A Brief Wemyss' History

submitted by Jock-the-Pom (Thankyou!)

From Dysart, near Kirkcaldy, drive along the A955 north. To the left is what is left of Frances Colliery and at the junction with the road to West Wemyss is the octagonal Bowhouse Toll built in 1800 and rebuilt in 1906.

The A955 skirts the castle and estate of Wemyss, belonging to the ancient Scottish family of the same name. The family and three villages take their name from the numerous large "weems," or caves, along the coastline: some of the caves still exhibit a variety of inscriptions from the prehistoric double disc symbols to the graffitti of unfolding ages. The caves were often used as hideaways for smugglers, outlaws and gypsies, and many have names, like King's Cave, where King James IV is deemed to have settled a dispute among a band of his robber subjects during one of his incognito journeys through Fife. The caves have suffered an incredible civic and public neglect over the years and have been repeatedly vandalised: now a Save the Caves Society has been launched to give them some sort of care and protection.

It was here too in 1610 that George Hay built Scotland's first glassmaking factory. Wemyss .incidentally, lends its name to that kind of pottery made in or near Kirkcaldy. Items of pottery were made by several factories, including Methven & Sons of Kirkcaldy and the Fife Pottery. One of the characteristics of Wemyss ware was its lavish floral decoration on toilet sets, mugs, vases etc.

The village of West Wemyss winds its way down to the shore of the Forth, and although it offers a maritime appearance, its people long depended on the coal industry. The village grew up around Wemyss Castle and is now a conservation area. Locals once referred to the 16th century port and village of West Wemyss as the "Haven Town of Wemyss" and were proud of its status as a burgh of barony, granted by King James IV in 1511. West Wemyss Tolbooth is of the 18th century, replacing the building erected "for the cribbing of vice and service to crown by David, 4th Earl of Wemyss [1628-1720]". The old Miners Institute[1927] is now the Belhaven Hotel [1979]

The earliest part of Wemyss Castle dates from the 14th century, but it has been added to and altered many times and is still the home of the Wemyss family today. It was at the old Castle of Wemyss that Mary, Queen of Scots, met Lord Darnley, who was soon to become her husband in 1566. St Adrians church below the castle along the shore was built by the Wemyss family in 1895 and it contains a rare example of a modern alter mural.

At West Wemyss is the southern outlet of Lochhead Tunnel which was used to transport coal [via a pulley system] to Coaltown of Wemyss and hence to Methil Dock. To the west of the village, past the tunnel's sealed entrance, lies the remains of St Mary's Chapel, a pre-Reformation church, now the burial place of the Wemyss family.

Coaltown of Wemyss is bisected by the A955 and takes its name from the old mining activity at the Bell pits. Originally, it was two villages, Easter and Wester, but when the miners distinctive cottages were expanded by the Wemyss Coal Co in 1860, the two villages were amalgamated as a "model mining village". The village also had a public house of the Gothenburg system, now known as the Earl David Hotel. The rounded houses are an interesting feature of the village.

The Wemyss School of Needlework was first established in 1877 at Wemyss Castle  by Lady Dorothy Wemyss and opened its present building in 1880. The School began as a charity and now repairs old tapestries and undertakes orders for embroidery.

East Wemyss was once called "Castleton" because of its nearness to MacDuff Castle. This was the original home of the Wemyss Family before they built Wemyss Castle  in the 14th century. It is believed that MacDuff Castle was the home of MacDuff, Thane of Fife, from whom the Erskines  of Wemyss claim descent. The term "thane" come from the old English "thegrian" which means "to serve".

East Wemyss is the home of the Wemyss Environmental Education Centre, an imaginative venture set up in 1977. The aim of the centre is to develop an interest in the environment and a concern for conservation and care: it has a large amount of interpretive material on local industry, people, history, flora and fauna.

The church of St Mary's-by-the-Sea at East Wemyss dates from the 12th century, but it was closed for worship in 1976 and is now a private house, although its graveyard is open to public access. The village once relied on the Michael Pit for its major employment. It was opened in 1898 by the Wemyss Coal Co. and closed in 1967.

Fife Coal Mining

Mining in Scotland offered hope to people suffering poverty, starvation or persecution in their native lands.

