Wild Widdrington Pitmen

[janwhin]

Those Widdrington miners must have been proper desperadoes. Here's a newspaper article from the Morpeth Herald of 21 November 1868:
"A number of men have come on several occasions from Widdrington Colliery and vicinity in large bodies for the purpose of getting salmon in the Coquet....On Sunday the 15th at two a. m. a large number of people assembled on the Coquet to fish. A body of police were on watch and they succeeded in apprehending William Bolam, Robert Black, James Young, and James Liddell, all pitmen at Widdrington Colliery. Bolam is a desperate character, known by the sobriquet of "Dick Turpin" to which he answers. He is well known in Castle Division, in Bedlington, and Six Mile Bridge......"