150 years ago on Monday 6th December 1875, a terrible explosion ripped through the underground workings 230 yards beneath the surface at Swaithe Main Colliery, near Worsbrough, near Barnsley. A second explosion had also likely been triggered by the first.
239 men and boys were at work underground at the time, and altogether the disaster claimed 143 lives, although the specific cause was never ascertained.
The explosion killed horses and men, flame burning a number of victims and charring the wooden props, as well as blasting coal tubs (corves) and other debris and causing roof falls blocking parts of the workings. Two of the first rescuers also succombed to afterdamp.
We remember them and the real dangers of working the Barnsley Coal seam in the 19th Century, just as was worked at Hemingfield Colliery, Lundhill and the Oaks which all saw disasters in the 1850s and 1860s.
Putting a name to a face is one thing, but what about a face to a name?
John Hartop Place sign at Elsecar Heritage Centre
John Hartop is a name few might instantly recognise, and yet, from 1857 to 1886 at least, one which figured largely in the working lives of hundreds of Earl Fitzwilliam’s colliers and their families around Elsecar and Parkgate. Despite this there appear to be no obviously identified images or published photographs of him, unlike many other prominent figures before and since.
Even when people lived and worked well into the era of photography, it can be a challenge for local or family historians to track down such images. Photographs may survive, unlabelled or unloved; faces unknown, names detached as it were; the context lost, and as friends and family fade away, time dissembles all.
This post follows the Friends and volunteers on their activities, and new adventures from July through to September 2025.
It has been a busy time, with our regular volunteers attending and assisting a wide range of events and joining with others to support and celebrate our local heritage.
Late March ran rapidly into into April as the Friends held their first full Open Day of the year in 2025: Easter Sunday. It was a lovely day, with perhaps the best of the Sunny weather over the long bank holiday weekend. But the volunteers had been kept busy in the weeks building up to the open day itself as you will see.
South Yorkshire’s Community Foundation
Once again we owe a huge thanks to South Yorkshire’s Community Foundation in supporting our activities on site, without them this year we would not have been able to hold an Open Day.
2025 is here. There’s no denying. But the weather outside has been less-than-delightful, so we’re starting off by looking back – A more detailed catch-up from Autumn of 2024, with late touches of Winter frost which somewhat delayed the start of 2025.
But first, a great big thank you!
Getting festive with volunteers from the Friends of Hemingfield Colliery, 21st December 2024
To all our volunteers, visitors, supporters and friends. Without your support the Friends would not be able to keep doing their great work in maintaining and sharing the colliery site and its stories with the wider public.
The 12th December is a dark day in history for Barnsley. The catastrophic loss of life which occurred when there were a series of underground explosions at the Oaks Colliery, near Hoyle Mill.
View of Oaks Colliery at the time of the first explosion, published in the Penny Illustrated Paper, Vol.XI, No. 273, 22nd December 1866, p.397
On this day in 1866, 158 years ago, the first fateful explosion took place, to be compounded by a second explosion the following day as a search party explored the workings.
It was an event of regional, national and, indeed, international importance, with reporters being despatched from far and wide to report on a disaster the horrific nature and scale of which only became clearer over time.
Mr Montay, the London correspondent for the French newspaper Le Petit Journal set off for Barnsley by train on 14th December, arriving at the pit just before 1am on 15th December, he reported on a continuous procession of local people, miners, engineers, magistrates thronging the route to see if it was still possible to save a life, with thousands of people clamouring to learn the fate of the men underground.
Une procession continuelle, une longue file de paysans, de mineurs des pays voisins, d’ingénieurs, de magistrats encombraient la route.Tous tendaient au même but, tous allaient voir s’il n’y avait pas un-suprême effort à tenter pour sauver, ne fût-ce qu’une seule vie.
Le Petit Journal, Tues 18th December 1866, p.3
Others came to provide spiritual and emotional support, alongside local clergy including non-conformist preacher and friend of the poor from Rochdale, John Ashworth.
