An interesting bit of context that came from my investigation of industrial relations in the nineteenth century is that in 1912, when the NSHS committee was meeting to organise the annual show (I started with the 1912 minutes and newspaper report, right at the beginning of this blog) there was the first national coal strike. It began at the end of February and ended on 6 April when the government agreed to a minimum wage for miners. There are a number of photographs on the internet of coal picking, soup kitchens etc. Life must have been pretty grim for the people of New Springs during this time, but there is no indication of this from the NSHS minutes.
