| COAL MINING HISTORY
(Descriptive panel on the Coalmining
Display at Eskbank
House). In 1838, Andrew
Brown of "Cooerwull" wrote
in his diary 'getting coal'. This is the first
written record of coal in the Lithgow Valley. His
mine was
very small and was located in one of his paddocks
near the corner of Hassans Walls Road and Wrights
Road, Lithgow.
In 1868, the construction of the railway line through
the Valley brought workmen who built camps of huts
and shanties, slab schools, churches and grog shops,
close to the cuttings, embankments and viaducts through
the length of the valley. To supply their needs for
cooking fires and for heating during the cold winter,
a Mr. Poole opened the mine that is now known as the
Hermitage Colliery. This was the first commercial mine
to engage in mining and selling coal, firstly to the
people and later to the construction company for use
in the small engines they used.
By 1874, there were four mines producing - Eskbank
Colliery (at the eastern end of Main Street near the
present Hoskins Church) the Lithgow Valley Colliery,
Vale of Clywdd Colliery (whose dedication stone is
on display in the grounds of Eskbank
House) and the
Hermitage Colliery.
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Lithgow Valley Colliery |
Hermitage Colliery |
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It was generally the practice when companies wanted
to start factories and workshops, to build and operate
them near the coal supply. It was cheaper to haul the
ores to the coal source than to transport the coal,
being of greater weight and volume, to another place,
and the Lithgow Valley with its vast supply of coal
was soon being the western coalfields and attracting
the notice of men wishing to engage in manufacture.
Enoch Hughs, a skilled iron-maker
travelling in the district, was impressed by the proximity
of iron ores,
limestone and coal and he began the Eskbank Ironworks
very close to the Eskbank Mine. Lloyd Brothers were
interested in deposits of ores containing coppery in
the Bathurst and Blayney areas began carting them to
Lithgow and set up a smelting works near the Eskbank
Mine. Another operator found a clay quarry where the
Hoskins Uniting Church now stands and started the Eskbank
Brickworks. The owners of the Lithgow Valley Colliery
secured contracts to supply coal to the Railways to
run their locomotives. The company also began to develop
a quarry of clay near to their mine and commenced manufacture
of bricks and pipes. Later they produced items of pottery,
examples of some of these are displayed in the museum.
The owners of the Vale of Clywdd Colliery opened a
quarry and made plans for copper smelting.
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Vale
of Clwydd Colliery
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Zig
Zag
Colliery
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on images to enlarge]
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Thomas Sutcliffe
Mort mined coal at Zig Zag Colliery
to supply his meat and freezing works which he had
established at Morts Estate, Lithgow. The meat was
forwarded to Sydney in a frozen condition in specially
built rail trucks.
Other
mines were afterwards opened, among them, the
State Mine to supply the
government railways and later a power station which
was built adjacent
to the mine - the
Steelworks Colliery to supply the Steelworks..the
Iron Works Colliery supplied the Ironworks..and
Cobar Colliery
supplied the Great Cobar Company which was engaged
in recovering copper, silver and gold from ores brought
form Cobar, N.S.W. These and others engaged in supplying
local and Sydney trade, but the shortage of railway
trucks was an acute problem. The most pathetic disaster was at the Lithgow Valley
Colliery in 1886, resulting from an underground fire
and explosion, which caused the death of eight men.
This mine was ventilated with a steam engine situated
underground and men leaving at the end of the shift
reported excess smoke. Three men investigating were
later found suffocated. Brick stoppings were built
to seal off the fire and after five weeks closure,
an investigating party entering the mine and taking
off the cover were enveloped in a tremendous explosion
resulting in the death of a further five men. In 1920,
as a result of a small fire in the Oakey
Park Colliery between Saturday afternoon and early Sunday, 298 valuable
horses used in working the Colliery were suffocated
- it should be explained that horses were kept in the
pit and only taken to the surface occasionally. There
were horses still working in the mines in 1950.
Today, of the 13 mines in the
Lithgow Valley, one is still in operation, the Hermitage
Colliery. Why?
Some have taken out all the coal available in their
workings..Methven, Eskbank..others have followed along
seams that have become too narrow to work..Cooerwull..
others have dug the coal for such distances underground
that the distance from the entrance has entailed too
long hauls for the coal and too much travelling time
for the miners to get to and from their working places
- State
Mine and Steelworks..others have become dangerous.
