Coal Mining Oral History

Audio Transcript

Narrator:
Much of the money used to build the lower lodge, and maintain Ashton court estate, came from coal mining.

Jill Cawardine:
At the height of the Smythe family power, every window you looked out of, every view, belonged to them. Because of all the coal mines, the whole area, way down into Somerset, and way over into Bedminster.

Jack House:
I’m very interested in the story of the Bedminster coalfield.

Narrator:
Jack house, has researched some of the local mines’ history.

Jack House:
At one time of course, when I think there was twenty-one collieries working in this area, two really big ones, South Liberty and Dean Lane. The Smythe family made their money through royalties; I think they received two shillings for every ton of coal that was mined. And in fact, you look at every church and chapel in the district and there is this foundation stone, laid by Lady Smythe. I don’t think the miners will have really released that here were people getting royalties when they were deep underground, digging the stuff up.

Narrator:
Life in the pits was hard. Sue Tuckers granddad told her about that time.

Sue Tucker:
My granddad Tom, went to a school called St Paul’s which is on Dean Lane, and Dame Emily Park, as it is now, was a pit head, which is I think why I think they cant build on it, so it remains a park. And I remember he told me there was a gas explosion that he remembered when he was at school. And there was a horse there that broke its neck, you know that’s something that obviously has stayed with him. Horrific really, to see something like that from your school window, not very nice.

Narrator:
Coal meant lots of local jobs, and men joined the workforce young.

Sue Tucker:
He was told he could leave school at thirteen, because he was quite bright and there was nothing else they could teach him. But I think the ulterior motive was to probably get him into work because his father had died. I don’t know what his job was at that point. Later on in life, he was a chauffer for the Baldwin family who were coal merchants, and the coal yard was round sort of Wapping Wharf. But its just funny really, it’s sort of a connection back to the Smythes isn’t it really.

Jack House:
The last colliery closed I think in 1973, South Liberty. Dean Lane I think in 1911.

Narrator:
Derek Brewer came along more than half a century later, to play football, in open spaces.

Derek Brewer:
We used to go up to, think it’s called Greville Smythes Park, but we all referred to it as ‘stone park’ because it was tarmaced over. We had no idea why it wasn’t grass, like every other park. It was decades later I found out it was a coal mine, and it had been tarmaced over, and that’s why it didn’t have any grass. And I think there might have being something that said it was donated by Dame Emily or her estate to the city of Bristol

Narrator:
Even though the mines had closed, coal was still transported around the Wapping Wharf area, until 1987.

Derek Brewer:
In my first job on the big city docks, they used to have trains coming in with coal. Lord Baldwin has a big coal yard there, and there trains used to be off loaded and then they use to load up lorries.

Narrator:
But jack House still remembers one hero from the days of the pits.

Jack House:
I am very interested in a particular individual called Charlie Gill, who became Lord Mayor of our city in 1946, 47. He started off as a pit carter at South Liberty pit in, I think 1884, that sort of time. Worked his way up through the mining community, eventually became miner’s agent for the Bedminster coalfield. And he was therefore responsible for negotiating on behalf of the miners with the Smythe family, the mine owners, you know. I’m at this moment in time in negation with the powers that be to have a blue plaque to be put out of side number six Aubrey Road, to commemorate, you know, someone who really championed the mining community.