Contraband

Anything forbidden to be taken below ground in a safety-lamp mine because it could make a spark or a flame: matches and lighters above all, and with them cigarettes, cigars, pipes and any other contrivance for smoking.

Historical usage

In a mine worked with locked safety lamps, the whole system of lighting rests on the principle that no naked flame exists underground. A single match defeats it. Contraband was therefore not a matter of discipline but of the same order as the lamp itself, and collieries ran a searching regime against it: at Lindsay Colliery in Fife the system approved by the Divisional Inspector required that a tenth of the men forming each shift be searched, that there be a general search every quarter, that anyone descending other than on a shift be searched every time, and, on top of that, surprise spot checks and searches at the deputies' meeting station. The colliery manager had raised the subject with the pit consultative committee in 1956 and again in 1957, and had notices posted. None of it worked. Nine men died at Lindsay on 14 December 1957, and Sir Harold Roberts's public inquiry found the explosion had been begun by a match struck to light a cigarette, and that it was common knowledge that smoking was widely practised in the pit. What the inspectors found afterwards is the measure of it: a whole unsmoked cigarette lying at the foot of a prop ten yards beyond the coal cutter; spent matches at the third refuge hole in the intake road and further along it; cigarette butts on the roadway; another spent match at the foot of the No. 4 pack; butts in abundance and an empty packet in the return road. When the nine bodies were brought up the police searched the clothing and found cigarettes and matches on three of them. Roberts ended his report by joining the appeals about contraband: the practice was not confined to Lindsay, and those who indulged in it were 'not being brave or clever but are, in fact, showing an utterly irresponsible, callous and selfish disregard for the lives of their fellows'. By the later twentieth century the category had widened beyond smoking materials: one pit glossary lists batteries, alcohol and drugs alongside matches and mechanical lighters.

How it worked

The prohibition worked by search and by exchange. A man gave up his own lamp-room check for a numbered safety lamp he could not open, and was liable to be searched going in — a fixed proportion of each shift, everyone descending off-shift, and whoever a surprise check happened to catch. Searching was done at the surface and at the deputies' meeting station underground, and the results were reported to the Divisional Inspector, whose approval the system needed.

Why it was used

Every other precaution in a gassy mine — the locked lamp, the stone dust, the ventilation, the flameproof equipment — assumes that nobody underground is carrying the means of making fire. Contraband rules exist to keep that assumption true, and the assumption is what the rest of the safety system is built on.

Risks & limitations

Searching a tenth of a shift finds a tenth of the offenders, and the Lindsay inquiry is the demonstration: a regime the Inspector had approved, a manager who had raised it twice with the consultative committee and posted notices, and yet matches, butts and packets the length of the intake road and the return. The rule also pushed against a real inconvenience it did nothing to remove — an ordinary workman whose flame lamp went out in gas had to leave his heading and fetch a deputy with a relighter, and that walk is one reason men carried their own means of a light.

Regional variation

None; a term of British colliery law and practice generally.

Disasters associated with this term

5 examples chosen from 7 linked records, most direct relationship first.

• Elba Colliery explosion (contextual relationship)
  Named in this record’s cause: “…the Durham Mining Museum records the ignition as caused by contraband, meaning something taken below that should not have been.”
• Grove Pit Disaster, 1930 (contextual relationship)
  Named in this record’s cause: “…naked light — the inquiry found that five of the dead were carrying contraband matches or cigarettes, though it could not establish with certainty…”
• Lindsay Colliery explosion, 1957 (contextual relationship)
  Named 3 times in this record, first in the contributing factors: “…that smoking was widely practised in the pit, although searches for contraband were made and the manager had raised the matter with the pit…”
• Louisa Colliery explosion, 1947 (contextual relationship)
  Named in this record’s narrative: “…inspector had pointed out that men were hiding matches and other contraband on a main intake haulage road serving a safety-lamp section, and…”
• Rhigos Colliery Explosion (contextual relationship)
  Named twice in this record, first in the contributing factors: “Contraband tobacco and matches taken underground. The manager gave evidence…”

Sources

1. (secondary) Glossary of mining terms (C) — Apedale Heritage Centre / North Staffordshire Mining Group
2. (secondary) Lindsay Colliery 14 December 1957 — Scottish Mining Website
3. (secondary) Lindsay Colliery Explosion - Cowdenbeath - 1957 — Northern Mine Research Society
4. (secondary) Pit Terminology - Glossary — Sutton-in-Ashfield (pit terminology glossary)

Record created: 24 September 2026 · Last researched: 24 September 2026