Hi,
Can anyone help me please?
In 1908 my Grandfather Frank Harold Matthews aged 17 living in London, was caught steeling a loaf of bread. His punishment was to be sent to Yorkshire to serve hard labour in the Three Nuns mine near Wakefield.
I should like to find out more information about this. I am trying to locate court papers at this end, but would there be any archives of employees at that time where we can trace F. H. Matthews time at the mine.
Even if that is not possible, I would love to know about life working at the mine in 1908
We believe he did a runner and didn't serve his time ,as he made his way home on foot to London, unless he was not given a return rail ticket after his time served and he had to walk anyway?
The mine must have been tough for him if he abscond as Grandad was no softie.
Steve
Fascinating, with such tales I can see why you are interested in finding out more.
I have to say I am extremely sceptical of convicts under sentence being allowed to work underground, and have never heard of such occurrences.
Is it not more likely that he served time at Wakefield Prison, before finding work (relatively) locally at Hartshead?
There is one circumstance that I suppose it is possible that convicts
may have work at Three Nuns Colliery which I will come to.
Three Nuns Colliery was sunk in 1897 and worked until November 1928 when it was abandoned. It was situated between Mirfield and Brighouse.
http://binged.it/1twCbvW and
http://maps.nls.uk/view/100948241 (follow the tramway from the top left hand corner down to Three Nuns Colliery, which can be also still be traced on the aerial photo above)
It was operated by the Low Moor Company who were famous for operating the Low Moor Ironworks near Bradford which was famed for the quality of the iron they produced. At the beginning of the last century as local resources were exhausted they opened a series of mines to the south of Leeds and Bradford exploiting the Better Bed Coal, Blackband Coal and Blackband Ironstone. In 1908 it employed 230 men underground and 52 on the surface.
The Better Bed was an important coal whose coke was very important to Low Moor iron production but in this area was very thin. I would assume that the workings were concentrated in the Black Band. I don't have any specific details but I would have expected the Black Band Coal to be in the range of 24-36" (a reasonable house and boiler coal) which was exploited first before the overlaying shales were worked on the retreat to win the ironstone. The ironstone was found in nodules (typically 3-4" diameter) in the shale. These were brought to the surface, piled in the open air and left to the elements so that any shale adhering to the nodule could weather. They would have been routinely worked by hand to encourage the weathering, which must have been a truly crap job perhaps suitable for convict labour? I remain sceptical!
As for records of Frank Matthews employment?
It would be a long shot but if he was an employee of the Low Moor Company it is possible that there is an extant record of his employment in contract/wages/rent books. There is a huge resource of archived Low Moor Company with the West Yorkshire Archive Service
http://www.archives.wyjs.org.uk/ http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ you will find the references), but from memory the records for Low Moor Company are spread between Leeds, Huddersfield, Bradford and Wakefield offices)
Best of luck with your research 😉