Mr. Harold Saul was born in 1904. Educated at Rotherham Grammar School, Harold studied for a Bachelors Engineering degree from the University of London via the University of Sheffield where he was active in the Midland Junior Mining Engineers Society, becoming President.

Mines Drainage career

In 1931 Saul was employed as Technical Assistant to the South Yorkshire Mines Drainage Committee (SYMDC) and effectively became the general manager and engineer during his time there up to 1946, working under the direction of the Committee, as rejected in their Annual Reports.

On 1st January 1930, the SYMDC had taken possession of the plant previously held by the South Yorkshire Pumping Association, set up in 1918. They had to manage the legacy of historic mine workings and support the sustainability of future development.

Saul developed a unique insight into the engineering and practical challenges of this work, during his sixteen-year tenure, which saw him investigate many old, unsurveyed or abandoned former colliery workings and deep drainage levels across the drainage committee’s area – including some 69 collieries. He established a reputation as a leading consulting engineer investigating water problems in the South Yorkshire coalfield, but also further afield, including Derbyshire.

As he later wrote:

Unfortunately the source of the feeders to shaft pumps in old collieries can usually be determined only by a careful and systematic examination of the shafts and pit-bottoms, and the condition of the shafts and water-lodges is not usually such as to encourage even the most inquisitive investigator. Conditions are often complicated by the presence of extra shafts which have not been travelled for years, and by numerous intermediate insets and water-lodges which divert the water into surprising paths.

Saul, H., 1936. Outcrop water in the South Yorkshire Coalfield. Transactions of the Institution of Mining Engineers, Volume 93, pp.64-86. (p.84)

During the war Saul remained at work, but joined the Home Guard, rising to become a Major in the defence force, a title sometimes used after the war.

From vesting day 1947 he became the General Manager of the Small Mines and Mine Drainage unit of the North-Eastern Division of the National Coal Board. This post was later taken over by Clifford Beevers.

Later career

In 1948 he moved to become General Manager of the No.7 Area (Wakefield), based at Crofton Old Hall, overseeing two sub-areas and around 20 pits. In 1961 he was appointed Production Director of the Northern (N&C) Division of the NCB.

However he maintained a close interest issues of mines drainage, in  in September 1958 he gave a paper ‘Water problems in the Coalfields of Great Britain’ at the International Mining Conference hosted in Warsaw, Poland. And as late as 1970 writing on ‘Current mine drainage problems’ in the Transactions of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy (Section A).

Other writings

Saul, H., 1934. Drainage problems of the South Yorkshire Coalfield. Sheffield University Mining Department Magazine, Volume 1, pp.21-28; 

Saul, H., 1953. Water problems in colliery shafts and workings. Leeds University Mining Society Journal, Volume 28, pp.39-53.