Exhall Colliery

Overview

Exhall, at Bedworth north of Coventry, ended thirty-three years without a serious disaster in the Warwickshire coalfield when a man oiling the haulage wheels at the pit top set his paraffin torch down on a beam and it fell into the wheel race. The headgear caught, smoke went down the shaft, and fourteen of the 375 men below died of carbon monoxide. The rest got out because one foreman remembered his instructions and shut the separation doors.

History

The colliery is returned to the Mines Inspectors from 1894 under the Exhall Coal Company, then E. Wilson, his executors, Exhall Colliery Ltd and Exhall Colliery and Brickworks Ltd. It grew steadily through the period: 499 people in 1894, 517 in 1900, 855 in 1905, 985 in 1910, 1,123 in 1915, 1,264 in 1923 and a peak of 1,350 in 1933, working the Ell, Rider or Ryder, Slate and Two Yard seams for household, manufacturing and steam coal. By 1947 it was down to 130. In the early hours of Tuesday 21 September 1915 the headgear of the downcast shaft caught fire (see Disasters, below). The colliery manager, C. F. Jackson, reached the pit head fifteen minutes after the outbreak and at once ordered the ventilation fan stopped; the foreman underground closed the separation doors and short-circuited the air, keeping smoke in any volume out of the workings. Of the 375 men below, 361 came up, many of them walking two miles underground to the emergency shaft at Black Bank. Fourteen died. A young lad, Bert Pearson, was found alive beneath three dead miners: he had fallen unconscious under their weight, which kept him below the fumes, and woke trapped, to be heard calling by rescuers recovering a body. A memorial to the fourteen was unveiled in St Giles' Meadow, Exhall, by the High Sheriff of Warwickshire on 20 September 2015, a hundred years and a day after the fire.

Geology

Exhall worked the Warwickshire coalfield on the Bedworth side, through seams the returns name as the Ell, the Rider or Ryder, the Slate and the Two Yard. The colliery had a brickworks attached by the time of its last recorded owner.

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

Workings

A downcast shaft with the headgear that burned in 1915, and an upcast half a mile away at Black Bank that served as the emergency shaft that night — far enough that some of the men walked two miles underground to reach it. Haulage wheels sat just below pit bank level at the top of the downcast and had to be oiled during the meal break. The ventilation fan stood half a mile from the shaft, which is why the fire took hold before it could be stopped. Shaft depths have not been found in the sources read for this record.

Closure

No closure date has been established. The colliery was still returning 130 people at nationalisation in 1947.

What remains

No account of the colliery site as it stands today has been found in the sources read for this record, and nothing is claimed here about what survives. A memorial to the fourteen men killed in 1915 stands in St Giles' Meadow, Exhall.

Related mines

• Griff Colliery — Both in the Warwickshire coalfield between Bedworth and Nuneaton.
• Newdigate Colliery — Neighbouring Warwickshire coalfield pits at Bedworth.
• Wyken Colliery — Neighbouring Warwickshire pits north-east of Coventry, working the same four seams — the Ell, Rider, Slate and Two Yard.

Nearby mines

• Newdigate Colliery — 2.2 km NW
• Wyken Colliery — 2.8 km S, West Midlands
• Griff Colliery — 2.9 km N
• Coventry Colliery — 5.4 km W
• Haunchwood Colliery — 6.2 km N

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

Disasters & major incidents

• Exhall Colliery fire
  21 September 1915 · Fire · 14 fatalities
  An oiler at Exhall set his paraffin torch down on a beam beside the haulage wheels at the top of the downcast shaft, and it fell five feet into the wheel race. The headgear caught fire, dense smoke went down the shaft, and fourteen of the 375 men in the workings died of carbon monoxide. The other 361 came up, many of them walking two miles underground to the emergency shaft, because one foreman remembered his fire instructions and shut the separation doors.

Recorded claims

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

• Our Warwickshire records that the Warwickshire coalfield had been free from serious disaster for thirty-three years before the Exhall fire of 1915. ¹
• The colliery manager ordered the ventilation fan stopped within fifteen minutes of the outbreak, and the foreman underground, remembering his instructions for a fire, closed the separation doors and short-circuited the air. The manager credited that prompt action with the rescue of the great number. ¹

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) The Exhall Colliery Disaster — Our Warwickshire
2. (secondary) Exhall Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (secondary) Exhall Colliery, 21 September 1915 — Durham Mining Museum

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