Fig 1: Top of the Creswell Colliery Disaster Memorial. Photo Credit – David Amos
The 1950 Creswell Colliery Disaster – 75th anniversary.
Overview of the Disaster
In the early hours of 26th September 1950 an underground fire was discovered at a main trunk conveyor transfer point in the south west district of the High Hazels seam at Creswell Colliery in north Derbyshire. It spread quickly and toxic fumes were taken inbye to an area were 133 men were working on four panels, three miles from the pit bottom. Eighty miners were killed through the effects of smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning. Forty-seven bodies were recovered later that day but stoppings had to installed in an effort to extinguish the fire. Twenty seven bodies were recovered six months later on 25th March 1951 after the stoppings were breached. The final six bodies were recovered almost eleven months after the disaster on 11th August 1951.
Fig 2: Creswell Colliery on the day of the mining disaster, 26th September 1950.
The tragedy received national media attention and a four page article appeared in ‘The Illustrated London News’ on 7th October 1950. A formal inquest opened three weeks after the disaster on 17th October 1950 and evidence was heard from twenty-six witnesses but after three days it was adjourned until late November 1951. The formal report into the disaster by the Ministry of Power was published in June 1952. A memorial to the eighty victims was erected in the Skinner Street Cemetery at Creswell.
Movietone news clip of the 1950 Creswell Colliery disaster. (1 min, 28 secs).
The Creswell Colliery Disaster: 26th September 1950.
The cause of the underground fire was thought to be frictional burning at No. 2 transfer point after a main trunk conveyor belt was damaged. This caused the rubber conveyor belting to become ignited which spread inbye into the workings, causing toxic fumes to be taken to several panels (coalface workings) working inbye. The fire at the transfer point was discovered at 03.45 on the night shift of 25th /26th September 1950.
Fig 3: Sketch of No.2 main trunk conveyor transfer point where the underground fire started. Photo Credit – Friends of Pleasley Pit
Two hundred and thirty-two men were working underground at the time, with one hundred and thirty-three being deployed in the south-west district. Coal turning was taking place in this area of the mine after it wasn’t completed on the afternoon shift. Fifty-one miners escaped via a smoke filled return roadway, two had left the district early but eighty others perished. A breakdown in communications and the failure of fire-fighting equipment didn’t help the cause and the remaining miners were overcome by the fumes leading to carbon-monoxide poisoning.
Fig 4: Cropped plan of the south-west district underground workings in the High Hazels seam where the fire occurred and showing locations where the bodies were found. Source: Documents and plans on the disaster belonging to Carl Sterland Snr.
Mines Rescue teams, initially from Chesterfield and later from Mansfield and Ilkeston Mines Rescue Stations, attended the scene and three bodies were initially brought out before the heart-wrenching decision was made to seal off the affected area of the colliery by putting stoppings on. This was in an attempt to starve the underground fire of oxygen to try and extinguish it. This difficult decision was reached following a quickly convened conference held between management, trade union representatives and Mines Inspectors as it was realised that further rescue attempts would inevitably lead to a greater loss of life. Dozens of other miners and volunteers helped fill sand bags on the surface which were sent underground to help build the stoppings (Fig 5).
Fig 5: Volunteers filling sandbags on the surface for the underground stoppings.
Later that day another forty-four bodies had been recovered but it was discovered that the underground fire was more extensive than first thought and the affected area was resealed. It would be almost six months later that the next twenty-seven bodies were recovered on 25th March 1951. The final six bodies were not recovered until almost a year later on 11th August 1951.
An in depth, detailed account of the Creswell mining disaster is on the Northern Mining Research Society website at https://nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/accidents-disasters/derbyshire/cresswell-colliery-conveyor-fire-cresswell-1950/
Fig 6: Crowds gather at Creswell pit head on 26th September 1950 following news of the disaster.
Reaction and recollections of the Disaster
As word got around about the disaster, a crowd of two thousand miners and their families gathered at the Creswell pit head awaiting news. A service of hymns and prayer was conducted at the pit-head by the Rev C.S. Branson, Vicar of Creswell. He later recalled the role he played in the disaster in the book ‘Pitful of Memories’ by Chesterfield teenagers (1995).
‘I got a phone call at 7am. Could I come up to the pit straight away…I soon found out what had happened…I said “Can I do anything? Can I go down?” But they said no…you stay up here people will need comforting and reassurance’.
