On 22nd October 1927, Blantyre stopped to remember the great pit disaster in High Blantyre that had happened 50 years earlier. Today, 139 years later we do the same and I thought I’d share a few things about the 50 year remembrance. In 1927, the pit disaster was still relatively fresh in Blantyre’s history […]
Dixon’s Rows – or Dixons’s Raws were former single storey, small miner’s houses consisting of 8 streets totalling 340 houses, of which 306 were lived in, the others being used as stores and a hall. They formed a large concentration of homes, packed into a small area near the northwestern end of Stonefield Road. […]
I’ve been surprised lately to find out how many Colliery Dynamite stores still exist in Blantyre. One at Sydes Brae, another near Craigknowe and one at Bardykes, so I was curious when Graham Carson has contacted me saying, “At the time of the 1957 pictures of Priestfied Terrace were taken I lived in number 3 […]
Just over a fortnight, after the 1877 Pit disaster in Blantyre, the Edinburgh Evening News on Tuesday 6th November 1877 (pg2) reported on a case of mistaken identity. Of the worst kind. One of the bodies of the men brought up from the pit had been identified as a particular person, but it […]
Words from forthcoming book, “Blantyre Explained” by Paul D Veverka (c) 2016 Barely 18 months after the large pit explosion of 1877, on 2nd July 1879 Dixons number one pit, Blantyre suffered a loss of 28 lives. The 1879 disaster occurred in the Ell coal, the shallowest of the three seams. The coal was worked from number […]
I was surprised to make this discovery in November, and had to find a second opinion, after noticing it, as it changes many publications and historical articles. Dixon’s Rows in Stonefield, were NOT actually built or originally owned by William Dixon & Co, the colliery. Looking at the 1895 valuation roll, I was surprised […]
SHAFT COLLAPSES AT PIT. Coal production at Blantyre Colliery was brought to a standstill in the first week of August 1957 by the partial collapse of the shaft of No. 1 Pit that first Monday of the month. Some 450 men are affected right away, but many were given other jobs on the surface. So it came […]