Samuel Plimsoll’s Address to the Cleveland Ironstone Miners, Saltburn 1874

Some of the Tweddell descendants now live in and around Bristol and often pass by the statue of Samuel Plimsoll MP and, until recently had no idea there was any link between their forebear from Stokesley – George Markham Tweddell (GMT), North Yorkshire and  Samuel Plimsoll. However it was known the GMT  had associations with the Cleveland Ironstone Miners Union through the work of Tony Nicholson who in his MA thesis of 1982  –
The growth of trade unionism amongst the Cleveland Ironstone Miners 1850-1876: T Nicholson. Nicholson, T; Department of Humanities. Book. English.
Published Teesside Polytechnic : Department of Humanities 1982


mentions the role of GMT in respect to the union. (I hope to make some notes from Tony’s dissertation soon to put on here.)



I am thankful to the Labour Councillor for Redcar and Cleveland – David Walsh for sending me two cuttings from the Middlesbrough – Daily Gazette 1874 and 1875, which are verbatim reports of the East Cleveland Ironstone Miners annual political meetings. This was prompted by the launch of the second part of  Sheila Crossman’s book on Joseph Shepherd, which, as described by the Northern Echo recently is – http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/history/memories/11265880.Engineers_of_change/


JOSEPH SHEPHERD is the “miners’ champion” in the title of a new book by Sheila Crossman of Guisborough. Joseph was the first secretary of the Cleveland Miners’ Association who tried to organise the ironstone workers to get a fairer deal from their bosses, including Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease of Darlington. The 1870s were fractious times, of strikes and lock-outs, of blacklegs and boycotts, with the men not knowing how to unite and often distrusting their own leaders as much as the mineowners…..”



Joseph Shepherd, a sort of 19th century Arthur Scargill and a man described by The Northern Echo in 1876 as “the King of Cleveland.”


Shepherd, down the pit at the age of nine, formed the Cleveland Miners Association in 1872, from what

Sheila terms his “power base” at Brotton. The terms may never before have been used in the same sentence. The union was manifestly needed. They were ironstone miners, maybe 10,000 men and boys between the Tees and Whitby working 12-hour shifts winter and summer. Wages hadn’t increased for 14 years, conditions were lethal. Alexander MacDonald, the miners’ national president, reported that he had seen “more crutches, more lame men, more blind men in Cleveland than all the other mining districts in the country.”


The Middlesbrough Exchange, a newspaper, was blunter yet. “The men are not cared for so much as a dog.” It concluded. The masters occupied the grandest halls in the district, most of which survive.”


Thousands of miners formed themselves into lodges with heliotropic names like Rose of Summer, Flower of Cleveland and Lily of the Valley.


The Miners’ Champion  and the second part The Forgotten Man are both available for £10 each from Guisborough Bookshop, Kirkleatham Museum, Cleveland Ironstone Mining Museum and Whitby Bookshop or, with £2 added for post and packing, from the author at 48 Deepdale, Guisborough TS14 8JY.”

……………………
Introduction
In this article from the (Middlesbrough) Daily Gazette September 7th 1874, Samuel Plimsoll MP address 4000 Cleveland Ironstone miners in a field in Saltburn, East Cleveland on the Franchise and the then proposed Merchant Shipping Bill. At this stage those in the Boroughs had the vote but not those in the country and there was a disequilibrium of representation which Plimsoll takes up in the article. He also discusses the fielding of working class representatives to Parliament, through the liberals – the early stage of what led to the formation of the Independent Labour Party some decades later. According to this site by local historian John Lawson, “Kate Middleton‘s Great-Great-Grandfather Thomas Temple was an ironstone miner in 1871 and was living in Brotton in 1874, he would have been a member of the union and attended several of the yearly Demonstration days.” http://ironawecleveland.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/cleveland-ironstone-mining-family-of.html

It seems Samuel Plimsoll stayed in Redcar -” In Wetherspoons, another display claims that Plimsoll


was holidaying in Redcar when, noticing the number of wrecks, he was “inspired
to invent the Plimsoll Line as a sort of loading gauge.” There is a blue plaque to Plimsoll above what is now Marks and Spencer in Redcar marking where he is said to have taken his rest. The plaque reads: “Samuel Plimsoll “The Sailors’ Friend” While staying in a house on this site he was inspired to invent the Plimsoll Line a safety mark for loading ships in 1876




Now Marks and Spencers – it is said that Samuel Plimsoll stayed here on his visit to Redcar.