Ashworth’s short diary entries reveal in simple detail the shock and impact of the event:
Wednesday, Dec. 19. Visited the Oaks Colliery, scene of the explosion at Barnsley; conversed with Mrs Winter, Barker, and Cartwright; dreadful, dreadful, pit still burning, in which 300 persons are buried…
Thursday, Dec. 20. Felt very sad all day from the scenes of yesterday; the burning shaft is always before me…
Friday, Dec. 21. Received a letter from [James] Barker, Barnsley, giving particulars of his terrible search for his father and three brothers, after the explosion: all dead
Reproduced from Calman, A.L., Life and Labours of John Ashworth, Tubbs and Brook, Manchester, 1875, pp.120-121
He later wrote up his experiences in one of many collected short pieces published as Strange tales from humble life, entitled ‘Sad Story’ he described visiting the grieving families:
My next call was on the mother of James Barker ; the dear mother for whom he prayed when he found his three brothers amongst the dead. She resided at No. 3, Ash Row, Hoyle Mill. In this row of stone buildings, there are thirty dwellings, and, sad to relate, twenty-eight out of the thirty had one or more of the family amongst the dead. The angel of death had indeed visited these homes, and a great cry, like the cry of Egypt, had gone up to heaven. Groups of children, many of them too young to understand their loss, were playing about the doors.
‘A Sad Story’, Strange tales from humble life, 3rd Series, 1867, p.142
Investigation
Attending the subsequent Coroner’s Inquest at the time, Joseph Dickinson, a government Mines Inspector reported:
…the first explosion took place on the 12th of December, when 340 work-persons were employed in the colliery, of whom only six have survived the injuries, making the loss of life 334 by that day’s explosion. In addition to this, 27 persons, of whom four belonged to the colliery, and 23 who were volunteers, were killed by a succession of explosions (arising as it would appear from the pit having been set on fire by the first explosion), which commenced on the following morning whilst the workings were being explored for the purpose of rescuing any persons who might have survived and the bodies of those who had perished.
Joseph Dickinson, writing from Pendleton, Manchester, 7th February 1867.
Returning to the present day, an outdoor service took place at the Oaks Colliery Disaster mining memorial sculpted by Graham Ibbeson, on Church Street in Barnsley town centre which was inaugurated in 2016.
Photographic collage of memorial service in Barnsley, 12th December 2024 (Photo credit: Paul Moon)
The Friends of Hemingfield Colliery were pleased to attend the solemn and reflective service.
Flowers laid at the memorial
Attendees laid a white rose on the memorial in a poignant tribute to the lives lost so long ago. We will remember them.
A memorial roll of names of some of the victims of the 1866 Oaks Colliery disaster (Photo Credit: Paul Moon)
As part of celebrations for ten years of work at Hemingfield Colliery, formerly a pumping station, FoHC Chair Steve Grudgings shares the results of some of his historical research into the working history of the National Coal Board’s Mines Drainage Unit (MDU) in 1955. Steve writes…
Introduction
It was 19 years ago (2005) that I parked outside the Westfield Newcomen Engine House at Rawmarsh and loaded up my old Skoda Octavia will a carload of “souvenirs” retrieved from the top floor of the building.
With hindsight, I realise it had been used as a storeroom for materials previously housed in the offices (100 yards up the road) and the workshops (adjacent) at Westfield. These presumably had been transferred when the NCB’s Mines Drainage Unit (MDU), based at Westfield had closed in 1989, and the premises rented out to new tenants.
1955Diary
One item retrieved was a 1955 diary listing the MDUs daily activities and sites.
Sample page from 1955 NCB Small mines and Mine Drainage Unit Diary (FoHC Collection)
Given the absence of archival data describing their work during this period, I thought that after 15 years, I should examine it to see if I could make sense of the unit’s work at that time. Whilst the handwritten entries are not easy to read, there are at least four weeks of blank pages and the diary ends prematurely at 9/12/1955, it has been possible to work out some of the unit’s activities, and my understanding of the main ones are set out below.
The NCB’s South Yorkshire Mines Drainage Unit
Following nationalisation of the Coal Industry in 1947, the MDU had taken over the work of the South Yorkshire Mines Drainage Committee (SYMDC), much of which was a continuation of what had been done previously by the South Yorkshire Pumping Association from 1920-1929.
It’s task was to maintain and repair the shafts, adits and watercourses by which water was removed from the abandoned coal seams, mainly but not exclusively those concerned with the Barnsley Bed, to prevent its descent into the deeper workings below.
