Wellsways Colliery

Overview

Wellsway, between Radstock and Midsomer Norton, worked six named seams of the Somerset coalfield for the Waldegrave estate. On the morning of 5 November 1839 the rope broke as twelve men and boys hung beneath it at the pit top and dropped them 756 feet. The rope was nearly new and looked as though it had been cut. The inquest agreed it had been, by a person or persons unknown, and nobody was ever sought.

History

The colliery is returned to the Mines Inspectors under the trustee of Frances, late Countess of Waldegrave, working six seams at once — the Great, Top Little, Middle, Sliving, Under Little and Bull. It employed 228 people in 1894 and 232 in 1896, 211 and 212 of them below ground, which is a very small surface establishment for a pit of that size. What the colliery is remembered for happened long before those returns. On the morning of 5 November 1839 twelve men and boys were hooked to the top of the shaft, and when their full weight came onto the rope it broke and dropped them 756 feet (see Disasters, below). Only one body was whole enough to be recognised. The rope was nearly new, six months in use and worked with 37 hundredweight, and bore what looked like the marks of a knife or chisel drawn across the fibres. The inquest returned a verdict that it had been cut by a person or persons unknown. A newspaper reporter noticed that sixteen had been wound up the previous night where only ten were normally allowed, which would have meant the dead shift was overmanned by two, but the rumour of malice outlasted the observation. Four thousand people came to the funeral in torrential rain. The proprietors supplied the coffins, each with a velvet pall, the vicar gave the ground free, and funeral bells were rung at Kilmersdon and Radstock as well as Midsomer Norton. A hundred and twenty pallbearers walked, four carrying and six supporting each coffin. The Keevills and the Langfords were buried with their mates in one grave in Midsomer Norton churchyard, under a stone paid for by the masters of the Wellsway Coalworks. The Somerset Miners renewed it in 1965.

Geology

Wellsway worked the Somerset coalfield through six named seams at once: the Great, the Top Little, the Middle, the Sliving, the Under Little and the Bull. These are the local Somerset names, which do not correspond to the seam names used in the larger English coalfields.

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

Workings

A shaft at least 756 feet deep, that being the distance the twelve fell in 1839. Men were hooked to the rope rather than riding a cage, twelve at a time, and the rope in use in 1839 was rated at 37 hundredweight and had been six months in service. The pit's surface establishment was small, seventeen to twenty people against more than two hundred below ground in the 1890s. A former winding house survives nearby.

Closure

No closure date has been established. The colliery's last appearance in the Mines Inspectors' returns read for this record is 1896.

What remains

The memorial to the twelve killed in 1839 stands in St John's churchyard at Midsomer Norton, the original stone having been renewed by the Somerset Miners in 1965. No account of the colliery ground itself as it stands today has been found in the sources read for this record.

The 1839 memorial in St John's churchyard, Midsomer Norton.

Nearby mines

• New Rock Colliery — 1.7 km SW
• Kilmersdon Colliery — 1.9 km N
• Norton Hill Colliery — 2.5 km N
• Old Mills Colliery — 2.9 km N
• Writhlington Colliery — 3.2 km N

Straight-line distance, within 15 km. Show on the map.

Disasters & major incidents

• Wellsway Colliery shaft accident
  5 November 1839 · Winding / Shaft Accident · 12 fatalities
  Twelve men and boys were hooked to the winding rope at the top of Wellsway pit on the morning of 5 November 1839. When their full weight came onto it the rope broke and they fell 756 feet. Only one body was whole enough to be recognised. The rope was nearly new and bore what looked like knife or chisel marks drawn across the fibres, and the inquest found it had been cut by a person or persons unknown.

Recorded claims

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

• The Mines Inspectors' returns for 1894 and 1896 give the colliery working six seams: the Great, Top Little, Middle, Sliving, Under Little and Bull. ¹
• A stone was put up in Midsomer Norton churchyard at the expense of the masters of the Wellsway Coalworks, its inscription recording that the twelve were killed by the snapping of the rope as they were on the point of descending, and that the rope was generally thought to have been maliciously cut. The Somerset Miners renewed the stone in 1965. ^2,3

Photographs & further reading

Sources

1. (secondary) Wellsways Colliery — Durham Mining Museum
2. (secondary) Wellsway Colliery Shaft Accident, Midsomer Norton, 1839 — Northern Mine Research Society, via the Internet Archive
3. (observational) Miners Memorial, Midsomer Norton — Wikimedia Commons, Nigel Shoosmith
4. (secondary) The Wellsway Colliery Catastrophe of 1839 — Midsomer Norton and Radstock Nub News

Record created: 11 September 2026 · Last researched: 11 September 2026