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The Place of Imagery in the Transmission of Culture: The Banners of the Durham Coalfield

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2009

David Wray
David Wray
Affiliation:
University of Northumbria
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Abstract

The Durham Miners Gala is an annual event at which the associated branches of the Durham Miners Association carry their banners to a rally held in the city of Durham. The imagery displayed on those banners is representative of the class struggle to create a trade union that would represent and protect individuals and communities against the vagaries of the unbridled capitalism of the nineteenth century. In this way a tradition (and culture) was created not by social or political elites, but developed from ground level to counteract attempts to subsume them into a dominant ideology that saw them as little more than serfs.

Type
Articles
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 76 , Issue 1 , Fall 2009 , pp. 147 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 2009

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References

NOTES

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3. “Lodge” is the term used within the DMA to describe the union organization at each individual colliery.

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6. Ibid., 191.

7. Ibid., 211.

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19. Ibid.

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21. Beynon and Austrin, Masters and Servants, 167.

22. For example, see David Allsop and David Wray, “The Rise and Fall of Autonomous Group Working in the British Coal Mining Industry,” Employment Studies Paper 41, University of Hertfordshire Business School, 2002; Douglas, David “Pit Life in Co. Durham,” History Workshop Pamphlet (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar.

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27. This banner can be seen today in the headquarters of the Durham Miners Association in the City of Durham.

28. For example, see Beynon and Austrin, Masters and Servants; Colls, Robert, The Pitmen of the Northern Coalfield: Work, Culture and Protest 1790–1850 (Manchester 1987)Google Scholar; Moore, Robert, Pitmen, Preachers and Politics: The Effects of Methodism in a Durham Mining Community (Cambridge: 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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32. Ibid.

33. Fragile banners were usually hung in the Colliery Welfare building in a place of honor.

34. For example, see Beynon and Austrin, Masters and Servants; and Emory, The Banners of the Durham Coalfield.

35. For example, see: Beynon and Austrin, Masters and Servants; and Strangleman, “Network, Place and Identities.”

36. For example, see Beynon and Austrin, Masters and Servants; and Emory, The Banners of the Durham Coalfield.

37. Emory, The Banners of the Durham Coalfield.

38. Many of these Aged Miners Homes can be seen today in the mining communities throughout Co. Durham.

39. Emory, Norman, The Coalminers of Durham (Pheonix Mill 1992), 155Google Scholar.

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44. It was at the Orgreave Coking Plant, on this date, that the police diverted pickets into a field and charged them on horseback. In the history of the strike, this day is known as the Battle of Orgreave.

45. Gilbert, “Conference Report,” 49.

46. Stephenson and Wray, “Emotional Regeneration.”