A couple of people have messaged today asking ‘did the Blantyre Pit Disaster happen at Dixon’s Pit 1’ after seeing that posted by ainother’s Blantyre website today.
To clarify. It didn’t. The information on that other page is (again) wrong. Rest assured, the Blantyre Pit Disaster happened at Dixons Pit 2 (Sydes Brae) and 3 (at Redburn) in High Blantyre.
Pit 1 (Priestfield) was actually ok and all men rose from that particular pit, unharmed. The colliery didn’t have a double shaft either. The picture on that post bizarrely shows Barnsley Colliery in England, nothing to do with our town or any resemblance at all to Dixons. Apologies for the pedantics of this post, but I don’t like to see people constantly misinformed, on today of all days. Such howlers only drive me further to tell Blantyre’s history properly.
You can read all about the Blantyre Pit Disaster accurately here: https://blantyreproject.com/blantyre-pit-disaster/