I will upload the 1875 meeting at which George Markham Tweddell after this but here is the first article from 1874 – 

The Daily Gazette
September 7, 1874

THE
CLEVELAND MINERS’ ANNUAL POLITICAL DEMONSTRATION.

Samuel Plimsoll from Look and Learn

Mr.
PLIMSOLL, M.P., ON THE FRANCHISE.

ON
SATURDAY, THE CLEVELAND IRONSTONE MINERS HELD THEIR ANNUAL POLITICAL DEMONSTRATION.

On Saturday, the Cleveland Ironstone Miners held their
annual political demonstration at Saltburn. Early in the day that
pleasant seaside resort began to present a lively appearance. Groups
of men, women and children began to power into the town by road and
rail, and later in the day the various lodges of the association made
their appearance, some preceded by their banners and bands. About
four thousand persons were present, which – taking into
consideration and the fact that the weather was extremely
threatening, may be counted a fair muster. Although the sky was
frequently covered with clouds which looked black and ominous, the
rain happily kept off until the meeting was concluded, and then, to
make up for its forbearance, came down in a steady pour. The meeting
was held in a field opposite the Convalescent Home, and a platform
was extemporised from a couple of wagons which were sheltered from
the wind by a snug haystack.
Saltburn by the Sea

The following lodges were represented at the meeting :



Faithful Lodge – Brotton
Lily of the Valley Lodge – Guisborough
Preservation Lodge – Brotton
Prospects Lodge – Skelton
Miners Pride Lodge – Lofthouse
Miners Refuge Lodge – Marske
Star of Hope Lodge – Normanby
Friendship Lodge – Skinningrove
Loyal Lodge – Rosedale
Unity Lodge – Hinderwell
Grand de Mont Lodge – Grosmont
Loyal branch Lodge – Rosedale
Redcar New Branch – Redcar
Live and Let Live – Brotton
Flower of the Valley – Carling How
Onward Lodge – Eston
Hopeful Lodge – Ormesby
Hope to Prosper – North Skelton
Flower of the Dale – Boosbeck
Star of Cleveland – Stanghow
Rose of Summer – Stanghow.

Mr. Thomas Green, president of the Association, presided
over the meeting, and was supported on the platform by Mr Plimsoll,
MP; Mr Lloyd Jones, Mr Cudlip, Mr Stephen Emmerson,
and others.

The CHAIRMAN said his duties would be very light, seeing
that he was supported by such able speakers,

and it would be wrong of
him to occupy that time that ought to be devoted to them. They
regularly made it a practice to hold a meeting every year, which took
the form of a political demonstration, because they considered there
were several things that disgraced the statute book, and they held
that the means of getting rid of those obnoxious matters, was by
holding similar to that. He trusted they would never grow
faint-hearted, but persevere until they got rid of the many
objectionable things they had to complain of, which would be referred
to that afternoon.

Mr. R. Hodgson, of Brotton, then proposed the first
resolution which was as follows; –
That in the the opinion of this meeting the present
system of parliamentary representation is a most flagrant violation
of acknowledged rights, and therefore pledges itself to do its utmost
to bring about an assimilation of the Borough and County franchise.
” 
Everyone who read a newspaper or took the slightest interest in the
welfare of the country would acknowledge that it was only right that
those who contributed to the wealth of the nation should have a voice
in making the laws they were called upon to obey. To insist upon a
man conforming to a law he had no voice in making., although he is
compelled to contribute towards the legal ordinances of the country,
was a flagrant act of injustice, and demanded immediate and positive
attention. (Hear Hear.) he sincerely hoped that they would not only
support the resolution but they would also commence co-operative
industrial societies amongst themselves throughout the whole of
Cleveland, and if they kept themselves banded together, before many
years passed over the Government would be only too glad to give them
the franchise.

