Colliery
In the 1880’s, most collieries
were still fairly small concerns and even by 1900,
the average colliery in South Wales employed on 376
workers. Whatever the size of the workforce, what
was seen on the surface was very little of the colliery
compared to the size of the underground workings.
John Thomas describes some of the work which might
have been going on in the various surface buildings:-
| ...Somewhere you will find
the lampman in the lamproom busily engaged
in trimming and cleaning the lamps … In
the neighbourhood of the pit-mouth is the
blacksmith’s shop, so vital for the sharpening
of the miner’s tools as well as to make
… repairs to the rolling stock – broken
tram axles, etc … The somewhere … is the
busy tram oiler and greaser- In their respective
engine-houses are the various enginemen
for winding or haulage … At the saw mill
we find the sawyer and pit carpenters busy
preparing timber props of various sizes
for use underground … Out on the pit rubbish
tip … we find an army of men … busily heaving
and unloading the rubbish of stone and slag.
In the colliery office are the clerical
staff … recording the output of each collier,
preparing the colliery paysheet... |
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Below Ground
Once the collier-boy has reached
the pit-top, his first ordeal is to use the cage to
take him to the pit-bottom. His pride in his new found
status will be put to the test because the journey,
as described by Frank Hodges was one that continued
to frighten many miners right up to the end of they
working days:-
| ...We sank rapidly down
out of the daylight down; down in the abysmal
(deep) blackness. The cage travels swiftly.
About half-way down the engineman applies
the brake. This checks the momentum and
the queer sensation is experienced of coming
back up again. Every miner experiences this.
He knows, in fact, that the cage is still
descending, but every physical sensation
indicates that it is returning to the surface
... |
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Once pit
bottom was reached, fear might well have increased for
it would be the almost total darkness which would now
take him by surprise. It has been calculated that the
light in mines at this time was no more than one seventeenth
of that we would get from a candle held a foot away
in a dark room. Here is a picture of pit bottom at a
Colliery in 1908 and this is followed by Will Paynter's
description of the darkness of the pit:-
| It is hard to describe this
darkness of the pit. It is absolute blackness,
impenetrable and eerie (solid and strange).
Sounds appear to be magnified, the creaks
of roof movement sounding like cracks of
doom and the falling of loose pieces of
coal from the front of the coal-face become
frightening crashes... |
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So our young
miner was now face-to-face with the reality of the mine!
We have still not, however, actually got him to the
place where he is going to start his work and (as we
will see later) he has not yet begun to earn any wages.
This account by a professor at the University College
in Cardiff explains why this was so:-
| ...The pit bottom is high,
roomy and comparatively safe ... the miner
... then starts on his way along one of
the haulage roads to the district of the
mine where his stall or working place is
situated. He makes his way along the narrow
and low-roofed gateways, crouching down
as he walks and sometimes having to are
often a mile or so from the bottom, and
in scramble over a fresh fall of roof until,
after older mines ... they may be two or
three miles some minutes, he comes to a
main haulage from the shaft ... road and
a further walk of half a mile or so... |
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