43 Pictures That Show The Dust And Sweat Of Britain’s Coal Mines

As Kellingley Colliery coal mine closes in North Yorkshire this week, marking the end of centuries of deep coal mining in Britain, we take a look at historical photos from the 20th and 21st centuries.

1. 1908

A crowd of miners wait anxiously for survivors of a disaster at Hampstead Colliery to surface from the coalface.

2. 1910

A rescue party arrives at the scene of a colliery disaster in the Birmingham area.

3. 1910

A radium mine at Grampound Road in Truro, Cornwall.

4. 1913

(above) "A pit pony pulling a tub full of coal at Brinsley Colliery, Nottinghamshire. Coal was mined in the Eastwood area for nearly 700 years. Originally, the monks of Beauvale Priory held the coal mining rights and there may have been shallow workings dating further back to Roman times. By the 1870s the good quality 'top hard' coal at Brinsley had been almost exhausted and a second shaft was sunk in 1872 to a depth of 780 feet. At its peak of production the colliery produced around 500 tons of coal a day and employed 361 men, 282 of whom worked at the coal faces. By 1930, coal reserves had been exhausted but the shafts were kept open until 1970 to access neighbouring pits. The Brinsley Colliery site has now been landscaped and turned into a picnic area. This photograph was taken by the Rev FW Cobb (1872-1938), who was Rector of Eastwood from 1907 to 1917. Many of his photographs were taken under extremely difficult and dangerous conditions and combine to make a remarkable contribution to mining history during the early part of the 20th century."

5. 1919

Miners cheer as Edward, Prince of Wales, visits Insoles Ltd colliery at Cymmer.

6. 1920

A boy miner underground at Ashington colliery fixes the ropes for the coal carts.

7. 1924

Miners drilling into a coalface, location unknown.

8. 1924.

Coal miners having a break to eat their meal, watched by some of the pit-ponies, at unknown location.

9. 1929

At the coalface in the Co-operative Wholesale Society's coalmine at Shilbottle, Northumberland.

10. 1930

Two miners working in their underwear on the coalface at Tilmanstone Colliery, Kent.

11. 1932

The Duke of York visits miners at Atherton Collieries during his tour in Lancashire.

12. 1938

These boys spent two days a week down a mine learning to be pit boys at Newton Chambers colliery at Thorncliffe near Sheffield. They are pictured returning safety lamps to the office.

13. 1943

A number of boys volunteered for the coal mines following a government appeal and started their training at Markham Main Colliery, near Doncaster.

14. 1936

A miner pushing a coal truck at the Old Meadows coal pit, Bacup, Lancashire.

15. 1948

(above) Women and girls are pictured in the Lancashire coalfields, where they are employed on one of the noisiest and dirtiest jobs in mining - that of "screening" stone, shale and rubbish from the coal as it passes on a conveyor belt from the pithead to awaiting railway wagons.

16. 1948

Miners coming off shift by way of the newly installed diesel railway at Nook Colliery, Astley, Lancashire.

17. 1954

Two miners receive medical assistance from a doctor and nurse at a colliery surgery.

18. 1958

Miners doff their helmets at Queen Elizabeth II at Rothes Colliery, Fifeshire, where she made her first descent of a coal mine. She spent half an hour underground.

19. 1964

Miners work on a tunnel for the new London Underground Victoria line, 70 feet below Oxford Circus.

20. 1967

The 110ft-high oil derrick towers above a housing estate in the Yorkshire mining village of South Kirby.

21. 1972

Coal miners at Daw Mill Colliery near Nuneaton, Warwickshire.

22. 1972

A pit official at Sutton Colliery near Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, checks on a trunk conveyor at the coalface.

23. 1972

General scenes at the Saltley Coke Depot in Birmingham, as the miners attempt to close the depot down during their strike. A speech by a Yorkshire Miner's activist, Arthur Scargill, persuaded tens of thousands of Birmingham-based workers to come out on strike in sympathy with the miners and many of them joined the picket lines at Saltley. This meant that they outnumbered the huge police presence and the gates of Saltley were shut at last.