Wigan Album

The photograph shows all of them wearing cloth caps, and obviously coming down from the pit head, after coming up from the depths of the pit. The pit helmet save me a severe head bang on numerous occasions. Just oil lamps to illuminate their passageway,and working positions, whilst down the pits, though they do appear to be the Davy safety lamp. Such arduous, and dangerous work for just a pittance of a wage.

Great photo Ron. Good to see folk at any time standing up to intolerable conditions. We all owe them some debt of gratitude.

Interesting photo. That pit would be Eatock Colliery at Daisy Hill, Westhoughton. Owned and sunk by Wigan Coal and Iron Company in 1884 and closed in 1936. However, how the caption can state that they are striking miners, I don't know. Those fellas are just up the pit after their shift underground. That's why some of them are smiling for the camera.

Albert - Pittance it certainly was and many deaths that took place on a weekly basis, were not recorded among the official disaster inquiries. The Coal Mining History Resource Centre web site, maintains the National Database of Mining Deaths in Great Britain and contains the names of over 120,000 people killed in mining accidents from 1850 to 1972. Probably an even greater amount of colliers received life changing injuries, not always recorded and many families endured the suffering, not forgetting the number of colliers who eventually gasped their last breath, with lungs rotted by the terrible dust and without compensation. No wonder only a few years earlier to the date on the photo, many volunteered to serve in the trenches to escape the hell!

Very moving comments. WHAMM age fund raising to have a monument in Wigan , to men women and childeren who work and died in local mines.
Anyone wishing to donate can find the details on the web site , WHAMM.

Many happy faces here. I don't think this lot are downing tools...