Journal discovery gives insight intojobs and wages of colliery workers

A RARE journal documenting details of the workings of one of Barnsley’s historic collieries has been discovered by a historian and donated to the town’s archives.

The volume is embossed Elsecar Old Colliery and dates from 1839, when coal mining in the village was an expanding industry.

In that era there were still less than 100 men and boys employed in the pits, however, and the journal is unusual because it gives a detailed account of some of their working lives.

Most surviving documentation is connected to the high level administration of running a colliery, but this book contains details of individual labourers, the wages they earned and the amount of coal being extracted from the workings.

For example, on February 7, 1839, labourer Benjamin Guest was paid one pound and eight shillings for 12 days’ work. In comparison, young James Allott, a horse boy, was paid just 10 shillings for the same number of days.

The journal is available for public consultation at Barnsley Archives and Local Studies, situated on the top floor of the Central Library, Shambles Street. It will also be a prime candidate for display in the new museum and archive, scheduled to open in the town hall in 2012.