MORE than 250 ex-miners and their supporters packed a parish church in Tyneside on Saturday to commemorate the death 150 years ago of pioneering socialist Thomas Hepburn.

Credited with founding mining trades unionism in the north-east, Hepburn lived from 1795 to 1864.

He went to work down Urpeth colliery at the age of eight in 1803 to support his family following his father’s death, and was later blacklisted for leading strikes.

The heroic figure of labour movement history is buried in the churchyard at St Mary’s, where a monument honours him.

Inside the Heworth church the walls were bedecked with more than a dozen banners from the union lodges of former Durham and Northumberland collieries.

Among them was the legendary Follonsby banner, one of the few pit union banners to bear a likeness of Lenin, a hammer and sickle, and red star.

Lingey House school choir sang movingly to commemorate Hepburn’s achievements, with the National Union of Mineworkers’ North East Brass Band also playing inside the church.

At close of ceremony wreaths were laid at Hepburn’s monument.