Ironworkers' leader who gave his life to the cause

He was quite literally kicked out of his home town, but ended up as the "champion of 35,000 of the hardest working men in all the land" and one of Darlington's "most remarkable inhabitants".

He was leader of the nation's ironworkers through one of the bitterest periods of industrial relations, but came to Darlington to be close to the owners of the ironworks in an attempt to put an end to strife and strike.

He died suddenly, overwhelmed by the weight of his work.

Kane was born in 1819 in Alnwick. Orphaned at an early age, he began work in a tobacco factory when he was just seven. At nine, he became an apprentice gardener - but the rebel in him was beginning to grow.

One day, the nobleman who owned the estate on which he worked was expected home. The head gardener ordered that all the estate workers should greet him "with swinging of caps and loud hurrahs".

But 17-year-old Kane stood in stony silence as the nobleman passed by.

"I owe the master no homage," he explained. "I only receive from him the small pittance for which I labour."

As punishment, the head gardener beat him savagely. Once Kane had recovered from his injuries, he ran away to Gateshead. He found employment in iron-making, an industry notorious for its swings from boom to bust.

He also found that the workforce was divided between various grades of ironworker, and he tried to forge them into a union to stand up to the owners.

It took him nearly 30 years, but in 1862 he was elected president and chief executive officer of the newly-formed National Association of Ironworkers, which had branches across the North-East.

He was just in time to preside over the most bitter of industrial disputes. In the early 1860s, the iron industry had boomed because of the American Civil War. Then came the inevitable bust in 1864. There was serious strife in Cleveland, with "the whole district given over to disputes and demoralisation".

Worse was to come, when some Darlington workers in Albert Hill demanded a pay rise in the summer of 1866. Not only did the masters refuse, they took the opportunity to reduce wages across all Cleveland by ten per cent. The men refused to accept and were locked out.

"During the great struggle which brought Northern industry to a standstill, John Kane was the champion of the ironworkers," reported The Northern Echo. "Idolised by fellow workmen, denounced by the employers, and regarded by the middle class generally as a pestilent firebrand and a dangerous agitator, Kane fought splendidly for what he believed to be the cause of right."

Although penniless, Kane opposed the lock-out and urged the ironmasters to go to arbitration. But they, too, refused, and the dispute dragged on for five months. About 2,700 blast furnacemen and 12,000 ironworkers were without work or wages. There was widespread poverty and great distress, and many unskilled men had to leave Darlington to find work elsewhere.

Eventually, the ironworkers agreed to accept the cut in wages and to go back to work. Kane's union was all but broken - his membership fell from 5,000 to 500 - but the ironmasters also appreciated that the bitter dispute had been a disaster.

Kane regrouped. He started a new union called the National Amalgamated Malleable Ironworkers' Association, and moved its headquarters from Gateshead to 87 Northgate, Darlington. Later the union was based at 7 Wellington Place, Grange Road.

Darlington also brought Kane into close contact with David Dale, who lived in West Lodge, off Woodland Road.

Dale had married into the Backhouse family, was right-hand man of the Pease family and owned Consett Ironworks. Being a Quaker, he also had an interest in peaceably resolving disputes, considering strikes and lock-outs "barbarous, cruel and stupid".

This chimed with Kane's thinking. He told a Royal Commission that strikes and lock-outs were "very prejudicial to all classes and, like war, leave the track of misery behind them . . . if there are any legitimate means that would secure fair play to both parties, it is essential that they should be adopted".

The two men set up the Board of Arbitration and Conciliation for the Manufactured Iron Trade of the North of England.

It was made up of six ironworkers and six ironmasters, with Dale as chairman and Kane as secretary.

It first met in March 1869 in Central Hall (now part of the Dolphin Centre), and both Kane and Dale had to overcome huge opposition within their own ranks from those who did not believe in such fraternising with the enemy.

But Kane knew times were changing.

"No longer the bellicose advocate of strikes, he was the earnest champion of reconciliation," said The Northern Echo.

"What he had formerly sought to gain by war, he now pursued more successfully in peace."

Slowly, peace did settle on the turbulent iron industry.

Dale was knighted in 1895 for this work, and in the latter years of the 19th Century the arbitration board pioneered in Darlington became an accepted practice in most industries.

The ironworkers were so grateful to Kane that in 1870 they presented him and his wife, Jane, with a gold watch each and a purse of sovereigns. By the end of 1873, Kane had 35,000 members across the country.

He was also heavily involved promoting working men's clubs in Darlington, was a member of the Ratepayers' Association and on the management committee of the Mechanics Institute, in Skinnergate.

