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Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842 1885

S >> Stuart J. Reid, ed. >> Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842 1885




My first stay in Leeds in the somewhat anomalous position I have
described lasted for little more than eighteen months. During that period
I found plenty of work to do as a descriptive writer and reporter, and
was brought into contact with some notable and interesting persons. Some
months after I had become connected with the _Mercury_, I renewed my
acquaintance with the tragical vicissitudes of colliery life. An
explosion occurred at the Oaks Pit, near Barnsley, which led to the
sacrifice of three hundred lives. Such a loss of life, exceeding that on
many an historic battlefield, was in itself terrible, but the
circumstances attending the accident at the Oaks Pit added to the
grimness of the tragedy. When I reached the colliery a few hours after
the explosion occurred I found that some two hundred of the men who had
been working in it were known to have been killed, but that many more
were believed to be still alive in the distant workings, and that a large
rescue party had gone below to recover them. Having sent my last despatch
to Leeds, I went to an inn at Barnsley to snatch a few hours of sleep
before resuming work at daybreak. In the morning, as I was hastening back
to the colliery to learn what progress had been made during the night, I
suddenly saw a dense volume of black smoke shoot out of the mouth of the
pit, and, rising high in the air, spread in a fan-shaped cloud of
enormous size. Immediately afterwards the dull reverberation of an
underground explosion fell upon my ear. A rough collier was walking
beside me, and when he heard that ominous sound he turned white, and
staggered against the wall which lined the road. "God have mercy on us!"
he cried, "she's fired again." It was an awful moment. Both I and the
pitman knew that, in addition to any survivors of the first explosion,
there were twenty or thirty brave men risking their lives in a work of
mercy when this new catastrophe took place.

We ran to the pit at our utmost speed, and when we reached the bank we
found ourselves in the midst of a distressing scene. The engineers and
workmen who had been engaged at the mouth of the pit were completely
unnerved by this unexpected disaster, and were weeping like children. The
second explosion had driven the "cage" completely out of the shaft, and
it hung in a wrecked condition in the gallows-like scaffolding which
surmounted the pit. There was thus no means of descending the shaft, even
if anyone had been courageous enough to do so. This renewed explosion
was, I ought to say, almost unprecedented in the long story of colliery
accidents. In a few minutes the wives and friends of the search party
below came thronging around us with agonised inquiries as to the safety
of those whom they loved. For a time all was confusion and despair; but
very quickly the voice of authority was heard, and the pit platform was
cleared of all except the small party that remained on duty and myself.
It was, as a matter of fact, a place of danger, for, as a second
explosion had occurred, it was quite possible that it might be followed
by a third. In spite of this risk, it was resolved to communicate, if
possible, with the bottom of the shaft.

By order of the engineer in charge, we all lay down at full length on the
platform, and one of our number was pushed forward until his head and
shoulders protruded over the black chasm of the pit, from which a thin
column of smoke was still rising. He was armed with a hammer, and with
this he struck one of the metal guiders of the ruined cage, giving the
pitman's "jowl" or signal, "three times three, and one over." Lying
breathless, we listened, hoping for some response. But there was only the
silence of death. Thrice the brave man repeated the signal, but no
answering sound came from the depths of the pit, and sadly we came to the
conclusion that all had perished. The signal man was dragged back from
his post of peril, and we were consulting eagerly as to the next step to
be taken, when a third explosion suddenly took place, shaking the
platform on which we stood, and covering us with fragments of burning
wood. Several of us were slightly hurt, but no one sustained any serious
injury. The painful fact that was forced upon us, however, by this new
explosion was that nothing could for the present be done to ascertain the
fate of the gallant fellows who had apparently been lost in their attempt
to rescue their comrades. It was clear that the pit was making gas, and
that a fire was burning somewhere in the workings, which in due time
might--and, as a matter of fact, did--cause fresh explosions. In these
circumstances nothing could be done except to pour water into the pit in
the hope of extinguishing the fire. Sorrowfully the band of workers
abandoned the pit-heap, leaving only a couple of young mining engineers
to keep watch above the scene of death.

