ABSTRACT
John Wheatley’s description of working conditions in the pits makes disturbing reading. John’s memories of his childhood in Ireland must have coalesced with those of his early adolescent years in Scotland, for he was only nine years old when Thomas Wheatley and his family boarded the shilling ferry at Dublin for Greenock. After landing at this West Scottish port on the mouth of the River Clyde, the Wheatley family made its way inland to Northwest Lanarkshire where they settled in Bargeddie, a small mining village some ten miles east of central Glasgow. Patrick J. Dollan’s unpublished autobiography was of immense help in the attempt to reconstruct family life in the mining village of Bargeddie and in Shettleston. The “cheapest” price must have been the primary criterion by which Johanna Wheatley selected food, clothing, and coal for her family.