At a national level, he was involved in the fledgling Trades Union Congress and the Labour Representation League - a forerunner of the Labour Party.

In 1874, the league selected him as its candidate to fight the Middlesbrough Parliamentary seat against the sitting Liberal MP, HWF Bolckow, of the famous Middlesbrough ironworks of Bolckow, Vaughan and Co. Kane lost, though had the satisfaction of soundly beating the Conservative candidate.

But after an economic boom, the iron industry was again tumbling into recession. Strikes and lock-outs broke out, conciliation went out of the window, with Kane condemning strikers for "treachery". His union began to dissolve amid bitter recriminations.

Kane took to the road to save his union and to try to quell the growing industrial unease.

"His ceaseless efforts," says the Dictionary of Labour Biography, "undermined his health to the point where he needed almost constant medical attention."

On Sunday, March 19, 1876, he was returning to Darlington having been mediating in a dispute in Maesteg, in South Wales. He broke his journey in Birmingham, and suffered a seizure in his hotel room. He died the following Tuesday, aged 55.

The Northern Echo concluded his obituary saying: "No man in the North was so widely known and so intimately connected with almost every department of political, social and industrial life in this district. The suddenness of his decease will produce a profound sensation of grief and surprise, not merely in the North but throughout the whole iron districts of the United Kingdom."

Kane was buried in West Cemetery, his funeral attended by Dale and several Peases. The epitaph on his granite obelisk, erected by his friends, says: "He possessed the confidence and friendship not only of the industrial class to whose interests he was devoted but of members of all sections of the community."

The obelisk is all but lost beneath a tree.

* Iron-making began in Darlington in 1854, and four large ironworks were soon established in Albert Hill. By 1875, they employed 3,500 men and boys - nearly a quarter of the town's male population.

* Kane's great-great granddaughter still lives in Gateshead.

* Many thanks to Pat Buttle for her help with this article.

More words of wisdom from Lingfords

LINGFORDS, the Bishop Auckland baking powder manufacturer which has appeared extensively in Echo Memories over recent months, still has a place of great affection in south Durham hearts - and bookshelves.

Gill Wootten, of Darlington, has a copy of the Lingfords Ideal Home Magazine from 1936, which contains some fascinating "words of wisdom to make your home the ideal home".

On household accounts: "The only way in which the household expenditure can be supervised adequately is by keeping systematic accounts, entries being made daily. Every housewife should receive her allowance for the expenses of the home regularly. The wise expenditure of the housekeeping money will probably tax her ingenuity."

On the larder: "It should have two sections, one of dairy produce and the other for meat. It must not be too near the kitchen and so be affected by the heat of cooking and on no account should sunshine have entrance. The aspect should be North or North-East. Wire gauze should cover the windows to exclude the flies, and in a neighbourhood where flies are very prevalent it is a good idea to fix wire gauze doors between the shelves, thus providing a double safeguard."

On cleaning: "Spring sunshine will ever point a scornful finger at the ravages caused by the wintry weather. The carpet should be taken up and if it is not vacuumed regularly, it will need beating. Ceilings require a specially clean brush - a suction brush is to be recommended."

Handy hints: "Bread is nicer when kept in an earthenware pan, the lid being pierced to admit a little air.

"Pears should be strung and hung up in a cold dry place. Apples should be laid on straw and should not touch each other. Fruit will keep better on a wooden dish than on one made of china."

Norman Cook, of Bishop Auckland, also has a number of recipe books, plus the Lingfords High Level Tyneside Song Book. It was published in 1949 to mark the centenary of Newcastle's High Level Bridge and, as the title suggests, contains a collection of Geordie songs, including Blaydon Races and Cushie Butterfield.

However, the subject of Oh! Heh Ye Seen Wor Jimmie? sounds as if today he would have been given an Anti-Social Behaviour Order:

"Noo he nivvor cares for gan te skeul, he always plays the 'wag',

An' smokes a farden clay pipe, wi' half an oonce o'shag.

The pest of aall the neybourhood, he thinks hissel' a man,

From morn till neet he gets into aall mischief that he can."

Historical townscape highlighted

MUCH of the research for today's article has been done by Dr Gill Cookson, the county editor of the Victoria County History of Durham.

The products of her labours over the past couple of years in Darlington are nearing fruition, with a paperback book called The Townscape of Darlington to be published next spring.

It will look at why Darlington was settled in the first place, its medieval history and its growth after the great fire of 1585.

Much of her team's preliminary work is available on the website www.durhampast.net.

Published: 27/03/2002

Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, e-mail chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk or telephone (01325) 505062.