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.
Back at it, another brisk weekend on site on Saturday 22nd March 2025. Regular volunteers Janet and Jeff, Paul, Andy and Chris. Still in early days of the year, visits and events wise. So some maintenance jobs and chasing up plans for bigger repair efforts to come.
South Yorkshire’s Community Fund
All of which have been greatly assisted by the support of South Yorkshire’s Community Foundation through their grant towards our site insurance costs to undertake activities this year.
Hitting the garden in Pump House Cottage, Janet and Jeff are doing sterling work, weeding, cutting back, and tidying up the brick paths weathered over the winter.
Jeff gets stuck in, repairing the garden path, 22nd March 2025
As well as replacing fractured bricks, Jeff started to reset the decorative edging of the path.
Some light rain later in the day brought dark clouds over Pump House Cottage.
Wonderwalls
It’s all about Bricks! Aside from sandstone, the main material visible at Hemingfield is definitely the humble brick. 19th and 20th Century examples abound. We certainly have many bricks, not all of them are in their rightful places – especially out front, in the boundary wall on Wath Road:
Wonky walls and the results of wilful damage, outside the pit, 22nd March 2025
What happened? Well, staying within the bounds of moderation, criminal damage happened. A significant chunk very likely by one individual, and mostly after 2019, but also other uninvited guests over time did not help matters.
Compare the above March 2025 image with this one below from August 2016:
View of front wall looking down Wath Road, 6th August 2016
This step back into the not-too-distant past shows quite a contrast in terms of showing the loss in height of the wall:
View of much more complete front wall onto Wath Road, 6th August 2016
Can you help?
As for repairing/restoring the wall, we will need quite a lot of help! None of our excellent volunteers are qualified or experienced bricklayers. We have the materials and tools, but need to secure the expertise and permission to move forward.
Just another brick in the wall?
Looking along the top of the wonky wall, 22 March 2025
Before any work can begin, we are seeking to record the front wall construction to determine the appropriate methods and materials.
Brickbats and mortar
A tumbled, jumbled stack of bricks from the front wall, showing examples of brickwork terminology described below.
In most simple brick walls, the bricks are laid in rising rows (courses) of blocks, usually of the same standard size and colour. Each vertical stack of bricks in the depth of the wall is known as a wythe. Brickwork seen front-on shows different methods of bonding patterns in the courses, used for particular structural or decorative purposes, and generally consisting of headers (thin end of brick facing out) and stretchers (long side facing out).
The mortar holding them together usually sits on the top and bottom faces (beds), forming horizontal bed joints, whilst the mortar forming the vertical joints on each end forms what are known as perpends. From the 19th century many bricks are frogged, that is they have a depression in the top or bottom face (bed) to hold more mortar for adhesion, and which is also often used for advertising the brand of the brickmaker. Doubled frogged means the top and bottom both have this impression from the pressing of the original clay brick before it was fired.
Pointing refers to the use of mortar in connecting the bricks building the wall, its thickness, depth and material, e.g. lime mortar, cement mortar, with additives of various sorts reflecting local practice or just the immediate availability of materials.
In context
The surviving boundary wall at the Wath Road entrance can be seen as consisting of 6 sections:
Black and white wall reference image from August 2016 when it was much less damaged than in March 2025
A brief look at each of these sections reveals some interesting insights into the history of the site throughout its pit and pumping station years, pre- and post- 1920.
Solid and stable high wall, 24 visible courses high on Wath Road side. 1½ bricks deep, or 3 parallel stretchers, capped with Skiers Spring terra cotta tiles which were also used on the majority of the boundary wall until demolished and replaced in the 1990s. Generally Common English garden wall bonding, that is 3 courses of stretchers (side full length of brick) and one of headers (short top side of brick). Seemingly heightened at some stage and showing a mixture of mortars and at the rear a greater greater variety of darker pressed bricks.
Butt joint with section 1. 22 courses high originally (up to 2019), 6 stretchers wide, 1 brick deep, with a top ‘castellation’ decoration which was continued across sections 2-4. Also has rear buttress after joint with section 1 which has an anchor plate and iron tie bar. Bonding is a variation of Common English garden wall bond at the bottom, then a space of 6 courses of stretchers and another of headers. Poor mortar mix and strength, explains the extent and relative ease of damage seen here, mortar possibly mixed with coal dust as a grit.
