Ingleton Coalfield 1600-1940
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BRITISH MINING No.76 INGLETON COALFIELD 1600-1940 by John I. Bentley with Bernard Bond & Mike Gill @@@@@ A MONOGRAPH OF THE NORTHERN MINE RESEARCH SOCIETY MAY 2005 3 ISSN 0308 2199 ISBN-13: 978-0-901450-58-6 ISBN-10: 0-901450-58-8 © J.I. BENTLEY, B.R. BOND & M.C. GILL 2005 Typeset in 10 point Times New Roman by N.M.R.S. Publications. PRINTED by FRETWELL PRINT AND DESIGN Healey Works, Goulbourne Street, Keighley, Yorkshire, BD21 1PZ for the publishers THE NORTHERN MINE RESEARCH SOCIETY SHEFFIELD, U.K. Cover illustration: Montage of New Ingleton Colliery with mining artefacts, and Ingleborough in background. Artefacts - two pairs of 13 inch wheels, at 24 inch gauge, found while digging footings off Enter Lane in 2004. Lamp No.69 and pick No.141 from New Ingleton Colliery, all loaned by Mr A. Bateson. 4 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Acknowledgements 7 About the authors 8 The Ingleton Coalfield 1 0 THE GEOLOGY OF THE COALFIELD 10 The coal seams 13 Ten Foot and Nine Foot Seams 13 Four Foot Seam 14 Three Foot (Yard) Seam 14 Cannel Coal 14 Six Foot Seam 15 Two Foot Seam 16 Pottery Clay 16 THE OWNERS The beginnings – Lowthers of Ingleton 17 In the Chancery Court 21 Thomas Moore – Doctor of Physick 24 The Serjeantson Family 25 George John Sergeantson and Joseph Hunter 30 End of the Sergeantson and Hunter period 32 William Bracewell – Owd Billycock 35 Proposed formation of a new company 39 James Barker 1852-1915 43 THE COLLIERIES Raygill 50 Faccon 50 Bull Ing 53 Gispers 53 Gin Pit 53 Parkfoot Pits 54 Miscellaneous Pits 54 New Winning Pits 55 Moorgarth Collieries 58 Wilson Wood Colliery 63 Newfield Pits 77 Barker’s Pits at Dolands 78 Richard & Nellie Pits 80 Old Pit Workings 82 NEW INGLETON COLLIERY 85 5 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF MINING Colliery Band 113 The Ingleton Colliery Sick Club 114 Miners cottages and the New (Model) Village 114 The New Road iron bridge 117 The Ingleton swimming baths 118 Ingleton Branch of the Yorkshire Miners Association 118 Law and Order 119 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS Shaft collapse at Wilson Wood 121 Colliery memorial 121 APPENDIX A. Ingleton Miners. 123 B. Employees of New Ingleton Colliery. 134 C. Accidents. 137 D. Examples of early press reports of accidents. 139 E. Lead Mining at Ingleton. 142 GLOSSARY OF TERMS 144 INDEX OF PERSONAL NAMES 147 FIGURES 1. Geological map of coalfield. 1 1 2. Section across the coalfield. 1 2 3. Section of minerals at Ingleton. 1 5 4. Lowther Pedigree. 1 9 5. Moore and Serjeantson pedigree. 2 8 6. Barkers tramway. 4 7 7. The Ingleton coalfield. 5 1 8. Horse gin. 5 6 9. Plan of the Six Foot Seam workings at Moorgarth Colliery. 60 10. Plan of the Six Foot Seam at Wilson Wood Colliery. 6 9 11.Surface layout of Wilson Wood Colliery. 70 12.Layout of Barker’s brickworks at Dolands. 79 13. Plan of the Old Pit workings. 8 3 14. Plan of the Ten Foot Seam at New Ingleton Colliery. 8 9 15. Plan of the Nine Foot Seam at New Ingleton Colliery. 9 1 16. Plan of the Six Foot Seam at New Ingleton Colliery. 9 5 17. Plan of the Four Foot Seam at New Ingleton Colliery. 102 18. Surface layout of the New Ingleton Colliery. 109 19.Layout of the New or Model Village. 115 PLATES 1. Unveiling the coal memorial 1 2. The inventory of the goods and chattels of Richard Lowther. 18 3. Aerial photo showing shafts in Bull Ing. 22 6 4. Sales Ticket 1838. 3 3 5. William Bracewell. 3 5 6. The marble clock presented to Edmund Danson. 3 7 7. Donkey cart used to carry coal at Ingleton. 39 8. James Barker and family. 4 4 9. A ‘Barker Ingleton’ brick. 4 5 10. A James Barker billhead. 4 5 11. Greenwood Leghe. 4 6 12. New Winning House. 5 5 13.The manager’s house at Moorgarth. 58 14. List of those killed at the Oaks Colliery, Barnsley. 6 6 15. Cottages at Wilson Wood Colliery . 7 1 16. Bit from a pit pony, found at Wilson Wood Colliery. 7 3 17. Newfield Pit. 7 7 18. Miners at the Old Pit. 7 8 19. The first known photograph of New Ingleton Colliery, 1913. 85 20. New Ingleton Colliery, early 1914. 8 6 21.Queen Victoria at No.1 Shaft, early 1914. 87 22.New Ingleton Colliery, March 1914. 87 23.New Ingleton Colliery, March 1914. 88 24. New Ingleton Colliery, c1916. 9 0 25. Share Certificate for The New Ingleton Collieries Ltd. 90 26. New Ingleton Colliery, with its permanent, steel headgears. 92 27. Coal chutes for loading carts in the colliery yard. 92 28. Coal chutes for loading carts alongside the A65. 9 3 29. Membership card for the New Ingleton Colliery Institute, 1919. 94 30. Mr Lumb’s shop on Enter Lane. 9 6 31. Officials at New Ingleton Colliery. 9 6 32.Queen Victoria behind the New Village. 97 33. Queen Victoria tipping spoil, 1914. 