Hamstead Colliery
Hamstead Colliery in Hamstead (then Staffordshire, now West Midlands), England, produced coal between 1878 and 1965, by mining the South Staffordshire 'Thick' coal seam. It suffered a major fire in 1908 in which 26 men died.
The Hamstead Colliery Company was formed in April 1875. It acquired land in an area of Staffordshire, on what is now the north west border of Birmingham, from G.C. Calthorpe of nearby Perry Hall, and in 1876 sank shafts.
The first coal was not extracted until after 1878 due to unexpected geological problems and water ingress. The coal was at a very deep level of almost 2000 feet.
In 1928, due to boundary changes, the mine head area became part of West Bromwich. Shortly afterwards, the mine was acquired by the Hamstead Colliery (1930) Ltd.
After nationalisation on the first day of 1947, when it became part of the National Coal Board, it continued to produce coal profitably until 1965 when the mine closed and housing was built on the site of the pithead.
The pithead baths building (52°32′06″N 1°56′10″W / 52.5348669°N 1.9360672°W), opened in 1937, was redeveloped as a nightclub. Kings. It has since been demolished, and the site is occupied by a petrol station.
The disaster of 4 March 1908 was a national tragedy with 26 men killed in one day. When the fire broke out there were 31 miners in the pit, 6 escaped before poisonous fumes built up in the roadways. Rescue teams from Hamstead, Tankersley and Altofts in Yorkshire, made many attempts to reach the entombed men. It took a week after the fire for the mine to clear of the fumes. On 11 March, 14 bodies were recovered, and 6 more were recovered the following day. One of the victims was a member of the rescue team from Altofts, John Welsby. A memorial was created at Hamstead village in 2008 and there is a small museum display at the local library in the Tanhouse Centre, Great Barr.
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