3-028-750 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Colliery Riots in Yorkshire: escorting prisoners to the courthouse at Barnsley, 1870. 'The riots and acts of violence which took place, on the 21st January, at Tankersley and Thorncliffe, in consequence of the dispute between Messrs. Newton, Chambers, and Co., and the men formerly employed in their collieries, were investigated by the magistrates sitting at the Barnsley Courthouse...a tumult in the streets was provoked by their being paraded, with the witnesses fetched to give evidence against them, in the face of a mob of people, amongst whom were many partisans of the South Yorkshire Miners' Union...About 160 members of the West Riding constabulary force were draughted from all parts of the Riding except the Barnsley district; and this large body of men, armed with cutlasses and staves, arrived in Wakefield by various trains on Sunday evening...the prisoners were...chained and handcuffed to each other, and, being placed in the centre of the cordon of police, they marched to the railway station and went by special train to Barnsley...The prisoners were twenty-eight in number...The works and collieries belonging to Messrs. Newton, Chambers, and Co., the scene of the late disgraceful riots...rank among the largest in the West Riding.' From "Illustrated London News", 1870.