The Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Federation (LCMF) was a

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

that operated on the

Lancashire Coalfield The Lancashire Coalfield in North West England was an important British coalfield. Its coal seams were formed from the vegetation of tropical swampy forests in the Carboniferous period over 300 million years ago. The Romans may have been the fir ...

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

from 1881 until it became the Lancashire area of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1945.

Background

Colliery owners fended off unions until well into the 19th century and trade unionism was slow to take a hold on the Lancashire Coalfield. Wages were poor and employers arbitrarily fined men for minor reasons, disallowed wages on false pretexts and victimised perceived radicals. Bonds, a system of hiring that legally tied miners to their job for a year, were used to enforce discipline. Miners protested about poor wages in 1757 when bread prices rose and some marched from

Kersal Kersal is a suburb and district of Salford in the City of Salford, Greater Manchester, England, northwest of Manchester and was historically part of the county of Lancashire. History Kersal has been variously known as Kereshale, Kershal, Ker ...

towards Manchester in protest, but were turned back. When trouble flared, the

Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national ...

ordered troops to be ready to quell unrest. Long strikes were unsustainable as the miners had no organisation or finances to back them. The first miners' association was the ''Brotherly Union Society'' formed in Pemberton, Wigan in 1794. It was described as a friendly society to avoid prosecution under the

Combination Acts The Combination Act 1799 (39 Geo. III, c. 81) titled An Act to prevent Unlawful Combinations of Workmen, prohibited trade unions and collective bargaining by British workers. The Act received royal assent on 12 July 1799. An additional Act, the Com ...

and in the early-19th century there were 21 such societies in central Lancashire. Strikes in the first quarter of the 19th century generally failed to improve pay and conditions. In 1830 miners formed the ''Friendly Society of Coal Mining'' with headquarters in Bolton. The organisation was based on local branches with delegates attending quarterly meetings. The coal owners were not sympathetic and when the men went on strike to assert their right to organise,

William Hulton William Hulton (23 October 1787 – 30 March 1864) was an English landowner, magistrate and collier who lived at Hulton Park, in the historic county of Lancashire, England. The Hultons owned the estate since the late-12th century. Biograp ...

issued a pamphlet condemning his workforce who he considered had: "wantonly injured me to the fll limits of your ability, in my purse, and you have much farther wounded my feelings". The Miners' Association of Great Britain and Ireland was established at a meeting in Wakefield in 1842 and lasted for seven years. It supported the commission headed by Lord

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury (28 April 1801 – 1 October 1885), styled Lord Ashley from 1811 to 1851, was a British Tory politician, philanthropist, and social reformer. He was the eldest son of The 6th Earl of Shaftesbury ...

and the passing of the Coal Mines Act 1842 which prohibited all females and boys under ten from working underground. The association had 100,000 members and was involved in lobbying parliament to prevent persecution by tyrannical employers. The association, initially strongest in Yorkshire and the North-East, held a public meeting at Kersal in 1843 that was attended by 150 miners. Its general-secretary, David Swallow, considered the Lancashire miners to be among the worst paid in the country and attempted to address miners in Westhoughton, but the mineowners, including William Hulton, prevented him from holding a meeting. Lord Francis Egerton employed 1,300 workers, paying them little more than if they were in the

workhouse In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse'' ...

. Opposition from the coal owners did not prevent the association recruiting members and 98 lodges were formed in Lancashire and Cheshire by October 1843. Lancashire miners were poorly paid compared with other coalfields and antagonisms arose between the workers and the union.

Federation

The Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Federation was founded in 1881 in the aftermath of a bitter seven-week strike that was frequently violent. Thomas Ashton, secretary of the

Ashton-under-Lyne Ashton-under-Lyne is a market town in Tameside, Greater Manchester, England. The population was 45,198 at the 2011 census. Historically in Lancashire, it is on the north bank of the River Tame, in the foothills of the Pennines, east of Manche ...

area, organised a meeting at the old

Manchester Town Hall Manchester Town Hall is a Victorian, Neo-gothic municipal building in Manchester, England. It is the ceremonial headquarters of Manchester City Council and houses a number of local government departments. The building faces Albert Square to th ...

that led to the merger of several district unions on the

. Not all the district unions joined and a further meeting was arranged in Wigan later in the year. The federation was plagued with rivalries, between different areas and the personalities that emerged in its leadership. In the aftermath of the strike, funds were exhausted and its organisation chaotic. Sam Woods was elected the miners' agent and needed to unite the districts so that the fledgling union did not disintegrate.

Robert Isherwood Robert Isherwood (1845 - 1905) was a miner's agent, local councillor and the first treasurer of the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Federation. Robert Isherwood was the son of a handloom weaver in Tyldesley. He started pit work at the age of nine. ...