SYMDC had operated under a tightly-controlled brief whereby the colliery companies whose workings it protected paid its costs on a proportional basis based on their working tonnage. With nationalisation, such controls were dispensed with, and the MDU’s work expanded across much of the NCB’s Yorkshire area, the unit apparently being called on whenever shaft repairs and temporary pumps were needed. Their extended geographical range is reflected in the diary.
Typical activities in 1955
Diary entries are made on a daily basis, with the first always being a summary of the main activities in the Westfield workshops. This is followed by brief entries for each of the sites visited on that day, often only a line summarising the day’s main activities.
The majority of their work appears to be concerned with routine examinations, clearance of watercourses, repair and replacement of pumps and repairs to pumping shafts, insets and pump lodges.
We don’t yet know precisely how many men worked for the MDU, but in 1955 but its subsequent scale suggested numbers between 20 and 30. There would have been a small office staff of perhaps 5, and the rest would have been trained and experienced colliers, many of them qualified deputies. This qualification certified that they were competent with an additional set of safety related skills that allowed them, amongst other duties, to test for gas – crucial in old workings. The nature of their work and the conditions underground are difficult to understand 65 years on, but were clearly unpleasant, arduous and dangerous.
What follows is a site by site summary of some of this work, with a particular focus on the non-routine tasks. The most frequent activity reported for all sites is excavating and setting steels, i.e. digging out the spoil and falls from underground roadways and passages and installing semi-circular steel reinforcing rings.
This work is normally preceded by an entry in the Westfield workshops for cutting and drilling steels, suggesting each batch of steel rings was custom made in terms of length and curvature depending on the shape and size of the roadway. Drilling was needed for the bolt holes, which had to be aligned when bolted together.
The Sites
Westfield
The workshop complex, the engine house and headgear still exist today and are used for light industrial purposes. The MDU offices at Westfield House had been purchased by SYMDC in the 1930s and still exist a hundred or so yards up Westfield Road, now serving as a care home.
View of Westfield House in 1939 in ownership of the South Yorkshire Mines Drainage Committee (SYMDC) which became the office of the Small mines and Mine Drainage Unit after Nationalisation under the NCB (image from the 1939 Annual report of the SYMDC)
In 1955 the Newcomen Engine House, originally built in 1823, at Westfield served as a pumping station in its own right, raising water from the shaft into the Bottom (Low Stubbin) watercourse. The engine it contained having been decommissioned and scrapped around 1934. The nearby Westfield No 1 footrill gave access to both this and the upper complex of watercourses via cross measure drifts.
Plan of the drainage system from Elsecar over to Rawmarsh, taken from 1939 Annual Report of the SYMDC
These lengthy parallel watercourses ran in a north westerly direction from Westfield draining the area between Rawmarsh and the Elsecar Valley.
Many diary entries refer to motors, winders and pumps being rebuilt and repaired and there was much steel fabrication and electrical work too. Specific activities include:
In April and May 1955, the diary records construction of a headgear for the Milton Roadside shaft on the Thorncliffe Drift. This was then dismantling before being transported to site on 23/4
The unit appears to have had a couple of lorries (one registration was EET257 and another EET530) and vans and apparently a Ruston Bucyrus RB 19 excavator, which was under repair in February. In March the latter was at Strafford with it’s air receiver taken to Westfield for testing
Equipment such as mobile winders, cement mixers etc would have needed repairing and maintaining too. In January they report that the H&T (?) Engineer was repairing the 110HP pump which on 26/1 was returned to the works by BRS (does anyone remember British Road Services?).
On June 3rd they are capelling 85yds of ¾” rope ex digger for the 20HP pikrose ( a proprietary name for a small haulage engine) for Wentworth Silkstone” – it was delivered there the following day.
We know that the unit was capable and equipped to repair small colliery railway locomotives too. They made a workable loco from a pair of Ruston & Hornsby narrow gauge diesils locos being sold for scrap in 1947 for construction of Wentworth Drift mine is described by Adrian Booth in Industrial Railway Society Record No 103
There are references to repairing gates, redecorating and repainting cottages, presumably some of the MDUs local buildings, the headgear also received the painters attention on 8/2.
Hemingfield
The picture that emerges from the diary is of regular visits here with the main activities being weekly underground examinations requiring access to the pump lodges and various repairs and maintenance to the pumps .
