For nearly 200 years the great forest of Kingswood was studded with small coal-pits which stood amongst the oaks and hollies, but gradually the bushes were cleared, and the trees felled for pit-props so that the fallow-deer could browse no longer. By the middle of the eighteenth century the conquest of the forest was complete and the history of Kingswood began to be written underground.
It is not difficult to reconstruct some of the scenes. Lines of small shallow open-cast pits, only a few yards from each other, lay between the little hamlets of Staple Hill and Soundwell, cropping up again on the southern slopes of New Cheltenham, re-appearing at Honey Hill, Grimsbury, Warmley, Syston Common, Cock Road and Mount Hill and running right down to the grounds of Wesley's School.
In 1883 Canon Ellacombe writes: 'Here may be seen the boys busily at work, levelling the irregular ground caused by sinking for coal at some former period.' Still more pits abounded where St. George's Park now stands, and again off Lodge Hill; in 1793, according to the historian Shiercliff, some pits in the area reached a depth of as much as 600 feet, but the very deep pits at Speedwell were not yet in existence. Some of the names are familiar.
Nowhere and Flashaway Pits, John Jacks and Made for Ever, and earlier names still, Strip-and-at-it on Hopewell Hill, Chipperfield just below, High Hat not far away, and a very old one called Thwarting Pit whose site is obscure. Small lanes ran between the pits to the neighbouring villages; they still had flower covered banks and hawthorn hedges of Spring-white. They ran down to the little valleys where the marsh marigolds gleamed, across the stepping-stones and up to the hills again or straggled down to the wharfs along the Avon where the barges lay waiting.
Every day the winding paths were crowded with long lines of pack-horses and donkeys, twenty or more in charge of a lad in a dirty smock, cracking his brass-bound whip. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth century the colliers sweated and struggled below ground, or starved in their hovels, some drinking, swearing, rioting and gambling, others, after Wesley's coming, leading decent God-fearing lives. Their meagre pay was only from 8/' to 10/' a week and each family had many mouths to feed.
In 1779 one account book gives these figures : Paid for ' getting ' a ton of coal 2/4 „ „ its carriage from Mangotsfield to Baptist Mills 2/8 Its final price per ton 8/4 Bristol hated and feared the Kingswood colliers who time and again terrified the city by rioting, or by plundering the country wagons which were bringing in corn. Sometimes for weeks on end rioters refused altogether to dig coal and would wreck pits or molest travellers. Matthews in his 'History of Bristol' (1793) says: 'About 40 years ago the colliers were so barbarous and savage that they were a terror to Bristol and their dialect was the roughest and rudest in the nation.'
In the little inns, whose names are mentioned in documents of a hundred and fifty years ago, such as the Blue Bowl, the Horseshoe, the Anchor, the Yew Tree and the Flower Pot, the colliers would gather until late at night or even early morning. Talk would centre round the pits, about the thickness of the various seams, the old Ragg and Magreet Veins at Hanham, the Primrose, Two'foot and Slate Veins, the Hen and Chickens, the Worm'bed, the Beadchalk and many more. Here, too, argument raged hotly about the different systems by which the pits were worked,the ' Long Wall ' method as against the ' Pillar and Staff.' The talk eddied and surged in the crowded bar, its floor strewn with sawdust.
The frothing pewter mugs were filled and refilled in the haze of the smoke from the cheap clay pipes. Old stories were told, perhaps of Sam Bryant, the stern Soundwell collier, or of Victory Purdy, the preacher who refused to work on Sundays. Crude jokes were plenti' ful, a favourite one being that of the Bristol bailiffs of 1795 who were pushed into a coalpit, given only one meal of gin and ginger-bread during their 24'hour imprisonment and then fined 6/8 for their ' lodging.' There were heated arguments about the price of Mrs. Shipley's pit candles, of Rogers, the farrier's work, of the trespass of Mr. Chester's men on to Thos. Player's land— a trespass of 540 sq. ft. on the Thorowfair Vein ' with more trespass on the north side, which because it is full of dung cannot be measured.'
It can be imagined that the conditions of some of the pits were very horrible when details such as these are related in such a matter'of'fact way. Many of the older men alive today tell stories which they heard direct from their grandfathers. One graphic account of about 1835 is of a little boy of five years old lying in bed listening to the clanking of the chains as the older boys and girls passed his home at daybreak, taking their ' tuggers ' with them. Another description is of an old man's earliest boyhood memory, the screaming of the women at Church Pit, St. George, after an accident. From the First Report of the Children's Employment Commission, 1840, come the accounts of children of eight and nine working as long as 16 hours a day as ' trappers,' operating the ventilating doors ' crouching in solitude in a small dark hole.' Some who were ' harnessed like dogs in a go'cart, crawled on all fours along passages only 18 inches high.' Other children worked at the pumps in the lowest part of the mine ' ankle deep in water for 12 hours at a time.' The children were indeed trapped in the pit, far from air, freedom and sunshine.
Amongst the many Kingswood pits there were innumerable accidents, of which this is probably typical; the account is taken from the ' London Gazette ' of March, 1795: 'A melancholy accident occurred near Warmley, Glos. As 12 men were at work in a coalpit belonging to Mr. Stibbs, a body of water from an adjoining pit bursted in upon them and rose to the height of 10 fathoms by which five men were drowned.' An unusual accident happened in 1826 when a collier called Will. Watkins, who was employed ' in a coalpit at Shortwood, complained of a difficulty in breathing from the effects of the gunpowder used in blasting. He was brought to the pit mouth where he lay down; a companion going to him a few minutes afterwards, found him quite dead.' This account is taken from the report of the coroner's inquest in a contemporary newspaper.