Mr. Wm. HAMBLEY, of Skinningrove, seconded the
resolution. He said that when he looked round that assemblage , and
considered how few amongst them had the vote or a voice in sending a
representative to Parliament, he could not help thinking what an
important duty was incumbent on each one of them not to rest
satisfied until they had an assimilation of the borough and county
franchise. (Applause). He considered it a great injustice that
intelligent and thinking men in the country should not be allowed to
be equal with those in the borough. (Hear hear and applause).

Mr. LLOYD JONES then rose to support the resolution,
which was the signal for an outburst of

The article as it appears in the Daily Gazette 1874

enthusiastic applause. He
said he was there that day at the request of their Committee to say a
few words to them on the assimilation of the Borough and Country
franchise. What was really meant by that phrase was that people
living outside the boundary of parliamentary boroughs should enjoy
their rights of citizenship just the same as if they lived within
those boundaries ; in other words, that when one man possessed the
privileges of citizenship under the law, the law should be equal and
confer the same privileges on other men of a like description. He
remembered when parliamentary reform first began to be seriously
talked about or rather when the masses of the people first moved for
the purpose of improving the representation of the country. Many of
them, no doubt, thought that things used to be pretty much the way
they are now. He could tell them, however, that within his memory,
and when he first began to listen to the voices of those who were
called agitators, that nearly all the great communities of the
country were entirely without representation. Members of Parliament
were returned for small places where there scarcely any inhabitants
whatever, as for instance, Old Serum, where there was not one single
inhabitant, and where, when election time came round, a tent had to
be erected in which a few of the Burgesses of Salisbury assembled for
the purpose of returning two members to parliament. (Laughter).
Another similar case was a borough in Surrey called Detton. The
proprietor was a baronet named Sir Mark Wood and he and his son and
butler were the only voters and they returned two members to
parliament. (Renewed laughter). Once one of the members died, when
the son was travelling on the continent, and Sir mark having
quarrelled with his butler, and wishing to have his son returned had
an insurmountable difficulty to contend with, for whom when Sir Mark
proposed his son, the butler refused to second him and before the son
could obtain the seat, the thing had to be made all right as far as
the butler was concerned. (Loud laughter) Now, at that time, the
great town of Manchester, with its hundreds and thousands of
inhabitants, returned no member to parliament. The great town of
Birmingham, filled with an active, industrious and intelligent
population, had no representation in parliament ; and when he spoke
of those two great towns, he simply spoke of them as a sample of a
large number of places which had no representation whatever. When the
public became alive in this state of things, and insisted in its
being altered, there were hundreds of gentlemen in the British
parliament, and hundreds and thousands outside who declared that
things were just as well as they could possibly be, and that if they
interfered with what was called the British Constitution the sky sky
would fall, and nothing but ruin would come upon the country. But an
alternative came, representation was given where the population of
the country was greatest, and where the wealth and intelligence of
the country was centred : and was there anyone who knew what the
country was at the time he had been referring to, and what it was
now, who would not say that that change had been a beneficial change
for the country? (Cheers) No one can deny it and be held that the
Legislature would be justified by all that had been done in the past
in enlarging the liberties of the people. Why should they at Saltburn
be forced at a disadvantage with the same class of men who live in a
borough? What had they done that they should be excluded from the
benefits of the laws and the privileges enjoyed by their brethren in
large towns? He considered it was the duty of every man who could
drew upon any distinction between what was politically right and what
was politically wrong, to endeavour to get justice extended to the
masses of people. (Applause) Every man, of whatever class or
condition, had an interest in the welfare of his country, and, though
a working man’s stake was not so large as the stakes of those who
owned ironstone mines, coal mines, factories, landed estates etc., a
man’s patriotism should not be measured by the extent of his
possessions. (Hear hear – applause).


