The Colliers and Salters (Scotland) Act 1775 is an Act of the

Parliament of Great Britain The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a new unified Kingdo ...

(15 Geo III c. 28) which changed the working conditions of miners in Scotland.

Background

A 1606 Act "Anent Coalyers and Salters" had placed Scottish "coalyers, coal-bearers and salters" in a condition of permanent bondage to their employer. Any such worker who absented from that employer and sought to work elsewhere was to be punished as a thief. The Act also included provision whereby

vagabond Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants (also known as bums, vagabonds, rogues, tramps or drifters) usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, scavenging, petty theft, temporar ...

s could be placed unwillingly into the same compulsory labour.

Erskine May Thomas Erskine May, 1st Baron Farnborough, (8 February 1815 – 17 May 1886) was a British constitutional theorist and Clerk of the House of Commons. His seminal work, ''A Treatise upon the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliame ...

notes that these workers were thereafter treated "a distinct class, not entitled to the same liberties as their fellow-subjects". The 1775 Act noted that the Scottish coal workers existed in "a state of slavery or bondage" and sought to address this. The main focus of the legislation was to remove the condition of servitude on new entrants to these industries, thus opening them to greater expansion. Although the Act noted "the reproach of allowing such a State of Servitude to exist in a Free Country", it sought not to do "any injury to the present Masters", so created only gradual conditions whereby those already in servitude in the mines could seek to be liberated from it after a period of seven or ten years depending on age. The Act also included a provision for extending that term by two years if a miner acted in combination with others.

Consequences

As Erskine May noted, "these poor ignorant slaves, generally in debt to their masters, were rarely in a condition to press their claims to freedom" so the later conditions were largely ineffective. It took a further Act, the Colliers (Scotland) Act 1799 (c.56), to liberate the remaining mine workers from the conditions created by the 1606 Act, while also extending provisions against organised labour.

References

External links

* {{UK legislation Great Britain Acts of Parliament 1775 1775 in Scotland Economic history of Scotland 18th century in Scotland Mining in Scotland Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain concerning Scotland Coal mining law