Thurcroft Colliery
Thurcroft Colliery was sunk in 1909. The Barnsley seam was found in 1913 and worked until 1967 - a newspaper report said that the coal was of very good quality, but the explorations met with difficulty, the coal having been thrown out of its normal position by a large fault which was not discovered when the sinking of the shafts was chosen.Thurcroft was owned by Rother Vale Colliery Company. At one stage over a third of the population of Thurcroft worked at the pit.
Model Village Housing
The war seriously interfered with the progress of the extensive housing scheme of the Rother Vale Colliery Company, now amalgamated with the United Steel Company. To the visitor, Thurcroft seemed likely to be an extremely desirable place to live in.
The lay-out of the land was excellently conceived; the roads, which were made unusually wide, were intended to be laid out as boulevards, and the houses were the embodiment of simplicity of design, and economy in construction.
The peculiar needs of the district were amply provided for in the internal arrangements. One of these being the placing of the bathroom on the ground floor.
The miner usually came home from the pit as black as a sweep, and it therefore made sense that the bathroom was downstairs!A good cooking range was indispensable in a Yorkshire home, and in these new houses, the collier’s wife was provided with excellent cooking facilities to bake bread to her heart’s content.
Sleeping accommodation was also a difficult problem in a mining community. Here the houses contained three or four bedrooms large enough to hold full sized beds and the usual furniture. One of the miner's wives, at the time of inspection of her new home, was recorded as saying "This is the best house that I have ever lived in."
The Inspector reported, " The care and attention which it was obvious she was in the habit of bestowing on her home - is by no means an isolated instance in these new mining communities". This was an object lesson in the effect of proper housing on the working class.
By 1919 Rother Vale Colliery Colliery Company was acquired by the United Steel Companies, the director was Walter Benton Jones. Coke Ovens and Brickworks were erected later acquired by Butterley Bricks. In 1942 the Parkgate Seam was opened. The operation continued until 1947 when the coal industry was nationalised.
The By-Product plant was closed in March, 1931 and restarted in September, 1933 as trade improved.
A newspaper report of December, 1934, giving details of a fire which broke out at underground at the colliery stated that 2000 men were employed here.
In 1938 The manager was A Foster and the Under Manager J Robinson. 1391 were employed underground and 259 on the surface.
By 1945 there were 1276 underground workers and 238 employed on the surface. The Manager was C. Smith and Under Manager E Bedson.
A strike by members of the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers ended on 23rd June, 1952. The strike began at Silverwood and it was decided by majority vote to resume work, the 70 men on strike at Thurcroft agreed to resume under strong protest. The strike was a protest against the National Coal Board's failure to offer a reasonable wage increase. It affected 16 collieries. Read the story
A Bronze Age palstave, now in Doncaster Museum, was found in 1952 at Thurcroft Colliery, apparently near the screens where the wagons were tipped. Thus it may well have arrived from elsewhere, possibly one of the other collieries in the area - Treeton and Thurcroft were connected, in fact it was rumoured that during a bad winter, when roads were impassable because of heavy snow, the miners wages were delivered underground from Treeton to Thurcroft !
Miner's at Thurcroft decided to complain to Sir. Noel Holmes, Chairman of North Eastern Divisional Coal Board in September, 1954, about the alleged ungentlemanly conduct and discourtesy to branch officials of the pit manager, Mr. L. R. Cook. They also passed a resolution demanding that their own permanent area officials should be subject to re-election every five years, and protested against a letter received from Mr. F. Collindridge, Yorkshire area secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, which criticized the ban on overtime and cooperation with management, imposed the previous week after a wages dispute. At a mass meeting attended by about 1,000 men, they decided to suspend the ban after branch officials had told them the management had conceded their claim in most of the 250 to 300 cases, with full pay and bonus for the men involved.
About 500 Thurcroft miners at a mass meeting in Rotherham on 16th September, 1956, were warned that their pit was in danger of being closed because of unofficial strikes. There were 49 stoppages at Thurcroft since January, 1955. The warnings were given by a branch official of the National Union of Mineworkers, and the men unamimously approved a motion put by the branch chairman, Mr. C. Swindell, which promised adherence to the conciliation machinery in future and denied branch support to any men who failed to do so.
Output at the colliery fell from 16,000 to 8,000 tons a week in the previous 18 months, partly because of the strikes and partly because of a series of faults which were encountered in the main development phase. The pit at this time employed 1,650 men and was the only industry in the village whose population was 6,000.