In the middle of the following night--repeated explosions having taken
place during the day--a remarkable incident occurred. One of the
engineers left in charge--named, if I remember aright, Jeffcock--was
suddenly startled by hearing a sound proceeding, apparently, from the
depths of the pit. He went to the edge of the shaft, and then heard
unmistakably, far below him, the "jowl" for which we had listened in vain
on the previous morning. It proved that there was someone living in the
pit, and Mr. Jeffcock instantly determined to save him if he could. The
shaft was a very deep one. The cage which was the ordinary means of
descent had, as I have already explained, been destroyed, whilst the
pit-sides had been torn by the successive explosions, so that they were
in a highly dangerous state. But undaunted by these difficulties and
dangers, Jeffcock carried out his heroic task. Summoning assistance, he
caused himself to be lowered at the end of a rope to the bottom of the
shaft. Heaven only knows what were the terrors and dangers of that
descent. He faced them all unflinchingly. At the bottom of the pit he
discovered not any member of the search party, for they had all
succumbed, but one of the men employed in the colliery, who, by some
extraordinary chance, had escaped with his life not only from the
original explosion, but from all those which followed it. With immense
labour and risk he brought this man, the sole survivor of more than three
hundred, to the pit's mouth, and the next night the thoughtless fellow
for whom a brave man had risked so much, and whose own escape from death
had been almost miraculous, was carousing in a public-house in Barnsley,
and pocketing the coppers which hundreds of curious persons paid for the
privilege of seeing him.

One evening, in the summer of 1866, when I was on duty in the
_Mercury_ office, I received a telegram which Mr. Baines had
despatched from the House of Commons half an hour before. It stated that
the Home Secretary had just received information that Chester Castle had
been attacked by five hundred Fenians from Manchester, and that troops
were being despatched from London to meet them. I saw that a train which
left Leeds late in the evening would land me at Chester an hour or so
after midnight, and I at once made up my mind to take it. When I reached
Chester all was quiet at the station, and there were no signs of a Fenian
rising. I asked the chief official on duty if he knew anything about the
affair. All he could tell me was that during the early hours of the
evening the waiting rooms, and even the platform itself, had been filled
with crowds of "working men in their Sunday clothes," who had seemed to
be waiting for somebody or something. There were many hundreds of them,
and their unexplained presence had greatly puzzled the railway officials.
Some time before I arrived they had disappeared.

I went out into the streets of the old city. The darkness of the summer
night still brooded over me, but there was light enough to see that at
every street corner and every open space a crowd was gathered. They were
curious crowds. In every case the men were clustered in a circle, their
faces all turned towards the centre. They seemed to be listening intently
to someone who, in the middle of each little group, was speaking in low
but earnest tones. I made my way to one of the small crowds, and, joining
it, tried to hear what it was that the speaker in the middle was saying;
but instantly a strange thing happened. The crowd fell apart, melted away
into the gloom, and I suddenly found myself standing alone. Thrice did I
thus attempt to learn what was passing in these mysterious groups, and
every time the result was the same. I accosted individuals in the
streets, and questioned them as to the meaning of the curious scene, so
unusual in the dead of night in a quiet cathedral city. No man answered
me, except in some unintelligible syllable. I was not molested, nobody
was uncivil, but from no one could I get a word of explanation.
Gradually, as morning began to break, the throng became thinner. It was
dispersed like the mist by the sunshine.

By four o'clock Chester was apparently deserted by its strange visitors.
I went to the castle, and found that all was quiet there. I went to the
police office, and here I was told that the men were undoubtedly Fenians,
but that they had been guilty of no violence, and had given no excuse to
the police to interfere with them. They had apparently come to Chester
from every quarter, Liverpool, Manchester, and Stafford having each
contributed a contingent. But few had come by rail, most having entered
the city on foot. What it all signified the police declared they could
not understand, though they had no doubt that it had meant mischief. At
five o'clock I returned to the station, and saw two special trains arrive
within a few minutes of each other. These brought down a full battalion
of the Guards from London. It was a fine sight to see the regiment
marching with fixed bayonets from the station to the Castle. When the
last man had disappeared within the Castle gates, we knew that, whatever
plot had been hatched, it had miscarried.

