The Buttyman's Crime

The Dover Express for February 8th 1929, reported that a miner, 52 years old, (with wife and 7 children),was sent to trial for stealing the wages of three other miners from Chislet colliery. He said it must have fallen out of his pocket as he rode his motorbike to London

The stolen wages were for 3 pounds, 2 pounds 8 shillings and 3 Pound 2 shillings, also 2pound sick pay for another man. (these wages are noticeably lower then amounts quoted in my other sources which said that a miner in the Kent coalfield could earn 4 or even 5 pounds)


When I first read this story 2 things bothered me- What was the culprit doing with the other miners’ wages? And why were the wages always given in whole amounts of shillings?

Then I heard about the butty system of payment- In Richard Carter’s account of life in Aylesham it is explained like this-

‘The payment system was via a “ButtyMan”. He was a kind of gang leader and he collected the wages for the whole gang and decided who got what according to their contribution to any productivity bonus that had been earned. If you were not in the habit of standing the ButtyMan a pint of beer in the pub you could lose out on your bonus’

(Isn’t it Interesting that Richard Carter has given the buttyman an aristocratic double capital, like the local Overdog, Lord FitzWalter?)

In an interview in 1977 one old lady told the Kentish Gazette, that 'there would often be fights as the butties and the men were paid. Lots of them used to send down the wives for their money.If the men went it was likely their wages be stolen.’

At Snowdon the buttyman was in charge of a stall, he was given their wages with a docket showing their shift pay less deductions, he received no extra money for supervision so would dock the miners' pay . it seems that normally the miners pay was rounded down to the nearest shilling so 10 shillings 11 pence for a shift would become 10 shillings.(this explains why no pennies in the stolen pay of the Chislet miners) The system had been illegal since the 1870s but if a miner complained he could be moved from a good stall to a bad one. The source of Hughie Owen’s grievance ?

The system ended at Snowdon in 1932, but continued elsewhere in the Kent coalfield until 1936