Brown Top Pit

Overview

A Joseph Stocks shaft pit near Halifax, wound by a horse gin, whose hurriers Elizabeth Jackson and Selina Ambler gave evidence to the Children's Employment Commission in 1841.

History

Brown Top Pit was a shaft pit near Halifax worked by Joseph Stocks. In Scriven's 1841 table of the district's pits for the Children's Employment Commission, Mr Joseph Stock's Brown Top is entered as a shaft wound by a horse gin, in company with his Penfold and Clayton shafts and his Windy Bank, Shaw Lane, Booth Town and Oates Royd day holes.

Two girls from the pit gave evidence. Elizabeth Jackson said she had been hurrying for a year or so, alone, for her father, a collier; she hurried twenty corves a day along 100 yards, reached the heading almost an hour after starting at seven, and came out about five, sometimes at eight. She hurried in breeches, barefoot, and went to Sunday school; she could read but not write.

Selina Ambler, aged twelve, said she had hurried for almost three years for her uncle Joseph, because he could not get a hurrier anywhere. She hurried about 100 yards, twenty corves a day, using a belt and chain for about forty yards, and wore breeches and a shirt. She was paid five shillings a week, which her brother drew from Mr Stocks, and would rather have gone to the mill.

Geology

Unknown.

Workings

A shaft wound by a horse gin. Coal was hurried in corves over about 100 yards, twenty corves a day, with a belt and chain used for about forty yards of it.

Closure

Unknown.

What remains

Unknown.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Related mines

• Booth Town Pit — Both were small Halifax pits worked by Joseph Stocks and listed together in Scriven's 1841 table of the district's collieries.
• Windy Bank Pit — Both were small Halifax pits worked by Joseph Stocks and listed together in Scriven's 1841 table of the district's collieries.

Recorded claims

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

• Brown Top was a shaft worked by a horse gin and owned by Joseph Stock in 1841. ¹
• Elizabeth Jackson hurried alone for her father, twenty corves a day along 100 yards. ²
• Selina Ambler, aged twelve, hurried for her uncle for almost three years and was paid five shillings a week, drawn by her brother from Mr Stocks. ²

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

Record created: 29 September 2026 · Last researched: 1 October 2026