Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette – Wednesday 11 June 1884

The Yorkshire Miners’ Permanent Relief Fund

The proposed alteration of rules for the regulation of this fund continues to be strongly resisted, and at the Manvers’ Main Colliery, one of the largest pits in Yorkshire, 1,000 men have signed their names to withdraw from the society. At a meeting of the Denaby Main miners yesterday it was also resolved to have a ballot taken on the question. The proposed alteration, which was agreed to at the annual meeting in Barnsley last April, will affect a very large body of miners, and the present agitation is looked upon as very serious for the stability of the society.

“It has been found that the members’ contributions of 3d. per week, supplemented with what other sums can be obtained, are only just sufficient to cover benefits claimed on account of mining accidents, and that, therefore,1. if it is intended to pay annuities to aged and infirm members in addition, in the manner in which they have already commenced to pay such benefits, an extra subscription must be made. 2. Everyone who has joined the society up to the time the rules are registered may pay such extra subscription. 3. Each person who thus pays will do so in accordance with a graduated scale, his age determining the amount.”

The question is being discussed at meetings held in various parts of the South-West Riding, and the general opinion seems to be much averse to the intended change. The present action of the executive is in order to prevent the society falling into the financial difficulty experienced by the Northumberland and Durham society, whose rules the society at Barnsley adopted when the fund was formed in the year 1877. At that time the society in the north had no less than 65,000 members, with a revenue at the rate of £40,000 per annum, and a capital of £47,000.