Mining the Seams Exhibition

It’s been a long time since there was an exhibition in our vitrine wall which separates reception and the search room. Now though we have the exhibition space full of archival material again for our first exhibition on display in nearly three years. The exhibition showcases just some of the many items from the National …

More online events from the record office

We are pleased to announce another three free online talks for the new year. Our first talk is our ever popular ‘Introduction to the Record Office’ – find out who we are and the services we offer, the collections we hold and how you can access them, whether in person or remotely. Talk: ‘Introduction to …

Henry Eustace Mitton

The Butterley Company of Ripley, founded in 1790, built a name for themselves as engineers (the roof of St Pancras Station being one of their finest achievements), but also had a profitable business selling coal and iron. The success of their coal operations in the first half of the 20th Century owes much to Henry …

Mining the Seams workshop recordings

On 13 October we held a workshop aimed particularly at students and academics to talk about the archives of the coal industry in Derbyshire and Warwickshire, catalogued with Wellcome Trust funding. As not everyone who wanted to attend was able to come, we are sharing recordings of the presentations. https://videopress.com/v/oe0ki84h?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata Warwickshire County Record Office - …

Ollerton Pit Village Online Exhibition Goes Live

Ollerton Colliery in Nottinghamshire, as well as its pit village, was designed and built by the Butterley Company in the 1920s. It was largely the brain child of Henry Eustace Mitton, the Agent and later General Manager of the company. The site was meant to be a model for other companies to use, and was …

The Mysterious Disappearance of Thomas Severn, the Undermanager at Mapperley Colliery

Thomas Severn was an experienced miner, working as a deputy at both Clifton and Stanley Collieries before moving to work as an Undermanager at Mapperley Colliery. He had been born in April 1875 on land owned by Swanwick Colliery as his father, Thomas Senior, had been a manager there. Thomas Junior had mining in the …

Mining the Seams Update: Part of the National Coal Board Catalogue Goes Live

Throughout the Mining the Seams Project, our main target has been to catalogue the coal mining documents we received from the National Coal Board (NCB), to ensure the public will be able to view them. When the project started in October 2019, it seemed like the target of the first half of the collection going …

Bevin Boys in the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire Coal Field

During the Second World War, the coal industry faced an employment crisis in spite of coal being an in-demand fuel at the time. Despite mining being a reserved occupation, which exempted those working in it from military service, this only applied to men aged 30 or over. Many men took advantage of this and went …

Matthew Hayes: Undermanager at Birchwood Colliery

Matthew Hayes was once a well-known figure in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire throughout the last half of the nineteenth century. He was best known for his style of Methodist preaching that appealed to the local working classes, especially those from mining backgrounds. It helped that Matthew was born into a coal mining family in Pinxton on …

Explosion at South Normanton Colliery

A large explosion on 15th of February 1937 was the worst disaster seen at South Normanton Colliery. It was possibly caused by someone smoking underground, as cigarettes and matches were found close to one of the dead men. In total 8 men were killed, and another 3 were injured. Searches were made of men before …