The branch secretary, George Downing who had worked at the pit for 30 years commented at the time 'We have not been told officially but we have been warned indirectly that the pit will probably be closed if the position does not improve. We dare not risk it. Men of 50 or more would never get another job and many of them live in Coal Board houses. The men who are causing the trouble - and there are not many of them - are young men who could easily get another job elsewhere. Some of them do not live in the village. They do not recognize the branch officials at all'.
In January 1961 a strike lasted about 2 weeks, it was over a claim for a 10% increase in peacework rates for underground workers, a minimum of 65s. a shift and no cut in allowances. Only Maltby and Thurcroft were affected in the 'No. 1 Area' although over Yorkshire, 59 pits were affected by the strike.
In 1966 extensions and alterations were made to welfare buildings at the Thurcroft Colliery.
After being on strike for ten days in October, 1969, Thurcroft miners voted to resume work on the 23rd October, although 'intensive and noisy picketing' prevented the workers on the afternoon shift from reporting for work.
1970 saw the opening of the Haigh Moor seam and by 1972 the Parkgate Seam was exhausted. Two years later on 28 August, 1974, Sir Derek Ezra on a visit to Maltby Colliery, announced a probable investment of £13 million to improve output at South Yorkshire collieries. Schemes in mind included the installation of skip winding and building new coal preparation plants at Thurcroft and Dinnington.
The Coal Board's Coal for the Future plan of February, 1977 allocated £7 million to Thurcroft this was for exploiting new reserves and it was announced manpower would be a problem, an additional 3200 men would be required almost overnight for the Yorkshire area. The Parkgate Seam was closed in 1972 although the Haigh Moor seam, started in 1970 was still being worked.
Despite the opposition of the area leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, Arthur Scargill, to incentive schemes, miners at Thurcroft, along with those at Manton, Shireoaks and Treeton in South Yorkshire, declared in favour in January, 1978. Out of 66 pits in Yorkshire, the N.C.B. said that 20 were in favour and 6 others showing an interest.
In 1980 there were 539 underground workers and 213 employed on the surface.
1982 saw new reserves of coal being opened up for Thurcroft.
3rd September, 1984 and the Miners strike has entered into it's 26th week, The National Coal Board estimated that the dispute overall had cost the miner's an average of £4543 in lost wages. It was reported that damage estimated at more than £250,000 was caused when a bulldozer was driven into the wages building at Thurcroft.
Striking Yorkshire miners, in November, 1984, frustrated by the police's strategy in getting working miners to the pits, switched tactics away from mass picketing to blockading the pits.A lamp-post was pulled down outside Thurcroft Colliery and timber and stone barricades were put up. A workman's cabin was also pulled across the road. Full Story
In April 1985 it was reported that frightened miners and their families were living in hotels at coal board's expense, and 2 men were to appear before magistrates in Rotherham in connection with an alleged attack on the home of a strike-breaking miner and his family in Thurcroft.
The main recipient of Thurcroft Coal was in the late 1990s the Electricity Supply Industry.
Local managers and trade union officials were told in November 1991 that owing to overcapacity, the pit would close in eight days time. Since the Colliery Review required three months notice of any decision to close, management needed the consent of its employees, who when faced with a threat to withdraw a £10,000 redundancy supplement, voted to accept closure.
On 27th November, 1991, the manager, M. K. Tucker, sent a letter to all employees, announcing the closure of the colliery and giving 4 reasons for closure:
- The colliery had lost over £11 million in the year so far
- The loss would increase probably to £15 million by March, 1992
- Severe geological problems in the Swallow Wood Seam
- Growing evidence of geological difficulties in the Haigh Moor seam
The letter continued by saying that redundancy plans would be explained to those who chose to leave the industry and the coal board would look for alternative jobs for those who wanted to stay.
The pit ceased production in December 1991 though salvage work continued until September 1992.
Despite attempts by some of the workforce to buy the colliery out, inspired by miners at Monkton Hall in re-opening their colliery, and with financial and legal backing from Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, former Thurcroft Miners engaged in negotiations with British Coal for the purchase of the mine. British Coal was unwilling to keep up the £20,000 costs per week in maintaining the colliery while negotiations took place. Local representatives withdrew as they sensed they would not win. Village life was to change for ever.
Upon closure of the Thurcroft Colliery, the site,including both colliery and waste heap were designated as in the green belt.
Thurcroft Pit Firefighting Team 1957
Reading
Thurcroft: a Village and the Miners' Strike publisher: Spokesman Books