In 1928, Farmers Creek was flooded
from a severe thunderstorm. The main tunnel of the
Cobar Colliery passed under
the creek at the shallow depth and the water cut its
way into the workings. For two days, millions of gallons
of water poured into the mine, destroying plant and
machinery and packing the mine with sand and rubble.
The waters found entrance to the workings of adjacent
mines including the Zig Zag and Oakey Park Collieries
and built up a very dangerous pressure against the
wall of the State Mine.
We must remember too, that the
mining companies have also found it profitable to open
new modern mines,
mines which they have planned for the working of the
giant machines of today. There are many of these mines
operating in areas around the Lithgow Valley. (For
more information and historic displays visit Eskbank
House)
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COAL
MINING IN LITHGOW
Lithgow
lies in the centre of the Western Coalfield which
extends in anorth-westerly direction from Katoomba,
through Hartley, Lithgow, Cullen Bullen and Kandos
to Ulan near Mudgee, covering approximately 240 kilometres.
Most collieries are situated along the Sydney to
Mudgee rail line.
There are six coal seams in
the area: 'Katoomba' which is worked from Hartley;
'Irondale' which is worked from Wallerawang;
'Lidsdale' worked from Lidsdale and 'Lithgow' which
is the most significant of all of the seams, and is
worked from throughout the whole Western District.
The coal won from these seams istypically used in steam
production, for activities such as power plant usage.
It is reputed that the first
coal in Lithgow was cut by Andrew
Brown of Bowenfels with reports confirming that
Brown was using coal for a steam engine at his flour
mill from the 1850s (Cremin etal 1987, p3).
The coal seams around Lithgow
were important for the development of the Great
Western Railway, whose viability without this source
of abundant coal reserves may have been doubtful.
Coal for trading purposes was
first mined in 1868 by Mr. Pooleon the Hermitage Estate
owned by the Reverend Colin Stewart.
Production at the Eskbank Colliery
followed soon afterwards commencing operations in 1872
and producing 4,321 tons of coal. The Eskbank Colliery
was developed by Thomas Brown with
the original colliery sited behind the old Union
Theatre.
In 1873 the Hermitage and Eskbank
Collieries were the only mines selling coal within
the district. Two other sites, however were soon to
be developed as the Lithgow Valley Colliery, and the
Vale of Clwydd Colliery established by the tobacco
magnate Thomas Saywell.
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[click
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Numerous
coal mines have operated within the area including the
Oakey Park Colliery
Co. which operated between 1888
and 1941 and supplied electricity to Lithgow, the Great
Cobar which supplied coal to the copper refining furnaces
from 1899, the State Coal
Mine opened by the New South
Wales Railways in 1920, the Bowenfels/Tankersley Mine,
the Steelworks Colliery and the Newcom Colliery established
in 1951 to supply the Wallerawang
Power Station.
Wallerawang
Collieries
Coaling
began in Wallerawang around
1873 with a number of mines being opened on the Lithgow
seam
at Mount Piper, mid-way between
Wallerawang and Lidsdale.
The
main mines at Wallerawang included:
The
Irondale Colliery; Cullen Bullen Colliery; The Ivanhoe
Colliery;The
Commonwealth Colliery; The Great Western Mine; and
The Invincible Colliery.
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Irondale Colliery
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Ivanhoe
Colliery
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[click
on images to enlarge]
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Between
1900 and 1910 several small mines were also opened
between Piper's Flat and Blackman's Flat including:
Black
Diamond Mine (later known as Western Mine);Wallace's
Colliery (later known as Huon); Neubeck's Mine; Springvale
Colliery; The Commonwealth Colliery, which was the
firstopen
cut mine in New South Wales; Newcom Colliery; and The
Angus Colliery, opened in 1978 after the Wallerawang
Power Station was augmented with an additional two
generators.
The
City of Lithgow acknowledges and appreciates
the above History excerpts taken from the Draft
Economic Development Strategy for Lithgow which
was researched and compiled by Economic and Community
Development Class, University of Sydney October 1996
Photos copied
from the "Geology and Mineral resources of the Western
Coal-field", by Mr. J. R. Carne, F.G.S., Assistant
Government Geologist.
1907 |
