Ministering to Navvies - Railways, Religion and Combating the Labourer's 'evils'

I have talked in the past about looking at the relationship between religion and the railways, as the way that religion interacts with society and the structures within it is something that fascinates me. Therefore, when I came across the government’s 1847 select committee report on Railway Labourers it didn’t surprise me that their religion, or lack thereof, was something that concerned the committee members.

The committee was formed to ‘inquire into the Condition of the Labourers employed on the construction of the railways and other public works, and into the remedies which may be calculated to lessen the peculiar evils, if any, of that condition.’ [1] Seemingly, the commons did not see the error of putting ‘if any’ [italics added] in the terms of reference, as there would have been no reason to form the committee if railway labourers were perceived to by sober, polite and pious. Indeed, as I have written in this blog previously, railway labourers and navvies had a reputation for being drunkards, brawlers and semi-criminal.[2] Thus, in a Christian country, where clean living was seen as highly important for the health of one’s body and soul, railway labourers were perceived as heathens. This is why the committee too such an interest in their religious activities.

The committee took evidence from many individuals, including such notables as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the famous engineer, Samuel Morton Peto, the owner of one of the largest contracting firms in the country, and Captain Constantine Richard Moorsom, a director of many railway companies and later chairman of the London and North Western Railway. Furthermore, the committee also interviewed builders, other contractors, railway employees and clergy that dealt with railway labourers. Thus, when writing their final report they had evidence from many quarters.

The report stated generally that religious provision for labourers was ‘imperfect.’ Large communities of railway labourers were established very rapidly when a new line was under construction, putting a strain on local religious facilities. This problem was especially acute in areas where the population was sparse. As such, the committee concluded that this deficiency cooperated with other evils to ‘deprave the character and degrade the habits of the men.’ Therefore, it is unsurprising that many of the individuals who stood before the committee felt that some form of religious instruction was beneficial for reducing the ‘evils’ that the labourers engaged in.[3] To make up for the deficiencies some railway and contracting companies did provide out of their own pocket religious facilities for the labourers engaged on building works. However, the level of provision varied between them. Some companies provided religious personnel to minister to the labourers. The Caledonian and Liverpool and Bury Railways,[4] as well as the contractor Peto,[5] paid for a number of scripture readers. The South Devon and Caledonian Railways paid for chaplains.[6] However, some companies went further and provided their labourers with venues for religious activities. On the Chester and Holyhead railway the company ‘temporarily fitted up a church’ at Chester. The Lancashire and Carlisle and South Eastern Railways built temporary chapels at Penrith and Dover respectively. The most minimal provision was made by the Sheffield and Manchester Railway who provided their labourers with a ‘hut covered with a tarpaulin.’ Lastly, Peto’s contracting firm provided his employees with Bibles as standard.[7]

However, despite these companies’ efforts, the report itself stated that religious provision was ‘utterly neglected.’[8] Officials from the North British, Norwich and Brandon, and Manchester and Leeds Railways stated that while they were aware of places of worship near their building works, the companies themselves did not provide any religious facilities. Subsequently, the report concluded that where labourers only had local religious provision attendance was varied. Labourers on the Chester and Holyhead railway attended the churches and chapels in Conway greatly, while workers employed on the Manchester and Leeds Railway’s Oldham branch did not.

Furthermore, only in the cases of the South Devon and Caledonian Railways were full priests, vicars or ministers provided for the labourers.[9] Indeed, it seems that many of the companies relied on local clergymen or religious organisations to take an interesting the spiritual wellbeing of the labourers. In the case of the South Devon Railway it was the Reverend John Robert Thompson that approached the company to minister to them because of the disturbance they were causing amongst the local population.[10] The Croydon and Epsom Railway’s employees were ministered to by the local Pastoral Aid Society and the Leicester and Carlisle Railway’s labourers had a layman employed by the ‘Dissenters of Kendal.’ Furthermore, the Irish labourers from the Caledonian Railway actually paid for a Roman Catholic priest to visit themselves. However, this was presumably because of the lack of Roman Catholic clergy in the area.

