The Tumble riots, 1893

When the owners of Great Mountain Colliery brought Scottish and English miners in to work through a strike in 1893, the village of Tumble rose against them: the strikebreakers' lodging house was stoned, the windows of blacklegs' cottages were picked out one by one, the manager's house was wrecked, and the Inniskilling Dragoons were sent for.

The mining history in this record

The anthracite village of Tumble lies about nine miles from Llanelli, joined to the world in 1893 by nothing but the Mynydd Mawr mineral railway, which carried no passengers. In September that year, during a bitter strike, the owners of Great Mountain Colliery brought in miners from Scotland and the north of England and housed them in a large model lodging house beside the line. Disturbances had been frequent for weeks; six policemen were on duty in the village.

On the Monday evening a mass meeting sent a deputation to the general manager, Mr Beith. While they were in the office the rest of the crowd came down the side of the railway and met some of the Scotsmen coming the other way. Hooting turned to stones. A score of men in front did the damage with four or five hundred behind them; sixteen or twenty windows went in at the lodging house, sashes and all, and the mess-room, a room nearly forty feet long, was left with the crockery smashed to atoms and stones piled on the floor. The crowd then went up the street of more than a hundred company cottages throwing stones through windows, and the Evening Express noted that the choice was exact: the cottages of turncoats and blacklegs were hit and the rest were left alone.

Captain Scott of the Llanelly division was told by telephone along the mineral line and ran a special train up with ten constables at about twenty to eight; the engine took until nine to reach Tumble, by which time it was quiet. At eleven, as the police were about to go back, the works cashier arrived with word that the manager's house at Cross Hands, two miles off, had been attacked. Stones from the rockery beside the drive had gone through every window; the glass porch and then the front door were broken in and stones hurled down the passage, one of them smashing the case of the grandfather clock. Mrs Beith and a servant girl were in the house with the young cashier; her husband was at Tumble. The police crossed the fields and found nobody.

People

Mr Beith, general manager of Great Mountain Colliery, whose house at Cross Hands was wrecked, and Mrs Beith, who was in it; Mr Watson, the works cashier, who raised the alarm; Captain Scott, commanding the Llanelly division of the Carmarthenshire police.

Legacy today

In the end, over 500 houses in Tumble were damaged, the manager's among them — the strikers are said to have tried to blow it up with gunpowder. The Inniskilling Dragoons were brought in to keep the peace and to escort the imported men back to Scotland and the north of England while special constables made arrests. The men went back to work a week later. The Times, reporting from a distance, called the village Trimble throughout. Tumble had another riot in 1906, and the coalfield's memory of 1893 runs into the larger story of Welsh industrial unrest that reaches Tonypandy in 1910 and Llanelli in 1911.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each tagged with how solidly it's grounded and attached to the source(s) that support it. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• In September 1893, during a strike, the owners of Great Mountain Colliery imported miners from Scotland and England, and disturbances followed. (documented fact) ^1,2
• The strikers stoned the model lodging house occupied by the imported workmen, smashing sixteen or twenty windows and wrecking its forty-foot mess-room. (contemporary account) ²
• Stones were thrown through the windows of the company's cottages selectively: the homes of turncoats and blacklegs were hit and the others escaped. (contemporary account) ²
• Six constables were on duty at Tumble; reinforcements summoned by telephone came up the mineral line by special train, leaving at about 7.40 and arriving at nine, after the riot was over. (contemporary account) ²
• A party went on to the manager's house at Cross Hands, two miles away, broke every window with stones from the rockery, burst in the porch and front door and frightened Mrs Beith and a servant girl, the manager being away at Tumble. (contemporary account) ²
• Over 500 homes in Tumble were damaged, the strikers tried to blow up the manager's house with gunpowder, and the Inniskilling Dragoons were brought in to keep order and escort the imported men home; the men returned to work a week later. (documented fact) ¹
• The Times consistently called the village Trimble in its reports. (documented fact) ¹

Mines

• Great Mountain Colliery — Carmarthenshire
  The riots broke out when this colliery's owners imported strikebreakers during the 1893 strike.

Related Culture records

• Tumble RFC and the Great Mountain Colliery
  The same village and the same colliery four years earlier: the club was formed in 1897, within living memory of the strike and the riots of 1893.

Sources

1. (secondary) Great Mountain Colliery — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (primary) Cowardly Assault: riotous strikers stone defenceless women (Evening Express, 6 September 1893) — Evening Express, via Welsh Newspapers Online (National Library of Wales)

Record created: 19 September 2026 · Last researched: 24 September 2026