By the 1900s, miner’s working conditions saw them working in shift patterns of no more than 8 hours underground. Still horrific, given the conditions down pits. It was an early ‘human rights’ law brought in by Parliament and at first contested by Coalmasters. More time in the mines, meant more coal brought up and therefore […]
I saw this striking photo online this week and whilst it isn’t about Blantyre, it is a stark reminder of the conditions these miners worked in. The person who discovered this said, “Today whilst I was driving, Around the countryside, I came across this statue, Of a miner on his side, A rather striking pose […]
As we end this week’s articles about the Blantyre Pit Disaster, let’s finish on this photo of part of the Common Ground. Photographed this week by myself, this is the area at the back of the Cemetery where many of the miners of the Pit Disaster of 1877 were buried. Others were buried in other […]
This is the story of the youngest victim of the Blantyre Pit Disaster, young James Clyde, aged only 12. There is nothing more sad about the Pit Disaster of October 1877 than hearing of the death of children and no more so to hear of children working and losing their young lives underground, not even […]
This is the tragic story of one of the miners who lost his life in the Blantyre Pit Disaster of 1877. James Brodie, was the son of John Brodie (shepherd) and Mary Turnbull. Born in 1851 in Lanarkshire. Coming to Blantyre between 1871 and 1874, the timing fits well with new opportunities for coalminers being offered […]
I’ve taken some time to research further victims of the Blantyre Pit Disaster. Robert White was merely still a boy when he died in Pit Number 2 in the fire damp explosion on 22nd October 1877. A victim of the Blantyre Pit Disaster, he’s often is listed as being 17 years old, but he was […]
Like many of the miners who lost their lives in the Blantyre Pit Disaster, some hadn’t been in Blantyre very long, arriving in the town in that particular decade of 1870s to pursue work in the new Dixon’s Pits. That certainly was the case for John Revie, though by the time the pit took his […]