“Sanny” Sloan’s Life Story Encapsulates the History of Mining in Ayrshire
Alexander “Sanny” Sloan was “The Miners’ MP”. He was elected in the constituency of South Ayrshire in 1939 and served until his death in 1945.
All his life he was involved with Trade Unions and Local Government. He worked from age 12 in the mines. He experienced real hardship, injustice and tragedy in his own life (including losing his sight in one eye in a mining accident), but nevertheless fought tirelessly on behalf of ordinary people for their individual rights as workers, and to secure better employment conditions, better housing, better education and better training opportunities.
Sanny was born in Rankinston, Ayrshire in 1879. He was the fourth of 12 children born to Esther and John Sloan. He had two sisters and nine brothers, including a set of twins, one of whom died as an infant. Four of his brothers were killed in active service in WW1. Another was seriously injured.
Sanny’s father worked in an ironstone mine in Reddans, a village near Dalry, and when the mine closed in 1879, he and his family, together with all the village, walked to Rankinston, a distance of almost 40 miles. Families walked with only what they could carry. The mineral train from the mine transported a few of their heavier possessions, although in practice they had little to bring. When some of them found out that their new front doors would have no numbers on them, they had their old doors transported. The houses provided for mine workers were basic, just one or two small rooms with earthen floors, no running water and outside earth toilets shared between five families.
Rankinston was a very close-knit community, where the mine owners held a tight grip on everyone’s daily life
Sanny was born shortly after his parents moved to Rankinston and as was usual for young boys in those days, he and his brothers followed their father into the pits at an early age. At 19, Sanny married Agnes Sloan (no relation) from Dalry. Agnes was a feisty, go-ahead woman. She bought land outside the village, opened a shop selling goods at cheaper prices than the mine store and attended a doctor who was not the mine doctor. These actions were specifically against the rules imposed by the mine owners, so Sanny lost his job, his family was evicted and all extended family members were black-listed from working in Ayrshire pits. In 1905 the family lived in a cow-shed while they built a new house, Kerse Cottage. This venture was not easy. The coal company cut off the water stand-pipes to the whole village of 800 people to stop their house having water. Sanny ended up taking the mining company to court to ensure that everyone had access to fresh water.
This established Sanny as a militant activist in the eyes of the mining companies. He later became involved in a bitter industrial dispute at Houldsworth Colliery in 1921 during the Hunger Strike, caused when coal-miners wages were cut by 60%. This resulted in a short prison sentence, which only fuelled his determination to secure better working conditions for miners, proper compensation for injury or death, better housing, better education and training.
Sanny was involved in trade union activity all his working life, served as Secretary to the Miners Union and in 1939 became an MP. He was an extremely active MP, contributing to debates on local, national and international affairs. Hansard records that he made 640 interjections during his six years in Parliament. He was very forward-looking and among the causes he championed were proportional representation and equal rights for men and women. He was also instrumental in persuading all his fellow Scottish MPs to campaign to make Prestwick Airfield into an International Airport after the war. Throughout his years as an MP in London, every weekend he would make the 14-hour trip by train to Ayr, then walk several miles back to Rankinston to see his family, to attend to his constituents’ problems and to serve as a County Councillor and as Secretary of the Ayrshire Miners’ Union, where compensation and pension entitlement figured large.
In these times the Ayrshire mines were run down, maintenance was neglected and many, many lives were lost. In 1900 a thousand miners died per year and tens of thousands were injured. Sanny witnessed great change in the conditions for miners throughout his lifetime, and although he did not live long enough to see the mines nationalised, he did much to bring this about. Nationalisation brought modernisation and investment. The number of deaths and injuries halved.
Sanny lived through the experience of being a boy working down the mines, fighting back against the injustices imposed by the mine owners, serving a prison sentence, standing up for the common people and seeing the mines and the mining industry neglected. He is remembered as “The Miners’ MP” because he fought so hard for ordinary people as a trade union man, a county councillor, a politician and a human being. He died 1945 and is buried in Coylton Cemetery.
In many ways Sanny’s life encapsulates the history of mining in Ayrshire.
Alexander “Sanny” Sloan (1879-1945)
