Gillers Green Colliery

Overview

A colliery on Burrows Lane at Gillers Green, Eccleston, near St Helens, sunk from 1873 and owned in 1875 by the Gillers Green Colliery Company, which closed in 1883 on ground worked for coal since the 1750s.

History

The colliery stood on Burrows Lane, opposite Gillers Lane, in Eccleston. Coal had been worked in the area between 1753 and 1765 by the local squire, B. T. Eccleston, and another colliery, with links to the railways, is recorded there in the 1840s and 1850s. The inspectors' reports for 1873 show a new colliery being sunk at the site, and in 1875 it belonged to the Gillers Green Colliery Company.

The sinking cost lives. In February 1875 John Brophy, a collier of 23, was being drawn up the shaft with his brother when the cage was checked twenty yards from the top and knocked against the side; he was thrown out, fell 45 yards and died half an hour later. That summer the engineman Thomas Bibby, 22, of Prescot, lowered at ten at night to oil the engine at the bottom, was found the next morning drowned in the sinking pit, then 22 yards deep, with the engine still working. In November a sinker, James MacDonald, 27, was killed and another man hurt when water spilt as buckets were being drawn up the pit.

By 1877 the colliery was working the Main Delf mine, where a man carrying a candle wandered past the fence put round some firedamp and was burnt when it fired. John Cross was its manager in 1878. It closed in 1883. The Eccleston Hall Colliery opened in the 1890s may have been the old Gillers Green pit reopened.

Geology

The Main Delf seam.

Workings

A shaft sunk from 1873, 22 yards deep in 1875 while sinking; the Main Delf mine was being worked by 1877.

Related mines

• Eccleston Hall Colliery — NMRS suggests that the Eccleston Hall Colliery opened in the 1890s may have been a reopening of the Gillers Green Colliery, closed in 1883.

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 engineman Thomas Bibby, 22, was found drowned at the bottom of the sinking pit on 15 July 1875. (disputed) ¹
• Thomas Bibby was found drowned at the bottom of the sinking pit on 15 June 1875. (disputed) ²
• The Eccleston Hall Colliery opened in the 1890s may have been a reopening of the old Gillers Green Colliery. (uncertain) ³

Recorded claims

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

• A colliery was being sunk at Gillers Green in 1873, and it closed in 1883. ¹
• In 1875 the colliery belonged to the Gillers Green Colliery Company. ^1,2
• John Brophy, 23, a collier, was killed in February 1875 when he was thrown from the cage and fell 45 yards down the shaft. ¹
• The engineman Thomas Bibby, 22, was found drowned at the bottom of the sinking pit on 15 July 1875. (disputed) ¹
• Thomas Bibby was found drowned at the bottom of the sinking pit on 15 June 1875. (disputed) ²
• In 1877 the colliery was working the Main Delf mine. ¹
• The Eccleston Hall Colliery opened in the 1890s may have been a reopening of the old Gillers Green Colliery. (uncertain) ³

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Gillers Green Colliery — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (secondary) Mining deaths 1870-1879, surnames B part 3 (Ian Winstanley) — Healey Hero (Ian Winstanley's mining deaths lists)
3. (secondary) Eccleston Hall Colliery ????-1910 — Northern Mine Research Society

Record created: 25 October 2026 · Last researched: 2 November 2026