Vertical timbers either end of section, 10 ½ stretchers wide. 1 brick deep. Top castellation’ decoration continued from section 2 into 4 over both timbers on a thin diminishing row left-to-right. Uneven pointing, and less care in bonding work than sections 1, 2, 4,or 6. Some noticeable bulging and lean.
From the vertical timber of section 3, 22 courses high, 1 brick deep, now a leaning section due to the tree growth behind the telegraph pole, (similar to 5 into which it is badly bonded). Until more recent years this section included 2 step-downs in height to section 5, dropping 3 bricks, then 4 then 3 in height to meet section 5 at the height of section 6’s coping.
Bonded joints with 4, at an offset angle behind the telegraph pole, noticeably paler brick. Rear of wall shows evidence of rebuilding/repair. Movement in the section and sections 3-5 led to buttressing and seemingly repairs in the past exacerbated by tree and felling in 2023. Right-hand side ends in a butt joint to 6. This section marks the edge of where there used to be a separate building on site, facing the road, seen in early 1900s image of the pit.
This section is about 17 stretchers wide, 1½ bricks deep, with bonding matching the wall on the opposite side of the gate post, and similar to section 1. In June 2009 it retained 6 stone coping pieces, but by September 2011 all bar one of these had been removed. The Friends took on the site in 2014.
Detail of c.1907 image of colliery showing section 6 at the right (wooden gatepost removed/concrete in use by 1952). The large double-doored entrance to another slate roofed building appears to occupy the space now taken up by sections 3-5 and may reuse some of materials.Detail from 1970s image courtesy Alan Hill, showing wooden gates with concrete gate posts which may have dated to the 1950s (current gates are NCB tubular metal). Section 6 appears complete and section 5 appears much lighter brick patching up to meet section 4 and up to the height of sections 3-2. Note there is no telegraph pole on the road, but is one within the pit yard and old boundary wall (with gate) can be seen to the right of the switchgear building (fire damaged in 2008)
Pole position
The prime cause of problems for much of the wall at sections 4 & 5, even after vandalism, relates to the telegraph pole, or rather the tree which grew behind it, levering the wall and pole in opposite directions.
Front brick wall of pit, looking surprisingly complete, with tree behind the telegraph pole, between sections 4&5. Old lamppost can also be seen by the concrete gatepost, 28th November 2015
For many years the tree had been pushing the pole towards the road, creating significant ‘play’ in the pole (it would move if pushed), as well as noticeable sag in the drop line wires over to Pit Row cottages. It had also been weakening the boundary wall, pushing it backwards.
View down the Wath Road front wall, showing the angle of telegraph pole with sagging line and the width of trunk of the tree pushing the wall backwards, 12 March 2022
After 2014, as the Friends secured the site with steel fencing on the damaged wall and filled gaps with wooden fence panels, we were also attempting to prop and stay further movement.
Troublesome tree felled, 11 September 2023
This situation came to a partial end in September 2023 when the huge tree was professionally cut down, thanks to the crew from Barnsley Council. This task was difficult to do without causing further weakness and lean on the boundary wall, and required increased propping in the yard at sections 5 and 4 in particular.
Leaning and the lamppost
New massive light column, 21 December 2024
All of which brings us up to date. In December 2024, a new tall light column replaced the old smaller one by the concrete gate post, however this has negatively affected the surface run off when rain water runs off the road.
Front wall looking across from opposite side of Wath Road, 8th March 2025, showing leaning telegraph pole with A1024 sticker on the left, and new light column with bus stop sign on the right.
In March 2025, the telegraph pole itself came in for attention, being tested and marked with a A1024 defect label notice. But what does that mean? And what are all the labels and numbers on telegraph poles all about anyway?
Unwanted knowledge, or telegraph pole appreciation
Telegraph pole close-up showing the DP number and latest test label, March 2025
Most active timber telegraph posts in the UK connecting to customers properties for telephone and data services via drop wires should have:
A) A designated number relative to the telephone exchange area (DP being a Distribution Point or pole, black letters on white plastic tiles), possibly fed from a nearby BT/PO/GPO footway cover box, otherwise it may just be a linking carrier post. Prior to plastic being used in 1963 numbers and letters were shown on enlarged metal nailheads or punched on metal strip.
