The fight of the Quarrymen of Bethesda at the beginning of the 20th Century was a struggle of the working class of North Wales against one of the most powerful landowners, not only in Wales, but in the whole of Britain.
The strike came after series of clashes between the quarrymen and the owners. These quarrymen were fearless, hardworking and skilled workers who live in dire conditions at home and deadly conditions at work.
Nevertheless, there was a camaraderie amongst them and a thirst for knowledge. It was the contributions of the North Wales working class, led by the quarrymen, that helped to fund the precursor to the present day University of Bangor. The men would pursue social, cultural and educational activities through their cabanau.
The struggles of the North Wales Quarrymen in the last two decades of the 19th Century (1885, ’93,’ 95 and ’96) were against a background of the gradual decline in the Slate Quarrying industry beginning with the economic depression of 1879. The quarry owners were looking to take more control away from the quarrymen and reduce the overall cost of the Bargain System that allowed the gangs of skilled quarrymen a degree of control over the price the owners would pay them for working a particular gallery or face of rock. The gang was then free to go about how they went about extracting the slate.
The North Wales Quarrymen’s Union, now part of the Transport and General Workers Union, was founded in 1874, first at Llanberis then growing throughout the rest of North Wales. The Union had middle class leaders, but the quarrymen themselves came to develop a consciousness as craftsmen and as a class through their work and struggles with the quarry owners.
There had been violence and a failed strike at the nearby Dinorwic Quarry, Llanberis, in 1885 and this was to be repeated.
This set the scene for the longest and perhaps bitterest of disputes in the history if the British Working class. In the three years the strike lasted (1900-03) the quarry owner, Lord Penrhyn was determined to break the quarrymen and their union at any cost. He could (and was prepared to) fight the slate workers for as long as it took. He had not only the largest slate quarry in the world, but was one tof the biggest land owners in Wales and had derived a huge fortune from his family’s slave holdings in Jamaica. He even had the nicknames “Sugar” and “Slate” for his two daughters.
During the protracted dispute over 1500 people, the quarrymen and their families had to suffer deep privations with no income to live by for three years. Locally and nationally the working class of Britain supported the struggle of the families and quarrymen with donations. Choirs from the area went around the country raise funds for the desperate working people of Bethesda. A firm in Liverpool even made a huge Christmas pudding and donated it to the people of the town.
Not all the Slate Workers could hold out and were forced to go back on Lord Penrhyn’s terms. The solidarity of the community was shattered. These deep wounds are still felt today.
“Don’t go near those houses!” an older local lady warned, as I was posting leaflets in Bethesda for the Celebrating the Quarrymen festival. She pointed to the row of Traitor’s Houses, houses built for those who had crossed the picket lines.
This dispute was a forerunner for the the later Miner’s strike. The law, Police and Army were used against the slate workers as they have been before and since.
Today, Bethesda still bears the scars of that battle. Many of the workers left the area, some went down to the South Wales Coal Mines and would help to build the future NUM. Local small businesses shut down. The town shrank. The aftermath of the years long dispute is an area with little opportunity for work for local people.
We need to remember the struggles and sacrifices of the working class people of Bethesda in particular and North Wales as a whole. The state focuses on preserving the Victorian pile that is Penrhyn Castle. What we need to do is preserve, promote and learn from the example of the fighting working class of North Wales and their vanguard, the Quarrymen.
Paul Virdee
Class Consciousness Project 
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