Fig 19: British Jeffrey Diamond (BJD) single ended ranging drum shearer cutting A26’s stable hole in the High Hazels seam at Linby Colliery. This was the last working face at the colliery which closed in March 1988. Source: Linby Colliery (1873-1988) closure booklet.
Coalface Mechanisation through the Ages
Nowadays, in the post coal era in Britain, the phase, ‘Working at the Coalface’, generally refers to the core task in any operation regardless of the nature of the work. In British coalmining history, mechanisation throughout the 20th century dramatically changed how the ‘coal was won’. This blog gives a brief account of some of those changes with a special emphasis on the Nottinghamshire coalfield
Fig 2: Old Bord and Pillar workings exposed by opencast coalmining. Photo Credit – unknown
In Britain, the two main methods of mining coal underground were ‘longwall’ and bord and pillar, another derivative of the latter is sometimes known as stall and pillar or room and pillar. The bord and pillar system worked on extracting coal manually in a chequer-board type system, driving numerous entries at right angles to one another and leaving pillars of coal for support. Sometimes the pillars were extracted working back, robbing the pillars; in mining terms, this was known as working ‘on the retreat’. Remains of this type of mining have occasionally been exposed by opencast coalmining (Fig 2).
Fig 3: Bestwood Colliery in the 1959. Photo Credit – Bestwood WEH archive
In the 1950’s at Bestwood and Kirkby Summit collieries another system was used called Room and Pillar. An entry was made from a butt main roadway and a small face say 10 yards long headed out. The coal was then undercut by a short wall cutter and shot fired, as per a longwall face, and was advanced forward for up to 100 yards, setting props and bars with the coal being loaded out by a collier shovelling onto a small extending chain conveyor which delivered it onto a main gate conveyor. A pillar of coal of equal width remained between each room.
Fig 4: Joy Loader working room and pillar in 140’s district at Bestwood Colliery in the 1940’s. Photo Credit: Henry Davis collection of photos.
A mechanised version of room and pillar working operated at Bestwood in the late 1940’s and 1950s used Joy Loaders (Fig 4) and shuttle cars. The United States were world leaders in coalmining mechanisation through the pioneering efforts of Joe Joy (1883-1957), the Pennsylvanian company, Joy Mining, bearing his name. It is now a subsidiary of Komatsu Mining from Japan following 21st century multi-billion dollar takeover.
Fig 5: Handholing on a coalface in the early 20th century,
As the nineteenth century progressed, the longwall method became the main system of mining coal. Coal was extracted from a long working face or wall. The workings advanced in a continuous line, which was often several hundred yards long or more. Initially, the coal was ‘undercut’ in a wedge shape and then ‘spragged’ providing a temporary support. Locally, the method of undercutting the coal was known as ‘handholing’ (Fig. 5) When the sprags were removed, the coal would sometimes break at the back and fall, at other times it had to be brought down by the use of a ringer or by using explosives. Large coal was needed and it was usually handloaded using forks instead of shovels.
Fig 6: Collier stinting whilst supervising a coalface trainee. Photo Credit – David Amos collection
The longwall coalface was spilt into section called ‘stalls’. ‘Colliers’ or ‘Hewers’ were allocated a section of a stall known as a ‘stint’. Each man would be responsible for manually extracting the coal from his ‘stint’ on contract (piecework). In the Nottinghamshire coalfield this was under the Butty system, a type of subcontracting. Arthur Lawrence, the father of author D.H. Lawrence, was a Butty at Brinsley Colliery near Eastwood.
The term ‘Done Your Stint’ originates from this, generally nowadays meaning having completed your work for the day, whatever the nature of it. Lord Robens, NCB Chairman 1961-1971, used it in the title of his 1971 autobiography, ‘Ten Year Stint’.
Fig 7: Disc cutting machines circa late 19th / early 20th century. Photo Credit – Bob Bradley collection
Handholing was one of the first methods of mining at the coalface to be mechanised in the late 19th century / early 20th century. Disc type coal-cutters were introduced which mechanised the undercutting process (Fig 7). Their introduction was controversial and sometimes caused industrial unrest. This happened at Sutton Colliery in 1896 and at the Barber and Walker Company collieries around Eastwood in 1908. The cause of the problem was not so much a Luddite style opposition but due to reviews of contract prices, which meant the colliers had to cut more coal for little or no extra money. In DH Lawrence’s novel, ‘Women in Love’ (1916), the controversy over the introduction of coalface mechanisation by Gerald Crich is described in Chapter XVII, ‘The Industrial Magnate’.
