Description

Admin History:

The eviction of the Kinsley miners was due to strike action from 1904 when the Fitzwilliam Collieries Company tried to cut the wages of workers at the site in Kinsley now Fitzwilliam, West Yorkshire. The response of the miners was to strike and this caused the mine to eventually shut down two of the three coal seams in April 1905.

Kinsley was a purpose built village for the workers and their families. As the bitter industrial dispute dragged out, those miners who refused to go back to work were evicted from their homes, which were owned by the Fitzwilliam Collieries Company, between August-October 1905. The families who had already been evicted created a camp site near Fitzwilliam. The photographs show poverty stricken families being forced out of their homes with crowds of people gathering to watch. Some of the miners returned to work in May 1907, whist others continued to picket until the dispute was settled in November 1907.

Lumley Castle is a 14th century castle at Chester-le-Street a few miles from the city of Durham and a property of the Earl of Scarbrough. It is a Grade I listed building.

Description:

A small collection of black and white photographs including several capturing the eviction of miners from their homes in Kinsley in 1905; the interior of Burstwick Church and one of a plan of proposed alterations to Lumley Castle dated 1768.