The next day I gave in the _Leeds Mercury_ a full account of what I
had seen at Chester, and stoutly upheld the theory that a Fenian raid,
which had somehow or other miscarried, had been intended. But, on the
same morning, almost every other newspaper in the United Kingdom
published an account of the affair that had been supplied by a Liverpool
news agency. In this account the whole matter was turned into ridicule,
and the authorities were said to have been hoaxed, or carried away by
their own excited imaginations. But I had seen those strange, mysterious
groups, planted so thickly in the streets of Chester under the silent
night, and I could not accept the explanation of the Liverpool reporter.
Still, for the moment his story was that which was generally believed,
and I had to submit to the suspicion of having allowed myself to be
befooled. Not until more than twelve months later was the truth revealed.
It came out in the course of the trial of certain Fenian prisoners that
there really had been a plot to seize, not Chester Castle, but the arms
it contained. The conspirators knew that the guard in the Castle was very
weak. They hoped to get into the place by stratagem, and to seize the
contents of the armoury. Then they meant to capture a train, and, having
destroyed the telegraph wires, to carry their booty to Holyhead, where
they expected to find a steamer which would land them in Ireland. It was
about as mad a plan as was ever devised--as mad as John Brown's seizure
of the arsenal at Springfield. But desperate men attempt daring deeds.
Fortunately for the peace of the realm, the plot against Chester was
revealed to the Government in time, and when the little army of Fenians
knew that they had been betrayed, they silently dispersed without
striking a blow. It was, I confess, a satisfaction to me when the
informer--Corydon, if I remember the name aright--confirmed the truth of
my interpretation of that strange scene at Chester; and I had the
additional satisfaction of feeling that I was one of the few living men
who had, with his own eyes, actually seen a hostile army assembled on
English soil.

A reporter's life brings him into contact both with tragedy and comedy. I
have an amusing recollection of a visit paid by Edward VII., when Prince
of Wales, to Upper Teesdale during my stay in Leeds, for the purpose of
shooting on the Duke of Cleveland's moors. I travelled in the special
train which took the Prince and his party to the little station of
Lartington, then the terminus of the line which now connects the east and
west coasts. No royal personage had visited that beautiful valley before.
It was Sunday, and the whole population seemed to have turned out to see
the train, in which the heir to the throne travelled, fly past them.
Everywhere it was greeted with the waving of hats and handkerchiefs; but
I saw one old man, apparently an agricultural labourer, who was not
content with uncovering his head when the train went by. Reverently he
sank down upon his knees, and remained in that position until long after
we had sped past him. From Lartington the Prince and his party were to
drive to the inn at High Force, a dozen or fourteen miles away. I, and a
companion, representing a Sheffield newspaper, were to take up our
quarters for the night at the little village of Middleton-in-Teesdale,
halfway to High Force. A country omnibus had been provided for the Prince
and his friends, and in this they drove off. We had to walk, as no
vehicle was to be got.

When we had tramped a mile or more on our way, we met two men who were
walking quickly towards Lartington. One of them, who from his appearance
might have been a village schoolmaster, accosted us politely. "Can you
tell me if his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has arrived at
Lartington station yet?" "Yes," I replied, "he got there more than half
an hour ago." "Then where is he?" said my interlocutor in an injured tone
of voice. "He surely cannot be stopping there?" I told him that this was
not the case, and that he had already preceded us along that very road.
"Impossible!" retorted the schoolmaster. "I've been on this road ever
since the morning, and I can assure you that his Royal Highness has not
passed this way." "Did you not see a small omnibus pass," I asked, "with
some luggage on the roof?" The schoolmaster's companion, who was younger,
admitted that he had done so. "Well, then," I continued, "you must have
seen a gentleman in a brown felt hat sitting beside the driver, and
smoking a cigar. That was the Prince of Wales." "Don't attempt to make a
fool of me, you impertinent jackanapes!" roared my schoolmaster friend in
a mighty rage, and, setting off again at full speed, he proceeded on his
way towards Lartington, in search of the kingly vision he expected to
discover.

