Trouble at the Pit

Some notes on the trial of Hughie Owen cited by miner's leaders,Turner and Lawther here


On July 6th 1929 Hughie John Owen was tried for assaulting John Allcock, a deputy at Snowdon. He was sent to stall 105, he refused, he could not get on with the other men, they were from Derbyshire, he was Welsh. After arguing a little he left the pit.

When the deputy left Owen followed him to the railway bridge, where Owen said he tried to talk to Allcock. Allcock wouldn't listen:" Don't bother me." Another miner gave testimony against Owen, (this seems unusual)

The account says Owen struck a blow that caused Allcock's nose to bleed for sixteen hours, then hit him in the face again when Allcock was lying on the ground.

I don't have a transcript of this account, the gadget fur copying microfilm wasn't working on my second day in the library. It's a pity as my notes, taken from the Express trial report differ in two respects to the report linked above (written the following month), firstly the Express in it's later account claims a chest blow as well as the facial blows in my notes, Lawther says he got 2 months hard labour, I noted one month.

Both newspaper accounts make the assault sound brutal, but of course,the reporter is not on Owen's side. The incident also illustrates another difficulty facing the newcomers, miners were coming from depressed coalfields all over the UK.

Radio and mass transport were only just beginning. Some areas of the UK were still very isolated, not only were they coming to a 'strange land', but the other miners were foreign too, with many different dialects and ways. Some would have left their home village for the first time.


It's also possible that Owen was being baited, perhaps because he was a Welshman, perhaps because he had been mouthy,he may have been deliberately given a stall where he was unpopular. Unwanted stalls were sometimes a method of punishmentl.