Additionally, while only Peto provided Bibles as a matter of course to his employees, on the Chester and Holyhead and Lancaster and Carlisle Railways the workers could buy them, as well as hymn and prayer books.[11] Therefore, it seems that the religious instruction that was provided by the companies was variable and was possibly affected by who was in charge of the company.

Overall, while the committee concluded that access to religious provision did have a ‘most satisfactory’ result in combatting ‘evils’ amongst railway labourers,[12] it also stated that this was no substitute for companies addressing their underlying causes. These included the level of wages paid, the regularity of payment,[13] the housing provision for them and their families, the rapid movement and growth of labouring communities,[14] and the conditions in which they worked.[15] Thus, in the committee’s final report the lack of religious provision for workers was cited last as a cause of labourer’s disruptive behaviour. Indeed, the presence of religious instruction was seen only as bonus in solving the problems of labouring communities, rather than a cure. The report stated that ‘no teaching can be of much avail to counteract the ceaseless operation of such degrading and deteriorating influences,’ and that in trying to improve labourer’s behaviour employers had understandably improved other aspects of their lives.[16] Furthermore, amongst the statements provided to the committee the evidence that religious instruction had positive effect on labouring communities’ ‘evil’ habits is seemingly very weak.

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[1] House of Commons Parliamentary Papers [HCPP], 1846 (530) Report from the Select Committee on railway labourers; together with the minutes of evidence and index.

[2] Coleman, Terry, The Railway Navvies, (London, 1968), p.19-35

[3] HCPP, 1846 (530) Report from the Select Committee on railway labourers., p.xi

[4] HCPP, 1846 (530) Report from the Select Committee on railway labourers., p.40

[5] HCPP, 1846 (530) Report from the Select Committee on railway labourers., p.43

[6] HCPP, 1846 (530) Report from the Select Committee on railway labourers., p.11

[7] HCPP, 1846 (530) Report from the Select Committee on railway labourers., p.40-41

[8] HCPP, 1846 (530) Report from the Select Committee on railway labourers., p.xi

[9] HCPP, 1846 (530) Report from the Select Committee on railway labourers., p.40-41

[10] HCPP, 1846 (530) Report from the Select Committee on railway labourers., Minute 179

[11] HCPP, 1846 (530) Report from the Select Committee on railway labourers., p.40-41

[12] HCPP, 1846 (530) Report from the Select Committee on railway labourers., p.xii

[13] HCPP, 1846 (530) Report from the Select Committee on railway labourers., p.iii

[14] HCPP, 1846 (530) Report from the Select Committee on railway labourers., p.vi

[15] HCPP, 1846 (530) Report from the Select Committee on railway labourers., p.viii

[16] HCPP, 1846 (530) Report from the Select Committee on railway labourers., p.xi

The Riots and Brawls of the Victorian Railway Navvy

The railway navvies, the men who built the railways, were well known as being thieves, rioters and susceptible to the evils of drink. As railway building progressed, and the number of navvies grew, anti-navvy sentiments were aroused. The London Pioneer of December 1847 distinguished between the ‘open, kind-hearted, civil and hardworking’ navvies of the very early years of railway construction, and the influx of newcomers that they dubbed and ‘inferior race of men.’ A Mr Robinson wrote in an article that “they were so excessively drunken and dissolute, that a man would lend his wife to a neighbour for a gallon of beer, and that it was difficult to conceive a set of people more thoroughly depraved, degraded and reckless."[1]Of course, their demonic status was invariably overstated, however, navvies were in large part responsible for crimes and riots around the nation, and the fact that they moved with the construction of the line, from place to place, must have meant that for many they were a roving band to be feared. Indeed, Terry Coleman, in his seminal book on navvies, reported that communities in Scotland began to live in fear as ‘navvy riots were habitual.'[2]In this blog post I will look in brief at the disturbances that were caused by navvies between 1840 and 1850.