9 8 34. Tramway tunnel under the A65. 9 8 35.King George V at Ingleton Goods Yard. 99 36. Colliery screens, 1916. 9 9 37. Colliery screens, looking towards the village, 1916. 100 38. Award winning gala cart. 101 39.Weigh office at New Ingleton Colliery. 103 40. Doorway to the First Aid office at New Ingleton Colliery. 104 41. First Aid office, cart shed and stables at New Ingleton Colliery. 106 42. Payslip (New Ingleton Collieries Ltd) for 22/09/1934. 107 43.New Ingleton Colliery in the late 1920s. 108 44. Dismissal notice (New Ingleton Colliery) 1936. 110 45.The surface at No.1 Shaft, c1937. 111 46. New Ingleton Colliery band. 113 47.The old “New Road” Bridge at Ingleton. 117 48. The new, iron “New Road” Bridge at Ingleton. 117 49.Ingleton baths during construction. 118 50.Collapsing shaft at Wilson Wood Colliery. 121 51. Memorial to Ingleton’s coal mining industry . 122 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Especial thanks are due to Dr Trevor Ford, whose pioneering work on the geology of the coalfield, and willingness to share his findings, inspired the authors. Thanks to the following ex-colliers who have given information: George Howson, Dennis Moore, Jack Redhead, David Robinson, William L. Routledge, Charles Salter, Tommy Sydney and Tom Wilson. The following farmers and land owners gave their permission to explore the coalfield: Robert Baines, Wilson Wood; Stephen Brennand, Nutstile Farm; John Cockett, Foredales House; Robin Hainsworth, Moorgarth Colliery site; Stephen Heald, Broats House; Brian Huck, the New Ingleton Colliery site; Tom Lishman, Winning; and Jan Wroe, Raygill. Thanks to Richard Barker, for family history research, and above all to Gordon Barker, grandson of James Barker, colliery owner in the late 19th and early 20th century. The following organisations and individuals have also given their help and encouragement to the authors:- British Geological Survey (Library) Craven Herald & Pioneer, Skipton Hanson Aggregates Ingleton Community Centre Ingleton Parish Council National Coal Board National Coal Mining Museum for England (Library) The Geological Society Yorkshire Archæological Society Robert Baines Bill Huck (late) Gordon Barker Mr & Mrs Brian Huck Arthur Bateson Phil Hudson Arthur Batty Murial Humphries Thelma Bennett Alan King Peter Breares Mike Kneill David Butters John McNeil (late) J. Burke Peter Marshall Dennis Cairns Hazel Martell Richard Chalmers George Nairn Paul Chapman Eddie Nutter Phil Clifford Brian Robinson Dr Trevor Ford Miss Margaret Sutton (late) Robin Gill Alec Tomlinson John Goodchild Thomas Tomlinson Raymond Gott Phil Walker Allison Hack Mrs Ellen Wilkinson Alison Henesey David Williams Mr & Mrs Wes Hodgson Iain Wright Ronnie Holmes Rob Vernon George Howson 8 ABOUT THE AUTHORS John Bentley , railwayman, soldier, shopkeeper turned teacher (now retired), has been a keen local historian for around fifty years. His time attending the School of Military Intelligence trained him in investigative work which he has since applied to family and local history. He also acquired a useful qualification in local history from Manchester University. He has written and published well over twenty volumes of Lancashire and Yorkshire history over the past thirty-five years. He has also lectured on a wide number of topics including, Historic Pennine Murders , The Rose and Laurel , and The History of Post Cards . This will be his sixth book on Ingleton and he is progressing well with a full history of the village which he hopes will be published in the near future. His interest in Ingleton goes back to visits to the Youth Hostel from 1947. Since 1970 his family have had a caravan at Ingleton. John’s skill in researching has helped to reveal the widest range of information yet of the Ingleton Collieries. With the assistance of Mike Gill and Bernard Bond he has been pleased that a wide variety of errors contained in previous articles and books on the subject have been eradicated. Bernard Bond has been an active caver since his youth, but first became interested in coal mining and its history in 1982, when he lived in Burnley and began studying Martholme Colliery, which lay alongside the Great Harwood branch of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. Although the latter was Bernard’s principal interest, he soon realised that even a fairly small mine could have a fascinating history. His interest in coal mining was further advanced when, shortly after moving to Ingleton in 1983, he discovered that he was living in the house once occupied by Edmund Danson, the manager of Wilson Wood colliery. As a result he began collecting information and photographs relating to the Ingleton coalfield, a task made easier by his involvement with local people through his plumbing business.