At the peak production for British coalmining of 287,430,000 tons of coal in 1913, only 8 per cent of output was machine cut. By the 1970’s, more than 90% of all coal in Britain was being cut and loaded by coal cutting machines
Fig 8: Coal cutter, metal props and bars, with the coalface conveyor (stint belt) on the left. The coal cutting machine is in the distance. Photo Credit – Mining Heritage archive
The longwall system of machine cutting, blasting and hand filling into tubs was improved by the introduction of face conveyors, known locally as ‘stint belts’. The method of winning the coal, undercutting and blasting remained the same, with the coal now being loaded onto the stint belt by hand and shovel. The system of taking the coal away from the coalface by tubs was eventually superseded and improved by the introduction of gate and trunk conveyors which transported the coal to a loading point near to the pit bottom. From this point the ‘run of mine’ coal travelled the shaft in tubs or mine-cars.
This work process operated on a cyclic system over twenty-four hours with coal being won on only one of three shifts. The first part of the process involved undercutting the coal, boring and shotfiring, known as the ‘prep shift’ (coal preparation shift). The second part of the process was the ‘production shift’, which consisted of coal filling (stinting) and re-erecting face supports (props and bars). The third and final part of the process was moving over the stint belt, ripping, packing and drawing supports from the waste. This part of the operation was known as ‘laying up’ or ‘turning over’ (Fig 9).
Fig 10: Swan necked jib cutter on a coalface in the 1940’s. Photo Credit – Mining Heritage archive
Eventually, as the twentieth century progressed, jib type coal cutters were introduced and by the 1940s, around 70% of coal production in Britain was cut by this means (Fig 10). An early mechanisation success at Annesley Colliery in the 1950’s was the introduction of a panzer mounted swan necked jib coal cutting machine with handfilling.
Fig. 11: 3D diagram showing the layout of a mechanised longwall coalface in the 1970’s / 1980’s. Source: British Coalmining, 1989.
In the late 1950s and through the 1960s, the winning of coal at the face evolved into a fully mechanised process with the introduction of ‘armoured flexible conveyors’ (AFC), known as ‘panzers’, coal cutting and loading machines (shearers and trepanners) and hydraulic roof supports known as ‘chocks’. The cyclic system was replaced by ‘continuous mining’ which was ‘winning the coal’ on a three shift basis.
Fig 12: Record production at Linby Colliery in 1961. Source – David Amos collection.
This speeded up production significantly, especially in the East Midlands, productivity being measured in ‘Output per Manshift’ (OMS). Pre 1977/8 productivity it was measured in hundredweights and after this in tonnes. Many collieries in the NCB East Midlands region led technical innovation in the British coal industry and constantly had OMS above the national average (Fig 12).
Fig 13: Anderson Boyes (AB) Meco Moore coal cutter. Photo Credit – Mining Heritage archive
One of the first successful coal cutters, which both cut and loaded coal, was the Anderson Boyes (AB) Meco-Moore (Fig. 13). These were the most popular coal cutting machines in the Nottinghamshire coalfield in the 1950s being successfully trialled at Rufford and Thoresby collieries. By the end of 1952, fifty Meco Moore’s were in operation, which constituted 85% of all coalface machines in the coalfield. They remained in use until the 1960’s at some collieries and were superseded by shearers and trepanners.
Fig 14:1960’s advert for British Jeffrey Diamond (BJD) Anderton Shearer. Photo Credit – Guide to the Coalfields
The next significant stage in the evolution of the coal cutting and loading process was the introduction of the Anderton Shearer (Fig. 14 & 15). It was designed by James Anderton, an NCB official, who later became Director of the NCB North Western Division. The Anderton shearer simplified the cutting process by using a single rotating drum instead of a jib, which simultaneously cut and loaded the coal onto the AFC.
Fig 15: Anderton Shearer at Gedling Colliery in the 1960’s
They worked like a bacon slicer and the development of doubled ended shearers meant they could cut bi-directional. The first shearers were single ended and cut the coal one –way whilst ploughing it back on the panzer the other way. The Anderton Shearer formed the basis of all shearers on long wall coalfaces from the late 1950’s onwards. One of the first to be successfully trialled was at Gedling Colliery, leading to further installations in the Nottinghamshire coalfield. (Fig 15).
