Occupations: Colliery Byeworker/Byeworkman/Byworker/Bye-Worker/By-Worker

When asked to name a coal mining occupation, many will automatically think of those who physically dug out the coal – known as hewers or coal getters. However coal mines had a multiplicity of roles indispensable to their running, and a bye-worker was one such occupation. It was an occupation which St Mary’s War Memorial men Martin Carney and Thomas Finneran undertook in civilian life.

There are several definition sources for this particular job. The 1921 census occupation classifications described the work of a colliery bye-worker as follows:

044. – PERSONS MAKING AND REPAIRING ROADS….
Byeman, byeworker, byeworkman; oncostman; general terms for any man working underground not employed at coal face, and paid by the day, generally on repairing work, etc., or getting material other than coal.¹

To put the job in its overall context, the Dictionary of Occupational Terms placed 044 Occupational Classification Code Number under Order III – Mining and Quarrying Occupations. And, within that, under Sub-Order 1 – In Coal and Shale Mines.

The 1894 Mines and Inspectors Annual Report described a bye workman as an underground labourer.²

The Healey Hero website has a couple more relevant descriptions, as follows:

Bye Work – Generally meaning repair work etc done outbye of the coal face. [Outbye was the direction along a roadway away from the working face, towards the pit bottom.]

Bye Workman – Underground labourer or could be a man who may be skilled in several jobs and sent to make up a team.³

Incidentally, by or bye, from which the occupation name derived, was used in colliery phrases such as ‘far in by,’ i.e., far into the pit.⁴

Another general term which you may also come across for workers paid by the day for miscellaneous tasks, such as bye-workers, is dataller.

As for pay, this is not straightforward prior to national agreements, with different rates at different pits. I have picked out some examples which illustrate this, but I will update them as I discover more information.

According to Tracing Your Coalmining Ancestors:

From time to time the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain published average wage lists, according to various classes of workers. The largest and best-paid category (with 350,000 members) were ‘piecework getters’, colliers in the main, who got almost 9 shillings in 1914, rising sharply to 21 shillings in 1920, after the substantial Sankey Commission award. ‘Underground labourers’ (163,000) were ranked sixth in the wage table (after day-work getters, fillers, timbermen and deputies), receiving just over 15 shillings after Sankey….⁵

Other earnings examples included a colliery court case at Barnsley in 1900, in which it was said the average pay for bye-work at Wombwell Main Colliery was 5s 6d a day per miner, with an 8-hour day. There was also a 45 per cent addition.⁶

There was also a case in 1909 at Dewsbury County Court arising from The Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1906, in which a deceased bye-worker employed at the Stanley Coal Company, Liversedge, earned an average of £1 11s. 9½ d. per week over 156 weeks – though there were also some absences of employment through illness in the three years preceding his death.⁷

A correspondent writing to the Sheffield Daily Telegraph in 1911 quoted bye-workers wages at an unspecified pit as follows: night work at 2s. 4d. per shift and 50 per cent, making 3s. 6d. per shift; and for day work an average rate of wage of 2s. per shift and 50 per cent, equating to 3s. Although the editor, in a footnote, claims that these figures are hopelessly out, it does serve to show the different rates for day and night work.⁸

In a Leeds Petty Sessions Court case in 1916 a bye-worker stated his earnings were 9s. 6d. per shift.⁹

Although bye-workers were much lower paid, their jobs were claimed to be equally as hazardous as a hewer.¹⁰ Between 1896-99 the average annual death rate in Great Britain per 1,000 persons employed underground in coal mines was 1.462. This was for all coal mining roles, not specifically bye-workers.¹¹ By way of comparison the accident death-rate of all males in Great Britain was about 0.87 per 1,000, whilst that of railway employees such as pointsmen, porters, guards, etc, was no less than 2.286 per 1,000.¹²

Accident causes included:

• Falls of ground, i.e., Falls of rock, coal, etc.
• Transport, haulage, winding, loading etc.
• Falls from ladders, steps, or other heights.
• Explosions.
• Machinery in motion, motors, etc.

Note the above causes do not include the respiratory problems caused by the underground air and coal dust, which curtailed the lives of those working below ground.

The blame for accidents could be apportioned between the intrinsic danger of the occupation, some fault of omission or commission either of the mine owners or manager, of the victims themselves, or of their fellow workers.¹³

According to Oliver’s Dangerous Trades, the main cause of disaster underground were those classed as “falls of ground”. These were classed as normal risks incident to the miner’s calling. These falls were subdivided between falls at the working face (70 per cent of the total number of deaths due to falls), when they were either falls of roof or falls of the coal face, or “backbye” accidents which were falls of roof in the roadways of the mine.¹⁴ The latter would be particularly relevant to bye-workers. Death as a result of explosions were less common by the turn of the 20th century, although when they occurred they could result in much higher casualty numbers.

The UK, Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths Index, 1878-1951 compiled by Ian Winstanley for The Coalmining History Resource Centre, which includes information about more than 164,000 accidents and deaths in the coal mining industry, shows 286 deaths amongst ‘byeworkers’. There were another 48 if ‘byeworkmen’ are included in the search. And this is not a complete inventory.

