The Testimony Of Patience Kershaw.

If you have read my blog page for a while you probably know that I am a big fan of The Unthanks. Recently I saw their 2009 album Here’s The Tender Coming in the auction on eBay. I put in a bid of £3.99 and it was mine, a bargain! Mojo magazine named it as Folk album of the year in 2009, and I agree that it is a wonderful recording. I was already familiar with many of the songs, but it was still great to add it to my collection. Most of the songs are traditional plus a few cover versions of other artists songs such as Living By The Water written by Anne Briggs and Annachie Gordon which I knew from Nic Jones. The title track is also one of my favourite songs of theirs. The ‘Tender Coming’ refers to a boat which press gangs used to force people into serving in the navy. I don’t want to write a review of the whole album today, but just talk about one song which intrigued me as soon as I saw the title. It is The Testimony Of Patience Kershaw. 

My curiosity immediately wanted to know who Patience Kershaw was. You can find a video of the song below which I hope you will listen to carefully as I did. From the lyrics I deduced that Patience worked underground in a coal mine as a ‘hurrier’ which involved pushing corves loaded with coal along the dark narrow tunnels. (A corve is a type of minecart). In a twelve hour shift she would cover twenty miles.  As well as using her arms and legs to push the corves she also used her head, which resulted in her hair being worn away. The song was written by Frank Higgins based on a statement Patience aged 17 gave when she was called upon to provide testimony to the Ashley’s Mines Commission of 1842. This commission came about after an accident at Huskar Colliery in Silkstone, near Barnsley. A stream overflowed into the ventilation drift after violent thunderstorms causing the death of 26 children; 11 girls aged from 8 to 16 and 15 boys between 9 and 12 years of age. What Patience told the inquiry is quite shocking. This is what she said.

‘My father has been dead about a year; my mother is living and has ten children, five lads and five lasses; the oldest is about thirty, the youngest is four; three lasses go to mill; all the lads are colliers, two getters and three hurriers; one lives at home and does nothing; mother does nought but look after home. All my sisters have been hurriers, but three went to the mill. Alice went because her legs swelled from hurrying in cold water when she was hot. I never went to day-school; I go to Sunday-school, but I cannot read or write; I go to pit at five o'clock in the morning and come out at five in the evening; I get my breakfast of porridge and milk first; I take my dinner with me, a cake, and eat it as I go; I do not stop or rest any time for the purpose; I get nothing else until I get home, and then have potatoes and meat, not every day meat. I hurry in the clothes I have now got on, trousers and ragged jacket; the bald place upon my head is made by thrusting the corves; my legs have never swelled, but sisters' did when they went to mill; I hurry the corves a mile and more underground and back; they weigh 300 cwt.; I hurry 11 a-day; I wear a belt and chain at the workings, to get the corves out; the getters that I work for are naked except their caps; they pull off all their clothes; I see them at work when I go up; sometimes they beat me, if I am not quick enough, with their hands; they strike me upon my back; the boys take liberties with me sometimes they pull me about; I am the only girl in the pit; there are about 20 boys and 15 men; all the men are naked; I would rather work in mill than in coal-pit’.

This evidence shows the terrible squalid conditions working people had to endure during the Victorian period when the British empire was at its height and the aristocracy, landed gentry, and factory owners enjoyed fabulous wealth beyond the wildest dreams of most of the population. In their report the commissioners said of Patience, ‘This girl is an ignorant, filthy, ragged, and deplorable-looking object, and such a one as the uncivilized natives of the prairies would be shocked to look upon’. What a scathing indictment that is of Victorian society. I don’t think slaves toiling in cottonfields would have had worse working conditions. The commission’s report based on the evidence that Patience and many others gave resulted in The Mines and Collieries Act 1842. The Act forbade women and girls of any age to work underground and introduced a minimum age of ten for boys employed in underground work. However, it was only with the growth of Trade Unions and the formation of the Labour Party that things finally really improved for most people in Britain. 

I’m not the first person to be curious about Patience because by looking on Wiki-data and elsewhere I found that other people had been researching her history. Poor Patience spent her last years in a Workhouse and what the Victorians called Lunatic Asylums. Patience passed away in 1865, age 42. She was buried in St Peter churchyard, Stanley, near Wakefield Yorkshire. I have got friends who live in Stanley, but I don’t think it would be worth searching for her grave on my next visit to Yorkshire because the likes of Patience Kershaw would not have been afforded the luxury of a headstone. Her small contribution to improving the lives of poor people in Britain shouldn’t be forgotten though. This song will be her epitaph. Thank you Frank Higgins and The Unthanks for turning her testimony into song so that Patience Kershaw will never be forgotten.