Lochgelly Colliery

Overview

Coal was being drawn at Lochgelly by the 1770s, fifteen people raising ten tons a day for Sir Gilbert Elliot. By the 1900s the Lochgelly Iron and Coal Company had a thousand on the books, the Mary and Nelly pits at work, and blaes coming up with the coal.

History

The Lochgelly coalfield was worked long before it was a colliery in any modern sense. Around 1777 some fifteen people were employed there under Sir Gilbert Elliot, raising about ten tons a day; a gin or windlass was introduced in one of the early pits about 1808, and around thirteen miners were thought to be working a single pit at the turn of the century. Lord Minto leased the coalfield to Chisholm and Brown in 1812, and a steam engine came to the colliery in 1814. By 1836, under John Henderson, about fifty people were employed and the daily output was around thirty-five tons, from the Lochgelly Splint and the Great or Jersey coal.

The 1841 return names Henry Chisholm as manager and a workforce of 119 — ninety-four men and twenty-five women. The Lochgelly Iron Company held it from 1851, and the Lochgelly Iron and Coal Company from 1872, under whom the colliery reached its modern size: 712 employed in 1894, 976 by 1900 and 1,002 by 1920, working the Dunfermline Splint, Five Feet, Mynheer, Parrot, Glassee, Fourteen Feet and Lochgelly Splint seams and raising gas, household, manufacturing and steam coal. The company's Mary and Nelly pits are the ones the official lists name.

Geology

The Fife Coal Measures, worked here through a long list of seams — the Dunfermline and Lochgelly Splints, the Five Feet and Fourteen Feet, the Mynheer, Parrot and Glassee, and the Great or Jersey coal of the earliest workings. The 1915 return records blaes, the Scots word for the shale that comes up with the coal, among the colliery's output.

Workings

The official lists name the Mary Pit and the Nelly Pit. The workings around Lochgelly are far older and far more numerous than either: local research lists dozens of pits and mines in and around the town, from Lochgelly Nos. 1 to 19 through Jenny Gray, Nellie, Cartmore, Foulford and Minto. A gin was introduced in one of the early pits about 1808 and a steam engine in 1814.

Closure

The closure date is not known for the colliery as the official lists define it. The returns run to 1940, when 325 were employed.

What remains

Nothing is recorded of the site as it now stands. Lochgelly itself remains a former mining town in central Fife, its pits long gone.

No surface remains have been recorded.

Disasters & major incidents

• Lochgelly Colliery roof fall, 1894
  13 June 1894 · Collapse / Roof Fall · 2 fatalities
  Two repairers retimbering a haulage road at Lochgelly on the colliers' idle day, 13 June 1894, were killed by a roof fall that went unnoticed for six hours.
• Lochgelly Colliery haulage accident, 1910
  14 January 1910 · Haulage / Transport · 2 fatalities

  A runaway hutch caught two wheelers travelling up a brae in the Nellie Pit of the Lochgelly Iron and Coal Company on 14 January 1910, fatally injuring both.

  On 14 January 1910 two wheelers in the Nellie Pit at Lochgelly, owned by the Lochgelly Iron and Coal Company, were travelling up a brae, a steep haulage road, when a runaway hutch came down it and caught them. David Leslie, 26, and Michael O'Hara, 18, were fatally injured.

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 'Lochgelly' (catalogue 3188, Five Feet, dated 1894); 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) ³

Recorded claims

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

• Around 1777, under Sir Gilbert Elliot, about fifteen people were employed at Lochgelly raising roughly ten tons a day. A gin or windlass was introduced in one of the early pits about 1808, and around thirteen miners are believed to have been working a single pit at the turn of the century. ¹
• Lord Minto agreed to lease the Lochgelly coalfield to Chisholm and Brown in 1812, and a steam engine was introduced to the colliery's work in 1814. By 1836, under John Henderson, about fifty people were employed for a daily output of around thirty-five tons from the Lochgelly Splint and the Great or Jersey coal. ¹
• The 1841 return for Lochgelly names Henry Chisholm as manager and gives a workforce of 119 — ninety-four men and twenty-five women — the year before the Mines and Collieries Act began to put women and girls out of British pits. ¹
• The Durham Mining Museum's transcription of the official Lists of Mines returns Lochgelly Colliery under the Lochgelly Iron and Coal Company with the Mary and Nelly pits, employment of 712 in 1894 rising to 1,002 in 1920, and gas, household, manufacturing and steam coal from the Dunfermline Splint, Five Feet, Mynheer, Parrot, Glassee, Fourteen Feet and Lochgelly Splint seams. The 1915 return also records blaes. ²
• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Lochgelly' (catalogue 3188, Five Feet, dated 1894); 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) ³

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Lochgelly Pits and Mines — Fife Pits and Mines
2. (primary) Lochgelly Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
3. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans: LOCHGELLY — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority

Record created: 10 September 2026 · Last researched: 10 September 2026