Hostingley Colliery

Overview

One of the Thornhill pits of Edward Theodore Ingham of Blake Hall, Mirfield, still returned as at work in 1880 and closed in that year. Its owner's family had employed Anne Brontë as a governess; his best-known pit, Combs, killed 139 men and boys in 1893.

History

Hostingley lies on Hostingley Lane in Thornhill, on the high ground south of the River Calder between Dewsbury and Middlestown, in a stretch of the West Yorkshire coalfield thick with small and medium pits. The official return of collieries at work in 1880 carries it as 'Hostingley (Thornhill), Dewsbury, E. T. Ingham', and it closed in that same year.

Edward Theodore Ingham was a member of the local gentry, living at Blake Hall in Mirfield, and Hostingley was one of several pits he owned in the Thornhill area. Ings Colliery, on land adjoining Combs, closed three years later in 1883; Combs itself had been first sunk by his father Joshua Ingham and was said to have been set out on the very best principles, regardless of cost. Edward later sank Ingham No. 1 and Ingham No. 2 collieries in Thornhill. The family also owned York Textile Mills and confectionery warehouses in Mirfield.

Two things attach to the family rather than to this pit, and are recorded here for that reason. Joshua Ingham had engaged Anne Brontë as governess to Edward's older siblings, and she later wrote a thinly disguised and unflattering account of her time at Blake Hall in Agnes Grey. And on 4 July 1893, thirteen years after Hostingley closed, an explosion at Combs killed 139 men and boys — the worst disaster in the Dewsbury coalfield.

Geology

The pit worked the Coal Measures of the West Yorkshire coalfield south of the Calder around Thornhill. The seams named in the neighbouring Ingham pit at Combs, from the top down, are the New Hards, the Wheatley at some 380 yards, and the Blocking Bed twenty-five yards below that; what Hostingley itself took is not established.

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

Workings

Nothing of the layout is recorded. The pits of this group were connected underground where they adjoined — at Combs the ventilation ran through tunnels communicating with the worked-out Ings Colliery next door — but no such connection is recorded for Hostingley.

Closure

The colliery closed in 1880, the same year in which the official return still shows it at work.

What remains

Nothing is recorded of what survives on the site. Hostingley Lane and Hostingley Farm keep the name; a disused railway embankment runs off the lane.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Related mines

• Combs Colliery — Both were Edward Theodore Ingham's pits around Thornhill; Hostingley closed in 1880 and Combs went on to be the best known of the group.

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 'Hostingley' (catalogue GCR107, Flockton Thin (Or Mill Bank Bed), dated 1873); 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) ⁴

Recorded claims

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

• The official return of collieries at work in 1880 gives 'Hostingley (Thornhill), Dewsbury, E. T. Ingham'; Hostingley had closed in 1880. ^1,2
• Hostingley was one of several Thornhill pits owned by Edward Theodore Ingham of Blake Hall, Mirfield; Ings closed in 1883, Combs was first sunk by his father Joshua Ingham, and he later sank Ingham No. 1 and No. 2. ²
• Joshua Ingham engaged Anne Brontë as governess to Edward's older siblings; she later wrote a scarcely disguised and unflattering account of her time with the family in Agnes Grey. ²
• Hostingley, Thornhill, Dewsbury appears in the list of Yorkshire collieries at work in the 1880s. ³
• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Hostingley' (catalogue GCR107, Flockton Thin (Or Mill Bank Bed), dated 1873); 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) ⁴

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) List of coal mines UK 1880 — Coalmining History Resource Centre
2. (secondary) The Combs Colliery Disaster, 4th July 1893 — Kirklees Cousins
3. (secondary) Brief History of Coal Mining in Yorkshire — Kirklees Cousins
4. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans: HOSTINGLEY — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority

Record created: 6 September 2026 · Last researched: 8 September 2026