There was another occasion, during those early Yorkshire days, when I had
a little experience connected with the Prince. He and the Princess were
about to be received as the guests of a great--a very great--dignitary.
It was the first occasion on which this really eminent man had
entertained their Royal Highnesses, and he had specially furnished
certain rooms in his stately abode for their use. He gave a polite
intimation that he would be glad to see one representative of the Press
of the United Kingdom, in order that he might show him these apartments,
with a view to their being properly described in print. My colleagues of
the Yorkshire Press unanimously selected me to represent them on this
great occasion, and were good enough to warn me that they would expect at
least a column of descriptive matter detailing the glories of the
upholstery provided for the Royal apartments.

To my surprise, when I got to the house I was at once brought face to
face with the Great Man himself. He was mighty affable, and most
desperately anxious that I should do justice to his newly bought
furniture. I shall never forget my tour of the bedrooms and boudoirs to
which I was expected to do justice. The Great Man pounded the beds to
prove their elasticity. He turned down the bedclothes to convince me of
the fineness of the linen. He lifted up chairs in order that I might
satisfy myself of the solidity of their construction, and he expatiated
upon the beauties of curtains, window-hangings, and carpets in periods as
sonorous as any with which he had thrilled the House of Lords. I frankly
confess that I was astounded, and not a little shocked. I could see that
the Great Man was disappointed at my somewhat stolid reception of a
florid eloquence of which George Robins, the auctioneer, might have been
proud. I do not think, however, he was half so much disappointed as my
colleagues were when I returned to them and dictated a dozen lines of
severe catalogue as the only "description" I was capable of giving of the
furniture of two commonplace bedrooms. I never met the Great Man in after
life without seeing him, in my mind's eye, flourishing a chair upside
down, or lovingly patting with his mighty hand an embroidered coverlet.

Upon the whole, the most important of the events in which I took part as
reporter and descriptive writer during this period at Leeds was the
series of Reform demonstrations in which Mr. Bright played the leading
part in the autumn of 1866. I remember no public meetings in the course
of my life that equalled them in enthusiasm. The Russell administration
had been defeated in the previous session on the question of
Parliamentary Reform, the defeat having been brought about by the action
of the Adullamites, so-called, under the leadership of Lord Grosvenor and
Mr. Lowe. John Bright, to use a phrase that has since become historic,
"took off his coat" at the end of that session, and went to the country
with the avowed determination of raising such a movement in favour of
Parliamentary Reform that even the Tory Government, which was now in
office under the Premiership of Lord Derby, would be compelled to yield
to it. His plan of campaign was as simple as are most great plans. He
arranged to address meetings in the chief cities of England, Scotland,
and Ireland. Each meeting was to be preceded by a Reform demonstration
held on some open piece of ground in or near the city where the meeting
was to be held. These demonstrations took place at Birmingham,
Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, Dublin, and London. I was present at all of
them.

Never were such open-air gatherings held in England before. On more than
one occasion the attendance exceeded a hundred thousand. The gatherings
were without exception orderly and enthusiastic. All the smaller towns
and villages near the scene of meeting sent deputations. There were great
processions through the streets, headed by bands and political banners.
At the place of meeting many different platforms were erected, and
resolutions calling upon the Government to introduce a measure of
Parliamentary Reform were put simultaneously from all the platforms.
Nothing could have been more impressive as a demonstration of national
feeling than these wonderful gatherings, so vast, so resolute in their
bearing, and yet so orderly. They made even Ministers feel that the time
had passed for trifling with the question of Reform. The Government were
compelled to yield, and, as everybody knows, the session of 1867
witnessed the passing of the Household Suffrage Act. But by far the most
important factor in each of these successive gatherings was the evening
meeting that followed the open-air demonstration. At this Mr. Bright was
always the chief speaker. I do not think he ever made better speeches
than those which he delivered during this autumn of 1866. I have recorded
the first occasion on which I heard Bright speak, and have said that his
oratory was not so impressive on a first hearing as people might suppose.
For my own part, I found that the spell of his magic grew stronger every
time that it was renewed, and before I had listened to the last of this
wonderful series of orations I had become what I remained to the end--the
most enthusiastic of his admirers.

