Hi Gavin,

Many thanks for this.Yes, I had noticed this comprehensive and very useful 1974 article - Lidgett Colliery is one of my particular interests as some family members worked there in the dim and distant past and it had a number of striking technical features in its relatively brief history (1883-1911). Equally, anything connected with the mining engineer George Blake Walker (1854 -1921) of Wharncliffe Silkstone fame always gets my interest, as he and his father Horace were very early adopters of coal-cutting machinery (cf. Church, The History of the British Coal Industry, Vol.3) and GBW's papers on the subject are usually quoted (1885 Trans Midland Inst. Mining, Civil and Mech Engrs and at the inaugural meeting of the Federated Institutes of Mining Engineers at Sheffield in Jan 1889).

From my own chasing of the Lidgett early history and development, I think some of the Industrial Railway Record article is slightly inaccurate, but it is one of the most valuable papers on a single colliery case study, especially given that it is primarily an industrial railway piece and includes now-lost personal recollections of operational details from former employees. It certainly made me much more interested in this topic.

The Clarke Steavenson machine was one of the earliest electric disc coal-cutters. It was developed in outline prior to 1893, following on from A.T. Snell's work at Glasshoughton Colliery in collaboration with Major William Waterhouse (Major being his actual name, not rank!). The Clarke patent machine started using a modified Yorkshire Engine Company (WEC) compressed air cutter steel H-frame. It used ironclad motors designed by Rosling and Matthews (of Bradford) in the early days, the partnership of Clarke and Steavenson becoming a limited company in 1898. For a wonderful early photograph of the machine (and indeed underground photos anywhere), see Bulman and Redmayne's 1896 'Colliery Working and Management', London: Crosby, Lockwood and Son - this is also the original source of the IRR photo of the machine (and Neville's 'The Yorkshire miner in camera', Nelson, Lancs: Hendon Publishing Co Ltd, 1976). I wonder whether H F Bulman's negatives have survived
 anywhere....

Not that you would have wanted to be anywhere near such heavily insulated, unearthed machines, even in a 'candle pit' like Lidgett,as Percy Greaves recounted in his 1939 'Black diamonds: gleanings of fifty years in the West Yorkshire coalfield' - the early electric two-pole switches and machinery apparently lit up the working faces with sparks!

Parallel with Clarke, there are the 1894 references to (Sir) George Mitchell's work with Ernest Scott and Mountain on another form of disc machine at Glencelland colliery - this is covered in the Transactions of the Federation Institutes of Mining Engineers 1894-5, and also photographic evidence of one of the two forms he used there is to be found in an advert in the 1895 Pott's mining register.

The Diamond machine is perhaps the greatest 'local hero' from a Yorkshire standpoint, and actually has somewhat similar origins, though first developed by Richard Sutcliffe in collaboration with the famous (Sir) William Edward Garforth - some of this is passed over by Bryan Fraser in his colourful "The West Riding Miners and Sir William Garforth", Stroud: The History Press, 2009, though for fuller details, I'd refer to Garforth's own papers to Institution of Mining Engineers, or later contributions to the Manchester Geological Society, and NACM. The YEC order records (Sheffield Archives and See Tony Vernon's recent book, History Press again) show how the Diamond machine was developed in terms of alterations and depth of cutting wheel, though the wider, slightly acrimonious story between Sutcliffe and Garforth is dealt with in the company history of Richard Sutcliffe written by the inventor's son, published first in 1939 as "Richard Sutcliffe: the pioneer
 of underground belt conveying", London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, and in a later edition in 1955 - this also has useful photographs. These sources aside, I think the best overviews of the issue are to be found in:
i) S.F. Walker's 1902 'Coal-cutting by machinery in the United Kingdom' (reprinted from a long series of articles in the Colliery Guardian) ;
ii) The excellent piece by Percy Fox-Allin 'Sixty Years' Progress in Machine Mining' in the Diamond Jubilee issue of the Iron and Coal Trades Review, 1927.

Phew, losing myself in the detail a bit there, but thanks!

Chris




----- Original Message ----
From: Gavin McLelland <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Mon, 29 March, 2010 23:10:46
Subject: Re: Coal cutting by machinery

This e-mail brought to mind an article I read some time ago about the Lidgett colliery nr Barnsley.

It was published by the Industrial Railway Society in issue 54 of the Industrial Railway Record dated June 74 by Trevor J Lodge

It is available on-line at http://www.irsociety.co.uk/

They mention the use of coal cutters in the pit from about 1890, various makes and power sources were tried.

The pit experimented with several types and finally developed there own type

There is also a photograph of a Clarke, Steavenson machine being moved in the pit.

Hope this is useful

Regards

Gavin


----- Original Message ----- From: "Christopher Jones" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2010 7:04 PM
Subject: Coal cutting by machinery


Dear All,

I wondered if I might call upon the collective wisdom of the group for any references/sources/examples they may have of early use of coal-cutting machinery in longwall coal mining in the UK and elsewhere.

This topic was recently mentioned in the NMRS 'British Mining' No.88 Memoirs, 2009, in Mike Gill's interesting article 'The ‘Iron Man’ coal cutter' .

I'm particularly interested in the development of electrical (DC but also AC) machinery in the period 1887-1919, prior to importation of US machinery. British firms interested in this work before the 20th Century include: the Electrical Coal Cutting Contract Corporation Ltd (bar-machines); Davis and Sons of Derby (Jeffrey US chain machine); Diamond Coal Cutter Co of W. Yorks (disc, and later chain and bar etc); Clarke, Steavenson & Co Ltd of Barnsley (disc machines); Ernest Scott and Mountain of Gateshead (disc, chain etc) - and of course the compressed air machines of Gillott and Copley and the Yorkshire Engine Co in England and the Rigg and Meiklejohn in Scotland also come to mind, prior to the big two of Mavor and Coulson and Anderson Boyes, with others as the 20th Century progressed.

I'm conscious this in a well-trodden path in some respects (Gresley's work on diffusion of technology and the subsequent 'path-dependence' discussions of apparent British lag in adopting effective new methods. Equally there are some excellent modern sources, for example Jones, A.V. and Tarkenter, R.P. - Electrical Technology in Mining: The Dawn of a New Age (IEE History of Technology) P. Peregrinus, 1992 [ISBN 0863411991], but I am interested in whether anyone has come across more isolated examples of machines in use or development at other collieries/mines beyond what is reported in the proceedings of professional societies and parliamentary papers. Pioneers (and failures) were not always so well reported, and yet can often reveal most about the internal history of technology.

Chris Jones