Walter Ernest Cooke (1900 – 1953) was born in Oldcroft the son of a miner. He initially worked as a tin mill man at the Lydney tin plate works but in June 1921 he was unemployed. He then joined his step-father and brothers working at New Fancy colliery. In 1926 became a delegate from New Fancy on the FDMA Executive. He married Edith Cox in 1923 and had two children. After the 1926 lockout, he gained employment at Oldcroft colliery.
William Butt (1879 – 1955) was born in Cinderford, the son of a miner. He married Rose Newman in 1903 and had three children. In 1911, he was working as a hewer and in 1921, he was working as a timber man at Lightmoor colliery. He was an Executive member for Lightmoor during the 1926 lockout. He was arrested and fined for intimidation of blacklegs during the 1926 Lockout.
Paul Brown (1884 – 1952) was born in St Arvans near Chepstow and was the son of a stonemason. Soon after his birth, his family moved to Darkhole Farm in Saunders Green. Sometime after 1901, he moved to Tredegar, South Wales to work in the pits. In April 1907, he married Cora Edwards and had four children. Cora died in 1914 and Brown returned to the Forest of Dean with his four children and obtained work locally in the mines. In 1918, he married Kate Lawrence and moved into a house in Whitecroft. In 1921 he was working at Norchard Colliery and became one of its representatives on the FDMA Executive. He continued in this role throughout the 1926 Lockout.
Albert Brookes (1898-1976) was born in Bream, the son of a miner. From July 1917 to February 1919 Brookes served in the Royal Navy in submarines and on his return gained work at Princess Royal colliery as a hewer. He then joined the Labour Party and became active within the FDMA. In September 1921 he married Dorothy Phipps and went on to have two children. In 1925, he joined the Miners’ Minority Movement. He was a member of the Monmouth Board of Guardians during the 1926 lockout. He was blacklisted after the lockout and never worked in a pit again and gained employment as an insurance agent.
In 1926 he was elected as a councillor on West Dean District Council. In 1931, he was elected as secretary of Bream Miners’ Hall and in 1933 was elected President of the Forest of Dean Labour Party and continued in that role until 1949. In 1935 he was elected to the new West Dean Parish Council. In 1938, he was a member of the Lydney Board of Guardians. In 1938, he was elected as a County Councillor representing the Blakeney ward. In 1949, he stood down from the role of President of the Labour Party after falling out with Luker and later in the year was expelled from the Labour Party for standing in a county council election against the official candidate, Harold Craddock.
Thomas Brain (1871-1952) was born in Drybrook. He married Mary Shapcott in 1900 and had seven children, two of whom died as very young children. He started work as a miner and worked his way up to be a hewer and finally by 1911 was appointed as a checkweighman at Foxes Bridge colliery. He was on the political committee of the FDMA Executive and served as a Labour councillor on East Dean Parish Council.
William Bradley (1865-1933) was born in Ruardean Woodside, the son of a miner. On leaving school he started work in the coal mines. He married Rhoda Parsons in 1886 and had two sons, one of whom died as a teenager. In the 1890s, he was elected as checkweighman at Trafalgar colliery, a post he held until the closure of the colliery in 1925. He represented Trafalgar on the FDMA Executive during this period and continued to be a member of the Executive after the closure of Trafalgar.
Frederick Allan Beverstock (1880 – 1951) was born in Bream, the son of a miner. His first job was at Norchard colliery and then at Princess Royal as a road repairer. He married Ellen Atwood in 1906 and had two children. He served as President of Bream Co-operative Society. He was a long-standing member of Bream Labour Party and served as a Secretary of an FDMA Lodge in Bream but was blacklisted for a while after the 1926 lockout.
Ambrose Adams (1859 – 1930) was born in Ruspidge, the son of a coal miner. He started work as a coal miner after leaving school and became involved in the FDMA. He married Annie Wood in 1885 and had five children. In about 1897, he was elected checkweighman at Crump Meadow colliery, a role he held until he retired in 1926. In the 1920s, he was on the finance committee of the FDMA Executive. He was also Treasurer the of Cinderford Co-operative Society, on the committee of the Forest of Dean School Managers and a magistrate.