Fig 16: Double Ended Conveyor Mounted Trepanner on a coalface in the 1970’s. Photo Credit – Mining Heritage archive
The alternative to the shearer was the trepanner (Fig.16). They had rotating bucket type drums, with a central turret and floor discs. They were gruesomely named because of their similarity to the surgical instrument used to drill small cylindrical holes in skulls! Double Ended Conveyor Mounted Trepanners (DECMT) were used in low seam mining at Annesley Colliery in the 1970’s and 1980’s and Floor Mounted Trepanners (FMT) at Silverhill Colliery in the 1980’s
Fig 17: Ned Smith operating the Console on the ROLF coalface at Newstead Colliery circa 1963. Photo Credit – Bob Collier collection
Remotely Operated Longwall Faces (ROLF) were trailed in the East Midlands at Bevercotes, Newstead and Ormonde collieries in the early 1960’s. Despite failing at Bevercotes, it was relatively successful at the other two collieries. Whilst the ripping and stable-hole part of the operation was still manned, the shearing, operation of the face hydraulic supports (chocks) and panzer were all automated, being operated by one man from a console in the gate. (Fig. 17).
Fig 18: NPLA booklet, 1966. Source – David Amos collection
The Newstead ROLF coalface became the blueprint for the National Power Loading Agreement (NPLA) which was introduced in June 1966. This provided for a standard national wage for all coalface workers in Britain by 31st December 1971. The NPLA was unpopular in the Nottinghamshire coalfield, many older coalface workers claiming it had ‘kicked the incentive out of pitwork’!
Fig 19: Steve Parr on the controls of an AM500 shearer on a retreat coalface in the Blackshale seam at Annesley-Bentinck Colliery in 1992. Source – David Amos collection
In the streamlined British coal industry of the 1990’s there was a move away from longwall advance coalfaces to ‘retreat mining’. This was a process where the two parallel gates, about 260 to 300 yards apart, were driven to a planned boundary where the coalface face was installed. The coal was then being worked on the retreat, using the existing development gates for supplies and the conveyor for taking the coal away.
Such automation significantly reduced the number of men required at the coalface, as the previous move from cyclic mining to continuous mining had done in the 1960’s. At Annesley Colliery in the 1970’s and early 1980’s a typical coalface team on a longwall advancing coalface in the Deep Soft seam (3ft seam thickness) would consist of twenty-four people. By the second decade of the 21st century at Thoresby Colliery, just eight people worked on a retreat coalface!
Fig 20: Anthony Kirby operating the shearer on the last coalface, S5’s coalface at Thoresby Colliery, in 2014. Photo Credit – Anthony Kirby
Retreat mining was by far a more productive method of ‘winning the coal’ than longwall advancing coalfaces. The last ever coalface in the Nottinghamshire coalfield, S5’s in the Deep Soft seam at Thoresby Colliery, was a retreat coalface (Fig 20). It finished production on 10th July 2015, when the colliery closed, thus ending deep coal mining in the East Midlands.
Coal Cutting Machines at Mining Museums
Fig 21: AB15 coal cutter as part of the Pleasley Pit Mining Museum digital tour. Photo by David Amos
Pleasley Pit Mining Museum
An AB 15 coal cutting machine forms part of the Pleasley Pit Mining Museum digital tour in Derbyshire (Fig 21). It includes a short video showing coal cutting machines at work including some brief footage of a ROLF coalface. More details @ https://mytrail.co.uk/trail05-12-coal-cutter/
Fig 22: Double Ended Conveyor Mounted Trepanner on display at the NCCME in 2024. Photo by David Amos
National Coal Mining Museum for England (NCMME).
Static displays of various coalface machines including trepanners and shearers can be seen at the NCMME at Caphouse Colliery near Wakefield, Yorkshire, on the surface and as part of the underground guided tour.
Fig 23: Coalface with shearer and chocks as part of the guided tour at the National Coal Mining Museum for Scotland. Photo by David Amos
National Coal Mining Museum for Scotland
A static coalface display including a shearer and hydraulic supports (chock) can be seen at the National Coal Mining museum for Scotland at the preserved Lady Victoria Colliery at Newtongrange, Midlothian.
Fig 24: Model of an AM500 Double End Range Drum Shearer at the Bilsthorpe Heritage Museum.
Blog by David Amos
Mine2Minds Education
Posted 10th November 2025
References
Amos, D. A Brief History of Annesley Colliery 1865 – 2000, unpublished, 2000.
Amos, D. Arthur Lawrence and the Butty System, Journal of D.H. Lawrence Studies, Vol.6, No.3, 2023.
Braber, N. & Amos, D. Mine-craft the Prequel: The Photographic Story of East Midlands Coal, 2022.
British Coal. British Coalmining: An Introduction, 1989.
British Coal, Linby Colliery 1873-1988.
Kew, K. Coal, Dust & Community: A History of North Derbyshire’s Mining Industry, 2025.
Lawrence, D.H. Women in Love, Wordsworth Classics edition, 1992.
NCB, South Nottinghamshire Coal Digest, 1983-84.
Pigott, N. The Rise and Fall of King Coal, 2022.
Salford Museum of Mining, Coalmining, 1981