Additional letters & numbers may appear below DP referring to a transposition code and serial number. This information used to be put c.8 feet high.
Other letters on their own, usually on coloured squared aluminium tiles 45mm x 45mm, which may alert visiting engineers to pole hazards and climbability, e.g. red D (Do not climb, use a MEWP – mobile elevating work platform or scaffold), there should be a red date label with the D; green C (Shallow Climable, with guidance), red SD (Shallow Depth pole), orange H (Hazard, within 1m for climbing, such as nearby spiked fencing, use MEWP) or green Z (Safe Climb Zone Pole, accredited climbers only or use a MEWP).
B) A plastic coloured test label (also known as a A558 label), in use since 1964. It consists of 3, or more likely 4, rows with punched holes recording the last test data:
1. A number to indicate the Month of the last major pole test. (Mth): 3= March
2. The Year of the pole test (Yr): 25 = 2025
3. Letter code – represent the pole tester who performed the test (thank you mystery tester!)
4. Two options on the next test cycle, 6 or Twelve years: 12 years.
We know ours was last tested in 2016, so it was less than 8 years since the last year.
Old pole test label (tested April 2016, in place until 2025)
Why the A1024 defect? Probably the wobble, or the slack dropwires.
Example of pole with blue A1024 defect label, here with reason of overloading of 17 d/w (dropwires) in 180 degrees at the top of the pole.
A further engineer visit appeared to add some stabilisation to the pole and tightened the dropwires, so no more defect.
Newly taut dropwires from the stabilised and no longer defective pole, March 2025.
We haven’t mentioned the other BT labels seen, an A559 maximum pole loading label which should give a limit on the number of radial dropwire connections at the top of the pole. Also, at the foot of the pole – Openreach engineers may attach a pre-climb test label when they carry out an inspection and this level records the test date and serial number.
Cracking the code
The timber telegraph pole themselves usually have further markings (branding or impressions) reflecting their form, function and origin.
E.g.
Example of pole branding GPO/28M/57 denoting General Post Office pole, 28 foot, Medium, preserved in 1957
Depending on the age of the pole, the letters should be 10ft or 3 metres from the butt of the pole – which for modern poles should be 1.2 metres in the ground. A scored doby line may mark the 3 metre point, and a horizontal ground line may be visible at the rear of the pole. Additional marks on the butt of the pole would only be visible to depot and installation staff.
Ground line visible at rear of pole where the larger tree trunk had grown until 2023.
These denote:
Owner of the pole – GPO/PO/BT
Pole length and Class (feet for older and metres for newer poles 10 or 28 feet might be common examples. Classes include: XL = Extra Light, L = Light, M= Medium or S = Stout
Year of preservation (timber treatment) e.g. 57, 97 not year of installation, but clearly it must be after this date.
Supplier mark and type of wood/preservation treatment – Not all poles of all ages show this, but as an example, 2I = supplier 2 and Imported I – if this info is missing, it is generally safe to assume the wood is Scots Pine and that it was creosoted through the Ruping process.
List of supplier/depot numbers and wood type codes:
Supplier depot codes
1 – James Jones (Supplied BT until 1998) 2 – Calders & Grandidge (1930s-current supplier) 3 – BBH (Burt, Boulton and Haywood, current, now Scanpole) 4 – PTG (supplied BT between 1997-2000 taken over by Scanpole) 5 – Scanpole (supplied BT 2000-2006) 6 – Scanpole (supplied BT 2000-2006)
Table of letter codes for types of wood, where no code perhaps safe to assume Scots Pine. Taken from Post Office Engineering Dept, Engineering Instructions. Lines Overhead, C.1101, issue 5, 22/4/1960. Courtesy Bob’s Telephone File.
Additional creosoting treatments may be recorded in further two year digits below the first. Pole re-use and shortening from the tip or the base may also lead to obliteration and new markings.
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.
October brought clouds and rain. It kept volunteer activity on site at bay, at times, but the hardy crew still managed to get some valuable maintenance work done, and even enjoyed an outing at the end of this most changeable of months.
Aerial salute and envoi: a flock of birds fly over Pump House Cottage garden on 7th October 2023Continue reading →
It was a sunny, soaking and an especially busy September for the Friends of Hemingfield Colliery. This month always brings the exciting prospect of Heritage Open Days, when we open up our site for a longer period, with our dedicated volunteers providing tours and sharing their enthusiasm for the site, its history and the plans for future developments. It’s also still very much a working month, with the last un-wintry weekends keeping hands-on repair projects moving.
