Pithead Winding Machinery
by William Appleby
Pithead winding gear transported men underground and brought coal to the surface. Steam-powered winding machinery used in the 19th century was very different from that used with electrical power up until the closure of County Durham collieries in the 20th century. There was also considerable evolution of the steam engines, with their associated boiler houses. The early steam engines were beam engines.
On the 16th January 1862 the beam of the pumping engine at Hartley Colliery in Northumberland broke, and about half its 40-ton weight plunged down the single shaft, taking hundreds of tons of debris with it. The timing was particularly unfortunate as the back-shift men had gone down the pit to relieve the fore-shift. It took six days before a way could be made through the debris and down the shaft, and by this time 204 men and boys had died. This tragedy, the most horrific event in this country’s mining history, resulted in a law making it compulsory for all mines to have a duplicate shaft.
Ushaw Moor colliery, where my father and his family worked, and which was still operating in my boyhood, was opened in 1865, and continued until its closure in 1960. It was therefore planned after the Hartley Colliery disaster.