For hundreds of years the keelmen, the -keel lads o' coaly Tyne- celebrated in the north-east folk song -The Keel Row-, ferried coal down-river to the estuary and cast it aboard ships bound for London or overseas. They were -the very sinews of the coal trade- on which the prosperity of the region depended. This book charts the history of the keelmen from the early seventeenth century to the point where technological advances made them redundant in the course of the nineteenth century. It describes how the importance of their work placed them in a strong position in industrial disputes,...