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If we examined the
surnames of children on a school register in any Yorkshire coalmining community,
or the names of workmen on the pay-roll of a
Yorkshire colliery, the chances are that names originating from
Ireland, Scotland and
Wales would be
at least as well-represented as any home-grown Yorkshire names - assuming that
we could identify the latter. The point can be well made that Yorkshire
coalminers are 'Yorkshire' because they work in Yorkshire pits, but the majority
of these mining people are migrants - or the descendants of migrants - who came
to Yorkshire in search of employment.
The booklet on
'Coalminers, Glass Workers and Potters' contains a detailed analysis of the
pattern of migration and employment structures in three South Yorkshire
communities before and after the sinking of a new colliery at Denaby Main. The
records of two population census returns, in 1861 and 1871 are the
major source material for this analysis. Because of the one hundred years of
restriction on public access to census material this exercise could not yet be
undertaken for any other mining community within the boundaries of Doncaster
Metropolitan District.
Coal outcrops to the
surface to the west of
Yorkshire and dips deeper as the seams stretch out towards
Doncaster and the eastward extremity of present workings.
Early coal workings were at the outcrop where pits with shallow shafts or drifts
could operate and coal was cheaper to get. In the second
half of the nineteenth century growing demand for coal combined with
improvements in mining technology provided the commercial incentive and the
technical means for winning coal at deeper levels, though the risk factor
remained greater than it was in the well-proven mining areas around Sheffield
and Barnsley. Top
When shaft-sinking
operations began at Denaby Main Colliery in 1865 the nearest pits were at
Kilnhurst, four miles to the south-west, and at Wombwell
near Barnsley. Denaby Main
Colliery was the furthest east in the whole of Yorkshire and it remained at the
eastward extremity of the Yorkshire coalfield
for thirty years, until the same colliery company developed
Cadeby Main Colliery between 1889 and 1895.
It was to be more than forty years before the development of the
Doncaster coalfield, in the early
part of the twentieth century.
 Warmsworth
St were the authors Grandparents lived
Denaby 'village of
the Dones' and ancient seat of the 'Vavasors of Dennaby', had known
small-scale coalmining for at least four or five centuries before the sinking of
Denaby Main Colliery but the early 'Colpytes' (1487) and an eighteenth century
Denaby Colliery, owned by Aaron Walker of Rotherham, worked the poor quality
coal seams near the surface. In 1863, the modern coal masters of Denaby Main
were intent upon winning the rich prize of the high quality Barnsley Bed of
coal. This high 'risk venture capital enterprise 'occupied rather more than four
years, as a great deal of water had to be encountered,
and more than sixty yards of tubbing had to be placed in the shaft'. This
process 'involved a very large outlay and took about twelve months to
accomplish'. The Barnsley seam was finally reached at a depth of 448 yards in
September '1867.
 Denaby
Main
Colliery, were the authors Great GF & Grandfather worked
his new pit at Denaby
Main was the deepest and most modern colliery in the Yorkshire coalfield and the
development of large-scale coalmining brought a rapid influx of population to
the area. A totally new mining village of colliery houses was built by the
Denaby Main Colliery Company, initially very close to the new pit and some
distance from the old rural village of Denaby. Significant changes were brought
about in the occupational structures of the Conisbrough and Mexborough areas.
Coalminers and 'green labour' from all parts of the country migrated to the
district in search of work at Denaby and (a little later) at Manvers Main. New
industries developed; older ones expanded, and Mexborough took on the role of
market town.
The area was well
served for further industrial development. In addition to the long-established
Don Navigation Company the railway line between Doncaster and Swinton had been
opened for traffic on 10th November 1849, the Tinsley to Rotherham and Rotherham
to Mexborough sections were brought into operation in 1863 and 18?1. Originally
the main
South Yorkshire route from Doncaster had carried on through Conisbrough and Mexborough to Wath,
Wombwell and Aldham Junction to Ardsley and
Barnsley.
Top
 Denaby
also had a short lived pottery, established in t864 and owned by Wilkinson and
Wardle - 'the latter being a thoroughly practical potter previously with the
well-known firm of Alcocks and Co., Burslem, Staffordshire'. The most easterly
of the
South Yorkshire potteries, the firm closed down in l870.
At the time of
the 1861 census Denaby (now known as Old Denaby) had a total population of
203 persons 102 males and 101 females. Though most of the residents had
been born with. a twenty-mile radius of the village less than half the
population were actually born in Denaby and fifty-eight of these were
children. Agriculture was the dominant source of employment, the railway
provided two jobs, as cleaner and gate keeper, and the solitary coalminer
(one George Frost) was 'away working at a coal mine' on the date of the
census and only an error by the enumerate (later corrected) led to his
inclusion in the Denaby information.
The majority of
the thirty-seven houses within the enumeration district were unnamed and
merely listed as 'Cottage House, Denaby Village'. Of those houses named
there were three implied references to local industry: 'Denaby Engine', a
farm house connected with eighteenth century coalmining; 'Denaby
Quarry House' and 'Denaby Gait', (sic) a railway gate house situated
inside the level crossing of the Mexborough-Doncaster section of the South
Yorkshire Railway. The above refers to the period prior to the sinking of
the Denaby Main Colliery.
Top
The images below are:
Top LH Cadeby Colliery disaster 1912
Top RH Kilner Brothers Power House in ruins
Bottom RH George V & Queen Mary visit Conisbrough Castle to open
a Fountain in 1912
Rossington St School Denaby Main built in 1893 by the Colliery
company
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