The Ruardean Bears

I am researching the publican and seven colliers who were convicted in May 1889 after being charged with causing the deaths of the two bears.
Six were from Ruardean Hill including the landlord of the Jovial Colliers, 49 year old George Wilkes and his son Robert, one from Harrow Hill, and the eighth from Drybrook..
Can anyone tell me which local pit they may have been employed at?

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Hi tom my Great Grandfather Henry Baldwin was one of the thirteen convicted for the crime.
He was one of only four who went to prison the others were Authur Golding went to prison 3.5 1889 released 17 may he came from ledbury ,George Rawlings drybrook 3-may til 17 may, Joseph Hopkins Ruardean Hill 3rd- 17 may but Henry was in until the 24th may All the others paid the court fine at little dean and were released from court. I have the prion and court docs which even gives eye colour, height,hair face shape Even their coal Scars . if any of these docs are of use to you I can e-mail them to you
Cheers Andy

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Thanks Andy.
I already have the record from Littledean Gaol that has all those details.
I guess your ancestor could not or would not pay the fine if he served time.
Many thanks for your interest.
Tom

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Hi tom
I have the little dean court records, but also have the county Goal records from Gloucester where they served their time.

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Henry was a collier at Northern united colliery as was his cousin Isaac. William baldwin worked at

To clarify for Tom this presumably was sometime after the Bears incident of 1889, as Northern didn't open until the early 1930s. It had been purchased from the Lydney and Crump Meadow Collieries Co Ltd by Henry Crawshay and Co Ltd, and provided employment for men from the previously closed Crump Meadow and Foxes Bridge Collieries. This 1894 map will give some idea which pits they may have worked at circa 1889,
http://lightmoor.co.uk/forestcoal/Overviewmap.html

Clicking on each map section will enlarge it, for example the uppermost edge of this next one is the Drybrook/Nailbridge area. The black blobs are coal mines, find Hawkwell between the two brown railway lines and this is just north of what became the Northern United site.
http://lightmoor.co.uk/forestcoal/EastDean.html

The dotted "track" running across the map by Hawkwell is now the A4136 twixt Nailbridge and Brierley.
http://www.forestofdeanhistory.org.uk/resources/sites-in-the-forest/northern-united-col...

However this is not a certain method of finding their workplace, as it wasn't unknown for some C20th miners to walk a mile or two to work every day if necessary, altho' probably not in 1894 when there was more work about as can be seen by the many pits on these maps. Sadly few if any employment records survive for the FoD mines.

That same excellent Lightmoor site has histories for most FoD pits, eg
http://lightmoor.co.uk/forestcoal/CoalNorthern.html

To find the home pages and index click on the headgear icon at bottom of each page.

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Thanks Jeff for those very useful sources.

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You're very welcome Tom. Please don't forget many subjects such as this have been covered on this forum in past years, so it's always worth your searching the forum where you can find these and similar links & resources. Good luck.

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