Overview
byWe await someone who will "adopt" this section of the page. Meanwhile, please see the researcher entries.
Researchers
Click on the names of researchers to see their additional interests and contact information on the Researcher page.James
James is researching the Harris family. See his contact details on the Researchers page.
Mark
Mark is researching the Harris family. See his contact details on the Researchers page.
Pat
Pat is researching the Harris family. See her contact details on the Researchers page.
Reg
Reg is researching the HARRIS family. See his contact details on the Researchers page.
Reg's grandfather was Thomas HARRIS of Parkwall, Bitton.
"When I knew him he was in his late 70s and I "helped" him with digging, planting and harvesting, feeding the hens and collecting eggs, turning hay etc., so I was fortunate to get quite close to him. Unfortunately, I was not clever enough to ask him all the questions I would like to ask now."
In reponse to the question of how coal miners survived on such low wages, Reg wrote . . .
"My grandfather, a coalminer of Bitton, born 1850, would have considered me a spendthrift for shopping at a supermarket. He lived in a cottage surrounded by the best part of an acre of land on which he was self-sufficient. He had a pigsty across the yard and a share with his brothers in a cow and 6 sheep. He spent more on cleaning materials than on food. Money is much more important to me than it was to him. The thing that was most likely to hit his family was the price of wheat and oats and when the price of these became too high his father and grandfather, and their mates, were prepared to march on the council house for redress (and, sometimes, to break a few heads if need be).
Yes, there were some improvident people whose families suffered hardship but family and neighbours saw they did not starve and the Overseers of the Poor frequently bought clothes to keep the poorest decent."