Wall work
A good example of this is the ongoing large-scale effort to repair and consolidate the rear retaining wall. John, Paul, Jamie, Paul, and Jeff have been combining efforts when on site to push this forward.
Trio of happy wall workers, 16th Sept 2023
Having made significant progress in repairing the face and base of the masonry over the last 2 years, the main focus recently has been on tying the wall more firmly into the rear terrace and providing a more substantial footing at the top to enable us to rebuild the collapsed brick wall which once lined the top.
Wall work, 9th Sept 2023
When completed this work will allow us to tidy up the rear of the site, improving security, safety for visitors, and opening up more of the lower terrace. Advancing this work also means further restoration activities (of which there are no shortage) can be planned, freeing volunteer efforts to be directed elsewhere.
Rear wall, 16th Sept 2023
Good progress on rear wall, 30th Sept 2023
Wedge issues
On 11th September 2023, a team from Barnsley Council kindly answered a concerned call to address a safety issue caused by a tree growing between a telegraph pole and the pit’s front wall. The problem tree has been doing significant damage to the pit’s boundary wall, and also lifting the surface of the public pavement outside. Years of growth were pushing our wall over, but also causing the telegraph post to lean ever-closer towards Pit Row with slack wires hanging ever-lower. Having checked the tree’s status, and in the interests of safety and protecting our heritage, this large tree was taken down.
Photo-collage of safe removal of tree which had grown on pavement between the wall and telegraph post, causing damage to all three until 11th Sept 2023.
Making short and smart work of the job, the tree was removed, the Friends allowing site access for the tree to fall, away from the road, thus avoiding a road closure.
Gone! Cracked pavement, levered wall and telegraph post, with the tree stump cut for safety, 16th Sept 2023
The front wall, part of the scheduled monument, has suffered from the tree’s growth, wedged as it was between the telegraph post and wall. The wall itself has also been subject to years of vandalism, with graffiti and some rather more recent criminal damage, all of which creates challenges for the Friends as a volunteer organisation to try to fix.
Leaning pole of Pit Row, wider view, 16th Sept 2023
Heritage Open Days
On to Heritage Open Days (HODs). The theme for 2023 was “Creativity Unwrapped” – the perfect opportunity to share our new exhibition in Pump House Cottage.
Heritage Open Day, 17th Sept 2023
Celebrating the closure of our National Lottery Heritage Fund Project, Hemingfield’s Hidden History, the exhibition shows the results of the creative work artist Fabric Lenny undertook with local primary school children from Hemingfield Ellis.
Detail of exhibition, 9th Sept 2023
Inspired by the heritage and biodiversity found all around our site, the colourful artworks were compiled into a large final piece which is now permanently mounted on the wall of Pump House Cottage.
Exhibition of Hemingfield Ellis Primary School artwork, 9th Sept 2023
Over two wonderful weekends the Friends welcomed over 100 visitors to the site for the Heritage Open Days.
Exhibition art, 9th Sept 2023
Starting with a surprisingly hot Saturday, and a slightly darker Sunday, we were pleased to show lots of new visitors around the site, and to share some of the outcomes of our recent work in and around Pump House Cottage, and around the back.
Pump House Cottage garden, 17th Sept 2023
With our new guidebook and a selection of new and secondhand books and postcards, we were also grateful to receive several contributions, and were blown away by the final weekend, which saw the highest number of visitors yet recorded.
A HUGE thank you to all visitors, but especially to our regular volunteers who pulled out all the stops.
Green to Grey
The rest of the month was a chance to wind down a little bit, and reflect on the HODs activities whilst continuing regular maintenance duties.
Grey day, 30th Sept 2023
Grey skies dominated, but there was no shortage of colour at ground level; from the late flowers in Pump House Cottage garden, to the first orange-brown leaves swept up outside.
Autumn in the air? Leaf harvest from front of pit, 30th Sept 2023
Who predicts a riot? Elsecar in 1893
130 years ago, in 1893, a serious national industrial dispute took place between colliery owners and working miners in union districts affiliated with the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain. Lasting many weeks from June until November 1893, the dispute was, ostensibly, fought over the employers’ demand to reduce wages at a time of much lower coal prices.