View of Hemingfield Pumping Station from the Canal basin level in 1995
Elsecar and the Thorncliffe Drift
Elsecar pumping station warrants surprisingly few mentions, possibly their needs were met by the adjacent NCB workshops and Elsecar Main Pit. In 1955, the MDU appear to have initiated a project to clean and repair the lower section of the Thorncliffe Drift and the local activities seem to be concerned with securing the various shafts accessing the watercourse (into which the water is pumped at Elsecar). This work included:
On 12/1 they report examining the drift from the outlet (near Hemingfield) to Milton.
In August, Westfield workshops are building shuttering for concreting work in the ladder shaft (adjacent to the Newcomen Engine House and giving access to Thorncliffe Drift) and in September 2nd the MDU are concreting the drift shaft top here.
The petrol engine in Crowther’s shaft (which was still open in 1990) is being dismantled and rebuilt between the 2nd and 5th of September and the Welfare shaft has its cap concreted on the 9th.
On the 12th Septemberthe Plantation shaft (upstream from Crowthers) has its top capped, and the next day the adjacent Elsecar footrill shaft is also capped. All these shafts are in close proximity around the current Heritage Centre, none being deeper than 40′.
This work on the shallow shafts appears to be linked to a major programme centred on Milton Roadside shaft some 1000 yards upstream following January’s initial explorations (implying it had been blocked for some time) and for the next couple of months work excavating and setting steels is recorded.
In April, work at Milton roadside includes erecting the headgear built at Westfield, installing a 25hp winder and preparing the shaft including fitting timbers in a bailey bridge section in June.
Later in June they are laying the tub road and in July building a gantry and tippler, perhaps to clear accumulated deposits from this section of the drift (it was blocked and could not be travelled, presumably the reason for the work). The winder is still under construction on 4/8 when they report they are preparing for ventilation. Milton Roadside Shaft is on higher ground, 155’ above the Thorncliffe Drift water level hence the need for a proper headgear.
In September they are excavating shaft bottom and driving towards Milton House, the breakthrough to which is reported in October. They drove downstream because to do otherwise would risk being drowned by accumulated water.
Flockton Lane End
This pumping station in West Yorkshire had an almost daily entry and was probably the site furthest away from Westfield. It was a long established pumping shaft, draining a wide area of old workings south of Caphouse Colliery (today’s National Coal Mining Museum for England). The pumping engine house bob (beam) wall and capped shaft can still be seen today (2020).
The MDU men spent considerable time here, the shaft would seem to have been in poor condition and needing much repair work. The work described included installing and maintaining the new pumps.
View of ruined bob wall of engine house at Flockton Lane End, 1995 (Credit: Steve Grudgings)
Strafford
This pumping station was another frequent entry, and was some way to the west near Silkstone. Like Lane End, much effort went into repairing the shafts and pumps. On 5/2 the entries for Westfield record welding to Strafford hoppit telling us how the men accessed the shaft.
In October they used the MDU’s mobile winder to install new pump pipes in the shaft. There are a number of entries in Jan and Feb for repairing the water shaft, I am not clear if this is the pumping shaft or a separate one for water storage.
View of remaining structures at Strafford Main Colliery, including the fan house structures, next to the pumping station, taken in 1995 (Credit: Steve Grudgings)
Whilst on the subject of mobile winders, in the 1930s the SYMDC purchased a small lorry-mounted mobile winder to facilitate access to the number of shallow shafts they were responsible for on the various watercourses, and this may have continued in use into the 1950s.
Low Stubbin
This was an old pumping station a few hundred yards North of Westfield, and another regular location, its shaft being used to gain access to the deeper of the two parallel water courses that drained the Barnsley seam there.
In January they were installing cables in the shaft and getting ready to send the winder to Low Shops. Low Shops was a closed J.J. Charlesworths pit in between Wakefield and Stanley Ferry, used as a workshops and presumably able to handle work that was beyond Westfield’s capability.
On 19 January (following a shaft inspection on the 13th – the only mention so probably being opportune) the portable winder was being repaired at Low Shops and on the 25th it was collected and installed at Low Stubbin. Low Shops site does not feature again in the diary
On 10 May they are preparing three (sheer?) legs for unloading a winch and also repairing the lorry winder (it’s unclear if this is the same one repaired at Low shops).
In July they report clearing the road (watercourse) to Top Stubbin ( north of Low Stubbin) and later that month fitting hanging chains and a detaching hook and new indicator bell – these would suggest there was a permanent winding installation here complete with cage and signals.
