The Mauricewood Devils

A 2016 novel by Dorothy Alexander fictionalising the 1889 Mauricewood Colliery fire, told through the eyes of a miner's young daughter and his wife in the disaster's aftermath.

The mining history in this record

Dorothy Alexander's debut novel takes its subject directly from the Mauricewood Colliery fire of 5 September 1889, in which 63 of the 70 men and boys working underground that day died -- one of Scotland's worst mining disasters, and, as the Historical Novel Society's review notes, one not widely known outside Scotland itself. The book is told in two interwoven voices: Martha, the eight-year-old daughter of a miner killed in the fire, whose sections are rendered as dreams and waking fantasy rather than straightforward narration, in a deliberate echo of oral storytelling tradition; and Jess, her stepmother, whose chapters are grounded in real documents and primary sources Alexander researched -- covering the recovery of the bodies (not completed until March 1890) and the legal battle the bereaved families fought afterward for compensation from the colliery's owners, the Shotts Iron Company.

People

Dorothy Alexander, the Galashiels writer, whose great-grandmother Martha was the daughter of one of the miners killed in the fire; she began researching the disaster in 2006.

Legacy today

Freight Books published the novel in February 2016, and reviewers praised it as meticulously researched, a mixture of historical fact and fiction with a strong political resonance. It is one of the few literary treatments of the Mauricewood disaster. For a hundred years after the fire there was no memorial at Mauricewood; a stone to the 63 now stands near the Edinburgh Road at Penicuik.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each tagged with how solidly it's grounded and attached to the source(s) that support it. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Dorothy Alexander's great-grandmother's father was killed in the Mauricewood fire of September 1889. (documented fact) ^1,2
• The novel tells the disaster through the monologues of Martha, the young daughter of the miner Davie, and her stepmother Jess, without dialogue, interspersed with factual material on the mine and the inquiry. (documented fact) ^3,2,4
• Martha is eight years old. (documented fact, disputed) ²
• Martha is seven years old. (documented fact, disputed) ⁴
• The novel follows the women of Mauricewood, many of the miners' families left destitute, in their campaign for compensation against the pit owners. (documented fact) ⁴
• Many of the bodies of the 63 men and boys killed could not be brought out and buried until the following March. (documented fact) ²
• The novel was published by Freight Books in February 2016. (documented fact) ^2,4
• Martha's grief is told through a series of dreams and waking fantasies about the fire and its possible outcomes, and Jess's through real documents and primary sources the author researched. (documented fact) ³
• Alexander began researching the disaster in 2006, and wanted to write less about the disaster itself than about its effect on the victims and the pressures that allowed it to happen. (contemporary account) ¹
• A memorial stone to the 63 miners stands near the Edinburgh Road at Penicuik; for the first hundred years after the disaster there was no memorial. (documented fact) ¹

Mines

• Mauricewood Colliery — Midlothian
  The novel's entire subject is the fire at this colliery and its aftermath.

Disasters

• Mauricewood Colliery fire, 1889 — 5 September 1889
  The novel fictionalises this exact disaster, its rescue/recovery and the bereaved families' legal battle afterward.

Real-world mining concepts used here

Colliery

Sources

1. (secondary) Mauricewood pit disaster novel gets to the heart of the truth — The Scotsman
2. (secondary) The Mauricewood Devils - Dorothy Alexander (The List) — The List
3. (secondary) The Mauricewood Devils (review) — Historical Novel Society
4. (secondary) The Mauricewood Devils (Books from Scotland) — Books from Scotland

Record created: 31 August 2026 · Last researched: 31 August 2026