Story
William Parrott was born 18th December 1843 in Row Green, Somerset. He was the son of a coal miner, James Parrott (1817-1892) and his wife Susannah Marten (1825-1903), both pictured below, who were originally from Middlesex and Sussex respectively, and married on 17th May 1841 in Balcombe, Sussex. In 1853 the family moved to Methley, and father and son started work at Methley Colliery. On 30th March 1868, William married Eliza Thompson (1848-1912) in Methley. In 1873, William was elected Colliery Weighman, and in 1876 was appointed senior secretary of the West Yorkshire Miners’ Association, working for the President, Benjamin Pickard. In 1881, he moved to Prospect Place, Normanton and became Pickard’s General Secretary and the Coal Miners’ Agent for the Yorkshire Miners’ Association, after the fusion of the West and South Yorkshire Associations.
William was no stranger to Micklefield. On 17th October 1891, as senior secretary of the Yorkshire Miners’ Association, he met with a deputation of Micklefield miners, the Peckfield Colliery owners and Charles Houfton, Colliery Manager, for a two-hour meeting at the Great Northern Hotel, Leeds, after miners were complaining that yardage money had not been paid for banks which had fallen in. An agreement that satisfied all parties was reached, and a by-law which prohibited men from joining the Miners’ Associated was also struck out.
In January 1894, William Parrott was appointed a representative of the Yorkshire Miners at a conciliation board meeting held at Westminster Palace Hotel to settle a dispute over miners’ wages following a report by a committee headed by Lord Rosebery, who went on to become Prime Minister in the same year. Despite the work of the conciliation board, by 1896, William warned that miners had given their representatives authority to arrange strikes if the latest round of wage increases were not met and if mines were closed and if miners were dismissed from employment. William addressed a meeting of miners saying that Yorkshire was fully prepared to meet the emergency, that the men were well-organised and had both the funds and courage necessary. They were as determined as ever to fight for the maintenance and principle of the living wage.
William does not appear to have been directly involved in the rescue efforts at the Peckfield Colliery disaster, but he was present on the 1st May 1896, when the press reported that “the colliery was carefully inspected by Mr. Wardell and Mr. Childe, Mr. Parrott and Mr. Spencer. The last two were representatives of the Miners’ Union and represented the workmen at the colliery.” At 4:30pm later the same day, William was also present at the inquest into the disaster, which was opened by Major Taylor (coroner for the West Riding), in the Institute, Micklefield. Mr R. Borrough Hopkins attended on behalf of the proprietors of the colliery (Messrs. Cliff & Sons), and he was accompanied by Mr. Walter Cliff; Mr. William Parrott, agent, and Mr. J. Wadsworth, vice-president of the Yorkshire Miners’ Association; Mr. J. L. Routledge, of Waterloo Main Colliery; Mr. J. Parkin, of Fox Holes, Methley; Superintendent Stott and Inspector Tidswell were also present.
In 1901, William moved to 41 Huddersfield Road, Barnsley, where he became a member of the Barnsley School Board for three years, he was a magistrate for Barnsley, and had been an elected member of Barnsley Town Council for nine years, until he succeeded Benjamin Pickard as the Member of Parliament for Normanton in January 1904. However in 1903, William had suffered from a paralytic fit, and although he recovered, he passed away on Thursday 9th November 1905 at 10:15pm after suffering a second fit two weeks before his death. He left his estate worth around £80.3k in today’s terms, to his widow, Eliza, and his four surviving children.
30th April 1896. The Peckfield Colliery Disaster at Micklefield 