The job of being a pit ‘sinker’ was certainly a backbreaking, dangerous one. Manually digging out the debris from a new mine shaft, ever increasingly working deeper in that vertical hellhole in a time before proper mechanisation. The threat of collapse was always present, the reduction in fresh air made the simple act of breathing more difficult and at times intolerable.
Fatalities and accidents happened on a regular basis. One such bizarre accident happened in July 1894 at the new Priory Colliery (Bothwell Castle 3 and 4) being sunk.
Robert McNeil (52) was a pit sinker who lived in Glasgow. Towards the end of that month, as he worked on the sinking of Colliery 4 which was well progressed, an accident befell upon him. Having descended down the shaft in the kettle, it abruptly came to a stop. Robert thought he had reached the bottom of the shaft and hopped out the kettle. However, the kettle had stopped some 16 foot from the bottom of the shaft, and as such he fell the full remaining distance receiving serious injuries.
He was quickly taken back up again and the Blantyre Ambulance waggon was fetched, which needed to take him into the Royal Infirmary. A strange accident which must have caused a sensation that day!
