Qualla: Haig Colliery

Haig Colliery: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Harold Horrocks died in the Haig Colliery on 13 December 1927, in an explosion that killed three of his workmates as well. His body could not be recovered before the mine had to be made safe, so a recovery party of twenty-four men went underground on 9 February 1928 to look for him. Sometime after eleven that night, three explosions tore through the workings - each more violent than the last. Eleven men managed to grope their way three miles through black tunnels to the bottom of the shafts. Thirteen did not. A second rescue party reached where the last explosion had happened and found the roof completely collapsed. The area had to be sealed off. It has remained sealed ever since. Thirteen men, and Harold Horrocks, are still down there. Most of their families never recovered their husbands and fathers - only the official notice, posted on a board.

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Haig Colliery: Sunk by Hand, Named for a General

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The shafts of Haig Colliery were sunk between 1914 and 1918 - through the years of the First World War - as new access to the existing Wellington Pit at Whitehaven. The mine was named after Douglas Haig, the British commander whose name was then synonymous with the war. (Cumbria ...

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Haig Colliery: 5 September 1922

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The first disaster came on a Tuesday morning, just before nine. The day before, gas had been reported in the Six Quarters Seam. The deputy in charge, William Weightman, went down with a shot-firer to make a judgement call. Weightman approved the shot-firer to set off his explosiv...

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Haig Colliery: The Search for Harold Horrocks

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Coal mining in this era was constant grief. After the 1922 explosion, the mine kept producing. On 13 December 1927 another explosion killed four men; one of them, Harold Horrocks, could not be brought out before the workings had to be sealed for safety. Eight weeks later, with th...

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Haig Colliery: 29 January 1931

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Three years later, just after a quarter past eight on a Thursday evening, the third great explosion ripped through Haig. Of the 169 men working underground, forty-five were in the same area where the 1928 explosion had happened. Twenty-seven were killed. Between 1922 and 1931, th...

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Haig Colliery: The Last Cumbrian Deep Mine

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

By the 1984 miners' strike, Haig was the only deep mine still working in Cumbria. The men there had been told, just as the strike began, that eighty per cent of them would lose their jobs. They knew the pit was uneconomic. They voted to work through the strike to protect their re...

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