of her own family's social and geographical mobility (trigger warning: she's, shall we say, somewhat on the left).

[Johnny Brown]

A search of the management plan for the word 'climbing' draws no results. Mountaineering is mentioned once, as a reason for the earliest tourists to visit.

Chapter 7 Theme 4 'Enjoying the Slate Landscape' is light on recreation. This is the statement on access:

Public access is not mandatory and is not appropriate for areas of the proposed
World Heritage Site where fragile historic assets are at risk, where public safety is a
concern, or commercial operations take place. A significant proportion of the
proposed World Heritage Site lies within private ownership and a small amount of
this is on land where no public access is permitted due to the nature of the business
and/or landscape. Some locations are inaccessible as they are operational
commercial businesses (such as the parts of Dinorwig Quarry operated by Engie as
a hydro power station) and other locations are inaccessible due to their dangerous
nature (such as underground workings, abandoned buildings or flooded quarry-
pits). In such circumstances, controlled access can be facilitated through guided
visits and tours, but unregulated access and trespass will also need to be addressed.

I'm sure this (the omission not the access statement) could be reversed Yosemite-style with the right presentation. Much is made of the importance of visitors understanding of the landscape, I think climbing culture has been very good at that, whilst offering a reimagination of the dereliction that neither disregards or seeks to erase the history. Unregulated access should be a goal where possible.

[Fiend]

My first response, on a FB post before Andy posted it on here, was speculating on whether there could be any access issues... I probably should have posted the same thing on here but I assumed someone else would.

I would hope not, partly because it's hard to see how climbers' interference could "spoil the natural beauty of the landscape etc etc" , and partly because hopefully the slateheads could argue for the cultural significance of the slate climbing in the Welsh climbing scene (a lot richer and more important heritage than, say, Horseshoe). And on the subject of Horseshoe-likes, the disproportionate popularity of the recent grid bolted bumblefests probably has some value to the local economy.