Keelmen

The Keelmen of Tyne and Wear were a group of men who worked on the keels, large boats that carried the coal from the banks of both rivers to the waiting collier ships.

The keelmen formed a close-knit and colourful community on both rivers until their eventual demise late in the nineteenth century.

The coal was piled high above the top of the hold with wooden boards used to prevent the cargo from sliding.

When keelmen struck in 1819 one of their demands was an extra shilling per keel per foot that the side of the collier exceeded five feet.

By the mid 19th century the usual fee was one guinea, including loading, which the keel's owner would split amongst the three crew in nearly equal shares, retaining only around 8d.

[5] Before the railways began to harm the trade, a keel owner would expect to make around ten "tides" a week.

The availability of work was often affected by the weather, if ships were unable to come into the river, and also by the supply of coal from the pits.

Strikes might affect output and wily pit owners would sometimes curtail production to keep prices high.

As a result, keelmen could spend long periods without work, during which they would have to live on credit or find employment in clearing wrecks and sand banks from the river.

John Baillie, writing in the late 18th century, said that they "live[d] almost entirely upon flesh-meat and flour, of the best kinds, which their strong exertions in their employment require."

[7] They were known by some as a close-knit group of aggressive, hard-drinking men: John Wesley, after visiting Newcastle, described them as much given to drunkenness and swearing.

Baillie said that this reputation was entirely undeserved: the keelmen had a "rough" way of expressing themselves, and were loud and vociferous "from the practice of hailing one another on the river, especially in the night tides", but "they scorn to show what they think incivility or rudeness to any person".

[10] In the 1840s they were described as wearing "a peculiar costume, consisting of a large jacket, or rather doublet, with loose breeches, made very wide at the knee, and not descending further".

Not all were local: there was a significant number of Scottish keelmen who returned home in the winter when trade was slack.

One grievance held by the keelmen was that the Hostmen, in order to avoid custom duties, would deliberately overload the keels.

Even after the keel-load had been standardised, there were cases of keel owners illegally enlarging the holds to carry more coal, as much as 26.5 tons.

The 1750 strike was also against 'overmeasure', as well as against 'can-money', the practice of paying part of the keelmen's wages in drink that had to be consumed at 'can-houses', pubs owned by the employers.

This imbalance changed dramatically during the English Civil War because of the Parliamentarian blockade of the Tyne and their encouragement of the Wearside merchants to make up for the subsequent shortfall in coal for London.

The keelmen agreed to contribute one penny a tide from the wages of each keel's crew and Newcastle Corporation made land available in Sandgate.

[13][14] Because of their experience of handling boats, the keelmen were considered useful in times of war when the Royal Navy required seamen for its warships.

However, in 1803, during a time of crisis, the Tyne Regulating Officer captured 53 keelmen with the intention of impressing them into the navy despite their exemption.

A compromise was reached so that 80 ‘volunteers’ (one in ten keelmen) would be accepted into the navy and the rest would be exempted from impressment.

The staiths were short piers that projected out over the river and allowed coal wagons to run on rails to the end.

[3] Until 1800, the most productive pits were situated upriver from Newcastle, and colliers could not pass the bridge there to load coal.

By 1830, Marshall's shipyard in South Shields had begun to manufacture steam tugs, for the Tyne and for further afield.

[3] As mentioned above, the reason for employing keelmen was the poor state of the navigation on the Tyne and Wear, which prevented ships from moving up river without danger of grounding.

This deepening of the river meant that colliers could load coal from the staiths without the need for keels to complete the work.

The river was dredged in 1749 to improve access, but the use of keels continued undiminished until the introduction of coal staiths in 1813.

The new docks with their efficient coal loading facilities brought the final demise of the keels and the men who worked them.

They are now just a distant memory with little to remind us of them, apart from the Keelmen's Hospital, which still stands in Newcastle, and the well-known local songs "The Keel Row"[3] and "Cushie Butterfield."