Robert Lewis and His Son Jake: Life-and-death Struggles of the Wigan and North Wales Mining Communities in the 19th Century

by David Lewis (Editor), PatChampness (Illustrator), RichardD.Lewis (Author), Ceri Erskine (Editor)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2013

  $3.29

  During the last two millennia of recorded European history, the British Isles have played an important role on the world stage, sporadically vying for power and influence with the French, Spanish, Dutch, Russians and eventually the newly emerging states of Germany and Italy. There is no shortage of British heroes and heroines, ranging from Boadicea and Henry VIII to the first Queen Elizabeth, Francis Drake, Richard the Lionheart, Wellington at Waterloo, Nelson at Trafalgar and Winston Churchill during World War II. One can say that on the whole the gutsy islanders have given as good as they got. The French and the Spanish could also lay a claim to equal resilience. Yet for a single, but significant, period in British history - not much more than a hundred years - the inhabitants of these moist, often foggy islands created the biggest empire the world has ever known, stretching from England to the Americas, Australasia, the furthest reaches of Africa and Asia itself, including the vast sub-continent of India. Half of the map of the world was coloured in red; British ships patrolled and controlled the world's maritime highways; British-built railways clattered along five continents. How had the British stolen such a march on the French, Spanish and others? This sudden transformation of island activity was on account of an event that occurred in the North of England in the 1800s, known as the Industrial Revolution. The first of its kind in the world, it took place as a result of the efforts of certain inventive individuals in Lancashire and an accident of British geology. The unprecedented surge in manufacturing and the mushrooming of the industries involved enabled Britain to churn out iron and steel goods of all kinds including engines, tools, arms, boats, cargo vessels, liners, warships and a variety of manufactured items that the whole world needed or wanted. The industries that sprang up to supply these products required fuel on a vast scale. The North of England, Wales and other parts of Britain had it in abundance - COAL. Coal fuelled the building of the British Empire, the ships that patrolled it, the railways that distributed its manufactures, the guns that defended it. Key to the exploitation of Britain's enormous coal reserves were the courageous men who mined it. Unsung heroes for most of their subterranean lives, their combined toil sustained a worldwide empire for over a century and earned for the English upper classes huge fortunes, in which they were never allowed to share. Five generations of my ancestors were at the very heart of this activity. Only one of them - Robert Lewis - made his voice heard. This is his story as well as that of the staunchest of his sons, Jake Lewis, who spent 65 years at the coal face.