Nunnery Colliery was a

coal mine Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

close to

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire a ...

Darnall Darnall is a suburb of eastern Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Darnall is approximately east-north-east of Sheffield city centre. History Darnall was initially a small hamlet usually included with Attercliffe. William Walker, a resident ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and metropolitan county, metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of City of Doncaster, Doncaster and City of Sh ...

. The mining company, known as The Waverley Coal Company, also worked High Hazels Colliery about 3 miles (5 km) further east.

History

Mining started on the Nunnery site in 1868 and it is claimed that its coal supplied half the houses in Sheffield. The colliery was nationalised in 1947 becoming part of the

National Coal Board The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "ve ...

and closed in August 1953, its reserves said to be exhausted.

The Nunnery "Paddy Mail" accident

On 3 December 1923 an accident was caused by the breaking of a rope hauling an underground

Paddy Mail Paddy mails, generally considered as being workmen's trains, were operated by, or for many companies to transport their workers to their place of work or between their sites of work. Originally they were operated by railway contractors, on temp ...

train, carrying 90 men and 30 boys. Seven people were killed and around 50 others injured. The -long rope was 19 months old but, the management stated that there was no guidance in the Mines Act (or elsewhere) as to the life, or required strength, of a rope. A section of the broken rope was submitted for examination to a local testing company and Dr C. H. Desch, Professor of Metallurgy at

Sheffield University , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...

. The strain on the rope was at its highest level when the coal was being drawn, and one of the mysteries of the accident was that it occurred when the men were in the train and the strain would therefore be lighter. James Hoyland, superintendent at the testing works said the test did not prove that the rope had materially weakened. Dr C.H. Desch said that he had examined the two pieces of broken rope 2 ft (60 cm) long taken from a short distance on each side of the fracture. He was unable to throw any light as to how the rope fractured in the way it did but it was clear that it broke in a tension pull. The

jury A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Juries developed in England du ...

at the inquest returned a verdict of "accidental death".

The Locomotives

The Waverley Coal Company locomotives could be found working at Nunnery or High Hazels Collieries. All the locomotives listed below, except those shown as being scrapped became the property of the National Coal Board from 1 January 1947.

Abbreviations

''Cylinders:'' * IC Cylinders inside frames. * OC Cylinders outside frames ''Builders:'' * AB Andrew Barclay & Sons Co. * FW Fox, Walker & Co. * HE

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* HL

Hawthorn Leslie and Company R. & W. Hawthorn, Leslie and Company, Limited, usually referred to as Hawthorn Leslie, was a shipbuilder and locomotive manufacturer. The company was founded on Tyneside in 1886 and ceased building ships in 1982. History The company was formed ...

* KS

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& Co. ''Other'' * M.D. & H.B.

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* S.& M.R.

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References

*''East of Sheffield'' by Roger Milnes. "Forward" - The journal of the Great Central Railway Society, No.16, July 1984. (This article also uses unpublished material researched for "East of Sheffield"). *''The Times'', 7 December 1923 {{coord, 53, 23, 7.3, N, 1, 26, 7, W, type:landmark, display=title Railway accidents and incidents in Yorkshire Coal mines in Sheffield Underground mines in England 1923 disasters in the United Kingdom