Newton Colliery, Cambuslang

Overview

A colliery at Newton, Cambuslang, sunk in the early 1850s and worked for half a century by James Dunlop and Co. of the Clyde Iron Works, who housed most of its 700 people in the village. It passed to A. G. Moore and Co. in the 1920s and was still working in 1939.

History

Newton Colliery stood at Newton, in the parish of Cambuslang, six miles east-south-east of Glasgow. The pit was sunk in the early 1850s, and a man was killed there by a falling cage in November 1852. In 1864, when it was in the hands of a Mr Kidston, an explosion of firedamp burned three colliers. By 1873 it belonged to James Dunlop and Co., the ironmasters of the Clyde Iron Works at Tollcross, who also worked the neighbouring Hallside Colliery under the same manager.

The colliery raised manufacturing coal. It employed 488 people in 1894, 659 in 1905 and 671 in 1910, working the Ell, Pyotshaw, Upper and Virgin seams; the county medical officer's housing report of 1910 puts the figure at 732, of whom 604 worked underground. Thomas Arnott managed both Dunlop pits from 1894 to 1905, Samuel Anderson in 1910 and James Johnstone from 1915. By 1920 Newton and Hallside were returned together, with 840 people.

Newton was the company's village. In 1910 the owners had 356 houses there, and 542 of the colliery's people lived in them. The oldest, the eighty houses of Old Rows, most of them single rooms built back to back about 1853, were damp and half empty and were pulled down soon afterwards; the two-storey brick houses of Montgomery Place and Pitt Street and the single-storey rows of Bridge Street, Clyde Street and Dunlop Street dated from about 1888. The colliery had its own band.

Twenty-five deaths are recorded to 1914. Two men died on 11 May 1912 after a fireman and a jobber carried naked lights into a safety-lamp district and fired an accumulation of gas. On 31 March 1919 a roof fall in the Virgin coal killed Hugh M'Ivor, aged 67, weeks after he and his wife had received from the King the Victoria Cross won by their dead son, Private Hugh M'Ivor of the Royal Scots; the miners stopped work for the day.

By January 1929 Newton No. 1 belonged to A. G. Moore and Co., the owners of Blantyreferme, and the workings were electrified. A miner was electrocuted in the Main coal that month, and the village doctor, Anne Mitchell, went down and walked half a mile to try to revive him. She went down again in March 1938, when two men were killed at the coal face by an electric shock. The colliery was still at work in October 1939. One local history has Newton closed by the early 1900s.

Geology

Coal Measures of the Lanarkshire coalfield. The Ell, Pyotshaw, Upper and Virgin seams were in work in 1910 and the Humph, Pyotshaw and Virgin in 1915; the Splint coal was reached by a dook in 1912, and the Main coal was being worked in 1929.

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

Workings

A colliery of two pits, No. 1 and No. 2, about half a mile apart. In 1864 it was ventilated by a furnace standing a few yards from the pit bottom. The Splint coal was worked from a dook, a sloping road driven down from the pit bottom, and that district was a safety-lamp area in 1912 while naked lights were carried elsewhere. Shots were fired with compressed gunpowder in the 1890s and with stowite by 1910. By 1929 the workings were supplied with electricity, and in 1938 coal at the face was being drawn on pans. In 1939 the colliery's workings included an L Section in the Hallside Mine.

Closure

Unknown.

What remains

The bing of the No. 2 pit, north of Newton railway station, was among the last in the district to go; it was removed and the ground levelled for housing at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Redevelopment

Housing covers the ground of the No. 2 pit bing. The miners' rows were demolished in the 1960s and a small group of houses was built on their footprint in the mid-1980s.

Related mines

• Blantyreferme Colliery — Both owned by A. G. Moore and Co. by 1929.
• Hallside Colliery — Both James Dunlop and Co. collieries at Newton, under one manager and returned together in 1920; by 1939 the Hallside Mine was a section of Newton Colliery.
• Smeaton Colliery — Both owned by A. G. Moore and Co., Newton by 1929.

What's uncertain

Points where sources disagree or the record could not be settled; both accounts are kept. All open questions in the archive.

• Newton had closed by the early 1900s. (disputed) ¹

Recorded claims

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

• Newton pit was sunk in the early 1850s. ^1,2
• In 1873 Newton, Cambuslang, was returned under James Dunlop and Co. of Tollcross. ³
• The colliery employed 488 people in 1894, 594 in 1900, 659 in 1905, 671 in 1910 and 550 in 1915. ^4,5
• The Ell, Pyotshaw, Upper and Virgin seams were worked in 1910 and the Humph, Pyotshaw and Virgin in 1915. ⁴
• In 1910 Newton Mine employed 732 people, 604 of them underground; 542 lived in the owners' houses at Newton, which numbered 356 in three groups. ⁶
• The 80 houses of Old Rows, erected about 1853, were damp and half unoccupied in 1910 and were afterwards demolished. ⁶
• An explosion of firedamp at Newton Colliery in May 1864 burned three colliers. ⁷
• On 11 May 1912 a fireman and a jobber took naked lights into a safety-lamp area at the Splint Coal Dook and ignited gas; two men died. ⁴
• On 31 March 1919 Hugh M'Ivor, 67, father of Private Hugh M'Ivor, V.C., was killed by a roof fall in the Virgin coal section of Newton No. 1. ⁸
• In January 1929 Newton No. 1 Colliery was owned by A. G. Moore and Co. (Ltd.). ⁹
• On 11 March 1938 two miners were killed and two injured at Newton Colliery, apparently by an electric shock. ⁹
• In October 1939 a brusher was killed by a fall of rock in the L Section at Hallside Mine, Newton Colliery. ⁹
• Newton had closed by the early 1900s. (disputed) ¹
• The bing at Newton No. 2 pit, north of Newton railway station, was removed and levelled for housing at the beginning of the twenty-first century. ¹
• The miners' cottages at Newton were demolished in the 1960s. ¹⁰

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Cambuslang Industrial History (Colin Findlay, 2013) — Colin Findlay / edwardboyle.com
2. (secondary) Coal! A history of the coal-mining industry in Scotland with special reference to the Cambuslang district (John Anderson, 1943) — John Anderson / edwardboyle.com
3. (secondary) List of Mines in Scotland 1873, part 4 — Scottish Mining Website
4. (primary) Newton Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
5. (primary) James Dunlop and Co., Ltd. — Durham Mining Museum
6. (secondary) Cambuslang: The Housing Condition of Miners, report by the Medical Officer of Health, Dr John T. Wilson, 1910 — Scottish Mining Website
7. (secondary) Accidents 1855-1870 (newspaper reports) — Scottish Mining Website
8. (secondary) Accidents 1915-1925 (newspaper reports) — Scottish Mining Website
9. (secondary) Accidents post-1926 (newspaper reports) — Scottish Mining Website
10. (secondary) Newton, South Lanarkshire — Wikipedia

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