150th Anniversary of the Oaks Colliery Disaster

Oaks Colliery Disaster 1866-2016

Thanks go to the Dearne Valley Landscape Partnership the following logo is available to users free for non-commercial use in materials relating to the disaster.

December 2016 will mark 150 years since the Oaks Disaster in which over 360 miners died.

A view of the Old Oaks Colliery c. 1897. Leased by Firth, Barber & Co at the time of the disaster, it was later purchased by Charles Cammell & Co. Ltd in 1873. [from: Sheffield and Rotherham up-to-date, a fin-de-siecle review, Robertson, 1897, p.32]

A series of historical research and commemorative projects will be taking place as we approach the date:

• The Dearne Valley Landscape Partnership is working with Barnsley Archives and Local Studies to research the names of those killed and to try and compile a complete biographical list. Everyone is invited to contribute. Contact Stephen Miller on 01226 773110 or stephenmiller@barnsley.gov.uk

• Meanwhile a voluntary group, has been established by a group of ex miners to press the case for a fitting memorial to the dead. Details will be available at the NUM Office’s Heritage Open Days from Thus 10th – Sat 12th September 2015.
• • Contact: remembertheoaks@gmail.com
  • See Barnsley Chronicle article (18/8/15 by Mike Cotton)

Useful Sources on the Oaks Colliery

Many fulltext sources of contemporary material are available

• Embleton, T.W. ‘Notes on the Oaks Colliery Explosion, on the 12th December 1866, and on the subsequent explosions’, in Transactions – North of England Institution of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, Vol.XXV, 1875-1876
  • http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112061193097?urlappend=%3Bseq=104

• Jeffcock, Parkin ‘On the Coal or Iron Mining of South Yorkshire’, in Proceedings – Institution of Mechanical Engineers. 1862
  • http://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433069055709?urlappend=%3Bseq=100

• Jeffcock, John Thomas Parkin Jeffcock, civil and mining engineer. A memoir by his brother. London: Bemrose and Lothian, 1867.
  • http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015003726679?urlappend=%3Bseq=132

• Tomlinson, John Stories and sketches relating to Yorkshire. London, Simpkin, Marshall, & co.; 1868
  • http://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t8kd33r33?urlappend=%3Bseq=236