YORKSHIRE MAIN COLLIERY

The next story is a short life history of one of Yorkshire Mains many characters, Mr T Hawker.

Mr Hawker had many working experiences such as, steel working in Canada, river captain in the south, Bargeman in the Midlands, many years a fire man, coal miner in Yorkshire and Staffordshire and ambulance man at Grimethorpe and Yorkshire Main.

He was ambulanceman in charge at Yorkshire Main for 15 years and had formed the Grimethorpe Colliery Ambulance class in 1902 and the Edlington class in 1913.

After beginning the class at Yorkshire Main with 3 pupils in the lamp room it soon had a strength of up to 300 members.

The picture below shows Mr Hawker on the left with the pit ambulance near the shafts.

 

He estimated that he had treated 3,300 pit cases a year. One of his proudest moments was setting his own compound fractured leg while he was laying on a stretcher waiting to be taken out of the pit.

On another memorable day he had the honour of saving the lives of 10 miners on the coal face," it was in may 1914 and the men were working in a stall when it came in suddenly from both sides, the Deputy was for shifting the dirt to the side, but I was for making a road right through because the men were shouting for air, I got my way and the men were saved and released".

Mr Hawker also once sailed from Liverpool to Quebec and during the crossing in the distance he could see large icebergs, he found out later that these were the icebergs that had sunk the Titanic.

It was also on this journey that a notice was posted that a terrible pit disaster had happened in South Yorkshire. This was the Cadeby pit disaster.

The picture below shows Mr Hawker with other members of the Yorkshire Main Ambulance Team, middle row on the left.

 

     

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            Maltby colliery.

The next story comes from George. D. Johnson, Maltby colliery, 1954/1985.

One of many humorous occurrences, which to this day makes me chuckle. We had completed the work of phasing out our shaft feeder cables in the pit bottom sub-station which enabled us, with closing a switch, we could use any supply from one shaft supply cable to boost the power to an overloaded one. If coupled up wrong it would do 1 of three things. 1) all switches operate o.k 2) would trip out. 3) could blow the switches apart.

Our joly chief engineer(had`nt been with us long) was "selected" to close the appropriate breaker, on pushing the handle to the closed position he was met with a terrific BANG and clatter behind us, we all shook from top to bottom, except for the electrician standing at the doorway of the sub-station who had just pushed a 4ft x 4ft 1/2 inch thick steel plate onto the concrete floor----- poor Burt, he could`nt say enough***   *******  ***** to the electrician.    Happy days--------p.s ----the switch was closed succesfully after 1/2 an hour cooling of period.

The following picture was also sent by George, it shows the lowering of a diesel loco down the No 1 shaft at Maltby in febuary 1980.

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From yorkshire main.

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FROM CADEBY MAIN.

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FROM DENABY MAIN

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From Yorkshire Main,

I remember in the 70s the Manager Mr Bumstead was underground visiting on the south side of the pit and on his way to the pit bottom he was passing a transfer point where locos left full mine cars and picked up empties and the lad that changed the points was in a man hole asleep, Mr Bumstead shone his light in and poked the lad with his stick, out of the pit he said, have a bath and then see me in my office. It was an hour before the lad got to the managers office, Bumstead shouted at him, where the F have you been, the lad replied, I have been to the medical centre to report me having a black out and I have put you down as my witness, get out of my office he replied, or words to that effect.

Harry Kipling.

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From Yorkshire Main 

I had not worked at the pit long and was sent to work on a haulage machine in the Barnsley Seam, I was told by another workman that the Under Manager Mr Hodgson was due down the mine with some inspectors and that when he arrived in the pit bottom and left the area the men there would get onto to the next person by phone or tannoy and just say " The eagle has landed" , this would then be passed on to the next man until it reached the coal face where he was visiting.  On the way out they would use the code "The eagle has flown".

Anyway, sure enough during the shift the man on the haulage machine before me got onto the phone and said "The eagle has landed" , a few minutes later the managers and inspectors arrived and went passed me.  I waited a few minutes and picked up the phone and said "The eagle has landed" to the next hauler driver, but unkown to me there was another phone with a tannoy on between me and the hauler driver, which the manager at the time just happened to be standing next to, the reply came back in a grumpy voice " This is the eagle, thank you!"

On his way out he looked at me in the face and just said " The eagle is on his way out now", I just wanted to crawl into a man hole and hide.

Jeff

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From David re Maltby main and other comments.

What a great web site, brought back a few memories of when I worked in the pits up there. Fred Jeram was the Branch president of Maltby  when I was around, but that is well over 40 years ago. If I remember correctly they found one of the victims of that explosion some time in the early 60s they were working the coal paralel to the old district.Caused a bit of a stink from what I remember. the fellow had a stubble growing on his face, that is what i heard second hand. I know that there was a bit of stink in 1923 concerning the speed with which the rescue attempt was called off and the district sealed off. I can imagine the comments, puting profit before the men. Mind you they were bloody hard time 1923 was the year my great uncle got killed down Canklow main and just three years before the general strike. Mind you you always knew where you stood with the colliers. none of the woolly political crap you hear from our present day politician.

 

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