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 …

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 …

William Rawson: The Brave Son of a Ripley Miner

I recently came across the Rawson Family of Nuttall’s Park and Wright Avenue of Ripley whilst writing a short biography of William Samuel Rawson, who lived in Ripley all his life. This William worked at Ripley Colliery from 1940, but had previously been employed at nearby Britain Colliery, both of which were owned by the …

Mini Miners’ Biographies: John James Bull

One of the tasks I've been working on recently for the Mining the Seams Project is figuring out how to complement our compensation collections used by the Butterley Company owned collieries and the National Coal Board. These include compensation forms used by the Butterley Company to register accident claims from 1939 until the nationalisation of …

Bretby Colliery’s Connection to Tutankhamun

Bretby Colliery near Swadlincote once formed part of the Bretby Hall estate, run by the Stanhope family, who were Earls of Chesterfield. Upon the death of the George Stanhope, the Seventh Earl, in 1871, the earldom passed onto a third cousin but Bretby Hall and its estate stayed in the hands of his widowed mother, …