Coal mining pdf

Press proof – Ian H – 12/12/13

Part 1

THE MINER IN CONTEXT

Sons often followed fathers in the coalmining industry. Here, are three generations of a Scottish mining family, the Grays, from Shieldhill near Falkirk, who worked at Gardrum pit.

Press proof – Ian H – 12/12/13

Chapter 1

DISCOVERING THE WORKING LIFE OF YOUR MINER-ANCESTOR

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ining is one of the few occupations where working memories are passed down over several generations. Workplace camaraderie, close-knit families and living in distinctive communities have contributed to what might be called an inherited testimony; as has the very nature of the job. Even putting the very worst aspects of mining on one side: accidents, disasters and, the most underrated of all – industrial disease – your miner-ancestor worked in one of the dirtiest and most demanding of all British industries.

For most families in mining areas life revolved around the pit: it was the norm, it was what was required and there was little or no alternative. Dad went down the pit and so did his son or sons. Brothers and uncles did the same, as did most of neighbouring bread-winners. It would be rare if your miner did not have a family member or relative or friend or neighbour who also worked at the same or a nearby colliery. That is why the neighbourhood and community should be an integral, rather than occasional or incidental, part of your research.

Working in shifts underground for seven, eight or more hours a day, for five to six days a week, required considerable fitness as well as mental fortitude. But that was not the end of the story. The miner still had to get to work and go through a set preparatory routine before descending the shaft or drift; and may have had to travel underground, one, two or more miles to the place where the job actually started; and the point where he really got paid. Of course, the same routine was repeated in reverse order at the end of the shift – with the addition of getting washed at home (or in the pithead baths in later years); so in reality an average workday could easily be extended by at the very least a couple of hours. Not surprisingly, young and old miners (and a good number of middle-aged ones too) fell asleep in their pit muck, absolutely exhausted, well before starting their main home meal, or went straight to bed after returning from the night shift. And yet some men worked, albeit often on so-called ‘lighter’ jobs, well into old age; others, like

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Press proof – Ian H – 12/12/13

Chapter 2

ACCIDENTS, DISASTERS AND DISEASE

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t is useful to be aware of the context and history of everyday accidents, disasters and disease rather than just concentrating on what happened to your particular mining ancestor. This chapter therefore aims to provide background information as well as practical suggestions for your research and concludes with information and guidelines about the important subjects of mines rescue and gallantry awards.

Everyday accidents and dreadful disasters Working in a coal mine has always been regarded as a dangerous occupation. Ian Winstanley’s database of mining deaths (see below) has more than 100,000 searchable entries, but his complete listing extends to over a quarter of a million names, from pre-1840 to 1949. According to statistics extracted from HM Mines Inspectors’ Reports, annual deaths from accidents underground and on the pit top averaged 1,129 between 1873–1882. This level increased to 1,275 for the years 1903–1912 and climaxed at 1,753 in 1913.

It is highly likely that your coalmining ancestor will have had personal experience of one or more accidents, either to himself or to a workmate.

When a major disaster occurred, just about everyone in nearby communities was directly or indirectly affected by the event. Almost entire age groups of young and adult males were removed from streets, neighbourhoods and pit villages, leaving scores of widows and hundreds of dependant children.

There are many cases where fathers died alongside sons. Five brothers, aged 17–32, were killed in the Oaks disaster of 1866, where twenty-seven rescue workers also died. Only a generation earlier, in 1838, at the Huskar pit near Barnsley, the nation was shocked to hear about the deaths of twentysix children, trapped and drowned underground following a freak storm.

The youngest, James Birkinshaw, was aged 7 and Sarah Newton was 8. The average age of the fifteen males and eleven females was only 10.8 years.

However, throughout the nineteenth century, and well into the twentieth, it was the day-to-day loss of life that was the main feature of the industry.

So-called ‘safe pits’ usually meant collieries that did not experience major

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Press proof – Ian H – 12/12/13

Tracing Your Coalmining Ancestors

A mine disaster widow: Mrs Sarah Hyde, whose husband, Thomas Hyde, lost his life in the Oaks Colliery disaster on 11 December 1866. Thomas’s body was not recovered until eighteen months later, his remains identified by a patch that Mrs Hyde had sewn on his trousers. Sarah is sitting in her small front garden, attired in mourning clothes and holding a small bible or prayer book. This striking image was taken in c.1900, about forty years later. The couple were both aged 25 and had two small children when disaster struck. They appear to have migrated to Barnsley from Swadlincote, Derbyshire. Thomas is described as ‘coal miner’ in the 1861 census for Swadlincote and was a collier at the Oaks at the time of his sudden death. Almost the entire male colliery-working population of Hoyle Mill, a small but thriving mining and glassmaking community where the Hydes lived, was lost in what remains England’s worst mine disaster.

