Edmunds Main Colliery

Overview

Mitchell and Co.'s Barnsley-seam colliery in Worsbrough Dale, where in December 1862 a shot in the roads being driven towards Swaithe Main fired gas and set the coal alight; three explosions killed some fifty-four to fifty-nine men and boys, and the pit was flooded for most of a year to put the fire out. Its Barnsley seam was abandoned in 1881.

History

Edmunds Main Colliery stood in Worsbrough Dale, two miles south-east of Barnsley. It was opened in 1853, the owners being recorded as Bartholomew and Co. from 1855 to 1860, and in 1862 it belonged to Messrs Mitchell and Co. of Barnsley, a partnership of Joseph Mitchell senior, Charles Bartholomew and John Tyas with Mitchell as managing director. It worked the nine-foot Barnsley seam from three shafts: two downcasts close together, No. 1 eight feet across and No. 2 ten and a half, both 106 yards deep, which drew the coal and pumped the water, and No. 3, 200 yards away, nine feet across and 104 yards deep, the upcast, with two large furnaces at its foot and a tall chimney over it. The workings ran a mile to the north, where the seam rose, and by 1862 that upbrow ground was worked out and the coal was coming from the dip to the south.

The partners' new deep pit, Swaithe Main, lay a mile away, and the plan was to join the two underground by a pair of parallel roads driven down the dip, the bordgates, eight feet wide with eight feet of coal between them, three-quarters of a mile long and ventilated by brattice and by slits cut between them every twenty yards. The men driving them were paid five shillings a yard for blasting and offered six for wedging with a sovereign to share for fifty yards in a fortnight; they could not earn their money wedging and kept on with gunpowder.

On 8 December 1862 a shot at the dip end opened a blower of gas, which took fire. Men fought the flames and tried to rebuild the stopping while some 240 were still at work; at about 11.30 an explosion was heard at the surface, a second followed, and a little after one o'clock a third killed the rescue party with the under-steward George Lawton. Between fifty-four and fifty-nine men and boys died, the worst Yorkshire loss in thirteen years. On the inspector's advice the downcast shafts were capped the next day and the pit flooded to put out the fire, over the protests of the men who wanted the bodies out; most of them stayed underground until November 1863. The inquest verdict left the community sure the full story had not been told, and the relief fund reached only about £800.

The colliery was reopened after the engineers J. T. Woodhouse of Derby and John Brown of Barnsley had advised on a safe way of doing it. Mitchell and Co. held it until 1877 and the Edmunds Main Company from 1878; in 1880 the company also held Swaithe Main. A plan of its Barnsley seam workings records abandonment in 1881, and the colliery is recorded as closing in 1889.

Geology

The nine-foot Barnsley seam of the South Yorkshire Coal Measures, rising to the north and dipping to the south of the shafts; the dip roads gave off gas from blowers when blasted.

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

Workings

Three shafts: No. 1 (8 feet) and No. 2 (10 feet 6 inches) downcasts, 106 yards deep, drawing coal and pumping; No. 3 upcast (9 feet, 104 yards) 200 yards off with two furnaces and a cupola. Workings a mile to the north, worked out by 1862; two parallel dip bordgates three-quarters of a mile long driven south towards Swaithe Main, with branches at the first halfway, the second halfway and the Swaithe level.

Closure

The Barnsley seam workings were abandoned in 1881 and the colliery is recorded as closing in 1889, its last owners the Edmunds Main Company.

What remains

Unknown.

Related mines

• Swaithe Main Colliery — The adjoining colliery of the same owners, connected by an inclined plane; 70-80 men escaped through it in 1875.

Disasters & major incidents

• Edmunds Main Colliery explosion, 1862
  8 December 1862 · Explosion · 54 fatalities
  On 8 December 1862 a shot fired at Edmunds Main Colliery, Worsbrough Dale, lit gas and set the coal on fire, and the explosions that followed killed between 54 and 59 men and boys. The pit had to be flooded, the bodies stayed underground until October 1863, and the families won the first compensation paid in England for an underground explosion.
• Swaithe Main Colliery explosion, 1875
  6 December 1875 · Explosion · 143 fatalities
  At about 9.40 a.m. on 6 December 1875 firedamp exploded in the Barnsley seam at Swaithe Main Colliery, near Barnsley, killing 143 men and boys. Seventy to eighty escaped through the connected Edmunds Main shaft. The jury could not say how the gas was fired but found the rules had not been kept and gunpowder recklessly used.

Recorded claims

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

• In 1862 the colliery belonged to Messrs Mitchell and Co. of Barnsley, the partnership of Mitchell senior, Bartholomew and Tyas, with Mitchell as managing director of it and of Swaithe Main. ¹
• Nos. 1 and 2 downcast shafts were 106 yards deep and the No. 3 upcast, 200 yards away, 104 yards, with two furnaces at its foot. ¹
• Two parallel dip roads were being driven three-quarters of a mile towards Swaithe Main, with a bonus offered for fifty yards in a fortnight. ¹
• On 8 December 1862 a shot fired gas in the dip workings and three explosions followed, killing between fifty-four and fifty-nine men and boys. ^1,2
• The downcast shafts were capped on 9 December 1862 and the pit flooded to put out the fire; most of the bodies stayed underground until November 1863. ¹
• In 1880 the colliery was returned under the Edmunds Main Co., which also held Swaithe Main. ³
• The Barnsley seam workings of Edmunds Main were abandoned in 1881. ⁴
• The colliery opened in 1853. ⁵
• The owners are recorded as Bartholomew and Co. in 1855-60, Mitchell and Co. in 1861-77 and the Edmunds Main Co. from 1878. ⁵
• The colliery closed in 1889. ⁵

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Edmunds Main Colliery Explosion - Barnsley - 1862 — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (primary) Edmunds Main Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (secondary) List of coal mines UK 1880 — Coalmining History Resource Centre
4. (primary) Mine plan: EDMUNDS MAIN, Barnsley seam, abandoned 1881 (feature 21892041) — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans catalogue
5. (secondary) Edmunds Main Colliery, Barnsley, South Yorkshire — Mindat

Record created: 3 October 2026 · Last researched: 3 October 2026