Bunker's Hill Colliery

Overview

A North Staffordshire pit at Talke sunk by William Rigby and Company in 1853, working the Banbury and Bullhurst coals and drawing its tubs on chains because it had no cages. On 30 April 1875 a shot fired in a gassy heading killed forty-three men and boys, and the inspector's report on it went to Parliament and into a Commons question on whether blasting powder should be banned underground.

History

Coal was got on this ground long before the colliery that carried the name. The North Staffordshire gazetteer records that the area was probably first worked to supply the Cheshire salt pans, the earliest workings lying next to Coppice Road and drained by a gutter driven up the valley between the road and Swallowmoore Wood. The site was known as the Nibble Pits. The last Bunker's Hill colliery was sunk by William Rigby and Company in 1853 or 1854, and there were eventually four shafts. It had no cages: the tubs were fitted with eye bolts at each corner and slung on chains. Before the North Staffordshire Railway's Audley branch reached it, coal was jigged down to the Trent and Mersey Canal on a rope-hauled tubway ending at a wharf and weighbridge at Townfield Lock; a connection to the Audley branch was made at Meerlake Junction in 1870. On 30 April 1875, at about one in the afternoon, a shot fired in a heading on the east side of the Engine-brow ignited firedamp and killed forty-three (see Disasters, below). The pit went on working. In 1896 it was still William Rigby and Company's, with James Maddock as manager and George Wainright under him, two hundred and ninety people below ground and ninety above, taking the Seven Foot and Eight Foot Banbury coals and the Bullhurst. Its abandonment plans run from the Banbury and Bullhurst seams in March 1913 through the Ten Foot in 1915, 1919 and 1922 to the Ten Foot Top Two Row in February 1927.

Geology

The pit worked the Coal Measures of the North Staffordshire coalfield around Talke and Audley, taking the Seven Foot and Eight Foot Banbury coals and the Bullhurst, and later the Ten Foot. The seams here are gassy: the inspector's report on the 1875 explosion describes firedamp coming off the floor of the mine fast enough that a heading found clear by the fireman could fill in the minutes before his shot was fired.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (well documented example)

Workings

Four shafts in the end, worked without cages — the tubs had eye bolts at each corner and were slung on chains. Ventilation was by fan, and the 1875 report singles it out for praise: the engine, with a slight increase of speed, restored the air current almost immediately after the explosion and let a party enter the workings, refix the stoppings and recover the bodies without delay. Air was taken to the far ends of the workings in small pipes or tubes rather than by brattice, a method the inquest jury and the barrister who reported on it both called defective. Coal was got by blasting with gunpowder, though two six-hundred-yard downbrows driven by wedging survived the blast of the explosion untouched.

Closure

No closure date has been established. The abandonment plans catalogued for the colliery run from March 1913 to February 1927.

What remains

No description of the colliery site as it stands has been found. The ground at Talke Pits carries a retail park now, but no source read establishes that it sits on this colliery rather than on one of its neighbours.

None identified in the sources consulted.

Redevelopment

None recorded for this site specifically.

Related mines

• Diglake Colliery — Both were William Rigby and Company's pits in the Audley district of the North Staffordshire coalfield, and each is remembered for a disaster twenty years apart — the 1875 explosion here and the 1895 inundation at Diglake.

Nearby mines

• Hollinswood Colliery — 0.9 km E
• Birchenwood Colliery — 2.3 km E
• Diglake Colliery — 3.1 km S
• Holditch Colliery — 5.7 km S
• Minnie Pit — 5.8 km SW

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Disasters & major incidents

• Bunker's Hill Colliery Explosion, 1875
  30 April 1875 · Explosion · 43 fatalities
  About one in the afternoon of 30 April 1875 a shot fired in a heading at Bunker's Hill Colliery near Talke ignited firedamp and killed forty-three men and boys. Everyone underground in that part of the pit died, so the cause had to be reconstructed afterwards. The inspector's report said the explosion was caused by the use of gunpowder and that the reason for the change from wedging to blasting had been simply that the owner could not compete with neighbours who blasted.

Recorded claims

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

• The last Bunker's Hill colliery was sunk by William Rigby and Company in 1853 or 1854; the company still held it in 1896, with James Maddock as manager. ¹
• The pit used no cages: the tubs were fitted with eye bolts at each corner and slung on chains. ¹
• Before the North Staffordshire Railway's Audley branch reached it, coal was jigged down to the Trent and Mersey Canal on a rope-hauled tubway ending at a wharf and weighbridge at Townfield Lock; the connection to the Audley branch was made at Meerlake Junction in 1870. ¹
• In 1896 the colliery employed two hundred and ninety below ground and ninety above, working the Seven Foot and Eight Foot Banbury coals and the Bullhurst. ¹
• The colliery was ventilated by a fan, which the inspector singled out as showing the superiority of fans over other means: with a slight increase of engine speed it restored the air current almost immediately after the explosion. Air was carried to the far ends of the workings in small pipes rather than by brattice, which the inquest jury thought a defective mode of ventilation. ²
• Gas came off the floor of the mine near the seat of the 1875 explosion fast enough that, in the inspector's and Mr Gilroy's view, it may have filled a rising heading in the short interval between the fireman's examination of it and the firing of his shot. ²

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Mould's Pits: Collieries of the North Staffordshire Coalfield (B) — North Staffordshire Miners' Group / Apedale Heritage Centre
2. (primary) The Bunker's Hill Colliery Explosion, from the 1875 Mines Inspectors Report (C. 1499), North Staffordshire District, by Thomas Wynne, H.M. Inspector of Mines — Mines Inspectors Report, transcribed by the Durham Mining Museum

Record created: 9 September 2026 · Last researched: 9 September 2026