Whistleberry Colliery, Blantyre, owned by Archibald Russell and Company. Ltd., closed down on the evening of Monday 27th May 1935 after a working life of forty years. The decision to close down the colliery was forced upon the owners by a rush of water. Trouble has been experienced by water at Whistleberry Colliery for a number of […]
Tragic circumstances on the evening of Saturday 21st March 1936 occurred when a pit accident in Blantyre claimed the lives of five men. Exceptional bravery was demonstrated as rescue parties worked unceasingly for about 15 hours in imminent peril from a dangerous roof to recover the bodies from the debris. The accident occurred in a […]
I like to think of coal as the “saviour of Blantyre”. By the late 1860’s the mills that had put Blantyre on the map were starting to decline. Modern milling techniques had lost many jobs and competition was fierce. Indeed, if coal hadn’t been found in Blantyre that decade, the town would have likely declined […]