In May 2026, we remember a sad connection between Yorkshire and Cumbria: the Wellington Pit Disaster, at Whitehaven which claimed 136 lives.
Remembering Whitehaven, May 1910
People
People associated with the site and its history.
April 2026
A bit of a swift recap of April is in order. A quietish month at the pit, with weather and plenty of off-site preoccupations keeping everyone busy.
Remembrance in March 2026
The Friends had a busy few weeks in March 2026, both on and off site. Looking forwards and also looking back – 100 years ago in March.
Continue readingDown (y)our way: Tingle Bridge
Valentines Volunteers
On Saturday 14th February, our volunteers returned to site – after the longest, wettest, dullest January that anyone can remember; the country being lashed by Storms Goretti, Ingrid and Chandra, but the light had returned! It was still a bit nippy though as the Friends arrived at Hemingfield – with no water for the birds in Pump House Cottage garden, only ice – despite the brighter skies!
Swaithe Main Disaster 6th December 1875
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.
Continue readingFacing the Past – John Hartop
Putting a name to a face is one thing, but what about a face to a name?
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.
So, where to begin for a name without a face?
Perhaps at the beginning…
Continue readingBusy busy bees – Summer 2025
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.
Continue readingOpening up
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.
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.
Continue reading2024 into 2025. Autumn Fantasia and the long winter.
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!
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.
Continue readingRemembering the Oaks
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.
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.
The Friends of Hemingfield Colliery were pleased to attend the solemn and reflective service.
Attendees laid a white rose on the memorial in a poignant tribute to the lives lost so long ago. We will remember them.