They all desired to see the country prosper ; but it
was only when they conferred power over the whole nation, when it
ceased to be a class power and became a national power, that it would
enjoy its greatest prosperity, and the future fates of those they
would leave behind them, depended on the action they took. The
history of England told them that the lands of England were
originally held by men who were bound to furnish the means of defence
for the country, and aggression against foreign nations, that the men
who held the land found soldiers and sailors to repel an invasion or
to enforce a foe abroad into submission or peace. England’s history
told them that, from the time of William the Conqueror, up to the
time of Charles the First – and that included the period of our
whole historical renown – we conquered France twice, we captured
and destroyed the Spanish Armada, we did all that a nation could be
called upon to do, as a fighting nation, and we do not incur one
shilling of debt in doing it, and the nation was left without any
debt. The Long Parliament, however, put aside the dues that lay upon
the land and threw the whole of the burden upon revenue returns of
the country. And what was the result? In a period less than that he
had been speaking of, from the time of the restoration of Charles the
Second
to the end of 1815, they had run into a debt of £800,000,000,
which, even their great grand children’s, grand children would not
see paid. Now was it right that they should shift the burden from
their own shoulders on to the shoulders of the people, when

House of Commons

they held
the land as an equivalent for defending the nation? Coming down to
present time, he might say that there were things existing which
could not exist if people possessed the power they ought to possess.
(Hear hear). They might take, for instance, the case which had been
championed by their friend, Mr Plimsoll – the case of the Merchant
seamen, and what did they see? They saw a number of men engaged in
doing the greatest work men were ever called upon to do. (Loud
applause) Taking stone from the bowls of the earth in order that it
might be converted into articles of machinery of almost every
description was a great work, but the sailing across dangerous seas
to foreign countries with our products and bringing back in exchange
the things they required in their homes for the daily comfort of
their families, was work which no man should be called upon to do
without having all the protection which human consideration and laws
can give him (loud cheers) What had been discovered? What had Mr
Plimsoll
proved to the country? They were not assertions ; for however
unwillingly the late commission had made its admissions, it was now
clear that numbers of ships were lost through a love of greed and
pure love of gain. (Shame) Many of our brave men’s lives might be
saved if men

were disposed to do their duty towards each other. A
scoundrel of an owner often got his ship insured and sent her to sea
with no other object than to lose her ; the vessel went down and her
load was recorded as one of the casualties of the deep about which
there was no use saying another word. But Mr. Plimsoll had proved
that there was use in saying another word, and he was glad to see
that they and other working men in England had come forward in that
work of mercy, and had shown that they were determined to that
profit should not be made of the lives of their fellow creatures.
(Loud Cheers). The speaker then referred to the number of deaths
from starvation which had occurred in the metropolis, no less than
106 taking place last year, and to the fact that they were paying
£8,000,000 for the support on one million of people who could not
support themselves. He also spoke of the emigration of agricultural
labourers, which, he said had almost amounted to a general exodus,
and these and other matters he might name showed the want of better
Government, for a rich country like theirs ought to govern her people
in comfort. (Applause) To bring about that end a better
representation was needed, and he hoped the day was not now far off
when they would obtain their just rights by the assimilation of the
Borough and Country Franchise (Loud Applause).


Mr JOHN EMMERSON, of Saltburn, proposed the next
resolution as follows – “That this meeting hears with regret that
the criminal clauses of the Masters and Servants act and the laws
known as the Criminal Law Amendment Act still disgrace the statute
book. It is obliged therefore, to repeat its expression of
indignation because of this piece of class legislation, and hopes
that the present Government inquiry will result in a thorough
renovation of these Acts to a repeal of the disgraceful clauses..”
– In bringing that subject before them he said there could be no
doubt that those obnoxious clauses ought to be at once repealed. He
saw that Mr MacDonald, in a speech at the Durham Miners’
Demonstration
, urged them to send in a petition on the subject which
would the table of the House of Commons to groan under its weight,
and he hoped that suggestion would not be lost sight of. (Cheers)

Mr MICHAEL WESTACOTT of  Eston , in seconding the
resolution, said that he the ‘Masters and Servants’ Act was
unquestionably one law for the Masters and one law for the servants.
The 9th clause provides that where a workman broke a
contract, he could sent to prison for three months, and where a
Master broke it there was no such punishment as imprisonment. The
14th clause of the same Act he regarded as a helpmate for
the other, and he thought it was their duty to agitate until the
above clauses were repealed.