From a quick newspaper search between 1903 and 1919, there are various examples of death causes for bye-workers local to the Batley/Dewsbury area, or in wider Yorkshire. These show the range of accidents. A sample includes:

• A bye-worker killed in August 1903 by a fall of the roof at Crawshaw and Warburton’s Chidswell Colliery.¹⁵
• A Normanton miner who was decaptitated in June 1905 at Henry Briggs, Son, and Co.’s Collieries, Whitwood, when a wagon of timber was being lowered down an incline. He was walking down the incline to warn of the waggon’s approach, when a colleague lost control of it, knocking him down and running over him.¹⁶
• A bye-worker killed in 1913 at a new Stanley Coal Company pit, Spen. He was drowned in a deep pool of water at the bottom of the shaft whilst attending to a fused electric pump.¹⁷
• An inexperienced bye-worker at Wrenthorpe colliery, killed in January 1914 when a three tons stone fell on him whilst he was removing a prop.¹⁸
• A bye-worker whose spine was fractured in December 1914 at Woolley Colliery after a haulage chain on a train of corves broke. He died in March 1915.¹⁹ This illustrates that fatalities were not necessarily instantaneous, and could occur months later. It also is indicative of the non-fatal injuries suffered by bye-workers, which are not covered in this post.
• An accident in November 1917 at Soothill Wood Colliery when a bye-worker was struck on the head by a girder whilst removing a number of them from a disused road.²⁰
• Another fatal accident in November 1917, when two bye-workers at Ings Pit of Messrs. Ingham’s Thornhill Collieries Ltd, Dewsbury were suffocated by fumes whilst endeavouring to remove an accumulation of gas.²¹
• A Castleford bye-worker at Wheldale Colliery who was found dead in 1919 with a live electric cable in his hand.²²

The final example is of an initially non-fatal accident which injured six hurriers and two bye-workers at Messrs. J. Critchley and Sons Ltd., West End Colliery, Batley. It occurred on 3 June 1919, when the pit cage descending the shaft bumped violently at the bottom. The accident was attributed to grease falling off the ropes on to the brake strap, causing it to slip.²³ Half of those injured were St Mary’s parishioners. They included Edward Whelan (sometimes Wheelan, a bye-worker who subsequently died from his injuries), George Henry Gavaghan (the other bye-worker), Thomas Leach (brother of War Memorial man John Leach), and Thomas Hunt. More details of this incident can be found here.

A very rough and ready calculation of numbers of bye-workers/by-workers in Batley in the 1911 census reveals around 45 men employed in this capacity.²⁴

Finally, the job did have a highly prized perk – the supply of house coal at a cheap rate. Though this could be a contentious issue. In the autumn of 1917, 1,800 men and boys at Wrenthorpe (Low Laithes) Colliery in Wakefield went out on strike over the fact that bye-workers were charged 8s. a load for their coal, compared to 6s. charged to hewers – a distinction not made in other large collieries in the district. The employers eventually backed down, and charged all the lower rate.

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Footnotes:
1. A Dictionary of Occupational Terms: Ministry of Labour. Based on the Classification of Occupations Used in the Census of POPULATION, 1921. His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1927.
2. Museum, Durham Mining. Durham Mining Museum – Mining Occupations. Accessed February 23, 2023. http://www.dmm.org.uk/educate/mineocc.htm.
3. Taylor, Fionn. Mines Rescue. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://www.healeyhero.co.uk/.
4. A glossary of the technical terms in use in the Newcastle (and UK) collieries, 1841. Taken from “A Glossary of Mining Terms.” The Coalmining History Resource Centre. Accessed February 23, 2023. https://www.cmhrc.co.uk/site/literature/glossary/index.html.
5. Elliott, Brian. Tracing Your Coalmining Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Family History, 2014.
6. The Barnsley Chronicle, 16 June 1900.
7. The Yorkshire Factory Times, 18 March 1909.
8. Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 15 December 1911.
9. The Skyrack Courier, 24 November 1916.
10. Yorkshire Evening Post, 8 September 1917.
11. Oliver, Thomas. Dangerous Trades. London: Murray, 1902.
12. Figures calculated from those given in the “Supplement to the Fifty-fifth Annual Report of the Registrar-General,” 1897. These figures refer tot he years 1891-93. Oliver, Thomas. Dangerous Trades. London: Murray, 1902.
13. Oliver, Thomas. Dangerous Trades. London: Murray, 1902.
14. Ibid.
15. Batley Reporter, 21 and 28 August 1903.
16. The Leeds Mercury, 19 June 1905.
17. Yorkshire Factory Times, 16 October 1913.
18. Yorkshire Evening News, 28 January 1914.
19. The Sheffield Daily Independent, 25 March 1915.
20. The Leeds Mercury, 14 November 1917.
21. The Leeds Mercury, 22 November 1917.
22. The Leeds Mercury, 15 February 1919.
23. Yorkshire Evening Post, 3 June 1919 and The Leeds Mercury, 4 June 1919.
24. Findmypast search of byeworker, byworker, byeworkman, byworkman in Batley in the 1911 census. Search conducted on 25 February 2023. These include my great granduncle Albert Hill.