Image ID: 26279

Coal picking at Bestwood Colliery, Bestwood Village, 1912 ?

Bestwood Colliery
Bestwood_Village
England

Miners and their families coal picking on the tip at Bestwood Colliery, possibly during the 1912 Miners Strike. With the mines stopped, obtaining fuel in this manner was often a necessity for the local populace. The 1912 strike began at Alfreton in Derbyshire and was the first national strike by miners in Britain. It centered on an attempt by the Miners Federation of Great Britain to secure a national minimum wage and followed on from similar action in South Wales in 1911 and earlier in 1894. The withdrawal of labour proved succesful and after 37 days the Government intervened and the Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act 1912 was the result. The sinking of Bestwood Colliery was begun in 1871-2 by the Bestwood Coal & Iron Company (BC&IC) with coal production commencing in 1876. The mine was situated in the Leen Valley between Nottingham and Hucknall Library on the estate of the Duke of St Albans with John Lancaster, a Lancashire entrepreneur, the driving force behind the venture. Indeed, the Lancaster family remained key figures in the running of the mine right up to to nationalisation of the coal industry in 1947. By a scheme of partial amalgamation in 1936 the BC&IC sold its colliery undertakings to B A Collieries Ltd, bringing Bestwood under the same control as the neighbouring mines at Babbington, Bulwell, Calverton (then under development), Cinderhill and Gedling. At this date the pit was working the Top Hard, High Main and Main Bright seams with 1,892 employed underground and 374 on the surface. The annual output was an impressive one million tons and the mine is said to have been the first in the country to reach this target. Household, manufacturing and steam coal were produced. The Chairman and Managing Director was Captain Claude G Lancaster and the colliery manager A E Booth. In 1946 the driving of a surface drift was started and this was operational by 1951. It took the form of a sloping tunnel that descended at 1 in 4 to the High Main seam and was extended to reach the Main Bright in 1959. Appropriately, it was named the Lancaster Drift and latterly all coal was taken out this way, the shafts being retained only as a standby and to move men and materials. In its later years Bestwood Colliery, always a 'dirty' pit, was beset with geological problems and coal extraction ceased in 1967 when it was merged with nearby Linby. Final closure occurred in 1971 when all mining activity on the site finished. The area was subsequently reclaimed and landscaped as Bestwood Country Park.

Date: c 1912

Organisation Reference: NCCC002289

Organisation: