Catherine Banks Life Story1793-1833

Catherine Banks

by Ray L Nelson

Pictures and documents added by Lois C. Berrett

Catherine is my Great Great Great Gramdmother

     Was born on Thursday the 26th of September 1793 in Huntershall, Liberton parish, Midlothian, Scotland. The daughter of John Banks and Catherine Flucker. They were colliers.

   

 Coal mining in Scotland was not a trade or profession. It was not organized in guilds or trade associations as other occupations had been since the middle ages. Since the coal lay in the ground that was owned by the lords and barons, coal mining developed as an extension of estate management. When Catharine was a little girl, the law in Scotland allowed that colliers could be arrested and charged with theft for removing themselves from the mine or property on which they worked. They were said to be "thirled" or legally staked to the land. They were essentially slaves unable to raise themselves from the status of their birth. They were "thirled" until the year 1797 when the law was finally changed. Catharine was only four. But, even though the law changed, their status did not and most colliers continued in the system just as slaves did in this country after the Civil War.

     On a beautiful Friday afternoon, the 10th of June 1814 Catherine married Edward Neilson, after the banns of the Church of Scotland. And like their forebearers before them they were soon toiling together to remove coal from the pits and raise a family. Their first born, Mary died before her first birthday and later a son, Ramsey, died only a few months old. Nevertheless, by the 1820s they were a thriving family of colliers. Their youngest son, Edward Banks was born in 1830.

     Catherine worked in the mines as a bearer. The system worked something like this. Edward was a coalhewer. He worked at the coalface and hewed the coal into pieces to be removed from the mine. Every hewer had a bearer. Most of the bearers were women. The bearer's job was to haul the coal pieces from the coalface to the surface. The bearers carried the coal in creels (made of soft woven material like a basket) on their backs and each creel was held in place by the means of a strap that went around the woman's head. She then hung a small metal lantern from the strap across her forehead (these were small open flame oil lamps) and this was the only light she had. She carried the creel weighing as much as 180 lbs. and routinely more than 100 lbs. through the mine, scaling ladders to get from one level to another and often moving through spaces knee deep in water with three feet of head room.

     These mines reached depths of 300 feet in Catherine's day. Depending on the depth they were working Catherine made 6 to 10 trips per day in the above manner. Edward and Catherine, hewer and bearer worked together as a team and were paid by the weight of coal that they delivered to the surface.

     Siblings at the mine entrance tended her children, where Catherine could check on them periodically as she made her rounds down into the mine. At age seven the children were expected to help out by sorting the coal to size as it was brought out of the mine and by age twelve they began working in the pits as bearers and helpers. By their teen years they were fully engaged at mining. Typically they worked twelve hours in the pits six days a week. Before 1843 they were not educated and mostly illiterate.

     Still despite what seems to us to be a dismal lot, they were fiercely proud of their collier status and they lived and worked in a tight nit community. They lived together in row houses at or near the mine entrance. They controlled everything that went on in those mines in a highly developed system, which is still inherent in coal mining today. They were frugal beyond any measure that remains with us. They often were deeply religious people, although they had a reputation among folks with higher social status for their fighting and cursing. They were at the bottom of the Scottish social and economic ladder.

     In 1822-25 and again in 1836-38, just as Catherine and Edward were raising their family there were deep economic depressions. This caused many of the mine owners (Scottish Lairds) to cut the wages in the pits forcing the colliers to change jobs or starve. They were free finally but only had choices when faced with starvation in harsh economic times. We know that they moved first, from Huntershall, Liberton back into Duddingston Parish to Joppa, where they may have been employed in the salt works. And then east into the Parish of Inveresk, first at Wallyford and finally Westpans.

     By 1840 when the Twelve Apostles and the first missionaries of the Restoration came to Great Britain these colliers were just into changing jobs, going from mine to mine often, seeking better conditions and wages and finally realizing what freedom could mean to them. The coincidence is striking. Catherine and Edward's children joined the church in 1847, which they heard about in street meetings. The very first baptism in the Neilson family was in June and all had joined the Church by October.

     There is no record of Edward joining the Church, in fact there is no evidence that he survived to 1847. In the absence of any record, most genealogists have estimated his death about 1855. There is no record of Catherine's death but we know that Edward married Margaret O'Neal which places Catherine's death between the birth of her youngest son Edward Banks, and the marriage. Most genealogists use the estimated date of 1833. What was recorded is that, after immigrating, her children performed vicarious ordinances for both Catherine and Edward at very early dates. Interestingly Catherine's LDS ordinances were performed by her children earlier than Edwards.

Few of us have toiled in our life as Catherine surely did.