Many deaths were more commonly caused by crushing or drowning. Since a number of the names are still very familiar, here are some from the register of Bitton Parish Church, the age of each man or boy being given in brackets :— Thos. Johnson (6), Kingswood, Jan., 1817. Killed in a coal pit. Geo. Godfrey (18), Caddymoor, Feb., 1817. Fell into a coal pit. Will Gay (24), North Common, March, 1817. Killed in a coal pit. John White (54), Cadbury Heath, March, 1817. Killed in a coal pit. Sam Isaac (55), Cadbury Heath, Sept., 1818. Killed in a coal pit. Will. Chilcott (56), Kingswood, May, 1819. Killed in a coal pit. Thos. Bruton, Hanham, May, 1819. Killed in a coal pit. Jon. Crew (53), Soundwell, May, 1819. Killed in a coal pit. Will. Batt (33), Kingswood Hill, May, 1822. Killed in a coal pit. Isaac Bush (28), May, 1822. Killed in a coal pit. Isaac Garland (11), Kingswood, Dec., 1823. Killed in a coal pit. Geo. Golding (9), April, 1823. Killed in a coal pit. Sam Bright (24). July, 1825. Killed in a coal pit.
After this date the number of accidents decreased although in 1834 five colliers were killed by a fall of rock in the Golden Valley Pit. It is a grim record. To'day each entry is only a name on a faded page but on the day it was written the grief which lay behind it can well be realised. Of recorded accidents where rescue was successful, one took place as early as 1753, and is very graphically describer! in Rudder's ' History of Gloucestershire.'
It happened at Two Mile Hill Pit (probably just behind the site of St. Michael's Church), rather more than 200 ft. underground, when a torrent of water suddenly rushed in and put out all the lights, i.e., the candles stuck in the coal face and the lanterns along the ' dram ways.' When the water first poured in, four young boys were ' at the tip of the work;' they ran to the rope, crying to be pulled up. ' It was done as quickly as possible, yet the water was at the heels of the last boy who as the other three were being hauled up, caught hold of the feet of one of his companions and all got safe out.' But three men and another boy, who were further from the shaft, in trying to avoid the water, crept further in on their hands and knees until they found a small hollow place above the water-level. Whilst crawling along, they found a piece of beef and a crust of bread ' ' together about 1/4 Ib.' dropped by a workmate, and on this they had to exist for five nights and days. After two days the water went down and disappeared altogether so that they suffered agonies of thirst and were almost suffocated by the heat and the foul air in their narrow prison. After their tiny store of food was finished they chewed strips of wood from their basket but ' losing their knife, even this failed them and one tried to eat his shoe.'
By this time the oldest of the colliers, a man of 60, was delirious and the others extremely exhausted; a rescue party was, however, on its way. Five men ventured down, having first lowered a can full of burning coals as a safety precau- tion; they were much surprised to find any of the trapped colliers still alive. On reaching the surface and for some time afterwards, the latter were almost blind, but being revived with food and having rested ' they walked to their homes, to the great astonishment of a vast crowd of people, assembled from all parts.'
The Londonderry and Grimsbury pits also had their accidents early in the nineteenth century but the most vivid account yet found is that of the five boys who worked at ' Kingswood Lodge Coalpit.' This, it is believed, was on the side of the hill between where Cossham Hospital now stands and Charlton Road. The story of the disaster is inscribed in tiny lettering above the boys' portraits in a contemporary drawing. They are shown in ragged, patched clothes, each with his ' dagger ' candle' stick, the middle boy wearing the chain ' rugger,' the boy on the extreme right carrying a bunch of tallow dips in his right hand. One is struck by the delicacy of their features and their youthful looks ' By the breaking in of the water at Kingswood Lodge Coalpit near Bristol, these five boys were shut in for six nights and days entirely destitute of food.
They entered on Friday evening, April 11, 1833, and were rescued the following Thursday evening. This rough sketch of the boys in their pit costume is intended as a memorial and by the sale of the impressions they will be apprenticed to some plain trade.' Underneath the portraits are two verses which describe the boys' parents in tears, praying at the pit mouth whilst ' the children prayed below.' After an account of their rescue, the poem con- tinues in great sincerity: ' With grateful ecstasy Let Kingswood now rejoice, And all her deep dark pits resound, The dead are raised, the lost are found. In this same pit, belonging to Messrs. Brain & Co., another serious accident occurred some six years later when 11 people lost their lives from a body of water breaking in, so that after this date it was not worked again.
The conditions under which the colliers lived and worked were indeed bad. Even as late as 1855 in a poem written by the Rev. E. A. Telfer, of Hanham, there is described, in halting verse but with real sympathy, the colliers' need of pity on account of the weariness of their day's work, fire- damp, sickness, famine, poverty and ignorance. But the latter was steadily decreasing. ' When it finally disappears,' says Telfer in his preface, ' A new page will open in the history of the far-famed Kingswood colliers.' Without doubt the new page did open, the past misery was obliterated and except for memories stirred by old tales such as these, will soon be completely forgotten.
