Peter Lee

 

Peter Lee was a local politician, trade union leader, and social reformer.

Peter was born in July 1864 at Duff Heap Row in Trimdon Grange. Duff Heap Row consisted of five primitive miners’ dwellings on the edge of the pit heap. Duff refers to a local word for fine coal dust that hangs in the air. In time, Duff Heap Row was engulfed by the slag heap. No photos exist, but here you can see how close the village stood in relation to the coal waste.

At the age of 10 Peter began work as a boy miner, alongside his father at Littletown, near Pittington in August 1874. He later recorded in his diary that over the period of his working life he had worked in 39 coal seams in 27 pits.

At only 23 years of age, he was elected by Wingate Lodge as a Delegate to the Miners’ Council of the Durham Miners’ Association. As a delegate he saw the DMA leadership in action, which then meant General Secretary William Crawford, Treasurer John Wilson and almost 200 fellow delegates.

In 1902 he began work as Checkweighman at Wheatley Hill Colliery, a role he kept until 1921 when he left to become an Agent for Durham Miners Association. This necessitated the family move from Miners Villas in Wheatley Hill to Bedes Rest in Durham where he lived for the remainder of his life.

As one of seven full-time Durham Miners’ Association Agents, his role was to liaise between the union HQ in Durham and the individual colliery lodges. It wasn’t until 1930 that he became the senior figure in the DMA, succeeding W P Richardson as General Secretary. He was also elected to the Presidency of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain in 1933, succeeding Ebby Edwards.

Peter Lee’s political career began in 1903 when he was elected to Wheatley Hill Parish Council. Wheatley Hill was typical of the east Durham colliery villages of the time.  Its streets were described as a ‘joke’.  There were dirt tracks rather than made-up roads and open channels in the back alleys to take away waste water.    

In 1907 Peter Lee was elected to Easington Rural District Council.  He also became Chairman of the local Co-operative Society, and it was through this role that he brought about significant changes to the railway station at Thornley Crossings.

Of course, the station couldn’t be moved – it was two miles away from Thornley! – but the Co-operative Society had shares in the NER railway company and Peter used this leverage to have the station and its approach road upgraded so that goods could be transported more easily.  There was no direct road route to Thornley at this time, so when Wheatley Hill burials were carried out, the coffins travelled on the wagonway and mourners took the long way round, via Wingate Lane and the Halfway House to the cemetery at St Bartholomew’s Church, Thornley. This was the only road route from Wheatley Hill to Thornley.

He made sure that Wheatley Hill got its own cemetery in 1907. He saw to it that a new road was built between Thornley and Wheatley Hill, which opened for use in 1909. The road follows the route down from Vincent’s Corner and past St Godric’s RC school, built the same year, and over what was then the Thornley Colliery railway bridge.

Lee arranged for every house in the village to have a tap of its own and was responsible for improvements in street lighting and sewage provision. However, until as late as 1929 and the onset of the Easington Rural District Council’s sewage to the sea scheme – the latter still consisted of the dreaded ash middens.

In 1909, while he continued to work as a miner, he was elected to Durham County Council as representative for the Thornley Ward, which then comprised Thornley, Wheatley Hill and Wingate. In 1917, Peter was elected as Chairman of the local Labour Party, or what was then called the Seaham Labour Division Labour Party. Peter served as Chairman of Durham County Council when it became the first Labour run local authority in Britain in 1919. He stood down as a County Councillor in 1934, leaving an enviable track record of reduced child mortality and huge improvements in health, housing, and social welfare across the board.