In August and September Low Stubbin is reported as being damped off, I wonder if this meant gas levels had prevented access, possibly due to the long burning underground fire around the adjacent Haugh Pit?
In October collection of the fan from Milton is recorded (presumably no longer needed following the Thorncliffe Drift breakthrough?) for installation at Low Stubbin. On the 14th, the diary records cleaning the road in the Oatwood Level (on the Bottom Water Course)
Carr House
The colliery here, just on the north side of Rotherham, had closed before nationalisation and the site converted into one of SYMDC’s pumping stations. It was active until the 1990s, and the remaining buildings were demolished in 2014.
Regular entries for the site all point to routine inspections rather than the remedial projects underway at Strafford and Lane End. In February they report repairs to the Well shaft and in April concreting the overflow trench.
View of Surviving engine house building at Carr house, in 1995 (Credit: Steve Grudgings)
Bore Hole
There is a lot of activity at the “bore hole”, its location is not described but I suspect this was at Barbot Hall near Greasbrorough where a borehole and submersible pump were installed and a small electrical switchgear house served by a lightweight headgear.
View of Barbot Hall Bore Hole station
It is obviously a wide borehole as a 165HP Beresford Pump was installed in April and the following month shaft doors were installed. In July they delivered and fixed the winch and rope for the Pikrose, an electric motor presumably used for raising and lowering pumps and pipes in the borehole. Much of August and September was spent clearing out the shaft.
Inspection visit by Dennis and Mel in 1995 at Barbot Hall (Credit: Steve Grudgings)
Waleswood
This colliery to the south east of Sheffield closed in 1948 and was adapted as a training pit and pumping station, and not finally demolished until the 1990s.
The MDU were busy repairing the Hazel Drift in May and Barnsley pit bottom in June but no further activity was recorded until 30/11 when they reported. Repairs to remove old rising main from surface to Hazel (seam) leaving Hazel to pit bottom in to conduct Hazel water to bottom. Wiring signals in UC shaft after all wire had been stolen!”
View of surviving buildings at Waleswood in 1995 (Credit: Steve Grudgings)
Skiers
This was both an opencast and deep mine site in the NCB era, and the MDU delivered 16 pipes to stores here on 28/1 and reported digging cable trenches and the dismantling and return of the Pikrose the following month.
Shafts and Watercourses
There were a number of sites on the Top Watercourse discharging at Mangham that the team worked on. It was reported on 4/1 that work had been completed on the Top Water Course and that they had travelled from the outlet to the Fire Wall (presumably where the underground fire had been sealed off since the previous century).
The Mangham outlet at Parkgate was being repaired for much of the summer and they are “loading muck away to outcrop” on 8/7
In July they are repairing Low Deep shaft top where the lock had been broken and sleepers thrown down the shaft. This shaft is at the southern end of the Top Water Course and had obviously been closed some time ago and its top covered.
Mangham Shaft is being capped on 14/9 and steels being set the next day.
There are other sites that get one or two visits and these include East Ardsley (south of Leeds), Hatfield Borehole, installation of a temporary pump at Goldthorpe and transport of a pump to Wheatley Wood. The unit also installs what appears to be a submersible pump at Walton Colliery (Wakefield) in late June and July.
It’s also clear from the occasional diary entries that the MDU worked closely with local pits such as Silverwood, Nunnery and Cortonwood for supplies of materials and for workshop activity beyond their capacity. The withdrawal of 30 and 65hp pumps from Cortonwood is also reported on 22/8, I wonder if this refers to the end of pumping at Greenlands shaft between Cortonwood and Hemingfield?
Unfriendly weather, but not entirely dull. No sign of summer sun. June was the summer-free month, uninterrupted by good weather. Volunteers were on site sporadically throughout, on the 1st, 8th, 22nd and 29th June. Inbetween them came rain and cloud. Frequently. Unreasonably unseasonal weather kept us away, and yet it proved to be a very memorable month as you will read.
In this special Anniversary post, Chair of the Friends of Hemingfield Colliery, Steve Grudgings shares the first selection of reflections on a decade of challenges, progress and change at Hemingfield.
Celebrating 10 years of the Friends of Hemingfield CollieryContinue reading →
Friends of Hemingfield Colliery 