Notts NUM Area History Part 7
1984
Justice For Mineworkers Campaign
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Hucknall No 2 Colliery
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The Hucknall Colliery Company set up by Paget Ellis & Walker in 1861/2 sank Hucknall No1 and No2 collieries. The Sherwood Colliery Company then owned them from 1911 to 1947.
No 1 colliery which was situated on Watnall Road ceased winding coal in 1943 and mining was transferred to No2 colliery sited on Portland Road. Number 1 site, however, continued to be used for ventilation, manriding and materials.
Hucknall became publicly owned on 1st January 1947 and it was a major contributor to the NCB’s East Midlands Division. Its upper seams were however approaching exhaustion and a major reconstruction began in 1957.
During the reconstruction period from 1957 to 1969 production from the upper seams ceased and access was obtained to the lower seams with production from the Deep Soft to the east of the shafts beginning in 1964. Two drifts were also driven to the Blackshale seam in 1967/68. The reconstruction transformed the appearance of the colliery above and below ground and with its completion Hucknall entered its most productive phase.
The first Blackshale coalface commenced production in 1970 and the following year the Deep Soft seam production ceased, and the Blackshale seam accounted for the entire output. Annual outputs for 1972/3 and 1974/5 exceeded 1 million tons and for the first time in June 1972 an all time weekly record of 26,050 tons was recorded with output per man shift exceeding five tons; well above the national average. The underground main roadways had lighting installed, and there was a methane plant on the surface that generated heating for the offices and hot water for the pit head baths. Hucknall closed in October 1986 after it was labelled uneconomic, this was after new screens/ preperation plant had been completed on the surface the year before, costing around £12.2 million,There were also geological problems underground but the management knew of those before mining that area of the seam.The management had taken the decision to work the blackshale seam on the south side of the workings that thinned out and had sandstone intrusions, but there were decades of reserves on the north east & eastern side’s of the seam that were plentiful, high, and easy to work.The Blackshale seam had reserves estimated at 15 million Tons this did not include parcels of coal in the Tupton seam being worked by the Babbington men. There was a seam below the blackshale seam called the Ashgate seam, it has remained unmined and untouched in this area.
Hucknall was closed in the first round of pit closures after the dispute, but it wasn’t just Hucknall that was a casualty so was Babbington colliery and it’s miners, this colliery was linked underground with Hucknall to extract it’s remaining reserves. Newstead was next to go in 1987 then Linby a few months later, the Leen valley coalfield had only one remaining pit left working, this was Annesley it worked the Blackshale seam until closing in the year 2000, local men now had to travel to work further afield to North Nottinghamshire’s pits, in some cases enduring as much as a 70 mile round trip,to pits like Harworth that included a physically demanding shift underground. History was repeating itself. With the assistance of the Tory government, and a young barrister who would become Attorney General under a labour government. Management at the collieries were instructed to turn back the clock 50 years and not recognise the National Union Of Mineworkers at any colliery, where its members were in the minority. This was the case in all of the Notts pits after the strike, when the breakaway organisation came into being. To be a member of the new organisation you didn’t have to do anything adminastrative, but to become a member of the NUM you had to fill in forms at every verse end, going to see the admin man, instructing wage clerks, etc, this of course was meant to cause confusion and obstacles were put in the way of people re joining the NUM. Men who worked through the dispute were told by Arthur Scargill that there was a place for every miner in the NUM. So the NUM recruited with vigour at every mine in Notts, within three months there was a significant dent in the new organisations membership, At Hucknall colliery out of the 42 men on strike for the whole twelve months, they had recruited just under 300 men back into the NUM by the time the announcement was made to close the colliery in the summer of 1986, approximately a third of the workforce had signed over to the NUM, this was bolstered when Moorgreen and Pye Hill collieries closed, and the NUM gained more men that had become disillusioned and disgusted at promises made to them that there pit would be safe. The reality of the situation was now kicking in with those who had not supported the call to defend jobs, pits, and communities in 1984-5.
This time it was to be Ollerton & Bolsover Collieries at the forefront of this recognition struggle, fifty years on from the Harworth riots. In 1986 the Ollerton NUM branch, led by Jimmy Hood, Mick McGinty,Arthur Jackson and a core of staunch NUM loyals were only a handful of recruits short of being the second majority Notts NUM pit, but management immediately imported in members of the other organisation from other collieries to counter act the NUM gains. It was bitterly disappointing and another tactical defeat had been carried out, on instruction by high management.
Other collieries had also suffered the same fate, as soon as the membership of the NUM was getting close to a majority the pit was either shut or men from the other organisation were transferred into that colliery, under no circumstance were the management and the leaders of the other organisation going to allow majority NUM pits in Notts.
(Extract from The Guardian May 2005)
Michael Clapham, MP for Barnsley West and the NUM’s legal officer at the time, said yesterday: “I realised when I saw the dates of the documents in your paper that Lord Falconer’s advice came just a few days before the union was informed that British Coal was ending the important industry conciliation scheme – effectively tearing up 40 years of agreements covering disputes.
“This was done so they could recognise the breakaway Union of Democratic Mineworkers – even though at the time it did not officially exist – and negotiate an inferior deal.” The papers show that Lord Falconer was a junior barrister advising the coal board on how it could open negotiations with the fledgling union whose working members in Nottinghamshire had broken away from the NUM. His advice was backed by Peter Walker, then energy secretary, who was keen to break up the NUM.
More Pictures of Newstead Colliery
No2 Headstocks being demolished,this was the dowcast shaft, January 1988.
No1 headstocks being demolished, this was the upcast shaft, 7 February 1988.
Last production shift at Newstead colliery, 19 March 1987
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To Date 2006
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Annesley Colliery headstocks, this is a prime example of latticed iron work headstocks, it is probably the only surviving one, standing in Britain. There is currently a local campaign to save the headstocks as a lasting memorial to the workforce, over the pit’s long history.
At one time there were five men working underground who were destined to go on to play for England – including the legendary “bodyline” pace-bowling partners, Harold Larwood and Bill Voce.
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