Clifton Hall Colliery

Overview

A Lancashire pit in the Irwell valley, worked by candlelight in a gassy seam under a goaf the size of a small town, where an explosion on 18 June 1885 killed 177 or 178 men and boys. It was still winding coal 44 years later.

History

The colliery was working by about 1820 — its tramway to the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal appears on a parliamentary plan of 1830 and a map of 1845 — and belonged to John Knowles and then to Andrew Knowles and Sons, one of the great Lancashire coal firms. Locally it was Lumb's Colliery, after Lumns Lane where it stood, and it had extensive sidings on the London and North Western Railway's Clifton branch. Its labour history was bitter and is disputed in the detail. The traditional account has the men striking over safety in 1869, the company refusing, and strike-breakers brought from the Black Country and given the strikers' houses, after which the district was known for years as Little Bilston. Later research reads the newspapers differently: Cutler found reports of discontent in 1866 over the banning of a trade union, and the Wigan Observer describing locked-out miners evicted that year and replaced by two hundred men from Cornwall and three hundred from Staffordshire, with about twice as many again coming at their own expense. By 1885 everyone killed in the explosion had a local address. The explosion of 18 June 1885 killed 177 or 178 men and boys and remains one of the worst disasters in the Lancashire coalfield (see Disasters, below). Furnace ventilation, which the inquiry had criticised, was replaced the following year. The colliery went on working until 9 November 1929, latterly under Manchester Collieries, and one shaft was kept afterwards to ventilate Wheatsheaf Colliery at Pendlebury.

Geology

The shafts passed through four shallower seams not worked in 1885 to reach the Dow, Five-Quarters and Trencherbone mines, and bottomed in the Cannel. The Trencherbone seam is about six feet thick, with six feet of a rock the colliers called white metal above it, then poor coal, then twenty yards of solid Trencherbone rock. Every seam in the colliery dipped from north to south at about one in three and a half.

Workings

Two shafts stood only ten yards apart, the downcast used for men and coal and the upcast rigged with ropes and pulleys in case the downcast were blocked. The Trencherbone was worked by driving headings east and west to the colliery boundary and then taking the coal on the retreat, which left behind it a goaf up to 1,200 yards across, part packed with waste and dry-stone pack walls and left to subside. Ventilation was by a furnace at the upcast shaft on the Trencherbone seam, all the return air from that seam passing over the fire. The seam was worked with candles: firemen tested the workings first and the men went in with safety lamps, and once the firemen had lit their candles naked lights and smoking were allowed.

Closure

Coal production ended on 9 November 1929 under Manchester Collieries, but a shaft was kept for ventilating Wheatsheaf Colliery in Pendlebury.

What remains

The colliery site is cleared. The memorial to the dead stands in the churchyard of St Augustine's, Pendlebury, beneath the east window; sixty-four of the men and boys are buried there.

Nothing of the colliery itself; the memorial at St Augustine's survives.

Nearby mines

• Pendlebury Colliery — 0.0 km S
• Agecroft Colliery — 1.1 km SE
• Wet Earth Colliery — 3.5 km NW
• Pendleton Colliery — 3.6 km SE
• Worsley Navigable Levels — 4.9 km W, Lancashire

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

Disasters & major incidents

• Clifton Hall Colliery explosion
  18 June 1885 · Explosion · 178 fatalities
  Firedamp that had gathered in the void above a collapsing goaf reached the working places at the far end of number 2 East and was lit by a candle. The blast ran through almost the whole Trencherbone seam, and 177 or 178 men and boys died — by burns, by injury, or by the afterdamp that followed.

Recorded claims

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

• The Trencherbone was worked by candle. Firemen tested and marked the workings before the day shift, the men went in with safety lamps, and after a second round the firemen lit the men's candles, after which naked lights and smoking were permitted. The men bought their own lamps, candles and lamp oil from the company. Three patterns of lamp were in use, Davy, Clanny and Bainbridge; the certified manager had experience only of the first two and admitted knowing that safer and brighter lamps existed. The mining engineer John Higson told the inquiry the Davy was 'by no means a safe lamp', igniting an explosive atmosphere in a current of six feet per second where a Mueseler was safe to fifty, and said flatly that he did not think it safe to work the Trencherbone with naked lights. ¹
• Retreat working left a goaf up to 1,200 yards across east and west of the central roads, packed only partly with waste and pack walls and left to subside. Over one unsupported span of six hundred yards by four hundred the weak white metal roof bridged and then broke away from the stronger Trencherbone rock above it, and firedamp collected in the void where the firemen's tests could not reach it. ¹
• The Durham Mining Museum records the colliery under John Knowles, then Andrew Knowles and Sons, then Manchester Collieries Ltd, working the Trencherbone throughout and adding the Doe and Victoria seams by 1915. Employment rose from 617 in 1894 to 1,084 by 1923, of whom 728 worked below ground. ²
• On the traditional account the men struck over underground safety in 1869, Andrew Knowles and Sons refused to concede, and after some weeks miners were brought in from the Black Country and given the houses the strikers had lived in — 'Bilston scabs', after whom the district was known for many years as Little Bilston. (disputed) ¹
• Cutler's 2018 reading of the newspapers puts the dispute earlier and differently: discontent in 1866 over the banning of a trade union, and the Wigan Observer reporting locked-out miners evicted that year and replaced by two hundred men brought from Cornwall and three hundred from Staffordshire, with about twice as many again arriving at their own expense. By 1885 every man killed in the explosion had a local address. (disputed) ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Clifton Hall Colliery — Wikipedia
2. (secondary) Clifton Hall Colliery — Durham Mining Museum

Record created: 10 September 2026 · Last researched: 10 September 2026