Miners were killed by coal in ’30s colliery collapse

OUR front page photograph this week shows what appears to be a scene of serenity at Hamstead Colliery in West Bromwich.

But miners were never far from danger, and beneath the surface, yet another tragic accident had befallen two of the men.

The picture dates from May 29, 1937, when two miners had been killed by a collapse, crushed by the very stuff they were there to make a living from.

Opened in 1878, the pit was one of the deepest, with coal 2,000 feet below the surface. It was claimed by some to be the deepest in the world.

Hamstead’s most notorious disaster was the 1908 fire which killed 26 miners, but like all pits, it was the scene of all too regular deaths on a lesser scale.

Closure

At this stage, two years before the start of the Second World War, Hamstead was still independent, owned by the Hamstead Colliery Company, but in 1947 became part of the National Coal Board, when the entire industry was nationalised.

It survived much longer than many of the Black Country’s pits, still turning a profit until 1965 when it was finally closed down.

Today there is little sign of the old colliery, and houses occupy the site of the former pithead.

The baths building did survive for some time, and was converted into a nightclub, but that was also later demolished.

Hamstead is not forgotten though. The Hamstead Miners Memorial Trust meticulously recorded the names of those who worked there, and erected a memorial near to the old site in 2008, the hundredth anniversary of the pit’s worst disaster.