Earnock Colliery

Overview

Earnock, at Hamilton, was John Watson's colliery and one of the largest in Lanarkshire, working seven named seams and employing more than sixteen hundred people by 1920. On 9 August 1881 twenty-one Swan incandescent lamps were lit 118 fathoms down at its pit bottom, in its roads and at the coal face itself, fed by cable from a dynamo on the surface. It is reported as the first colliery in Scotland to be lit by electricity.

History

Earnock lies on the south-west side of Hamilton, taking its name from the estate and Earnock House. It was worked by John Watson, later John Watson Ltd, and was returned to the Mines Inspectors from at least 1894, when it employed 973 people. It grew steadily through the next quarter-century: 1,080 in 1905, 1,268 in 1910, 1,450 in 1915 and 1,622 in 1920, a figure unchanged in the 1923 return. It sent out gas, household, manufacturing and steam coal together, which few Lanarkshire pits did.

Its claim on the record is the electric light. On 9 August 1881 the colliery was lit electrically, the workings in question lying 118 fathoms — 708 feet — below the surface. Twenty-one lamps of Swan's incandescent pattern were placed at the pit bottom, along the roads and at the face where men were actually working. The current came from a dynamo-electric machine at the surface, driven by a twelve horsepower engine kept for the purpose, and went down the shaft on two cables. The Colliery Guardian wrote the installation up that year.

John Watson's name is on Hamilton as well as on the pit. A fountain in the angle of Muir Street and Cadzow Street carries the inscription 'Presented to the town of Hamilton by John Watson of Earnock 1893'; it was designed by the Hamilton architect Gavin Paterson with sculpture by Killock Brown of Glasgow.

When the Udston pit next door blew up on 28 May 1887, killing seventy-three, Earnock's manager James Gilchrist was among the first men at the shaft head, and the repairs that let the cage down to the splint coal bottom were carried out under his direction by, among others, Earnock's own oversman M'Bride and its roadsman Daniel M'Phail. M'Phail went down with the first party and found a survivor, James Rankin, climbing the shaft mid-way by hand.

The Lanarkshire newspapers carry a steady run of single deaths here through the 1900s and 1910s — William Paterson, a fireman, killed by a fall in No. 1 pit in February 1903; Henry M'Guigan in 1908; David Archibald, buried while drawing out wooden stoops in No. 1 pit in October 1911; William Ferguson in January 1913. In June 1914 the roadsman James Kennedy crawled under a fall of coal to free a trapped workman named M'Killop while Andrew Nicol and William Houldsworth held the man ready to pull him clear; a second fall drove all three back, and M'Killop was dead when he was got out three hours later. Kennedy was awarded the Edward Medal of the Second Class by the King, and the Carnegie Hero Fund Trustees gave him a certificate and £30, with certificates and £15 each to Nicol and Houldsworth.

Employment fell away between the wars, to 875 in 1933 and 650 in 1940. The colliery is depicted on the second-edition Ordnance Survey sheet of 1936 and has since been demolished.

Geology

Earnock worked the Scottish Coal Measures of the Lanarkshire coalfield south-west of Hamilton, in a parish whose rocks Groome's gazetteer describes as extensively Carboniferous, with limestone raised at Earnockmuir and Boghead and ironstone at Boghead and Quarter. The seams returned from this colliery were the Blackband, Ell, Humph, Main, Pyotshaw and Splint, with the Kiltongue added from 1915.

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

Workings

At least three pits, recorded by Historic Environment Scotland as Pits Nos. 1 to 3, No. 1 being the one that appears repeatedly in the accident reports. The workings lit electrically in 1881 were 118 fathoms below the surface, and the current reached them by two cables carried down the shaft from a surface dynamo driven by a twelve horsepower engine kept for the purpose. Shaft depths as such are not recorded.

Closure

The date the colliery stopped work is not known. It was still returning 650 people in 1940 and is depicted on the 1936 Ordnance Survey; Historic Environment Scotland records only that it has since been demolished.

What remains

Demolished. Historic Environment Scotland's account, from a 2001 survey, says only that the colliery shown on the 1936 map has since gone. Nothing is recorded of the ground as it stands today.

Demolished since the 1936 Ordnance Survey; nothing is recorded of the ground today.

Related mines

• Blantyre Colliery — Neighbours in the same Hamilton and Blantyre coalfield, and Blantyre men worked at Earnock.
• Farme Colliery — Lanarkshire pits on the same coalfield, both worked on into the twentieth century.
• Udston Colliery — Adjoining collieries: Udston marched with Earnock on its north side, and Earnock sent its manager, oversman and roadsman to the 1887 explosion.

Disasters & major incidents

• Earnock Colliery roof fall, 1895
  22 October 1895 · Collapse / Roof Fall · 2 fatalities

  Two miners, Abraham McManus and Charles Rae, were killed by a fall of stone at Earnock Colliery, Hamilton, on 22 October 1895.

  On the afternoon of 22 October 1895 a fall of stone at Earnock Colliery, on the south-west side of Hamilton, killed two miners, Abraham McManus, 21, and Charles Rae, 27.

What's uncertain

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

• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Earnock' (catalogue 13228, Ell, dated 1942); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain) ⁵

Recorded claims

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

• On 9 August 1881 twenty-one Swan incandescent lamps were lit at the pit bottom, in the roads and at the working face of Earnock Colliery, 118 fathoms down, the current coming from a surface dynamo driven by a dedicated twelve horsepower engine and carried down the shaft on two cables. It is reported as the first colliery in Scotland, and the second in Britain, to be lit electrically. ^1,2
• The fountain at the angle of Muir Street and Cadzow Street in Hamilton is inscribed 'Presented to the town of Hamilton by John Watson of Earnock 1893', and its listed building report names Gavin Paterson of Hamilton as architect and Killock Brown of Glasgow as sculptor. ³
• James Kennedy, a roadsman at Earnock, crawled under a fall of coal on 2 June 1914 to free a trapped workman named M'Killop, helped by the repairers Andrew Nicol and William Houldsworth. A second fall forced them back and M'Killop was dead when recovered three hours later. Kennedy received the Edward Medal Second Class and £30 from the Carnegie Hero Fund Trustees; Nicol and Houldsworth received £15 each. ⁴
• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Earnock' (catalogue 13228, Ell, dated 1942); the catalogue gives no location and the plan's details do not clearly tie it to this working, so it may belong to another of the same name. (uncertain) ⁵

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) Earnock Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
2. (primary) Hamilton, Earnock Colliery — Historic Environment Scotland
3. (observational) The Watson Fountain, Hamilton (Geograph 2345606) — Geograph Britain and Ireland, Lairich Rig
4. (secondary) Hamilton Parish Accidents 1900-1914 — Scottish Mining Website
5. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans: EARNOCK — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority
6. (secondary) Hamilton Parish — Scottish Mining Website, after Groome's Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1885)
7. (secondary) The Udston Colliery Disaster — Scottish Mining Website

Record created: 11 September 2026 · Last researched: 11 September 2026