The opening speech of the series was delivered at Birmingham, and it
contained one passage that, after all these years, is still stamped upon
my memory. It was a brilliant vindication of Mr. Gladstone, as the
apostle of Parliamentary Reform, from the sharp attacks made upon him by
the Adullamites. Even then the intrigues against Mr. Gladstone's
leadership of the Liberal party--intrigues which did not cease until the
day of his final retirement nearly thirty years later--had begun. Bright
treated them with characteristic contempt. He inveighed with all his
force against the men who were going about declaring that Mr. Gladstone
was unfit to be the leader of the party, and, with that accent of
withering scorn which was one of his most formidable weapons as an
orator, he cried, "If they have another leader who can take Mr.
Gladstone's place, why do they not let us see him? _Where have they
been hiding him until now?_" That single sentence fell like a hammer
upon the heads of the intriguers of the Cave. In face of it they could
not continue their absurd attempt to rob Mr. Gladstone of his appointed
place.

The most florid and poetical of Bright's Reform speeches was that which
he delivered at Glasgow. It consisted, for the most part, of a noble
appeal to ministers of religion, and to all interested in the social
welfare of the people, to try what a Reformed Parliament could do to
remove the burdens laid upon the shoulders of common humanity. "The
classes have failed, let us try the nation." The speech closed with a
fine peroration in which the speaker, after referring to the effect
already produced by the public movement in favour of Reform, declared
that he could see "as it were upon the hill-tops of Time, the glimmerings
of the dawn of a new and a better day for the country and the people that
he loved so well." It was with this peroration still ringing in my ears
that I hurried from the meeting to the telegraph office. I was
palpitating with excitement under the influence of Bright's magic
eloquence. Judge of my astonishment when I heard two worthy citizens of
Glasgow who had just left the hall comment upon the speech in these
words. First Citizen: "A varra disappointing speech!" Second Citizen: "Ou
aye! He just canna speak at all." This extraordinary incident at least
bears out what I said as to the disappointing character of Bright's
eloquence upon people who listened to it for the first time. A man needed
to grow into an appreciation of it. There was, by the way, an amusing
incident in connection with the reporting of this Glasgow speech. Bright,
as I have said, had referred to the influence of the great popular
demonstrations in favour of Reform, and had spoken of them as "those vast
gatherings, sublime in their numbers and in their resolution." Some
unhappy reporter, by a very slight slip, made him speak of the meetings
as sublime in their numbers and their resolutions--a very different
matter.

His last Reform speech in 1866 was delivered in London, in St. James's
Hall. It was preceded on the previous day by the usual procession through
the streets and an open-air demonstration at Lillie Bridge. The poor
Londoners were very much alarmed at the prospect of the gathering. The
editors of the morning papers opened their respective Balaam boxes and
gave the asses a holiday, to borrow a phrase of Christopher North.
Innumerable letters were published, declaring that the mob of reformers,
led by the wild man from Birmingham, would probably sack the town; and
fervent entreaties were addressed to the Government to line the streets
with troops for the protection of peaceful and law-abiding householders.
The Government, which had received its lesson in Hyde Park in the
preceding summer, did nothing of the sort; but I believe that a good many
houses and even shops in the West End were actually closed and barricaded
by their perturbed and nervous proprietors. There was one notable and
significant exception to this rule. Miss--now the Baroness--Burdett-Coutts
not only did not close her house in Piccadilly, but assembled a party of
friends at it, and, seated in the midst of them in the great bay-window
overlooking Piccadilly, saluted in friendly fashion the great army of the
unenfranchised as they passed along the road. She was cheered
vociferously, and must have felt a thrill of satisfaction at the thought
that she was recognised as the worthy representative of that stout old
Radical reformer, Sir Francis Burdett. I took up my position to see the
procession pass in Pall Mall, opposite the Reform Club. I had never before
seen that famous building. It struck me at the time as having a cold and
gloomy exterior, yet I gazed upon it with reverence as the home of the most
distinguished of the men who espoused the cause of liberty. I little
thought, on that dull winter day, how many years I was destined to spend
within its walls, or how large a part I was to take in its affairs.

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