Wheatley Hill Colliery Band

The brass band of Wheatley Hill Colliery in east Durham, formed in the early 1890s, which played at the Durham Miners' Gala, competed nationally in London as late as 1956, and folded shortly after the pit closed in 1968.

The mining history in this record

The band was formed in the early 1890s and entered its first contest at Newcastle in 1894 under conductor M. Charlton. Two photographs of it survive from 1910, taken moments apart, in one of which the face of the man seated beside the conductor has been replaced; brass-band historian Gavin Holman suggests the original may have been the colliery agent, John Henry Bacon Forster. The man on the conductor's other side is Matthew Barrass, mine manager from 1902. In 1919 bandmaster Edward Kitto accepted an invitation to play in the Peace Day procession, offering the loan of his mother's copper tea urn and asking that the band not be placed near the pit ponies, which had injured bandsmen two years earlier. Robert Walker was bandmaster in the 1920s, and received an ebony and silver baton from the Wheatley Hill Workmen's Social Club in 1922.

Village stories kept by Holman tell of the band's drum spending a night in Thornley police station in the early 1900s after a drinking session away, and of the band marching home from the Durham Miners' Gala with a beer bottle as a drumstick. It went on to national level: in December 1956 Coal magazine listed Wheatley Hill among the pit bands that competed, unplaced, in the second section of the Daily Herald national brass band championships in London. Its conductors after 1931 were William Straughan, Richard Walker, W. Forrest (1939–1952), W. F. Buckley, Harold Strong, N. Buck, J. Rutter and finally Derek Scollard (1966–1968).

People

Conductors and bandmasters M. Charlton (1894), E. Chapman (probably, 1910), Edward Kitto (1919), Robert Walker (1920s), William Straughan (1931–34), Richard Walker (1935–36), W. Forrest (1939–52), W. F. Buckley (1953–54), Harold Strong (1955–60), N. Buck (1960–61), J. Rutter (1961–65) and Derek Scollard (1966–68). Matthew Barrass, mine manager, appears in the 1910 photograph.

Legacy today

The colliery closed on 3 May 1968, almost a hundred years after it opened, and the band folded shortly afterwards. Its photographs from the 1890s to the 1940s, including one at the 1932 Durham Miners' Gala, survive and are reproduced by the IBEW brass band history site.

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.

• Wheatley Hill Colliery Band was formed in the early 1890s and entered its first contest at Newcastle in 1894 under conductor M. Charlton. (contemporary account) ¹
• Wheatley Hill competed, unplaced, in the second section of the Daily Herald national brass band championships in London in 1956. (documented fact) ²
• In 1919 bandmaster Edward Kitto accepted an invitation to play in the Peace Day procession and asked that the band not be placed near the pit ponies, which had injured some bandsmen two years before. (contemporary account) ¹
• Stories tell of the band's drum spending a night at Thornley police station in the early 1900s, and of the band playing its way home from the Durham Miners' Gala with a beer bottle as a drumstick. (tradition/folklore, uncertain) ¹
• The band folded shortly after Wheatley Hill Colliery closed in 1968. (later recollection) ¹

Mines

• Wheatley Hill Colliery — County Durham
  The colliery band, formed in the early 1890s, which folded shortly after the pit closed in 1968; the mine manager Matthew Barrass appears in its 1910 photograph.

Regions

County Durham

Sources

1. (secondary) Wheatley Hill Colliery Band – the case of the altered photograph (Gavin Holman, 14 July 2020; Internet Archive copy) — IBEW – the History of Brass Bands
2. (primary) Bandsmen Go To Town (Coal Magazine, December 1956) — Durham Mining Museum

Record created: 17 September 2026 · Last researched: 17 September 2026