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Press proof – Ian H – 12/12/13

Accidents, Disasters and Disease

(i.e. multiple-death) accidents or disasters. Jim MacFarlane’s research concerning a typical Doncaster area colliery revealed that in the one hundred years of coal production at Denaby Main there were 203 fatal accidents, therefore an average of over two per annum. The worst year was in 1896 when there were seven deaths. Six Denaby miners lost their lives in 1904 and also in 1907; and there were five deaths in 1872, 1906, 1930 and 1932. In the twenty-two years after nationalisation (1947–1968) there were still only six years free of any fatalities, though the average annual death-rate had fallen to one per year. Accidents were ever-present in the minds of mining families. For the widow or children the loss of a loved one remained long after the wider public memory had faded.

Relatively minor injuries, keeping a miner off work for a few days or several weeks, were also common, even in relatively recent times. Growing up in a 1950s mining community, the sight of the NCB ambulance, though not unusual, sent shivers through our household. Would it be bringing Dad home again following a ‘pit accident’? ‘Ambulance men’ and ‘pit nurses’ were important pit-top staff, kept especially busy at the big pits. Dad was often grateful for their help. Keen to help colleagues in emergencies, some miners were involved in first-aid training, taking great pride in their skills when entering competitions.

Those miners who ‘won the coal’ at the coalface – the ‘hewers’ or ‘getters’ – were in most danger, injured or killed through falls of roof or side collapses. Accidents involving underground haulage – the movement of coal – was also a major cause of death, and one that usually involved young miners. Violent death through explosions was a far less common occurrence.

Some pits and some regions, however, noted for their ‘fiery’ seams, stand out as ‘explosion black spots’ at various periods, none more so than at Whitehaven in Cumberland, parts of County Durham, Lancashire and Yorkshire, Somerset and Staffordshire and especially in the anthracite mines of south Wales.

Though employment on the pit top was regarded as an ‘easier’ and ‘safer’ job, in practice it was a noisy, dirty and dusty place to work, certainly not free from fatal accidents – for men and boys as well as women in some regions (see Chapter 4). Working on the screens (sifting ‘muck’ from the coal), and moving and emptying tubs accounted for one in ten of all fatalities at Denaby Main, which was quite typical of other mines.

The accident record at Denaby’s close neighbour Cadeby Main would have been ‘normal’ but for one single event: the explosion that killed thirtyfive men towards the end of their night shift, early in the morning of 9 July 1912. A second explosion not long afterwards then took the lives of fiftythree men involved in rescue operations, including three HM Inspectors of Mines and the managers of both collieries. The death toll would have been far greater, but for the fact that many Cadeby miners had taken the day off

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Press proof – Ian H – 12/12/13

Tracing Your Coalmining Ancestors

‘Waiting for news’ is the caption for this postcard, one of several produced to commemorate the Cadeby Colliery disaster of 1912.

on account of a royal visit to Conisbrough Castle by George V and Queen Mary. Whereas the day-to-day accidents at Denaby and Cadeby attracted only small amounts of local press, the 1912 disaster attracted massive media coverage, regionally and nationally, even internationally. A local reporter estimated that a crowd of 80,000 had flocked to the pit. Disasters had long been ‘tourist attractions’, with special railway excursions laid on to cater for a voyeuristic public.

Under the 1911 Coal Mines Act those regarded as ‘killed’ in a mining accident were supposed to include those who died within a period of a year and a day of the date of its occurrence. In reality it is doubtful if this requirement was totally adhered to. And in earlier times there must have been many unrecorded deaths of miners who only survived for a few months after an accident or for those who died from ‘complications’. That is why it is important for researchers not to rely wholly on death certificate evidence.

Statistics will never demonstrate human stories, which is why our family histories are so important to social and industrial history as a whole. In 1936, when my father Fred Elliott was a teenage miner, part of the mine where he worked – Wharncliffe Woodmoor 1, 2 & 3 Colliery, near Barnsley – exploded and fifty-eight men and young lads, some not much older than

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