The South Wales 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...

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 ...

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...

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...

Colliery

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