Weardale Limestone Quarry Owners Collection

BS/WLQ/1. Corporate Records

Set up in 1873, Weardale Limestone Quarry Owners was a collaboration between J.W. Pease & Company; Bell Brothers Ltd.; Walton & Company; Spencer & Newlandside Mineral Company Ltd.; Ord & Maddison; Teesdale Limestone Company; and Weardale Iron & Coal Company. The Owners formed at a time when the Weardale limestone miners' strike of 1873, part of wider strikes in the trade aimed at achieving an advance in wages, threatened to stop supplies of limestone from Weardale to the ironmasters.

The initial aim of the Owners was to find 'competent men prepared to get stone at the tonnage sales paid at the respective quarries before the present strike'. After the initial strike had concluded, Weardale Limestone Quarry Owners would meet to discuss matters of workers' pay, prices of limestone, working conditions and mining processes. They would also discuss what action to take in times of dispute. The meetings of the Joint Committee, which included representatives of the owners and workers, met with the purpose of resolving disputes and matters raised by the quarrymen. These matters included wage rates, the use of new machinery and the arrangements for lunch breaks and Bank Holidays.