Laffack Colliery

Overview

A colliery at Laffak, Parr, near St Helens, where the Legh family of Lyme were mining in the 1760s. John and Thomas Johnson owned it from the 1840s; it raised 60,000 tons in 1862 and was still at work in 1875. An explosion in 1849 killed eight, one of a long run of fatal accidents.

History

Laffack, sometimes written 'Laffog' or Laffak, lay among Newlyn and Bodmin Groves at Parr, near St Helens. The Legh family of Lyme were mining there in the 1760s, and the first reference to the colliery is of 1769. In the 1840s it belonged to John and Thomas Johnson, recorded also as J. T. Johnson, as J. and J. Johnson and as Johnson and Co.; it appears in the inspectors' reports of 1850 and 1855, produced 60,000 tons in 1862 and was still working in 1875, but is absent from reports after the 1870s. The shaft went 160 feet to the Rushy Park seam, and the Little Delf was also worked; a tunnel led towards the Garswood mines.

On 23 June 1849 an explosion in a slant where sixty or seventy men were at work killed eight, among them the banksman, struck when the planking was blown off the pit top, and injured nineteen or more. A collier who would not use a safety lamp was blamed. Three were killed by an explosion at the goaf edge in January 1854, two in an overwinding in July 1856, when the owners were summoned for a breach of the rules, and two in May 1857, when gas dammed in a tunnel fired at the fireman's lamp. Many men died singly in roof falls, on the inclines and in the shafts through the 1850s and 1860s. The men struck in 1860 and again in 1863 for a ten per cent rise.

Geology

Lancashire Coal Measures: the Rushy Park and the Little Delf seams.

Workings

A shaft of 160 feet to the Rushy Park (1849), with a new ventilating shaft built by then; slants, inclined planes and engine planes underground; a tunnel towards the Garswood mines.

Closure

Still working in 1875; not in the inspectors' reports after the 1870s.

What remains

Unknown.

Redevelopment

Unknown.

Recorded claims

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

• The Legh family of Lyme were mining at Laffack in the 1760s; the first reference to the colliery is of 1769. ¹
• In the 1840s the colliery belonged to John and Thomas Johnson. ^1,2
• Production was 60,000 tons a year in 1862, and the colliery was still working in 1875. ¹
• An explosion on 23 June 1849 killed eight and injured nineteen; the shaft was then 160 feet deep to the Rushy Park. ³
• On 20 May 1857 gas held back in a tunnel by a stopping fired at the fireman's lamp, killing him and a labourer. ^1,2

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Laffack Colliery — Northern Mine Research Society
2. (primary) Colliery Disaster: Laffack, 20 May 1857 — Durham Mining Museum
3. (secondary) Laffack Colliery Explosion - St. Helens - 1849 — Northern Mine Research Society

Record created: 4 October 2026 · Last researched: 4 October 2026