Politics and Religion in the United Kingdom by Steve Bruce

Author:Steve Bruce [Bruce, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781136590719
Google: r-rFBQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-07-03T12:32:54+00:00

Upper Teesdale

The first Methodist chapel in Upper Teesdale was built in Newbiggin in 1759, but growth was initially slow. In 1800 Newbiggin had 34 members, Middleton had nine, and Eggleston had six: a total of 49 Methodists. Eggleston grew sufficiently to open a chapel in 1828. The second half of the nineteenth century saw consider-able consolidation. In 1860 the Primitive and Wesleyan Methodists of Harwood erected a shared chapel. In 1868, the Bowlees Primitive Methodist chapel, seating 530 people, was opened. Two chapels were erected in Forest. The Primitives, who had previously shared a Baptist chapel, built on the north side of the road in 1881; the Wesleyans built on the south side in 1867. Both Primitive and Wesleyan societies in Middleton, the main town of the upper dale, prospered enough to replace their previous chapels with impressive new buildings in 1870.

The growth of evangelical dissent was aided significantly by people who shared the evangelical ethos of the Methodists. The London Lead Mining Company (LLC), a Quaker firm, took its first leases at Newbiggin in 1753, gradually bought up others, and in 1823 bought a large estate in Middleton on which it built an impressive headquarters for its manager and cottages for its workforce. The LLC set the standard for progressive paternalism. However arduous the work of lead extraction and difficult the circumstances in which it was done, those conditions were far better under the LLC than previously or elsewhere. It provided good housing for its workers: ‘shops’ near the mines where workers who also farmed further down the dale could bunk during the week and cottages in Nenthead and Middleton. It provided gardens for its cottagers and smallholdings in the dale so that workers could grow their own food. In response to periodic grain shortages, it established a Corn Association that imported grain in bulk and sold it to the miners at cost price. It freed its workers from unscrupulous moneylenders by providing credit and advances on wages in times of unusual hardship. When falls in the price of lead made the workings temporarily unprofitable, it employed men on non-mining tasks such as repairing buildings and stone-walling the dale rather than laying them off. And, to the great credit of the Company’s owners and managers, it did not confine its benefits to its workers but made the various services available to all the residents of the dale.

The Company also invested heavily in education. It built and endowed schools and lending libraries. It supported the building of chapels (and in Nenthead, an Anglican church) and it gave Bibles to be distributed as Sunday School prizes.26 With the carrot came the paternalist’s stick. The Company’s workers were banned from pubs, threatened with dismissal for drunkenness and fined for swearing. Any worker who fathered an illegitimate child was required to provide financial support or face dismissal. All the young people in the Company’s employ were required to attend Sunday School until they could pass basic literacy and Bible knowledge tests. The children

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