, secretary and agent for the Tyldesley Miners' Association, was its first treasurer. In 1888, the union called a national conference, which led to the formation of the

Miners Federation of Great Britain The Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) was established after a meeting of local mining trade unions in Newport, Wales in 1888. The federation was formed to represent and co-ordinate the affairs of local and regional miners' unions in Engla ...

(MFGB) the following year. Of the fifty delegates at the Newport meeting at which the MFGB was formed, 19 of the 50 delegates were from Lancashire. In 1897, some small affiliates merged into the central organisation, which began representing their former members directly. Sam Woods, was elected as a

Lib-Lab The Liberal–Labour movement refers to the practice of local Liberal associations accepting and supporting candidates who were financially maintained by trade unions. These candidates stood for the British Parliament with the aim of representing ...

MP in the 1892 general election. In 1903, the union affiliated to the Labour Representation Committee, by far the most important miners' union to join at that time. Stephen Walsh was appointed agent of the LCMF in 1901 and, sponsored by the federation, fought for and won the

Ince Ince may refer to: *Ince, Cheshire, a village in Cheshire, UK *Ince-in-Makerfield in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, UK *Ince (UK Parliament constituency), a former constituency covering Ince-in-Makerfield *Ince (ward), an electoral ward covering ...

seat at the 1906 General Election. Tyldesley miners outside the Miners Hall during the 1926 General Strike

. Membership rose rapidly, reaching over 70,000 by 1907. In 1913 Thomas Greenall, President and Thomas Ashton, Secretary, laid foundation stones in Bridgeman Place,

Bolton Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish people, Flemish weavers settled in the area i ...

for stone and brick headquarters designed by Bolton architects

Bradshaw, Gass & Hope Bradshaw Gass & Hope is an English architectural practice founded in 1862 by Jonas James Bradshaw (–1912). The style "Bradshaw Gass & Hope" was adopted after his death referring to the remaining partners John Bradshaw Gass and Arthur John Hope ...

Pit brow women Pit brow women or pit brow lasses were female surface labourers at British collieries. They worked at the coal screens on the pit bank (or brow) at the shaft top until the 1960s. Their job was to pick stones from the coal after it was hauled to th ...

were admitted as members of the Federation after the first World War although work at collieries was considered an unsuitable job for women. The Lancashire miners were not considered as militant as their counterparts on other coalfields but were involved in disputes both locally and nationally.

Post nationalisation

After the formation of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1945, the LCMF became its Lancashire area. In 1963, this absorbed the Cumberland Area and was renamed the North West Area.Stephen Catterall, "Hammond, James ('Jim')", ''Dictionary of Labour Biography'', vol.XIV, pp.145–159

Officers

Presidents :1881: Thomas Aspinwall :c.1890: Sam Woods :1906:

Thomas Greenall Thomas Greenall (5 May 1857 – 22 December 1937) was a British Labour Party politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Farnworth in Lancashire from 1922 to 1929. Born at Tarbock in Lancashire, Greenall began working at the age of n ...

:1929:

John McGurk John McGurk (17 September 1874 – 22 November 1944) was a British coal miner and trade unionist. Born in Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire, McGurk grew up in Pendlebury, Lancashire, and began working at a coal mine aged 12. He became active ...

:1944:

Edwin Hall Edwin Herbert Hall (November 7, 1855 – November 20, 1938) was an American physicist, who discovered the eponymous Hall effect. Hall conducted thermoelectric research and also wrote numerous physics textbooks and laboratory manuals. Biograp ...

:1945: Laurence Plover :1946: Jim Hammond :1949: Charles Tyrer :1952: Jim Hammond :1953: J. Unsworth :1955: :1958: Leo Crossley :1962: Jim Hammond :1967: Leo Crossley :1968: Sid Vincent :1971: E. Dooley :1970s: Bernard Donaghy :1980s: Frank King :1989: Steven Sullivan :1990s: Paul Hardman General Secretaries :1881: Thomas Ashton :1919: ''Post vacant'' :1927: Peter Pemberton :1945:

:1960: Joe Gormley :1971: Sid Vincent :1986: Roy Jackson :1990s: Billy Kelly Treasurers :1881:

:1905: Thomas Glover :1913: Harry Roughley :1931:

References

Notes Bibliography * * * * * * * p=515 *

External links

Catalogue of LCMF annual reports
held at the

Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick The Modern Records Centre (MRC) is the specialist archive service of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, located adjacent to the Central Campus Library. It was established in October 1973 and holds the world's largest archive collecti ...

{{Authority control Mining trade unions National Union of Mineworkers (Great Britain) Politics of Cheshire Politics of Lancashire 1881 establishments in England Mining in Cheshire Mining in Lancashire Trade unions established in 1881 Trade unions based in Greater Manchester