The CHAIRMAN then called on Mr Plimsoll, MP to support
the resolution. He had travelled 700 miles to be with them that day,
and he hoped they would award him a hearty reception. (Loud
Applause).

Mr PLIMSOLL, who was received with cheers, said : “Mr
Chairman, ladies and Gentlemen, with a large number of politicians,
rest and be thankful‘ seems a favourite motto. Be thankful as much
as you like but I think there is too much work that wants doing, for
this time of rest to be said to have arrived. Many things inflict
society at present, and I will just enumerate a few of them and it
will require hard work to put them right.. We have petty offenders
against the laws who must always be the vast majority of those who
are subject to the penalties of those laws, but up before those who’s
interests are diametrically the opposed to themselves. We have an
unpaid magistracy, unpaid and untrained and not merely unpaid but
inefficient. I would like to see a time when game preservers would no
longer sit in judgement over poachers, manufacturers over artisans,
or ship-owners over sailors. (hear hear).

Let us have magistrates who understand their business,
and will hold the scales of justice with an even and steady hand.
Another matter which may well engage our attention is the prosecution
of offences against the person or property. These are at present
left in private hands, but I trust we shall soon have public
prosecutors, so as to do away with the scandal of having the criminal
law put in operation by private and irresponsible persons for the
purpose of extorting money by force from others. Then, gentlemen,
there is the Criminal Law Amendment Act , and the group of measures
generally understood when that term is used, the law of conspiracy,
and the masters and servants act. These three all person acknowledge,
require considerable amendment, and I am in great hope that the next
session of parliament will not pass without some satisfactory
measures on these subjects being passed. The law of Masters and
Servants or a similar law operates particularly hard in the case of
sailors. We have these men continually sent to prison, simply because
they refuse to go to sea because the ship is too deeply loaded, and
they have not a chance for their lives, and if they refuse , they are
brought up before some ship-owning magistrates and their only choice
is – go to sea or go to prison. Such cases are happening
continually. Last year 600 men were sent to gaol, and maintained
there at your expense and mine, simply because they had a proper
objection to being drowned by the dozen and the score. There are many
other matters which require attention, but which the present system
of selecting representatives in Parliament, they have not that chance
of being attended to which they would have if the whole machinery of
Government was improved. I want to see such a re-distribution of
electoral power, as will ensure that the people be represented as
that capitalists.. At present the House of Commons consists far too
largely of men whose only interest is keeping what they have, and
adding more to it. They do as might be expected. They pass laws in
their own interest. When the landlords were predominant, they not
only shifted the burdens on the land upon the country, but in order
to make the land yield more profit, they taxed all corn brought from
abroad into the country, with the view of raising the price of corn
grown at home. I am thankful to say that their power seems to have
passed away, and we seem likely to have better times in the future. I
would rather that the object of the meeting not been so much the
assimilation of the Borough and the County franchise as that we had
taken the whole subject fairly in hand, and advocated that the
distinction between Borough and the county voters is artificial and
mischievous, and that that I can see no reason for keeping it up. I
think it would be greatly to the advantage of the English nation,
that instead of of boroughs and counties we had electoral districts,
so that there would be no distinction between dwellers in towns and
counties, so that we might exercise our rights and privileges as
Englishmen. Mr Disraeli in one of his great speeches in 1867, said
If you are going to invest in men with