The majority of Forest of Dean miners were members of the Forest of Dean Miners’ Association (FDMA) which was the trade union representing Forest of Dean miners and was affiliated to the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). Each district of the MFGB had a full-time miners’ agent whose responsibility was the day-to-day running of the association, recruitment and negotiations with the employers. In addition, each mining association possessed its own district rules, scales of contributions and benefits, forms of administration and local customs and traditions. The structure of the MFGB meant that individual districts had a degree of autonomy.
The aims of the MFGB were to campaign nationally to reduce the hours of work, increase wages, improve working conditions and safety in the mines, negotiate compensation for injuries and death and elect MPs to represent the union in Parliament. After World War One, the principal aims of the MFGB were to secure the nationalisation of the coal industry and a permanent national agreement with a guaranteed minimum wage.
The FDMA was made up of lodges or branches organised around individual pits or villages. In addition, pit committees were elected at each of the pit lodges to deal with day-to-day disputes and relations with the management. Each lodge sent a delegate to the FDMA Council to whom the agent was accountable and met on average about four times a year. Every year a ballot of the whole FDMA membership was held for the FDMA Executive Committee including a President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Political Committee, Finance Committee and Auditors. An election could also be held if there was a challenger for the post of agent and the Council agreed. The FDMA held regular meetings attended by the Executive Committee and delegates from the main collieries.
The MFGB held regular national delegate conferences with about 200 delegates and a larger national conference once a year. If votes were taken at a conference the card system would be used and the number of votes per delegate was dependent on the number of members they represented. The agent would usually represent the FDMA at MFGB delegate conferences with a mandate from the membership. The delegate conference could decide that a national ballot of all its members be taken on issues of importance.
The first agent for the FDMA, Timothy Mountjoy (1871 – 1878) was a Forester. However, Edward Rymer (1882 -1886) was from Durham, George Rowlinson (1886 – 1918) was from Staffordshire and Herbert Booth (1918 – 1922) was from Nottinghamshire and John Williams (1922-1953) was from South Wales.
The following is a list of some of the main activists within the FDMA.
The People’s Charter of 1838 included a demand for universal manhood suffrage, equal electoral districts, secret ballots, annual elections, payment of MPs and the abolition of the property qualification for MPs. On 4 November 1839, nearly 10,000 Chartist sympathisers armed with homemade weapons marched on Newport, intent on demanding the six points of the Charter. Among the marchers was 19-year-old Richard Benfield, a miner from Tredegar, who was born in Wollaston in 1819.
In his book, The Last Rising: the Newport Insurrection of 1839, David Jones reveals that in October 1838 the organisers held meetings in the Forest of Dean where Foresters promised assistance and that two men from the Forest were among the 35 delegates attending one of the final planning meetings at Blackwood on 1 November.
The rebellion failed when troops opened fire killing 22 Chartists. Benfield was among the men captured. In the aftermath, 200 or more Chartists were arrested and 14, including Benfield, were indicted for high treason. All three main leaders, John Frost, Zephaniah Williams, and William Jones, were found guilty and were sentenced at the Shire Hall in Monmouth to be hung, drawn and quartered. Following a huge public outcry, the executions were commuted to transportation for life. Benfield and four others were sentenced to transportation for life, later commuted to three years imprisonment with hard labour. Thirteen others were imprisoned with hard labour for up to a year.
Richard Benfield and his comrades were transferred from Monmouth to Millbank Penitentiary. Benfield was granted an early release after a year and returned to Wollaston where he married and tried to scratch a living on a 6-acre plot of land. He then returned to Tredegar to work in the iron mines where he continued to agitate for the Charter. He married Mary Bray in 1944 and had six children. The family emigrated to America in 1866 where he died in 1885.
Primary source documents concerning Richard Benfield and his trial for treason can be found here:https://www.peoplescollection.wales/discover/query/richard%20benfield