Coal Mines
Apart from farming, the monks were also the earliest workers in coal, in Scotland, although the coal mining industry didn’t really develop until the late 18th century. An extract from the Statistical Account of Old or West Monkland states:
“This parish abounds with coal; and what a benefit it is for Glasgow and its environs, to be so amply provided with this necessary article. “There are computed to be a greater number of colliers here, than in any other parish in Scotland.
“Fullerton Coal-work, belonging to Mr. Dunlop is in the western extremity of the parish. The coal is opened to 128 yards depth, in which are seams 23 feet thick, producing all the different kinds of coal that are found in Scotland and of its excellent quality; the splint is reckoned inferior to no coal in Britain, for a blast furnace. A large steam engine drains a field of 800 acres. the coals are carried out of the pit by a machine, in place of a horse-gin, -75 colliers are employed besides an equal number of artificers, labourers etc. Wages are from 2/6d (l2˝p) to 3/6d per day. The price at the pit is from 3s to 4s per ton. From its nearness to Glasgow and Clyde, this work must surely increase.”
In the spring of 1794 a machine for bringing up the coal, entirely by steam, was installed in the Sandyhills coal works. This was the first of its kind in Scotland and the predicted turnout was 200 tons per day, when previously the output was 35,000 tons per year. Other pits in the area included the Bogleshole or the “Big Pit” as it was known, Eastfield in Cambuslang, and the Dolly in Tollcross. All three pits were connected by integrating tunnels.
In fact, the whole area, as seen from the map, was extensively mined and Carmyle residents are still suffering subsidence effects in their homes as a result. Several houses in Montrose Avenue, for example, have actually been pulled down, as they were literally sinking into the earth. That area has now been landscaped. But tenants still live with the fear that their houses may someday have to be vacated.
Carmyle was a pit mining village. To this day the pit bings are still there and I can remember going to the bings with our neighbours to help fill the little bogies with coal (this was during the 1926 strike - or it may have been earlier - I’m not sure). Of course the full bogies got right of way coming home - people and empty bogies had to scramble to as safe a place as they could until they had passed. Oh! the woes of a wheel coming off.
During the war, coal became scarce and the coal merchants stopped deliveries, so we went to the coal-yards with prams, bogies or whatever we could get to carry the fuel in.
I was born in 1903 in Dunlop Street, now known as Causwayside Street, Tollcross. When I was about 5 years old we moved in to the Clyde Raws. My father worked in the steel works and had applied for one of the cottages owned by Mr. Dunlop, who rented them for 2/3d (two shillings and three pennies) a month. The Raws were very close-knit, sharing a common bond of similar employment.
I left school and went to work in Bogleshole Pit, also known as the Big Pit and sometimes the Number Four. I started in the blacksmith’s shop, where the pit ponies were shod. When I turned nineteen I went to the Pit Manager and asked for a job underground, as the workers there got more money. He gave me the job of taking the ponies from one pit to another and I started the following Monday.
Going down the shaft for the first time, my stomach was churning with the rapid descent of the cage, but that was nothing compared to crossing the River Clyde, underground with two pit ponies in tow. The nearer we got to the river, the faster the water ran down the tunnel walls and I felt that the roof was ready to burst burying us in a watery grave.
I was so terrified by the time we reached the Eastfleld Pit, that I left the ponies with my mate, scrambled up the tunnel walls and walked back to the Bogleshole Pit, via the main road, and handed in my notice. The following Monday I started in the blacksmith’s shop, in Dunlop’s
Steel Works, where I stayed until I retired in 1968.
