Diary – James Losh – 27 Mar 1828

Newhouse (Mr. Crawhall's) is large, old and inconvenient.   The entrance hall is a long narrow room with a table the whole length of it, at which the pays are made.   Mr. Crawhall sat at one end of this with one plate full of sovereigns, another of silver and a third of copper coin before him, with piles of bank notes (the large ones Batsons, the small Scotch) on one side of him under the the care of a clerk.   Three other agents or clerks assisted in keeping the checque accounts so as almost to prevent the possibility of any mistake.   

The workmen were admitted in regular order and received their balances, upon respectively producing a ticket, shewing what was due upon the work done under the original bargain, deducting what had been received for subsistence ec. Subsistence money is paid every month and the balances once a year.   The monthly payments about £4000 and the yearly pay about £70,000.   This includes all Col. and Mrs. Beaumont's mines, not those of Weardale alone.   Near Mr. Crawhall's house there were about 40 tents pitched, many of them supplied with liquor and refreshments, cold meat ec, but many also containing Yorkshire cloth, hats, shoes, trinkets ec. for sale.   A curious example how closely supply follows demand; how soon money makes a market.   Many shopkeepers too from Newcastle who supply the retail dealers in this district with groceries, hardware, ec. were in attendance to have their bills discharged.   The pay was made to the workmen: they paid their bills to shopkeepers of this district and they again the persons of whom they made their wholesale purchases.   It is said that Mr. Featherstone (a grocer in N.Castle) generally receives during the pay about £8000.   

The miners in general are stout, well looking people, and they are, upon the whole, moral and orderly in their habits, honest and industrious, with the exception of being most of them poachers.   One everywhere meets the bad effects of our absurd game laws.

About 20 of the principal agents ec. dined with Mr. and Mrs. Crawhall and myself and I suppose not fewer than 100 of the inferior agents, farmers ec. in the hall and kitchen.

Mr. Bolam, Mrs. Beaumont's Land Steward, attended to receive the farm rents which also mostly are obtained from the pay at first (for many of the miners have small farms) or second hand.