The Politics of Coal: A Study of the Wellington Miners' Strike of 1890-91

Abstract

The coal miners of Vancouver Island occupy a special place in the history of British Columbia. The communities in which they and their families lived — Ladysmith, Wellington, Nanaimo, and Cumberland — experi­ enced class tensions to a degree and duration rarely seen in other parts of the province. An Island miner involved in the 1912 strike, for example, might have had a grandparent who went through the 1877 strike or a parent who witnessed the 1890 strike. These outbursts of militancy reflect the uneasiness in the social relations of production on the coal fields. Class tensions found expression in other ways as well, such as the ethnic preju­ dice of the miners or their left-leaning political representatives. Each strike was fought out in a different context, informed both by past struggles and current conditions. What follows is an attempt to explore the context of one such episode, the Wellington strike of 1890-91. It began quietly enough on a Monday morning, 19 May 1890, when miners employed at the Dunsmuirs' Wellington colliery on Vancouver Island arrived late for work. The action expressed their demand for an eight-hour working day and recognition of their union. The Dunsmuirs refused to grant either of these, and an eighteen-mont h struggle followed. When the strike was finally called off in November 1891, the Wellington miners had failed to achieve their two goals. The strike has received scant attention from historians, a neglect it scarcely deserves.2 At a time when the industry played a vital role in the