Mexborough & Swinton Times – Saturday 30 March 1912

Riotous Scenes at Cadeby

Rumour Causes Big Demonstrations

Sticks and Stones

it seemed as if an interesting situation was to develop at Denaby and Cadeby on Tuesday last. A rumour had got abroad at the pits have been opened and that coal was being got. As a matter of fact the management signed on on Monday some 30 men, including a few colliers and fillers, who, from extreme distress, and applied them for work in repairing the roads, and on Tuesday morning there were at work about 120 men, 45% of whom were officials and horse keepers. Not an ounce of coal has been drawn at Denaby or Cadeby since the strike was commenced, and we are assured by the management that there is no immediate intention to get coal.

We are further informed that at Cadeby there is room for 400 men to do nothing but repair the roads and roof, and that a fortnight of such repairing will not be sufficient to put the mine into a condition for working. The management are prepared to receive these 400 men for repair purposes, but if there is any trouble in the village or any disposition to intimidation, the mine will be shut down completely, and in that event it would be quite impossible to say how long it would take to repair it after it was reopened.

The Cadeby miners held a meeting at the Station Hotel, Conisbrough, on Tuesday morning, to discuss the situation, and some hostility to the men who had gone down was shown, but nothing definite was done.

However, a crowd of about 2,000 men and women assembled on the main road leading to the colliery at 2 o’clock, and there was a slightly hostile demonstration against the men as they came out of the pit. Fortunately, however, it was confined to hooting, though had not the police, under Inspector Fairbairn, been present in fairly strong force, two colliers might have been roughly handled.

There was strong suspicion on the part of the crowd that the men had been engaged in coal getting. There had been a certain amount of coal filled into tubs by the officials, but is as been in order to provide “gob” room for the dirt, and none of it has been drawn.

At Denaby no man had been signed on up to Tuesday.