The Sad Death of 26 Children at Huskar Pit 1838

[Blackwater Park]

Hi Tomkin,

Yes I know, we were lucky enough to find a copy of the book at a shop in Holmfirth. We've also been and photographed the churchyard monument at Silkstone.

[tomkin]

  Hi Blackwater,

      Glad that you got a copy as the book is out of print.

         I mentioned earlier that the Village of Silkstone is putting on a 
      Community play this year to commerate the anniversary of the event.

            Tomkin
   

[Alan Gallop]

If anyone is interested, there are two copies of my book 'Children of the Dark' now on sale via www.amazon.co.uk.  These are original first editions, so I guess that means that they can charge more than the original cover price of £20.00.  One copy is priced at £28....but I won't tell you how much the other copy costs.

Click on the following link for further details:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0750930942/ref=pd_bbs_sr_olp_2?ie=UTF8&s=gateway&qid=1204822050&sr=8-2

Happy reading!

Alan Gallop

[dennford]

I bet that you would have been happy to get a part of that second price for each and every copy sold.

Denn

[Rossdal3]

Such a sad story!  I noticed within my own family we had quite a few children listed as "Hurriers" in the census documents!  As these were listed after 1842, they were boys over 10 only that had this occupation.

My Gt Gt Grandfather James Wells married Martha Coultas, his brother Henry was a hurrier in the coal mines.  Henry married Martha's sister, Sarah, who's brothers were hurriers in the iron mine in Yorkshire.  They subsequently emigrated to the USA and it was no surprise to find they had named their son, born after they left Freedom Coultas Wells!!

My Granddaughter (9) and I have written a children's story book about our discovery of this child oppression to inform our future generations, lest anyone ever forgets!  She was shocked to find out that children were once treated this way and felt moved to write a little piece herself and present it to her class at school.

Jill

[tomkin]

   Thanks Jill for that interesting account.  Even after reading these things
     you still can't quite take it in that children would have to suffer so.

          And still we grumble.

      Tomkin and take good care of your Granddaughter. she sounds like a treasure.

       

[Rossdal3]

Yes Tomkin, it still makes me cringe every time I talk about my little long gone Hurrier kids!  I watched a TV show by Tony Robinson (I think) which walked through the worst children's jobs in Victorian history, it covered the hurrier job in detail, with some graphic stories from kids rescued out of disaster's just like the one you described. 

It wasn't just the "hurrier" jobs either, I'd never heard of kids being "mud larks" before, truly terrible. I took the opportunity to express to my Grandchildren  how important it is to exercise your right to have a voice in the country's government to make sure that situations like this are never repeated.  We have already seen the covert end to the 8 hour day in Australia, in practice if not in policy and yet on Monday we have a public holiday to celebrate "Labour day", we're kidding ourselves if we think it can't happen all over again if we're not diligent!

So it is very important that the anniversary coming up is remembered far and wide.  I hope that it has a global reach so that we can all have a chance to reflect on these little lives lost and learn the lessons from history that shape our global future!!

Cheers,
Jill

[uk_guy_1971]

hello to you all well this is a very sad but true story and i suppose in the old days nobody really thought about the dangerous with working underground,

and found this forum by accident and found a site what i think might be intresting to you all and just thought i would sign up on here to leave you all this link,

http://news.BBC.co.UK/1/hi/england/south_Yorkshire/4046039.stm

take care to you all and all the best,

kind regards

Stuart.

[adee7]

Hello Stuart,

Welcome to Rootschat.

I tried the link you posted, but it didn't work.

Regards,    Kathleen