Portrait of Arthur Marshall Chambers (18 -1899), Managing Director of Newton, Chambers & Co. Ltd, and President of the Coalowners Federation, from: Percy, C.M., Mining in the Victorian era: a popular record of coal mining progress from 1837 to 1897, Wigan: Wall and Sons, p.66
Arthur Marshall Chambers, the Managing Director of Newton, Chambers Co Ltd, at Thorncliffe, in Chapeltown, was the President of the Federated Coalowners who refused to maintain the same rate of wages, and decided to lock out workers and reduce output at their pits. collieries summarised their position:
Unless high prices can be obtained, high wages cannot be paid; and maintenance of high wages in times of depressed trade simply means reduced sales, less money for the workmen, and increased cost to the owners. If the owners in the Midland districts have to continue to pay the full 40 per cent. on the 1888 prices, the result will inevitably be that their pits will only work one or two days per week, which means an enormous loss to the owners, and would eventually cause the permanent stoppage of a large number of collieries.
Arthur Marshall Chambers, President of the Coalowners Federation, quoted in the Journal of Gas Lighting, Vol.LXII, No.1586, 3rd Oct 1893, p.636
Voices of dissent
Miners representatives held to a simpler line: no reductions, and solidarity of the district associations with the Federation. Ben Pickard, M.P., President of the Miners Federation, and on the executive of the Yorkshire Miners Association spoke plainly at a meeting in Barnsley.
Benjamin Pickard M.P., President of the Yorkshire Miners Association
…the whole of this business has been managed by those who have not merely brains – lawyers – but plenty of money, and if it is a question of the longest purse against an empty stomach, such coalowners must take the whole responsibility as to whether the workmen will submit to such demands and reductions in wages as are presented to them at the current time.”
Pickard speaking on Thurs 21 Sept 1893, published in Sheffield Telegraph, 22nd Sept 1893, p.5
Desperation
Groups of miners had been locked out of work. Some, after months of hardship, many were desperate, having to appeal for support from their own communities:
FRIENDS: - It is with feelings of the deepest regret that we are at present compelled, for the support of ourselves and families, to offer these few but simple verses to your notice, trusting you will be pleased to purchase this paper, it being the only means left us at present to support the tender thread of our existence, and to keep us and our families from the utter starvation which at present surrounds us.
We have entered in the battlefield, The battle for to fight Which our masters have compelled us, But we do not think it right. The public when they hear both sides, Their opinions they can give, I think that they will boldly say That miners cannot live.
In eighteen hundred and ninety-three Ready for the action, Our masters without sympathy Asked for a reduction. [...]
(William Roberts, Miner of Platts Common,'Eighteen Hundred and Ninety Three or the Field of Battle'(fundraising poem during the Miners Lock-out. Hoyland Silkstone Branch)
As the weeks rolled by men and boys out of work grew more and more desperate, and some sought to lash out at colliery owners through direct and sometimes violent action. It was met by a heavy Police and even military response, most infamously at Featherstone on 7th Sept 1893, when two young miners, James Gibbs and James Duggan, were shot and killed.
Riot at Simon Wood Colliery
A day earlier, on 6th Sept 1893, an attack had also taken place at Elsecar, at Earl Fitzwilliam’s Simon Wood Colliery.
Detail from plan of the area around Simon Wood Colliery, c.1889 showing the bridge from the village side (Reform Row) over the canal to the pit head. Buildings including the lamp cabin can be seen. (Courtesy private collection)
A crowd of men, boys and women, some local, others travelling into the area, headed to Simon Wood pit intending to damage the colliery and preventing it for working. Initially a tiny group of 13 West Riding of Yorkshire Constabulary Policemen attempted to see off a crowd of around 200 people at 12:45pm, approaching the pit from the village side, opposite Reform Row, and attempting to get to the works via the footbridge over the canal.
…a severe hand-to-hand fight took place on the bridge which, being narrow, gave the police a great advantage over the mob who yelled and swore like demons, yet the police stuck to their duty and drove the mob off the premises to some yards distant and then wisely returned to the bridge. The mob came on again armed with stones and the police stood on the bridge. Stones came at them from the centre of the mob in showers. The mob made a second attack on the bridge but were again driven back by the Constables with batons. The mob then broke open the lamp room, carried out all the lamps (about 400) broke them against the building and threw them into the canal. They then turned on the oil taps and set fire to it when the police again charged the mob, used their batons freely, got possession of the lamp room and extinguished the fire.
