Living monument to the miners’ sacrifices
THE NATIONAL Coal Mining Museum, at Overton near Wakefield, embracing the Caphouse and Hope pits, provides visitors with a unique opportunity to walk in the footsteps of hundreds of miners and learn how they earned a living. This is besides understanding the complexities of the industry’s customs and equipment.
The museum is situated on the former Denby Grange estate which up to the early part of the 16th century had been held by Byland Abbey for many centuries earlier. In A New History of Caphouse Colliery and the Denby Grange Collieries (2000), noted historian John Goodchild writes that coal had been worked on the Denby Grange estate in the 16th century. He mentions that by the 18th century, the estate was in the hands of the Lister Kaye family who agreed to allow Timothy Smith to sink small pits or shafts there. Many comprised thin seams, some less than three feet in thickness.
The coal was transported to the Calder and Hebble Navigation and shipped to markets beyond. A plan from around 1795, marking shafts on the Denby Grange estate, shows one from around 1795 very close to the present Caphouse site. When Timothy Smith died in 1803, his colliery business was taken over by his son Charles Smith. From around 1817, the Denby Grange estate owner, Sir John Lister Kaye, was overseeing the batch of pits on his land himself, assisted by John Blenkinsop. The group of pits, including the Caphouse site, would be developed under the title of the Denby Grange Colliery.
Born in 1772, John Lister Kaye was the illegitimate son of Sir John Lister-Kay, 5th Baronet of Denby Grange. He was a noted amateur cricketer in the late 18th century and was created a baronet in his own right in December 1812. His land included the Manors of Burton, Woodsham, Shelley and other areas in Yorkshire. When he died in February 1827, he was succeeded by his eldest son, also named Sir John Lister Kaye (2).
John Blenkinsop, born near Leeds, in 1793, was the inventor of the first successful locomotive. Four of these hauled coal over cast-iron rails from Middleton to Leeds. Blenkinsop was previously employed at Middleton as a mine inspector. Until his death in 1831, Blenkinsop was to play a significant role in the development of the Denby Grange Colliery’s pits, finding markets in areas of Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire. After the death of Sir John Lister Kaye in 1827, the estate was in chancery and his son had to find just over £4,500 for its recovery, plus pay off bad debts. Fortunately, his wife, Matilda, rose to the challenge of running the company.
In 1827, the colliery company comprised four working pits: Blucker; Waterloo; Croft; and Nelson. These ranged in depths from 33 to 56 yards and mainly mined the Flockton Thick or Flockton Thin Seams. During the same year, a lease was taken to mine the Flockton Thick and Thin Seams of coal on the adjacent Lord Wharncliffe’s lands in Newhall and Overton.
Wellington pit, at Caphouse, was sunk in 1828 to the Flockton Thin Seam at a depth of 56 yards, surviving until 1833. Other pits were added to the company’s portfolio up until the mid 19th century. As the seams were shallow, this inevitably led to the frequent opening of new shafts and closure of others. Hope pit was sunk to the Old Hards Seam in 1832 though only survived a year. Goodchild records that Caphouse (formerly Wellington) was sunk in 1851 to the Old Hards Seam at a depth of 101 yards.
Matilda Lister Kaye – mother of 14 children – became a noted author and educationalist. Looking through the Denby Grange Colliery’s company’s accounts from about 1837, she noted that drastic action needed to be made, finding them ‘a mass of Roguery and extravagance.’ Thereafter, she inspected the Denby Grange Colliery’s accounts three or four times annually. She advised on sinking to the Hards Seam from 1841 initially at the Hope pit, which was reopened, and was responsible for putting into place new working practices as well as establishing new businesses such as coke ovens.
A map of surveyed: 1850 to 1851, and published in 1855 records a ‘Coal Pit’ at ‘Cop House’ and shows Hope Pit and Coke Ovens to the south west. Costs of transporting the company’s coal became a matter of concern during the early 1850s. A newly appointed agent, John Marsden was instrumental in establishing, supported by Matilda Lister Kaye, the Denby Grange Colliery Railway, extending from the company’s pits to the Wakefield & Barnsley Railway and the Calder & Hebble Navigation. The new railway was opened about 1854.
Matilda Lister Kaye died in 1867 and her husband, Sir John Lister Kaye, in 1871. Their eldest daughter Emma inherited the Denby Grange Colliery’s pits. She never married and under her leadership Caphouse colliery, according to Goodchild, was reopened with new shafts in 1874 - one for men and materials and the other for pumping and ventilation. A new shaft was sunk to the New Hards Seam around 1875/1876. Emma Lister Kaye was responsible for overseeing the establishment of a steam boiler yard, chimney, stone heapstead, ventilation shaft and
steam winding engine house at Caphouse by 1876. Her initials, ELK 1876, may be located above the engine house door. At the same period, she saw the sinking of a new pit at Netherton which became known as Denby Grange, Prince of Wales. Emma Lister Kaye lived at Overton Lodge and was described by one of the
colliery company’s managers as ‘an aristocrat to her finger tips, and had an excellent brain, which could not be said of her father.’ She ran the family concern until her death, aged 80, in 1905, when it was inherited by her nephew Sir John Pepys Lister Kaye. Work undertaken at Caphouse before the First World War included the timber headgear of the main shaft being renewed and a timberframed screens building erected nearby. At the Hope pit, becoming the air shaft for both pits, new surface buildings included a fan house and an electric winding engine house. In November 1914, the new Denby Grange Colliery owner was bankrupt and the concern passed to several hands including Percy Greaves; and Terry Greaves & Lister Kay. Amongst the developments at Caphouse up until Nationalisation of the industry were the building of coal drops; the sidings being enlarged; and the construction of pit heads baths and an administrative block. The Post-War years saw buildings and plant improved and a drift was driven in 1974 for bringing out coal.
At Denby Grange Prince of Wales two new drifts were driven in 1926 and 1956. Both Caphouse and Prince of Wales pits were merged in October 1981. A Yorkshire Post photographer was on hand in July 1985 to capture miners at Denby Grange Prince of Wales celebrating, with champagne, after smashing a British record for producing coal. They had produced 13.09 tonnes a man over a five-day period.
Caphouse pit closed in 1985 and opened as the Yorkshire Mining Museum. Denby Grange Prince of Wales survived until 1991. In 1995, Caphouse was designated as the National Coal Mining Museum for England after Chaterly Whitfield Museum closed.
Further reading: John Goodchild A New History of Caphouse Colliery and the Denby Grange Collieries (2000).
A chance to walk in the footsteps of miners and learn how they earned a living.