| Code | GB/187/N0002 |
| Dates | 1870-1951 |
| Person Name | Amington Colliery; 1870-1951 |
| Corporate Name | Amington Colliery |
| NonPreferredTerm | Glascote Colliery Co.; Glascote Colliery Co. Ltd.; National Coal Board |
| DatesAndPlaces | Amington & Stonydale |
| Activity | Coal mining |
| Nationality | Amington Colliery was sunk in 1862 by Gibbs and Canning Colliery Company down to the Seven Feet seam. By 1892, they had extracted all the coal immediately to the north and a new district known as 'the west' was opened.
During the early 20th century, the colliery became starved of investment until it the Ministry of Fuel and Power took control during the First World War. The coal in the Seven Feet seam had been exhausted, so the government drew up plans for the shafts to be sunk down to the Bench coal seam at an estimated cost of £52,000. Before this could be completed, the government decided to end state control on 31 March 1921. The day after this was announced, the Colliery Owners Federation stated that the most drastic cut in wages in the history of coal mining would have to take place. Those mineworkers who did not agree to the terms found themselves locked out of the collieries, leading to the strike of 1921.
The Amington miners knew that the only way that the colliery and their jobs could be saved was to agree to the new conditions, in the hope that the 14% reduction in wages and a longer working week would contribute to the colliery not being shut down. The government intervened and offered the colliery owners a subsidy of £10,000,000 to cover all planned investments and to minimise the reduction in miners' wages. The strike ended in July 1921, and Amington Colliery got the capital it needed to sink the shafts down another 109ft to the Bench coal seam. New steel headgears were built to replace the old wooden ones and new screens were built on the colliery surface.
Despite these investments, Amington Colliery was far from a modern colliery, yet throughout the 1920s and 1930s it remained profitable. It is unclear whether this was due to this modernisation or because the miners' wages were so much lower than the other collieries in the Warwickshire coalfield. As time passed, technological advancements were not introduced, and the colliery had no underground machinery. Productivity was low due to the continued use of the Bord and Stall method of coal extraction until the Second World War, when Long Wall coal extraction was introduced.
In 1951, Amington Colliery was merged with Alvecote Colliery and Pooley Hall Colliery to form the North Warwick Colliery. Amington's shafts were no longer used for coal extraction, instead they were used for pumping water and to transport men (manriding) to the other parts of the new North Warwick Colliery. Pithead baths were built at Amington in 1953. Twelve years later, North Warwick Colliery closed and the Amington shafts were officially recorded as abandoned in 1965. |
| Source | Fretwell, L. (2005) 'Amington Colliery', The Warwickshire Coalfield, Vol. 1, pp. 40-47.
Northern Mine Research Society. (n.d.) 'Warwickshire Coalfield'. [online] Available at: https://www.nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/coal-mining-in-the-british-isles/warwickshire/ [Accessed 30 March 2020]. |
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