Coalmining historian, Ken Wain, was nine years old when the disaster happened and recalled the family listening to a news bulletin on the radio and the family reaction;
‘A news bulletin came over the radio, ‘Eighty miners feared trapped by underground fire at Creswell Colliery’…the family sat in front of the coal fire, huddled together, listening to the terrible news…My Grandfather worked at a conveyor transfer point at Kiveton Park Colliery…tears were streaming down his face as the story unfolded’.
Messages of condolence were received from King George VI and the Queen, the Bishop of Derby and Prime Minister, Clement Atlee. Coal Industry and associated dignitaries who visited the scene of the disaster included Lord Hyndley (NCB Chairman), Phillip Noel-Baker (Minister of Fuel and Power), Sir Andrew Bryan (Chief Inspector of Mines), Sir Hubert & Lady Houldsworth (NCB Chairman East Midlands Division and his wife), Arthur Horner (NUM General Secretary), Ald. W Bayliss (President – Nottingham Area NUM) and Mr R Ringham (Deputy Chairman NCB East Midlands Division).
Fig 7: Anxious people from the local mining community awaiting news following the disaster.
Some harrowing cases came to the fore as news of the disaster spread. Tragically, three sons in one family, the Dodds of Creswell, were killed. Leslie (47) and Ernest (31) were working on 74’s panel and John (45) was on 68’s panel.
Frederick Barker (41), a ripper, was one of the bodies not recovered until 25th March 1951. His wife, Kathleen, had tragically lost her first husband in a fatality at Creswell Colliery seventeen years earlier.
Another fatality, Colin Hemingray (25), had only been married three weeks. His young wife, Audrey (nee Wragg), had his breakfast ready for him coming off the night shift and didn’t know about the incident until her mother informed her.
Fig 8: The mining community of Creswell pay their respects at the funerals of some of the fatalities from the 1950 mining disaster.
The majority of the fatalities came from Creswell and the nearby mining community of Clowne. Following the disaster, for the initial fatalities whose bodies had been recovered, individual services took place at different churches and chapels every half hour following agreement between the Rev C S Branson (Creswell Church of England), the Methodist Minister, the Roman Catholic Priest from Clowne and three local undertakers.
Fig 9: Cover of the Ministry of Fuel and Power report into the Creswell Colliery disaster.
The Inquest
A formal investigation into the disaster opened on 17th October 1950 at Creswell Miners Welfare Institute and was adjourned two days later. The Enquiry resumed on 27th November 1951 with additional evidence being given and concluded the following day. George Vardy (36), a conveyor erector, gave a harrowing and graphic account of his escape from the disaster scene.
At the inquest into the deaths, the District Coroner, Michael Swanwick, sitting with a jury, opened the inquest into the death of forty-seven miners. He stated that he intended to take evidence of identification from doctor’s statements only. Dr Al Lecutier, Pathologist from Chesterfield Royal Hospital, conducted three post mortems and established the cause of death as carbon monoxide poisoning. He stated, that in his opinion, the miners would have died quickly and without much suffering.
The Official Report into the disaster was written by Sir Andrew Bryan (Chief Inspector of Mines) for the Ministry of Fuel and Power and was published in June 1952.
Finding from the official report into the disaster were as follows;
- A rapidly starting and growing fire spreading in the main intake roadway.
- Failure of firefighting apparatus.
- Some delay in warning the men inbye of imminent danger.
- The main return was the only means of escape for men on the inbye side of the fire.
Fig 10: Proto type tests with the self-rescuer in the 1960s.
Outcomes as a result of the Disaster
The underground fire at Creswell Colliery resulted in the development of non-flammable PVC conveyors to replace rubber ones, other means of egress in the event of underground fires and trials in the development of self-rescuers, a type of respirator used in underground fires. After the Creswell disaster and following the Auchengeich and Michael Colliery disasters in the Scottish coalfield in 1959 and 1967 respectively, the use of self-rescuers would be universal in British collieries by the early 1970’s. Self-rescuers were one of the ten coalmining artefacts used in the 2013 heritage project, ‘A History of Coalmining in Ten Objects’. More details at https://miningheritage.co.uk/self-rescuer/
Fig 11: Documentation relating to Creswell Colliery and the 1950 mining disaster from the Friends of Pleasley Pit.
