Added: Jan 28, 2012

From: BeamishMuseum

Duration: 1:18

Alex, one of our Learning Team plays a snippet of Little Annie Rooney in one of our Pit Cottages. She's my sweetheart, I'm her beau; She's my Annie, I'm her Joe, Soon we'll marry, never to part, Little Annie Rooney is my sweetheart! In November 1890 miners at Silksworth Colliery turned out on strike. There was a feeling amongst the miners who were part of the Union that the deputies at the Colliery were treated more favourably by the mine managers and owners if they didn't join. Likewise the owners believed that the Union members bullied the deputies into joining. There had been an agreement a few years before that it should be a free choice. This dispute resulted in a strike by the miners. All attempts at negotiations between the sides failed. The colliery and its houses were owned by Lord Londonderry. On hearing of the strike, and failed attempts to resolve it amicably, he ordered the eviction of the miners and their families from their houses. Londonderry recruited men from Hartlepool to carry out the evictions, under the false pretence of "shifting timber". These men were nicknamed "candymen" (after the rag and bone men who went around the streets collecting old furniture and would sometimes give a piece of candy to children) They were stationed at 'Candy Hall', a farm not far from the colliery, just outside of Silksworth village. Every morning the candymen would walk into the village with a Police escort and into the rows of colliery houses to carry out the evictions. Silksworth folk protested peacefully though not quietly, banging pots and pans, singing 'Little Annie Rooney', playing the fiddle and barricading their homes, with tactics like a dash of pepper sprinkled in the curtains or putting bricks in their chest of drawers. There are interesting stories about men being carried out in their armchairs and babies in cots but also of unlawful eviction of the wrong occupiers. The Strike Committee and their supporters wore blue rosettes. Visit the People's Collection website for archive images, information and memories: http://collections.beamish.org.uk/silksworth Little Annie Rooney (1890) by Michael Nolan

Channel: Education

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