Tonge Colliery

Overview

The Scowcroft family's pit at Tonge, on the north-east side of Bolton, worked from 1854 to 1930 in the Bancroft, Five Quarters and Trencherbone seams. It employed between 150 and 250 through its later decades under T. and H. T. Scowcroft, and its ten recorded deaths from 1858 to 1925 trace the ordinary hazards of a small Lancashire colliery: falls of roof and top coal, runaway wagons and a boy burned by gas where he sat to eat his supper.

History

The Durham Mining Museum dates Tonge Colliery to 1854 under Jethro Scowcroft, and its first recorded deaths, from falls of roof and top coal in the Five Quarters mine, come from the inspector Joseph Dickinson's reports of 1858, 1861 and 1863. In December 1869 a wagoner of seventeen, James Shipperbottom, was burned by an explosion of firedamp when he went into a side place to eat his supper where a little gas had gathered unseen. The Victoria County History of 1911 noted of Tonge with Haulgh that a colliery was worked and bricks had formerly been made. Under T. and H. T. Scowcroft the Lists of Mines return 153 employed in 1896, 160 in 1905, 250 in 1910 and 223 in 1923, raising household and manufacturing coal from the Bancroft and Five Quarters seams, with the Trencherbone added by 1915. The inspector John Gerrard's reports of 1902 and 1905 record colliers killed drawing props without a gablock and chain and working under bottom coal left up for twelve feet from the face. A haulage hand of eighteen was found dead under the hauling drum in October 1925. The museum closes the colliery in 1930.

Geology

Lancashire coalfield, Middle Coal Measures of the Bolton district: the Bancroft, Five Quarters and Trencherbone seams are returned in the Lists of Mines.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (historical documentary reference)

Workings

Shaft colliery with a main engine brow and jig roads. Employment from the Lists of Mines: 153 in 1896, 156 in 1900, 160 in 1905, 250 in 1910, 191 in 1915, 223 in 1923. Depths are not recorded.

Closure

Closed in 1930; the reason is not recorded.

What remains

The site lies in the built-up Tonge Moor district of Bolton beside Bradshaw Brook; nothing of the colliery is reported to survive.

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 'Tonge' (catalogue NW263, Bent New (Top Neddy) Neddy, dated 1857); 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.

• Opened in 1854 and closed in 1930. ¹
• Jethro Scowcroft, then T. and H. T. Scowcroft. ¹
• 153 employed in 1896, 250 in 1910 and 223 in 1923. ¹
• Bancroft and Five Quarters throughout, with the Trencherbone by 1915. ¹
• A winding engine, works numbers 996/7, was built in 1901 for T. and H. T. Scowcroft of Tonge Colliery; the colliery closed in 1930 and was formally abandoned in 1932. ²
• The BGS mine-plans catalogue holds a Mining Remediation Authority abandonment plan titled 'Tonge' (catalogue NW263, Bent New (Top Neddy) Neddy, dated 1857); 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. (primary) Tonge Colliery — Durham Mining Museum — Durham Mining Museum
2. (secondary) Newtown Colliery (1872-1961) — Northern Mine Research Society (Internet Archive copy) — Northern Mine Research Society
3. (primary) BGS / Mining Remediation Authority mine plans: TONGE — British Geological Survey / Mining Remediation Authority
4. (secondary) List of collieries in Lancashire since 1854 — Wikipedia
5. (secondary) Tonge with Haulgh — A History of the County of Lancaster, vol. 5 (1911) — British History Online
6. (secondary) Tonge, Bolton — Wikipedia — Wikipedia

Record created: 12 September 2026 · Last researched: 12 September 2026