Benjamin Disraeli

the exercise of great
public rights let that trust be accompanied with the performance of
public duties
.” Who is there in the country that does not perform
public duties? And he goes on to say that regularity of life and a
general trustworthiness of conduct ought to be qualifications for the
franchise, and on that ground I unhesitatingly claim, the franchise
for all the country – (Applause). For I know that the inhabitants
of England set an example to all on earth, both as to the regularity
of their lives, and also as to the general trustworthiness of their
conduct. They not only deserve well of the country for the right to
discharge of their duty, but deserve the admiration of the country
for having a general consideration for the welfare of others. And
gentlemen , it was your hearty and warm appreciation of the efforts I
had been putting forth for sailors that made me come here, because
you have not only done your duty to yourselves and your wives and
families, but have had thought and a shilling to spare for those less
able to protect themselves. (Loud applause) I want to deal with one
of the objections to the present state of the franchise. If a man
lives in a borough he is a good voter, but if he improves his
circumstances and out of regard for a delicate wife or family he
removes to the country, though he is only proving that he is the more
careful father of a family, he loses his vote. Again, if a non voter,
any one of you, has not a vote, but goes into a town, he immediately
gets one. There can be no sense in that sort of thing, because it is
clear that the vote is rather the possession of the bricks and mortar
than the man. I regard your claims as unanswerable and I think it
augers well for the future state of England, when her sons are
anxious to obtain(?) The franchise. Nor is this all. If the franchise
was conferred on every grown man in the country, which I think would
not be the extent of the reform now needed, because unless we have a
very considerable re-distribution of seats and electoral power, we
should have the intelligence and industry of the country swamped, in
many cases by minorities. At the present moment there are 77
constituencies, each with less than 10,000 people that return 77
members. The whole of the voters for the 77 constituencies are
65,000, so that each member represents a a constituency of of 852
voters alone. There are 82 constituencies not with less than 10,000
people each, who only return the same number of representatives. Of
these 82 each represents, therefore not 852 but 12,411 voters, and 82
constituencies the more increase of the electors during the last two
years has been greater than the whole number or the electors in the
77 constituencies I have referred to. Take another illustration :
Birmingham with 343,000 people, only sends three members to
Parliament, while Buckingham, with 175,000, sends 8. If Birmingham
were represented in the same degree it would have 16 members of
Parliament instead of three. Manchester, with a population of 379,000
voters, sends only 3 members, and by an ingenious device of Mr
Disraeli, one votes against the other, so that they may be said to
only send one. Berkshire, with 196,000 people and 15,000 electors
sends 8 members, while Manchester sends 3. The proportion for
Manchester, if measured by Berkshire, would be thirty. The five
counties, Wilts, Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall with less than
2,000,00, send 66 members to Parliament ; while London with more than
3,000,000, only sends 22 or one third, while in population it ought
to send 120. These facts gentlemen, will show that great changes are
needed, over and above the mere giving the vote to those who live in
the country. We must have something approximate to electoral
districts before we can be said to have attained to full
representation of the country. Theses are not merely the arguments of
the platform agitator, because the Times says the anomalies in
the distribution of electoral power are gross and untenable. But you
must not suppose that because the case is so strong, and the thing
seems so reasonable that we shall get it without a struggle.
Instance, the state of things described by Mr Jones, as proceeding
the passing of the Reform Act of 1832. That change was not brought
about without a great struggle. If there were those who were ready to
defend, and did defend the then existing state of things with very
great force, they must not suppose that men would be wanting to
oppose the reform which we contend is so much needed. I happened to
be at that place Mr Jones was describing, Old Sarum, on

Old Sarum

Tuesday, and
it is just at the top of a hill like Roseberry Topping. As Mr Jones
said, for many many years after there had ceased to be a single house
the owners of the acres met under a tree to decide which two electors
should be the members of Parliament . The only inhabitants that I
could see were partridges and rabbits (laughter) – so that they went
to represent them in place of men. We must not only have these things
I have spoken of secured and freed, but have also a fair and full
expression of the national will. And I hold it to be necessary that
all classes should not only vote for representatives, but that they
should send them from their own ranks. – (Applause) and that there
should be members of the House of Commons drawn from every class of
society. (Applause) If this is to be, we must have, I don;t say
payment of members, gentlemen but something like what we have for
cabinet ministers. If a man has been a cabinet minister, and held
office for five years and retires, he is at liberty to say he cannot
afford to live without a salary. It is not given to all as a rule,
but it is to enable men of genuine, who have given their services to
the State, to be maintained, and if it is not beneath the dignity of
a Cabinet minister to accept a pension from the state, I can’t see
how it would degrade a member of Parliament, if he was a working man.
I think that something like that, partially limited to working men,
would be a deal better than making it common to all. I think it would
be a pity to run any risk of destroying the force of attraction which
is supposed to attach to the office, seeing that it draws to the
services of the state, men whose services we could badly do without,
and which attraction proves an inducement to men of high culture in
the house, to have working men representatives and I don;t see how
this is to be accomplished, unless they are paid. We must also have
the cost of elections to municipalities. I think if we arrive at this
we shall have a fair chance of having such an infusion of fresh blood
into the house as to enable us to secure fresh ability, and we shall
have good legislation becoming much easier, and if anybody in the
future should find a great and intolerable injustice. Three weeks ago
I was looking out at sea from the watering place of Clifton near
Bristol, on the

