SOME MINING INCIDENTS IN THE BROSELEY FIELD

By Ivor Brown

This article was originally published in the Wilkinson Journal No.8  1980  

The one thing that has always struck the writer when considering the Broseley part of the Coalbrookdale Coalfield has been the primitive nature of the equipment used even during this century. This was probably due to the fact that there were never any large mines; the clay industry, with its low - value raw material, was dominant and the seams of mineral present were few, thin and shallow. The following article is a collection of notes culled from various sources, all of which indicate not only the primitiveness of the industry but also the variety of techniques in use. Some of the incidents described are tragic, some comic: they also show the local miners to have been frequently ingenious but with, at the younger end, a considerable degree of carelessness. 

In 1891 the following mines[1] were still operating in the area (diameter and depth of shafts are given in brackets in feet) :- 

All the pits were “naturally ventilated” except Deep Pit which had a firelamp suspended in the shaft, the Tuckies which used ‘exhaust steam’ from pipes in the upcast shaft and Coneybury which had a furnace at the surface. Each type of heat source caused the air to circulate through the mine using convection currents, Of course, several small mines have opened since 1891 but most of these were short-lived ventures. 

By 1930 only the following remained at work (the numbers of men being employed underground is given) :- 

In 1948 only Turners Yard (11 men), Gitchfield (3 men) and the Viger Drift (part of Benthall Mines) (2 men) remained in operation, and, although there was some drift mining in the 1950s around Caughley, by 1960 all mining had ceased in the Broseley area. 

Reports of incidents in the mines come from a variety of sources. In 1889 two men were suffocated in a mine at Broseley when they climbed down to retrieve a hat which had fallen when they looked down the shaft during a Sunday walk. In a similar incident about 1948 two youths were suffocated on entering an adit during a walk. At the Dunge Pit in 1904 an overman was injured when two youths, who were lowering him down a shaft, lost control of the windlass; - the younger youth, who was 17, let go of the handle and the other youth could not control it. During Sunday October 11th, 1914 “some evilly-disposed person removed the covering of a coalpit shaft at Benthall, Salop and threw the covering together with a chain and wire rope down the shaft, causing serious damage to Messrs. C.R. Jones & Sons and endangering the public”. A reward of one guinea was offered by the “Broseley Association for the Prosecution of Felons to any person giving such information as shall lead to the conviction of the offender”[2]. In the 1930s the cover of a shaft beneath the George Pritchard Memorial caved in and the shaft was filled and grouted. This shaft had opened up suddenly some years previously and a small boy named James Nock fell in and was drowned[3]. John Randall recorded a similar mishap in his book ‘Old Sports and Sportsmen’ when Tom Moody, the celebrated ‘Whipper-in’, fell into a pitshaft. “His halloo to the dogs brought him assistance, and he was extricated” [4]. 

The Mines of the Broseley area were often featured in the Annual Reports of the Inspector of Mines. For example, in 1902 at the Wallace Pit a clay miner was struck by something falling down the shaft as he was standing at the bottom waiting to be hauled up. At Tuckies Pit a gunpowder shot had missed-fire and a miner cut away the clay from around it; then, when withdrawing the charge, he accidentally ignited it with his candle. Similarly, at Doughtys Pit a miner was burned when he accidentally ignited two bobbins of compressed powder explosive with his candle as he carried it to his working place. 

The writer has also tried to record incidents that have occurred within recent years by interviewing former mine-workers. The late Mr. W. Yates related his experiences in the Gitchfield Mine to the writer in 1967. Mr. Yates began work there in 1892 at 13 years of age. It was an adit mine and his first job was ‘mobbying’, hauling clay, two tubs at a time, while crawling on hands and knees with a hauling chain between his legs and attached to a heavy leather belt at his waist. For this work he got 1 shilling per day out of which he had to pay 2½d per week toll to cross the Coalport Bridge. The clay was got by hand from pillar and stall workings, with ventilation from a shaft half a mile away in Tarbatch Dingle. Carbon dioxide gas was a problem, causing difficulty in keeping candles alight, and in such places they “burned better when kept horizontal”. The mine was very wet. As well as the red clay, fire clay was obtained from a seam about 25ft below it. In 1920 the red clay and the fireclay were being mixed in the proportion 4 red to one of fireclay. The mine produced about 300 tons of clay per week with about 10 men. 

The Deep Pit has been described by F.R. Gameson in the Shropshire Magazine, March 1952: “An 8-man pit and an historic engine”. When the mine closed in 1940 it was believed to have been in operation for over 200 years, the same steam engine having been used for over 130 of these years. Attempts were made to get the engine preserved, but a Science Museum expert described it as consisting entirely of ‘all spare parts’ and in 1951 it was scrapped. The mine was very extensive and ventilation was a major problem, both a furnace and a firelamp being used at various times. The Deep Pit produced red clay and fireclay, and ‘fat grey glacial clay’ was obtained from a quarry near one of the shafts. In 1924 the mine was producing 24 tons of tile clay per week which was weathered for about 3 months and then mixed with glacial clay in the proportion two of red to one of glacial clay. 

The late J. Roberts described graphically the mine surface to the writer in 1965. “There was a stable where the donkey stood looking through the door till the cage came up, then he would walk out on his own and stand in front of the drought or skip (wagon) to be hooked on to the clay, about 8 to 10 cwt, to take up to the tip. Then he would walk back again and wait for the next. One part of the stable was kept for straw, hay and chaff. The head gear had a crosspiece on top to keep it square, with screws to tighten the guides. Nearby was the furnace chimney: the fire was above the ground in one half of the chimney, and its flue was the other half; it went down under ground to an old shaft. A round building at the surface was a cabin, which, my father told me, over 60 years ago, was built in that shape because the miners knew they would have a lot of waste when they sank the pits and not much room for it. So they heaped it all up around the cabin to the top; if this had been of square sides the waste would have pushed them in.  The shape took the pressure all around, so they knew what they were doing, as it stood the test for over 200 years. Inside there were two long seats for the men to sit on to eat their food, a coffer for corn, fuse, axe, saw etc., while the candles were hung in the centre so that the mice could not get them. Oil lamps were used for lighting. There was also a blacksmith’s shop with leather bellows, a forge, anvil and vice etc.” Mr. Roberts was good with his hands and often repaired the sledges and blow georges (ventilating fans) for other mines. He remembered, too, that when sinking new shafts, the miners would run drain pipes down the outside of the brickwork and put the ‘air bags’ in these. His father often provided the steam engine to drive the blow the george at these mines. 

Another interesting description has been provided by the family of the late T. Jones, a coal and clay entrepreneur and for a time Managing Director of C .R. Jones & Sons Ltd., Ladywood Tileworks. This has been published in full in the Shropshire Mining Club Journal, 1973/4, and describes interesting incidents at Colleys Dingle, Broad Meadow, Benthall and at the mine by the Old Ironbridge (Viger Drift); also at the Crawstone Levels by the Hairpin Bend (from which ochrous water still flows), the Pennystone Pit near the Red Church, the Deer Leap and the Fiery Fields. 

Of the recent workings at Viger Drift and Turners Yard some documentary and field evidence can still be seen. The Viger Drift was part of a complex of old adits in the woods on the opposite side of Benthall Bank to the Old Mill at the Ironbridge. One of the brick lined adits can still be seen by the roadside, as can a corrugated sheet covered adit entrance, now collapsed, a few feet above. Nearby there is also a corrugated sheet covered miners’ cabin. These workings were described by T. Jones in the article referred to above, and in 1920 they were still being worked by a modified longwall method. At various times they have been connected to the Benthall Lane Mine behind the Benthall Firebrick Works near the Ironbridge Toll House. This consisted of a row of  four adits on the 224 ft. OD contour. One of these was steel-arched and still visible until recently destroyed by Telford Development Corporation ‘landscaping’. The clay was brought by wagons out of the adits, down an incline and across a bridge over the Severn Valley Line, before closure in 1942. Several mine plans survive, showing the workings at the mines here.[5] 

Alas, very little has been written of the Turners Yard Mine and Caughley drift mines, which closed in 1940 and in the 1950s respectively, or even of the Milburgh Mines of Prestage and Broseley Tileries (also closed 1940), from which the steam engine has recently been removed to Blists Hill Museum. The writer, and the Society, would like to hear from anyone who has memories of from these or any other Broseley Mines. 

In 2001 some of the landmarks mentioned in the article still exist:

(Add pictures)

 References