Police Report on the Riot at Simon Wood Colliery, No. 7 Division Superintendent’s Office, Barnsley 3rd of October 1893
Following the riot, charges were brought against a small number of young men and several women:
On the 6th September, 1893 at Hoyland Nether, in the said West Riding of York, with divers other persons whose names are unknown, to the amount of 100 and upwards, then and there being riotously and tumultuously assembled together, to the disturbance of the public peace, feloniously did unlawfully, and with force, demolish a certain building, namely a lamp room, the property of the Right Hon. William Thomas Spencer, Earl Fitzwilliam, against the peace of our Sovereign Lady the Queen and contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided.”
Charge brought against local people at Barnsley Magistrates Court
National outrage
The Home Secretary, Herbert Asquith spoke out against the chaos in a debate in Parliament:
A very grave state of things existed in the West Riding of Yorkshire three weeks ago. I am not prepared, from the information I have received, to assent to the proposition that the riotous and marauding proceedings that went on, the wrecking of collieries, the burning down of buildings, the levying of toll on innocent passers by—that these actions met with any sympathy whatever from the general body of miners on strike. I believe these outrages were the work of a comparatively small number of rowdies and normally unoccupied men, and that, so far as the general opinion of the mining population was concerned, they would discountenance any such proceedings.
Herbert Asquith, Secretary of State for the Home Department, Hansard, House of Commons Debate 20th September 1893, vol 17 cc 1724-25
A Lord’s Lament
At Elsecar Earl Fitzwilliam advocated for direct negotiations with his workers, without union meddling:
Goodwill, peace, and prosperity prevailed at Stubbin and Elsecar. So far as I know, the workmen had no complaint against me. I certainly had none against them. Yet the men belonging to the Miners’ Federation were ordered out of the pits; those not belonging to the Federation dared not continue to work, or, in many cases, even to acknowledge they were not members of that Federation, and most reluctantly all were compelled to remain idle and see their families suffer. No commercial enterprise can prosper under such circumstances. If I opened my pits to-day, the men might be ordered out to-morrow, though both employers and employed wished to go on working peaceably and profitably. Grieved as I am to be obliged to say so, I fear I cannot reopen my pits until peace, security, and freedom of action are restored. Yours faithfully, Fitzwilliam.
Earl Fitzwilliam writing to William Marklew of Parkgate, 28th October 1893
Aftermath
The bitter struggle only drew to a conclusion when the Government stepped in and offered a Conciliation mechanism, and a return to work without pay cuts to satisfy the Miners Federation, for a short time at least. It was perhaps a phyrric victory, as Sheffield and Derbyshire Colliery proprietor Emerson Bainbridge put it in terms of pounds, shillings and pence:
“… it will be seen that the miners have deprived themselves, in the period of sixteen weeks during which they were on strike, of wages amounting to about £6,000,000 sterling, besides the loss of the Union funds which they had in hand. It will, therefore, be seen that, in order to resist what might have been a temporary reduction of wages of £2,000,000, the miners have themselves suffered a loss, up to date, of £6,000,000.”
Colliery proprietor and consulting engineer Emerson Bainbridge, writing on ‘The Coal Strike of 1893’, in Contemprary Review, Vol.LXV, January 1894, pp.1-15 (p.10)
Assembly at Ellis Primary together with FoHC volunteer Mitchell Sutherland, artist Fabric Lenny, School Governor Mark Farnsworth and pupils surrounded by the fantastic artwork (Courtesy Barnsley Museums)
As part of the Friends of Hemingfield Colliery’s National Lottery Heritage Fund project Hemingfield’s Hidden History, the group organised a creative heritage activity at the Ellis primary school in Hemingfield village.
Thanks to National Lottery Players for helping to save and safeguard our industrial heritage and engage the next generation.
A new year and another chance to make further progress on site, saving and sharing our mining heritage. Weather permitting, of course. The Friends demurred on the 14th as the weather was poor, but by the 21st they were eager to meet up and dive into planning activities for the year ahead.
This blog covers highlights from this year, ranging from achievements on site, community engagement and covering some of the goals we may like to achieve in 2023.
Friends of Hemingfield Colliery 