Documentation and Archives on the Disaster
A set of three boxes containing various documentation about Creswell Colliery was donated by a former British Coal official to the Friends of Pleasley Pit (Fig 11). They contain some harrowing information relating to the 1950 disaster including a list of the miners involved in the disaster, a list of fatalities including dates of the bodies being recovered, details of bodies in the sealed off area of the mine, correspondence asking when entombed miners might be reached, a list of widows and dependent children and a copy of the official report.
Fig 11a and 11b: Correspondence relating to the recovery of one of miner’s bodies following the 1950 Creswell Colliery disaster. Source – Friends of Pleasley Pit
The records for the disaster at the National Archives, COAL 50/342, dated September 1950 to October 1952, are closed for a period of seventy-five years until 1st January 2028. (Fig 12). The criteria is unknown.
Fig 12: On-line entry for details of the 1950 Creswell mining disaster at the National Archives
Fig 13: Creswell Colliery Disaster Memorial in late August 2025. Photo by David Amos
Fig 14: Plaque at the relocated and refurbished Creswell Colliery Disaster Memorial in late August 2025. Photo by David Amos
Memorials to the Creswell Colliery Disaster
A memorial garden to the victims of the Creswell Colliery disaster was established in the Skinner Street cemetery at Creswell (Fig 13). The memorial, erected by Elmton and Creswell Parish Council and the NUM (Nottingham Area), contains the names of the eighty victims. The memorial was rededicated on the 50th anniversary of the disaster in September 2000. In 2022 the memorial was relocated and refurbished and an information board about the 1950 disaster was erected nearby.
Fig 15: Information board on the 1950 Creswell Colliery disaster at the Skinner Street cemetery near to the reloacted mining memorial. Photo by David Amos
Fig 16: Graves to disaster victims and their widows at the Skinner Street cemetery, Creswell. Photo by David Amos
Mining disaster memorials – St Mary Magdalene church, Creswell.
Fig 17: Stained glass window by Clare Dawson dedicated to the 1950 Creswell Colliery disaster and the Creswell NUM branch banner, both located at St Mary Magdalene church, Creswell. Photos by David Amos
A stained glass memorial window is in Creswell St Mary Magdalene Parish Church along with a flame safety lamp which remains lit as an eternal flame to the memory of the eighty miners. The Creswell branch National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is on display in the church.
Fig 18: Tablet dedicated to the 1950 Creswell Colliery disaster at St Mary Magdalene church. Photo by David Amos
Fig 19: Graves to disaster victims at the St Mary Magdalene church, Creswell. Photo by David Amos – 28th August 2025.
Creswell Mining Disaster
John McGinleys poem from the time pays tribute to the eighty miners who perished in the Creswell mining disaster.
Fig 20: Preserved minecar dedicated to the 1950 Creswell Colliery disaster on the old pit lane near to the model pit village. Photo by David Amos
Fig 21: Creswell Colliery prior to closure in 1991.
Creswell Colliery was sunk by the Bolsover Colliery Company from 1894 to 1896 and finished production under ownership of the British Coal Corporation on 20th September 1991.
Blog by David Amos
Heritage Resources Officer
Mine2Minds Education
Posted, 2nd edition with additional images added on 29th August 2025.
References
Bell, D . Memories of the Derbyshire Coalfield, Newbury, 2006
Bolsover Colliery Company, Jubilee Souvenir 1889-1939, Bolsover, 1939
Bradley, R. (Senior Mining Surveyor) Oral Interview, 23rd September 2020.
British Coal (Nottinghamshire Group), Creswell Colliery 1897 – 1991, Edwinstowe, 1991.
Derbyshire Times, When Coal was King, Chesterfield, 2010.
Healey Hero website www.healeyhero.co.uk
Haigh, B. Bolsover Colliery: One Hundred Years of Mining – A Centenary History, Bolsover, 1989.
McGinley, J. poem, The Creswell Mine Disaster.
Ministry of Fuel and Power, Accident at Creswell Colliery, Derbyshire. Report on the causes and circumstances attending the accident which occurred at Creswell Colliery, Derbyshire, on 26th September 1950. London, 1952.
Saint Augustine Youth Interview Team, Pitful of Memories: Chesterfield Teenagers
Mine the Memories of a Dying Breed, Chesterfield, 1995.
Wain, K. Coalmining around Sheffield and north-east Derbyshire, 2014.
YouTube, Creswell Pit Disaster (British Pathe) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0FEgh_GNn8