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unusual facts about colliery



2005 in England

Closure of Ellington Colliery at Ellington, Northumberland, the last remaining operational deep coal mine in North East England, and the last in the UK to extract coal from under the sea.

Alfred Tylor

His grandfather set up the colliery around which the village of Tylorstown grew in the Rhondda Valley, Wales.

Anderton Shearer Loader

It was utilised by Anderton's employers at Groves Ravenhead Colliery in St Helens.

Arthur Vivian

He left college in 1855, on his father's death, to manage the family's copper smelting and rolling works and colliery at Port Talbot.

Auchenharvie Colliery

Auchenharvie Colliery was a colliery formerly located in the Auchenharvie area of Stevenston, Ayrshire, Scotland that was devastated by a pit disaster on August 2, 1895 in which nine lives were lost.

Barrhead

In 1851 an explosion at the Victoria Pit colliery in nearby Nitshill occurred, killing 63 men and boys who worked in the mine, many of whom lived in Barrhead.

Bernard Taylor, Baron Taylor of Mansfield

Taylor was from a mining family in Mansfield Woodhouse in Nottinghamshire and left school at 14 to work at the Sherwood Colliery.

Bill Etherington

He became a fitter for Beal & Co in Sunderland in 1962, before joining the National Coal Board in 1963 and for the following twenty years worked as a fitter at the Dawdon Colliery in County Durham.

Blackett of Wylam

William Hedley, Timothy Hackworth and Jonathan Forster all worked at Wylam Colliery for Christopher Blackett (1751-1829), and there produced the famous early steam engines Puffing Billy (1813-1814) and Wylam Dilly (1815)

Blackridge, West Lothian

The last colliery closed in the late 1950s and Blackridge became a dormitory for nearby towns with, for much of the 1960s and 1970s, the British Leyland truck and tractor assembly plant at Bathgate the principal employer.

Bobby Gurney

Born in Stewart Street, Silksworth, Sunderland, his father Joe was a miner at Silksworth Colliery.

Bolton and Leigh Railway

Sans Pareil was used on the railway until 1844, when it was sold to the Coppull Colliery, Chorley and used as a stationary engine until 1863 when it was presented to the Science Museum by John Hick.

Brecon Forest Tramroad

From the colliery the line ran northeastwards to the village of Coelbren and then across the Nant Llech just above Henrhyd Falls and around the flanks of the hill north to Penwyllt.

Chatterley Whitfield

The Chatterley Whitfield Partnership was set up in 1999 between English Heritage, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Advantage West Midlands and Joan Walley MP to find a way to restore the derelict colliery.

Clifford Cory

In 1895 he heard the 'Ton Pentre Temperance' brass band from the Rhondda Valley at the opening of the Colliery Library in Gelli and offered to provide financial assistance for them resulting in the band’s change of name to ‘The Cory Band’.

Cornwall Minerals Railway

It became GWR 1388 in 1896 and was eventually sold to the Cwm Circ Colliery at Llanharan, Wales, 1911.

Cronberry Eglinton F.C.

The football club took its unusual suffix from the Eglinton Iron Company who developed the villages of Lugar and Cronberry in the 1840s to provide housing for workers at the nearby colliery and ironworks.

Cwmgors RFC

In 1923 a second team formed in the village, made up from members of the Cwmgors Colliery called the 'Mond' team, named after the owner of the colliery Alfred Mond.

Devon Labour Briefing

In the UK miners' strike (1984-1985), Devon Labour Briefing twinned itself with the Maerdy Colliery in South Wales, and collected money and food.

Doncaster railport

Doncaster Inland Port, Rossington, planned for construction 2012, west of former Rossington Colliery

Flued boiler

Through the Wylam colliery and its owner Christopher Blackett, Hedley would have been familiar with Trevithick's engine.

Frank Ash Yeo

He moved to Swansea where he was a colliery owner and director of the Swansea Bank and the Swansea Blast Furnace Company.

George Robert Stephenson

He was born into a great family of civil engineers, his father was engineer of Pendleton Colliery and Nantlle Railway, his elder brother George Stephenson was a prolific railway engineer as were his uncle George Stephenson and cousin Robert Stephenson.

Golborne

The closure of the colliery led to the loss of employment for a large proportion of Golborne's population as well as people from nearby towns such as Abram, Lowton and Ashton-in-Makerfield.

Heolyfelin, Aberdare

When Ysguborwen Colliery was opened at Llwydcoed in 1849, those who moved to the locality included many Baptists, and they initially held prayer meetings at the Wesleyan Chapel.

