Glencraig Colliery

Overview

Glencraig Colliery, sunk in the Benarty area of Fife between Crosshill and Lochgelly in the mid-1890s, grew into a substantial pit employing hundreds of men — but it is remembered today at least as much for two very different tragedies: a firedamp explosion that killed four men in 1902, and a fatal haulage accident in 1933 whose court case still shapes UK employment law.

History

Wilsons & Clyde Coal Co Ltd developed the Glencraig estate from the mid-1890s, sinking two pits together and working them on a double-shift system; by 1902 around 600 men were employed there. The mine was begun under general manager W. H. Telfer, of Overtown, Lanarkshire, and was later linked underground with the neighbouring Mary (Lochore) and Nellie collieries. Pithead baths for 1,300 men opened at Glencraig on 6 October 1941. The colliery passed to the National Coal Board on nationalisation in 1947 and closed in 1966.

The case that keeps the pit's name alive began on the Mine Jigger Brae, a main haulage road, where a repairer named English was crushed by a rake of hutches when the haulage was started as he made for the pit bottom in 1933. The company pleaded his own negligence; the House of Lords, on 19 July 1937, held unanimously that an employer's duty to provide a safe system of work cannot be delegated, a ruling that still shapes employment law. Historic Environment Scotland's national record places the colliery at NT 1812 9557 in Ballingry parish.

Geology

Coal of the Fife field; the seams worked are not recorded.

Workings

Two pits sunk together in the mid-1890s and worked on a double-shift system.

Closure

Passed to the National Coal Board at nationalisation in 1947 and closed in 1966.

What remains

Little survives at the site itself; Glencraig continues chiefly as a small former mining village, its population much reduced since the coal industry's decline in the 1970s and 80s. Two memorial notice boards stand in the village, one to the colliery and one to the village itself.

Related mines

• Woodside Colliery — Collieries of the Wilsons and Clyde Coal Company.

Disasters & major incidents

• Glencraig Colliery explosion, 1902
  3 April 1902 · Explosion · 4 fatalities
  A firedamp explosion followed by afterdamp killed four men working in two parallel underground roadways at Glencraig Colliery on 3 April 1902 — one of three serious multi-fatality accidents in Fife within little more than a year.
• Glencraig Colliery Haulage Accident 1933
  1933 · Haulage / Transport · 1 fatality
  A Glencraig repairer named English was crushed to death by a rake of haulage hutches in 1933 while trying to escape unexpectedly restarted machinery — an accident whose 1937 House of Lords ruling, Wilsons & Clyde Coal Co Ltd v English, established the employer's non-delegable duty to provide a safe system of work, still a foundational principle of UK employers'-liability law.

Recorded claims

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

• Wilsons & Clyde Coal Co Ltd developed Glencraig Colliery from the mid-1890s, sinking two pits together and working them on a double-shift system, employing around 600 men by 1902. ¹
• Pithead baths for 1,300 men opened at Glencraig Colliery on 6 October 1941. ²
• Glencraig's two pits were sunk together and worked on a double-shift system from the mid-1890s. ¹
• The mine was begun under general manager W. H. Telfer, of Overtown, Lanarkshire, and was later linked underground with the neighbouring Mary (Lochore) and Nellie collieries. ¹
• Two memorial notice boards stand in the village today, one dedicated to the colliery and one to the village itself. ³
• The National Record of the Historic Environment places Glencraig Colliery at NT 1812 9557 (56.14577, -3.31941), in Ballingry parish, Fife, site number NT19NE 59. ⁴
• Mr English, employed at the colliery from 27 March 1933, was repairing an airway off the Mine Jigger Brae, a main haulage road, when between 1.30 and 2 p.m. the haulage was set in motion as he made for the pit bottom; he tried to escape into a manhole but was caught by a rake of hutches and crushed against the side of the road. The company argued his own negligence, but on 19 July 1937 the House of Lords held unanimously that an employer has a non-delegable duty to provide a safe system of work, Lord Thankerton ruling that a workman does not, by contracting to work, hold his master immune from want of due care in providing a reasonably safe system. ⁵

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (primary) "Colliery Accident in Fife – Four Men Killed" (The Scotsman, 4 April 1902), in Mining Accidents & Strikes — Benarty Heritage Preservation Group / The Scotsman
2. (secondary) Glencraig — Pithead Baths — The Twentieth Century Society
3. (observational) The Lost Village of Glencraig — Benarty Heritage Preservation Group
4. (primary) Glencraig Colliery (National Record of the Historic Environment 131069, via trove.scot) — Historic Environment Scotland
5. (primary) Wilsons & Clyde Coal Co Ltd v English [1937] UKHL 2, [1938] AC 57 — House of Lords

Record created: 27 August 2026 · Last researched: 24 September 2026