A Boxing Day Mining Disaster at a Maesteg Colliery

You can just imagine the news paper headlines in 1863.

At the meeting of the Shedquarters Men’s Shed last Thursday 10th June, Mr. Roy Meredith gave a talk and power point presentation on the disaster at the “Gin Pit” Maesteg. No it was not names the Gin Pit because they produced gin. It did produce coal and also iron ore to be used in the iron works. Which was where the Tesco’s store is situated today, just below the Gin Pit. It is believed it was named the Gin Pit after the horse driven machinery that wound the coal and iron ore up the shaft. The depth of the shaft was only 345 feet deep. Maesteg town centre is built where the coal seams come very close to the surface.  The coal was worked on an incline, so the actual workings would have been lower than that.
The colliery shaft is situated in what is now Maesteg Welfare Park, in front of the hospital. The area is fenced off because whatever they used to fill the shaft has started to settle. There is now a memorial to the 14 man and boys who died on the 26th December 1863.
The coal part of the pit was worked using the “Pillar and stall” method. The stall was a narrow road way driven into the coal in a grid fashion. Leaving the pillar squares to help hold up the roof. The stalls are worked to the boundary and then worked in retreat. It is then that the coal within the pillars is removed and the roof allowed to fall in. This method of working was notorious for the difficulty of ensuring good ventilation for clearing any gas(methane) out of the workings.
During the inquest it was stated the on an inspection that took place on Christmas Eve, the “Fireman” did not find any gas. Christmas day was a holiday so no inspection took place. It was when the work started back up on Boxing Day that the incident took happened. The incident was blamed on a 21 old man and a 14 year old boy who it is thought took a naked flame into the workings and that was what caused the explosion. The verdict of the inquest was accidental deaths. Both the 21 year old and the 14 year old were among those who died in the explosion.
It was not known what compensation was paid to the families of the men and boys killed.

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Written by John Gates

A giant music box will surprise visitors to a Sheffield museum – and the message behind it is crucial

A ‘sculptural sound system’ taking the form of a vast music box is to go on show at Sheffield’s Kelham Island Museum – putting the spotlight on organisations that work to boost people’s mental health.

By Richard Blackledge

The new piece, called Stand, has been created by artist Mel Brimfield and composer Gwyneth Herbert in collaboration with more than 100 mental health service users, singers, museum volunteers and members of the Men’s Sheds project in England and Wales.

A choral composition sits at the centre of the installation. This began with a recording of a long-term inpatient, Patrick, reciting poetry at the Bethlam psychiatric hospital in London, which was captured by Brimfield as part of a year of research.A writing process then followed, guided by a series of workshops led by the artists with groups such as inmates at HMP Parc Prison, academics at Kings College and the choir at Maudsley Hospital.

The installation comprises an elaborately hand-painted, 15-sided platform, in the middle of which Patrick’s recitation plays from a speaker embedded in a gold-leafed tree hung with hundred of polished semi-precious stones.

A circle of 15 chairs is gathered around the sculpture, each one designed and built by different chapters of Men’s Sheds, as well as Kelham Island Museum volunteers and technicians, using crafts ranging from whittling, marquetry and wood turning to stained glass.

A speaker is built into each chair relaying parts of the composition, performed by members of Harrow-based ensemble More Than Just a Choir.

Gwyneth said: “In our songwriting workshops, we explored emotions and subjects around mental illness such as isolation and connection; loneliness and community; anxiety and healing; the loss, finding and sharing of voice.

 Gwyneth Herbert and Mel Brimfield at Kelham Island Museum. Picture: Jonathan Turner

“Common to many shared stories was an exhausting experience of collapse, slow recovery and relapse without appropriate community support.

“As a central principle, we’ve structured the harmonic sequences and melodies to assume a looping, cyclical form in response, uniting initially tentative individual voices in the circle to slowly build to a euphoric choral swell before repeatedly fragmenting to dissonance.”

Mel added: “The accessibility and value of creativity to the isolated is both the subject and method of ‘Stand’.

“At a time of disastrous austerity cuts to mental health services, we’re uniting and foregrounding the organisations who provide crucial opportunities for socialising through communal activity.

Kelham Island Museum. Picture: Andrew Roe

“It’s an artwork that’s been made with and for the community, and is hopefully a celebratory testament to the potential of collective action.”

Men’s Sheds are places where older men can go to practice skills such as making and mending, tackling the problem of loneliness. The movement began in Australia and has since spread across the world.

Chris Keady, museum manager at Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust, said Kelham Island aimed to ‘tell the stories of the people and communities behind Sheffield’s industrial past – the makers and the craftspeople’.

“This newly-commissioned artwork gives a new perspective on the process of making, collaborating and wellbeing, and is very different from anything our visitors will have experienced at Kelham Island Museum before,” he said.

The artists worked with members of the Men's Sheds project - a Men's Shed in Hartlepool is pictured. Picture: Frank Reid

Stand is on show at Kelham Island from January 26 to March 8. It then tours to Cardiff, Leeds and Leicester.

The project is part of the Meeting Point scheme, run by the Arts&Heritage agency.

Visit www.simt.co.uk/kelham-island-museum for details

 

Written by John Gates

ShedQuarters Commissioned to Build New Art Project

The woodworking group and the craft group are working on an exciting project. The Shed has been approached by an eminent artist Mel Brimfiel who as asked us to be involved in an art project that she has been commissioned to produce. Of course we said yes.

Mel has been asked by the National Psychosis Unit, at Bethlem Royal Hospital to produce an art work around the theme of mental health, loneliness and isolation. She has asked Sheds from around England and Wales to produce chairs. They will be normal size chairs with a hole for a speaker in the middle of the seat (with the tendency of the Welsh to give everything a nickname, they are known as “commodes”). We have been asked to produce two chairs, one will be plain the other will be upholstered with a made up patchwork cloth. Shed members will be recorded and their voices and stories will come from their chairs.

The design of the patchwork is called the “Courthouse Steps” since we meet at the Court house. It will also be embroidered with our name “Shedquarters” and the symbol of “7777” Between the design the “Courthouse Steps” and the 7777 which signifies “The old parish” the nickname for Measteg. Those in the know will know where the chair came from.

The art work will go on display in the Kelham Island Industrial Museum, Sheffield, the Chapter Arts Center, Cardiff and The Tetley in Leeds during 2020.

Written by John Gates