Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885

Newcastle Journal-In

tone at Newcastle-upo

Memorable Colliery Di

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chief reporter on the daily paper. This was in the spring of 1861. My father had come, reluctantly enough, to the conclusion that I must be allowed to go my own way, and accordingly, on July 1st in that year, I entered on my career as a professional journalist. On the previous day I had said good-bye to the W.B. Lead Office, and to Mr. Fotherg

yone who is young and high-spirited. All this was now at an end. No special hours had to be kept, and no two days were the same. Instead of the four walls of my office, I now had the whole of the northern counties as my sphere of work. To this hour I remember the delight with which on my second morning at the Journal office I set off, in company w

editor in the temporary absence of my friend, Mr. Lowes, when I received a telegram announcing that the first shot had been fired in the American War. Some two or three months later Newcastle was favoured with a visit from Lord John Russell, who had recently accepted an earldom. He was entertained at a great banquet in the Town Hall, whereat all the Whig notabilities of the North of England assembled to do him

een seen in the Old-a struggle on the one side for empire and on the other for independence. Now in the system of shorthand which I had learned, the word "independence" is represented by an arbitrary symbol, consisting of two dots, one above the other, like a colon. When I came to write out my turn, I found to my horror that the signification of this particular symbol had escaped my memory. There it was, staring me in the face from my note-book, but what it meant for my very life I could not at the moment tell. And the telegraph messengers were pestering me for my copy, and, worst of all, the reporters from London seemed to my guilty conscience to be eyeing me askance, and wondering what the delay meant. In a desperate moment

Tyneside during the two days he spent amongst them in October, 1862. I have said elsewhere that this visit was one of the turning-points in Mr. Gladstone's life. He himself practically acknowledged this to me in after-days. It was the first occasion in his career on which he had been brought into close contact with a great industrial community. It was the first time that he was treated as the popular idol by an overwhelming multitude of his fellow men. On the first day of his visit he was entertained at a banquet in the Town Hall, and it was in his speech after dinner that he made one of the notable mistakes of his great career. The Civil War in America, to which Lord Russell had alluded twelve months before, was still raging. I nee

an actor's, the flashing eye that in moments of passion lit up so wonderfully, the crop of waving brown-black hair. I have seldom seen a finer-looking man. I hear once again the beautiful voice, so sonorous, so varied in tone, so emphatic in accent. To the boy of twenty a first sight of this great historic f

ut end in reply. I think I reported eight of them myself. It was evident that he was deeply impressed by this demonstration, and I have always held that it was on that fateful day in October, 1862, that he discovered that his unpopularity with the upper classes was more than counterbalanced by his hold upon the affections of the people. As we were returning to Newcastle in the evening, I happened to be standing near Mrs. Gladstone, and she entered into conversation with me. It was the first time that I had ever seen her. "I think this has been the happiest day of my life," she said to me, with that exub

scope of my duty. It was admirable training, and has turned out many a good journalist. Always to be on the alert, so that no important item of news should be missed by my paper; always to be ready to reel off a column of readable "copy" on any subject whatever; always to be prepared for any duty that might turn up-these were among the necessary qualifications for my post. Then, as the Journal was short-handed, it sometimes fell to my lot to undertake tasks which usually li

unt of public interest. Up to that time it had been lawful to work coal mines with a single shaft, so that there was only one possible mode of egress for the men at work in the pit. Hartley was one of these single shaft collieries, and on the morning of Thursday, January 17th, 1862, more than two hundred men and boys were suddenly made prisoners in the workings by the b

th the tragic realities of life. For a full week in that bitter January weather I may be said to have lived on the pit platform. From ten in the morning till long after midnight I remained there, writing hourly despatches for my paper; then I drove to Newcastle, a cold, dark journey of a couple of hours, and scribbled my latest bulletin at the Journal office. This done, I lay down on a pile of newspapers in the rat-haunted office, and snatched a few hours' sleep before returning to the post of duty. But some nights it was impossible to leave the mouth of the pit even for a

latform at Hartley that which I have always considered the bravest deed I ever saw. I and a handful of watchers were dozing round the open fire in the early hours of a bitter winter morning, just one week after the accident had happened, when we were suddenly aroused by an urgent signal from the shaft, evidently coming from the men working far below. We thought that the imprisoned miners had been reached, and eagerly we waited till the first messenger was brought to the surface. Alas! when he was raised to the mouth of the shaft we saw that he was one of the sinkers, and

t with him the terrible story of what he had seen. All the two hundred imprisoned colliers were dead. They were found sitting in long rows in the workings adjoining the shaft. Most had their heads buried in their hands, but here and there friends sat with intertwined arms, whilst fathers whose boys were working with them in the pit were in every case found with their lads clasped in their arms. They had all died very peacefully, and certainly not more than forty-eight hours after the closing of the shaft. One of the over-men had kept a diary of events. It told how some had succumbed to the fatal atmosphere before others, and how, in the depths of the mine, a prayer-meeting had been

e country, and it was desired that I should reprint them. They were accordingly republished for the benefit of the fund raised for the sinkers, and had a larg

he Journal. I was, of course, an enthusiastic admirer of his, though, as I have said, Thackeray was my chief hero

heads at an uncomfortable angle in order to see the reader's face. Suddenly, before the reading had proceeded very far, the heavy proscenium, which Dickens always carried about with him for the purpose of his readings, fell with a crash over me and the three ladies on the form. We were so near that the top of the proscenium happily fell beyond us, and we escaped w