Of course much of the trouble that navvies caused was local and somewhat insignificant. On Thursday 19^th March 1846 the The Bradford Observer; and Halifax, Huddersfield, and Keighley Reporter reported that on the Saturday before, in Castlegate, a navvy by the name of Christopher Brown had knocked over an unnamed girl, fracturing her jaw in two places. A William Walker came to her defence and he also was knocked down, receiving a kick to the face from which he suffered a bloodied lip. Both were admitted to the infirmary soon after. However, when on his way back home Walker saw Brown again and was floored a second time. This time Brown did get away with the crime. A police constable was in attendance and took him into custody and he was subsequently committed to two months hard labour.[3]

Yet, on occasion navvies banded together to terrorise local populations. On the 7^th March, 1846, John Bull reported that at some point between Saturday the 28^th February and the Sunday of the 1^st of March a ‘breach of the peace of a most daring kind’ was committed, attended by a murder. Near the North British Railway’s line to Hawick, about 11 miles south of Edinburgh, two navvies were arrested at around midnight as they were suspected of stealing a watch. Soon 300 navvies had gathered, armed with ‘bludgeons, pickaxes, hedgebills &c’ and headed towards the police station to liberate the accused. On reaching it, one of the navvies held a pistol to the sergeant’s head and demanded their comrades’ release. He refused, and subsequently the mob broke open the cell and released their compatriots. In their march towards their workplace, the local Fushie Bridge, they encountered the district constable, Pace, who they savagely attacked leaving his skull smashed open. He died on the Sunday afternoon. Thus, in response to this attack, List, a local police officer, had a force of men put at his disposal and succeeded in apprehending 13 of the rioters in the course of the Monday.[4] Their fate was unknown.

Yet apart from terrorising the local residents, Navvies also had a pinache for antagonising each other. In Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle on June 7^th, 1846, it reported under the heading of ‘Saving trouble,’ that two navvies on the construction of the Marley Tunnel in South Devon were ‘resolved to decide a quarrel by a stand-up fight.’ Once stripped and ready to fight, the quarrel was decided by virtue of the fact that one of the men ‘fell down dead before a blow was struck.'[5]

Yet, inter-navvy hostilities were much worse in many cases, with conflict arising from matters of religion, pay and antagonism between different groups of workers. After all, one third of railway navvies were Irish, another third were Scottish and the last third were English.[6] With many Irish Catholic navvies working in Scotland there was bound to be conflict with the Scottish, predominately Protestant and Non-conformist, navvies. As Terry Coleman stated, Irish labourers did not look for a fight, however two things vexed their Scottish compatriots. Firstly, they worked for less pay than local labourers. But in addition the devoted Catholic Irish regarded ‘the Sabbath as a day of recreation on which thy sand and lazed about,’ when the Scots still worked and only required some quiet prayer time and a drop of whisky. Thus, the Irish were attacked and beaten up by their Scottish co-workers. Railway contractors tried to keep Scottish and Irish navvies apart, but to no avail. All the while, British navvies, in Coleman’s opinion, assembled and fought with anyone, although they generally preferred to attack the Irish. These riots were widespread in the 1840s, and fights would sometimes include up to 2000 navvies.[7]

Of course, what was reported in the newspapers were the worst and most notable examples of navvy violence, and I suspect that in many cases the majority of navvies were law abiding, peaceful and hardworking. However, it is clear that on many occasions navvies did fight, did commit crimes, and were a menace where they worked. This said, to what extent this was the case has not been looked at quantitatively, and much research has to be done on the way that navvy communities, which included their families, interacted with their environment. Of course Terry Coleman’s book is a useful guide; however his book is rather anecdotal. Subsequently, this is an area of railway history into which I wish to look further in the future.

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[1] London Pioneer ,Thursday, December 17, 1846; pg. 536; Issue 34

[2] Coleman, The Railway Navvies, p.93

[3] The Bradford Observer; and Halifax, Huddersfield, and Keighley Reporter, Thursday, March 19, 1846; pg. 5; Issue 611

[4] John Bull , Saturday, March 07, 1846; pg. 158; Issue 1,317

[5] Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, Sunday, June 07, 1846; pg. 8

[6] Coleman, Terry, The Railway Navvies, (London, 1976) p.93

[7] Coleman, The Railway Navvies, p.93-95