Bentley Colliery
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Bentley Colliery was a coal mine in
Bentley Bentley Motors Limited is a British designer, manufacturer and marketer of Luxury vehicle, luxury cars and Sport utility vehicle, SUVs. Headquartered in Crewe, England, the company was founded by W. O. Bentley (1888–1971) in 1919 in Crickle ...
, near
Doncaster Doncaster ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, Yorkshire, River Don, it is the administrative centre of the City of Doncaster metropolitan borough, and is the second largest se ...
in
South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the north, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north-east, Lincolnshire ...
, England, that operated between 1906 and 1993. In common with many other mines, it suffered disasters and accidents. The worst Bentley disaster was in 1931, when 45 miners were killed after a gas explosion. The site of the mine has been converted into a woodland.


History

With profits earned from their
Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...
pits, the Barber, Walker & Company initiated some exploratory boreholes in the Bentley area in the late 19th century. Further investigations were carried out in 1902 and in 1903, when several sites had boreholes driven into them to test for coal reserves. Despite hitting quicksand and extremes of flooding, what would become the main mine shaft was sunk in 1906, although coaling did not become possible until 1908. However, due to the bad geological foundations that the pit head was built upon, between 1910–1911 a re-inforced concrete
headstock A headstock or peghead is part of a guitar or similar stringed instruments such as a lute, mandolin, banjo, ukulele and others of the lute lineage. The main function of a headstock is to house the tuning pegs or other mechanism that holds the s ...
and pit shaft were installed above Shaft No. 1 to a depth of below ground and above. The design was relatively new to Britain and the materials were rolled steel and
ferro-concrete Reinforced concrete, also called ferroconcrete or ferro-concrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low ultimate tensile strength, tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having ...
. The initial workforce at Bentley were those already in the employ of Barber, Walker and Company, who had been tempted away from their pits at
Watnall Watnall is an area in the Borough of Broxtowe in Nottinghamshire, England. It is part of Greasley civil parish, and is located one mile north of Kimberley. It is in the Nuthall West and Greasley (Watnall) ward of Broxtowe Council. The village ...
and High Park in Nottinghamshire. Additionally, the local area could not supply enough men to work in the mine, so many moved into the area from outside the region and the company built Bentley New Village (which still exists) to accommodate all the workers. The new village had a school, football club ( Bentley Colliery FC) and a cricket club. By 1910, employees at the mine numbered 1,000; this had risen considerably during the pre-nationalisation era when the average number of workers at the mine between 1933 and 1947 was just under 3,000. The mine recorded its best year of production in 1924, when over of coal was brought to the surface. The colliery (and the
Barnsley Seam The coal seams worked in the South Yorkshire Coalfield lie mainly in the middle coal measures within what is now formally referred to as the Pennine Coal Measures Group. These are a series of mudstones, shales, sandstones, and coal seams laid do ...
in general) always had problems with
methane gas Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The abundance of methane on Earth makes ...
being released during the mining process. Despite having one of the best ventilation systems in the mining industry at the time, the mine was beset by accidents and faced closures because of safety reasons. Many of the miners who worked there were uneasy about the situation. In 1939, the mine was second only to nearby Rossington Colliery in using diesel-powered ''flameproof'' locomotives for the movement of men, materials, and coal underground. Hand getting of coal had stopped by 1945 and the process was fully mechanised by the late 1960s. The miners from Bentley went on strike during the 1984–1985 Miners' Strike. They also had sporadic incidents of strikes in 1988 after management accused three developmental miners of not making sufficient progress. Within three days, twelve South Yorkshire pits had ceased work with 10,000 miners on strike. The colliery manager wrote to all the miners stating that the dispute could only be resolved once the pit was back at full production. The following day, seventeen pits in South Yorkshire and two in
North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England.The Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas of City of York, York and North Yorkshire (district), North Yorkshire are in Yorkshire and t ...
were on strike. The miners were all persuaded to return to work, but another stoppage a week later occurred when ten miners were threatened with dismissal after video footage had been studied from the previous strike with those miners accused of flying pickets. In 1993, the mine was selected for closure by British Coal. The mine closed in December 1993, with the loss of 450 jobs. All surface buildings, including the headstocks, were demolished by 1995. In 1998, the site was remediated and handed over to the
Land Trust Land trusts are nonprofit organizations which own and manage land, and sometimes waters. There are three common types of land trust, distinguished from one another by the ways in which they are legally structured and by the purposes for which th ...
. It was converted into a woodland in 2004 and is now open to the public as the Bentley Community Woodland.


Bentley Colliery Disaster

At 5:45 pm on 20 November 1931,
firedamp Firedamp is any flammable gas found in coal mines, typically coalbed methane. It is particularly found in areas where the coal is bituminous. The gas accumulates in pockets in the coal and adjacent strata and, when they are penetrated, the ...
was ignited in the North East Colliery Face of the mine which caused roof falls preventing the men from reaching the shaft and the pit-head. After the explosion there was another inrush of gas which starved oxygen from the air. As news of the disaster spread, a crowd of over 2,000 people gather at the pit head to wait for news. Four men went down the pit wearing breathing apparatus and had to carry the injured over to get them to safety. For their bravery, they were all awarded the
Edward Medal The Edward Medal was a British civilian decoration which was instituted by royal warrant on 13 July 1907 to recognise acts of bravery of miners and quarrymen in endangering their lives to rescue their fellow workers. The medal was named in hono ...
with eight in total being presented in the aftermath of the disaster. An inquest was opened up at the colliery two days later. The mines department also held an inquiry between 29 December 1931 and 6 January 1932, which lists 43 dead, not 45. Modern accounts have decided that the final death toll was 45, though five of the bodies could not be recovered.


Other accidents

*On 12 February 1912, three men died and a further six were badly burned when there was an explosion underground. *In 1974, a fire occurred in the Barnsley Seam and that area was sealed off. Fortunately, it was possible to develop new faces in other seams. *On 21 November 1978, a
paddy train Paddy mails were workmen's trains operated by companies in Britain to transport workers from their "shanty villages" to their place of work or between the work sites. Originally they were operated by railway contractors on temporary tracks laid ...
conveying miners to and from the coal face derailed after it ran away on a downhill gradient and killed seven men with a further seventeen injured. A memorial service is conducted on the Sunday nearest to 20 November each year to commemorate those who died in the 1931 and 1978 disasters.


Further reading

* *


References


External links


Historic England image of the lamproom at Bentley Colliery
{{Coal mining in Yorkshire 1931 in England Coal mines in Doncaster Underground mines in England Coal mining disasters in England Disasters in Yorkshire 1931 disasters in the United Kingdom Coal mines in South Yorkshire 1993 disestablishments in England 1906 establishments in England