Booth Town Pit

Overview

A day hole, a coal mine entered by a tunnel rather than a shaft, worked by Joseph Stocks at Booth Town on the northern edge of Halifax. It is remembered through the evidence Patience Kershaw, a seventeen-year-old hurrier, gave there to the Children's Employment Commission on 15 May 1841.

History

Booth Town Pit was one of a string of small pits around Halifax worked by Joseph Stocks. When the Children's Employment Commission's sub-commissioner Samuel Scriven listed the district's collieries in 1841, he entered Mr J. Stocks's Booth Town as a day hole, worked by a tunnel into the hillside rather than from a shaft; the same list gives Stocks the Shaw Lane, Windy Bank and Oates Royd day holes and the Penfold, Brown Top and Clayton shafts. Scriven visited on 15 May 1841 and took evidence from two witnesses, Patience Kershaw, aged 17, and Samuel Well, aged 35.

Scriven went underground himself. He walked, crept and rode 1,800 yards to one of the nearest coal faces, the farthest lying about 200 yards beyond, along a gate whose floor was three or four inches deep in water in places and muddy throughout. Patience Kershaw's statement describes the work. She went down at five in the morning and came out at five at night, eating her dinner as she went. She hurried eleven corves a day, each weighing three hundredweight, a mile and more underground and back, wearing a belt and chain, and the thrusting of the corves had worn a bald patch on her head. The getters worked naked except for their caps, and they struck her on the back when she was not quick enough. Her statement, printed with Scriven's harsh description of her, made her perhaps the best known of the women who gave evidence to the commission, and it became the basis of the folk song The Testimony of Patience Kershaw.

A Booth Town colliery at Northowram appears in the lists of mines from 1855 to 1860 and is marked on the first-edition six-inch Ordnance Survey map. Malcolm Bull's Calderdale Companion records a Boothtown Colliery beneath Swales Moor, noted in 1842 and closed in 1875, which is probably the same working.

Geology

Unknown.

Workings

A day hole: a tunnel driven into the hillside rather than a shaft. In 1841 the nearest faces lay about 1,800 yards in and the farthest about 200 yards beyond, reached along a wet, muddy gate. Coal was hurried from the faces in corves of about three hundredweight, pushed by hand with a belt and chain.

Closure

The colliery appears in the lists of mines from 1855 to 1860. A Boothtown Colliery beneath Swales Moor, probably the same working, closed in 1875.

What remains

Unknown.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Culture

• The Testimony of Patience Kershaw (Music)
  Patience Kershaw was witness No. 26 to the Children's Employment Commission, examined at Booth Town Pit on 15 May 1841 - Scriven's list gives the pit as a day hole worked by Mr Joseph Stocks, and it is the pit her evidence describes: eleven corves a mile and more underground and back, with the bald place on her head made by thrusting them. The song is built on that evidence.

People

• Patience Kershaw · worker, 1841 — Hurrier; examined here on 15 May 1841 as witness No. 26.

What's uncertain

Points where sources disagree or the record could not be settled; both accounts are kept. All open questions in the archive.

• A Boothtown Colliery beneath Swales Moor, recorded in 1842, closed in 1875. (uncertain) ⁴

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Returned in 1841 as Mr J. Stocks's Booth Town, a day hole worked by tunnel. ¹
• In 1841 the nearest coal face was about 1,800 yards from the entrance, along a gate wet and muddy throughout. ¹
• Patience Kershaw, aged 17, was examined at Booth Town Pit on 15 May 1841 as witness No. 26; Samuel Well, aged 35, was No. 27. ^1,2
• Patience Kershaw hurried eleven corves a day of three hundredweight each, a mile and more underground, from five in the morning until five at night. ²
• Booth Town, Northowram, Halifax, appears in the lists of mines from 1855 to 1860 and on the first-edition six-inch Ordnance Survey sheet. ³
• A Boothtown Colliery beneath Swales Moor, recorded in 1842, closed in 1875. (uncertain) ⁴

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Children's Employment Commission 1842: Report by Samuel S. Scriven on the collieries of the West Riding of Yorkshire — Coal Mining History Resource Centre (transcription)
2. (secondary) Pit Lasses Research: Halifax Area — Denise Bates
3. (secondary) Coal Mines in Yorkshire 1854: B — Northern Mine Research Society
4. (secondary) Mills & Mines: B (Boothtown Colliery) — Malcolm Bull's Calderdale Companion
5. (secondary) The Royal Commission into Children's Employment in Mines 1842, a Halifax example — Calderdale Local Studies

Record created: 28 September 2026 · Last researched: 29 September 2026