Severn, and I saw a large vessel that was going to
sea. She was nearly overhead in the water, and had a bad list, and
was helplessly drifting about. Three days after that I read that a
large vessel had been lost off  Bude, and twenty men drowned. I don;t
know that it was the same ship that I saw, but I am having an inquiry
made into it. I do say this, and I challenge any man out of bedlam to
contradict it, that we have every week and every month dozens and
scores of hard-working men, men with wives and children, whose lives
are as precious to them as your are, that you sent down to death for
nothing on earth except to enable some greedy scoundrel that cares
nothing for his fellow men, to add to his wealth ; and, please God,
we will stop it. (Loud applause) These things cannot be put right
without effort. – A great deal has been done since the time Mr Jones
referred to. We have had men who lived before us that laboured hard
for us, and who were put in prison and tried for the lives. Shall we
do nothing for those who come after us? Seeing we enjoy so much of
what has been obtained for us by those who preceded us – let us do
our part and leave the world better than we found it. Your children
will be better off, politically, than you are, or worse ; for the
retrograde. But we shall find and of this we are well satisfied, that
unless we are watchful and vigilant to our children, we shall find a
new race of oppressors rise up in the pampered purse-proud
capitalists, and in those who get their living by employing others. I
know there are many noble men amongst capitalists. I do not wish to
say anything against them but I do say that a great many who have not
brains, and who think they discharge and by lavish outlay upon
themselves. They that desires, instead of trying to make the world a
better than it was before and those who are eager to stand in great
places are not only willing to inconvenience the working classes,but
in order to get rich they are willing, as in the case I have given,
to expose them not only to risk, but to absolute death, so long as
their own comfort and wealth is augmented. Gentlemen, I call upon you
to choose the good part, lively and loving Englishmen. Don;t be
content simply to enjoy the privileges which others have wrought
for, but let us keep and preserve what our forefathers have handed to
us and extend the stock to those who come after us, so that this
glorious old England of ours, in spite of oppression and wrong, shall
be better year by year, as time goes on and not work merely for
yourselves, but also for your children, advancing the cause of
freedom, rights and liberties everywhere, amongst all mankind. Mr
Plimsoll
then resumed his seat amid loud applause.


Mr JOSEPH TOYNE of Skelton was called upon to propose a
third resolution, which was as follows –

That it is the opinion of this meeting that the
condition of our Merchant seamen has been too long neglected,
considering the many evils by which it was characterised, and
requests that the Government of the country will, in the coming
session of Parliament. Propose a measure that will give all possible
protection to the lives of and interests of our sailors.
” 
In
moving that resolution, he said that while they they were engaged in
their occupation as miners they were exposed to accidents which
often occur instantaneous and they should appreciate the lot of our
sailors who were continually exposed to the perils of the deep
(Applause). He thought the thanks of the meeting were due to Mr
Plimsoll for trying to better the conditions of our seamen, and he
believed that no levy was more cheerfully paid than that which was
made on the Cleveland and North Yorkshire miners towards the good
work that Mr Plimsoll was heart and soul engaged in. (Applause)

Mr HAMMLEY Seconded and the resolution was unanimously
carried .


MR THOMAS FLOOAT (?), of Guisborough proposed and Mr
EMMANUEL RUSSELL
of Brotton seconded a vote of thanks to Mr
Plimsoll MP and Mr Jones for their eloquent addresses. This was
accompanied by three hearty cheers. Mr Plimsoll and Mr Jones replied
in suitable terms.

A vote of thanks to the gentleman who had lent the field
and the wagons , to the Chairman for presiding , to Mr Stephen
Emmerson
, and to the representatives of the press brought the
proceedings to a termination.
…………………………………………..

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