BUTTERKNOWLE Co-op was built on the corner of Pinfold Lane and Wham Lane in 1890, but even before it opened on November 8, people noted that the Butterknowle colliery was mining beneath it.
In 1898, a worrying crack was observed opening up in the store, and by 1902 the adjoining manager’s house had become too dangerous to live in.
But the colliery company, which had leased the rights to the coal from the Bishop of Durham, pulled out the Hamsterley Common Act of 1758 which seemed to suggest that the bishop mine wherever he wanted as long as there was sufficient grass left on the surface for the common people to graze their animals. It therefore didn’t matter if the bishop allowed the surface to subside as long as the grass still grew.
But that wasn’t good enough for the co-op in Butterknowle, which owned the surface on which it couldn’t stand a building.
So the co-op sued the colliery – and won. On February 1, 1904, Justice Farwell decided in the High Court that the “surface owner has the right to have his surface supported”. When the news of the judgement came through, “rejoicing was very great” in Bishop Auckland.
But not in Auckland Castle, where the bishop’s functionaries could see him being held liable for subsidence across the whole of the county. So the colliery company was persuaded by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to go to the Court of Appeal and then, when it lost, to the House of Lords.
Their lordships upheld Justice Farwell’s decision on May 7, 1906, and ordered that the colliery should pay the co-op costs and damages.
CAUSE CELEBRE: The Northern Echo headline from May 9, 1906, showing that the Butterknowle Colliery Company and its supporters, including the Bishop of Durham, had lost in the House of Lords
Rather than pay, the colliery immediately went into liquidation, throwing the miners out of work and pitching the co-op into a “long serious of tedious and disappointing negotiations with the liquidator”.
Eventually, in February 1908, the co-op had no choice but to settle. Its legal costs had been £2,344 but it only got £505 from the receiver; the damages had been valued at £640, but it only got £122.
And most of the miners thrown out of work had been its members.
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