Types of Building continued ...

From 1840 Durham was included in a new Northern District, which became the Diocese of Hexham in 1850, with William Hogarth, the Vicar Apostolic, becoming the first bishop. In 1851, 22 years after the Catholic Emancipation Act, there were 20 Catholic places of worship in the county. Nicolson has noted that the rise in the county population was matched by an increase in the output of the seminary at Ushaw College of priests to serve the new communities (14). Amongst the new priests in the coalfield was Father James Hanley, who established the corrugated iron chapel-school at Brandon Colliery; and Father Philip Charles Fortin, the Pitman's Priest', who created schools at Esh Winning, Ushaw Moor and Cornsay Colliery.

From the early 19th century a number of coal owners had made provisions for the education of their workers' children, for various reasons. In some cases, it may have been a paternalistic desire to improve the general well-being of their employees; Sir Bernhard Samuelson felt that 'No money could be better spent than to prepare their children efficiently for their careers' (15), with elementary schools for the working population, and colleges for those who would employ them. In many cases, it may have been the view that 'An instructed and intelligent people are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one' (16). Six corrugated iron schools are known to have been built in the county, at Esh Winning, Ushaw Moor, Cassop, Brandon, Gilesgate Moor and Witton Gilbert. Four of these buildings were built in the years from 1870, when the Education Act saw the state grant to efficient, inspected, voluntary schools doubled, and a significant increase in the number of School Boards; up to the 1880 Mundella Act, which made education compulsory up to the age of 10. The schools at Ushaw Moor and Brandon were associated with the Catholic church. At West Pelton the temporary iron church was used as a school from 1884. Following the 1902 Act, which made education provision the responsibility of county councils, a mixed school was built at Gilesgate Moor in 1908. At Witton Gilbert a temporary iron school was erected following the closure of the original school due to subsidence around 1915.

At the Pelaw Main Coal Company's pit at Bewicke Main there was an institute, built in 1901 with corrugated iron cladding. Several coal companies provided miners' institutes as meeting places, often with reading rooms, and sometimes facilities for art and science classes, like those provided by Straker and Love, and Pease and Partners. It was believed that institutes were 'an excellent means of counteracting the evil influence and abuse of the public house, and of exercising personal influence upon those who frequented them' (17).

Two buildings, at Addison Pit near Ryton and Brandon, were used for meetings of the local lodges of the Durham Miners Association (formed in 1869). Output in the Durham coalfield of bituminous coals reached a high peak just before the Great War, simply by employing a correspondingly larger workforce as declining reserves and geological conditions made coal-getting more difficult. Consequently, there was a rise in union membership, which reached a high point in 1924, before a consistent fall as the number of working pits declined. Addison Pit was sunk in 1864 and had 120 union members by 1872; Brandon A and C pits were sunk in 1856, but it was not until 1885 that a D.M.A. lodge was formed (18). It took six years to acquire an iron clad meeting room here. It is probable that there were, at on time, other union rooms of this type in the county.

The final category of building consists of the theatres, at Murton and Esh Winning, built before the Great War. They formed part of a trend in the late 19th century, and particularly in the Edwardian area, for mass entertainment in Britain. Many of the theatres of the county were later converted to cinemas, as that medium became increasingly popular.

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