The first economic immigrants came from Ireland following the Potato Famine in the 1830s onwards. My great grandfather was one of those and he settled in Bowhill. These people were attracted by the expansion of coal and iron in Lanarkshire, Ayrshire and Fife. The influx continued throughout the nineteenth century as the mining industry expanded.
Local people, fearing job losses, were very hostile towards the immigrants, a forerunner of today's situation, but reserved their worst prejudices for the Lithuanians, thousands of whom fled from Russian persecution in the late nineteenth century. Many headed for America, but many arrived in Scotland looking for work. They found it in the mines and iron works and the tiny damp pathetic and inadequate housing made available for miners was a godsend to them. Lithuanians were accused of being strike breakers, of accepting squalor conditions and because they spoke no English of being a general danger in the workplace. Everybody referrred to them as being "Poles". Some collieries merely gave them numbers or re-christened them with Scots or English names.

Spanish and Portugueses labourers arrived in Scotland in the early twentieth century along with shipments of ironstone brought into Scotland after local supplies had run out.
Damp walls, no heating or lighting ,no toilet facilities, poor ventilation all combined to render miners' homes a nursery for disease, as if the work was not healthy enough, particularly under the horrific and unsafe conditions that coal was mined in those days. Houses were widely condemned by all decent people but miners and their families remained in them as no alternative was offered or available.

The homes were infested and wet  and described as an "offence to all decency" and many cases of smallpox and fever were reported.

Mine owners finally picked up on the idea that an effective work force would be better served by a decent but basic form of accommodation and improved dwellings grew up around the country. Newtowngrange was one of the first to accommodate over 6500 people and the homes were regarded as "model villages" for the future of the industry and they were widely recognised as  being the best ever built for miners in Scotland.

Another such model village was  the aptly and proudly named Coaltown of Wemyss.
Coaltown of Wemyss was originally two villages, Easter and  Wester Coaltown, which became one in the 1890s. It was developed by the Wemyss Coal Company when they sunk the new Lochhead Pit, where my father worked for many years and increased exports through the nearby Methil docks. The population doubled almost immediately.

It seems somehow inappropriate that the name Coaltown remains in this modern age where no pits remain but it is a proud legacy to all our forefathers and should be born with pride of history.

Depend on the Fifers

Following a period of virtual slavery, Scotland's first "county " union was formed in Fife, leading other areas to band together to form the Scottish Miners Federation. This became affiliated to the Miners Federation of Great Britain in 1894 and later that year 70,000 miners went on strike. Police broke up gatherings , the leaders quarreled and the owners refused to negotiate and the strike collapsed, with great humiliation and an actual weakening of existing conditions. The miners of East Fife held out for seventeen weeks before they were defeated, being starved into submission.

While output and manpower in the pits grew, union membership fell and fell again after more wage cuts in 1895 and 1896. Conciliation Boards were set up throughout Britain to regulate wages. As coal prices rose, so also did wages but the reverse also applied.

In 1909 the owners proposed a wage cut and threatened a lock-out to stop the men from working unless they accepted. The Conciliation Boards were rendered useless as negotiations dragged on and the peace that lasted a decade was in jeopardy. In 1911 the Miners Federation demanded a fair minimum wage. The Government was alarmed at the worsening situation, intervened and encouraged a resolution at district rather than national level.

Having being treated like dogs, the men rejected that idea and found a new strength at national level and the first ever national strike began on the 1st March 1912.

Fifers were again to the fore and the strike lasted six weeks. The strength and courage of those men , particularly from the East Fife Region was widely recognised and admired. Remember in those days, there was no social security nor did people have savings. Imagine the courage and the rage of family men in these circumstances.

The strike lasted six weeks - imagine no money for six weeks scraping around keeping your family fed - these were men and women of courage and we should be proud of them.

This strike proved that the miners could bring the nation to a standstill and the national system was now in place and remained so until the end.

Mining was the life-blood of the Wemyss and the whole of Fife and I am very proud to remember the hardship that my father and all our fathers endured to provide for their families. My old dad was never a militant unionist but he knew it was wrong that thirteen year old boys were down the pit. The advances in working conditions were arguably down to the Fifers.