Holly Country

The settlement, located some 5 km from Sasolburg, is a former colliery, and was originally named Coalbrook, probably named after Coalbrookdale in England.

Horden Colliery Welfare A.F.C.

Horden Colliery Welfare A.F.C. are a football club based in Horden, near Peterlee, County Durham, England.

Jagannath Sarkar

After joining the Communist Party, he moved to the working class areas of Bihar and then Jharkhand, were, in the 1940s and 1950s, he engaged in campaigns for miners' and colliery workers' rights.

James Motley

He worked as an engineer and manager (at Tewgoed (or 'Terrgoed') Colliery at Cwmafan); then underground surveyor to William Chambers of Llanelli; and finally, at Abercrave colliery, iron works, iron mines, and limestone quarries while maintaining an active interest in natural history, especially botany (he left a herbarium at the Royal Institution of South Wales, Swansea), and folklore.

Jimmy Cuthbertson

Born in Silksworth, Cuthbertson played for Dawdon Colliery Welfare, Bradford City and Thackley.

John Blenkinsop

Richard Trevithick of Cornwall had experimented with various models of steam locomotive, and in 1805 his work had culminated in an engine for the Wylam Colliery.

Lancashire Coalfield

The Giant's Hall Fault passes by Abram, west of Ince Hall Colliery, west of Gidlow and under Giant's Hall Farm to Standish Church.

Longwall mining

At Newstan Colliery in New South Wales, Australia "the surface has dropped by as much as five metres in places" above a multi level mine.

Monkwearmouth

The area is also the home of the Stadium of Light, which was opened on the site of the abandoned Wearmouth Colliery in July 1997, and is the home of the football club Sunderland A.F.C., who had previously played at Roker Park.

Netherton, Wakefield

Following the end of the strike, the two pits merged with Caphouse Colliery to form an amalgamated colliery at Denby Grange, which finally closed in 1991.

New Barlborough

Following the closing down of the local colliery site, just south-east of the A619, the site was cleared, and in 1997, construction began of a series of new housing estates for commuters, which came to include a Yachting Club, with a lake, and a Holiday Inn.

Paxman Hi-Dyne engine

This was tested for a range of industrial uses, particularly for colliery traffic on the Stockton to Darlington line.

Peelwood Colliery

The colliery was linked to the company's other pits, Combermere and Cleworth Hall by a mineral railway which had exchange sidings with the Tyldesley Loopline.

Phoenix Row

Opened in 1825, a stationary beam engine controlled the descent of wagons that ran from the colliery to the River Gaunless.

Pinxton

From the profits of his colliery at Pinxton, D'Ewes Coke (1747-1811) of Brookhill Hall, a clergyman colliery master, founded a local school and an educational charity.

Robert Alwyn Hughes

His father worked at Bedlinog Colliery and had a love of Welsh literary classics.

Ronnie Starling

Born in Pelaw, Tyne and Wear, Ronnie Starling represented Durham County schools as a youth and began working in the coal mines in the north-east at the age of 14, firstly at Usworth colliery and then Washington Colliery.

Shakerley Collieries

After the London and North Western Railway built the Tyldesley Loopline in 1864, Ramsden built a colliery railway to join the mainline railway at Ramsden's Sidings east of Tyldesley Station and Tyldesley Coal Company's Green's Sidings.

Sheriff Hill Colliery

Sheriff Hill Colliery was situated at the summit of Gateshead Fell at the boundary between Sheriff Hill and Low Fell approximately 2 3/4 miles from Newcastle upon Tyne.

Silverwood Colliery

Silverwood Colliery was a colliery situated between Thrybergh and Ravenfield in Yorkshire, England.

Sir Charles Palmer, 1st Baronet

His business capacity attracted the attention of a leading local colliery owner, and he was appointed manager of the Marley Hill colliery in which he became a partner in 1846.

T. Lindsay Galloway

While in Kintyre he became deeply involved,being the chief engineer for the Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway which served his Argyll Colliery.

Wellington, British Columbia railway station

It was the Wellington Colliery Railway and mines which provided Robert Dunsmuir with the wealth, experience and infrastructure he needed to convince the government, under generous terms, to allow him to build an Island Railway.

Wilfred Paling

When the family moved to Huthwaite in Nottinghamshire he started work in New Hucknall Colliery, also attending night classes organised by the Workers Educational Association in politics, economics and trade union history.

William Losh

In addition to being an alkali manufacturer he worked as a colliery agent and as consul for Prussia, the Scandinavian countries and, later, for Turkey.


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