GLOSSARY

Job-related
Agent	The chief official of a large colliery or group of collieries or Group Manager after nationalisation.
Back-overman	An Overman in charge of the back-shift of workers in a coal mine, i.e. men in charge of repair and maintenance.
Banksman	Man employed in charge of signals and cage-loading at the top of the shaft. Collects checks from the men and liaises with the winder.
‘Big-hitter’	A modern and unofficial term used in some areas to describe a highly-paid miner employed – often on contract work – for example making headings.
Blacksmith	Colliery blacksmiths sharpened miners’ picks and repaired and maintained metal items, as well as shoeing horses and ponies. Also see Farrier.
Block-layer	or Roadman or Plate-layer. A man employed in laying and maintaining rail tracks underground.
Breaksman	See Winding Engineman.
Bummer	The man in charge of a group of men on a longwall face.
Buttyman	Before nationalisation a person who has an agreement with the colliery owner or manager to independently employ and pay a small group of miners. Also see Sub-contractor.
Coalmaster	Old name for a colliery owner, especially in the eighteenth century and earlier.
Coalminer	or Miner. Generic term for a person who works underground at a coal mine.
Checkweighman	A man chosen by the miners to monitor and check that the amount of coal that each man or team had extracted was correctly weighed at the surface, an essential requirement under the piecework system.
Collier	or Hewer. A skilled and experienced miner who extracts the coal from a seam at a coalface and sets supports for safety. Sometimes the word is used in a generic sense, especially in newspapers. Also see Getter.
Corporal	A person responsible for a group of haulage hands. Known as a ‘Doggy’ in Lancashire and Staffordshire.
Cutterman	A miner responsible for operating a coal-cutting machine.
Dataller	A day-wage worker, usually an underground general labourer.
Deputy	or Fireman. A qualified underground official responsible for the safety and operation of men in a district of a mine.
Dinter	A man employed on floor excavation on underground headings and roadways.
Discharge note	A certificate given to each worker who satisfactorily completed his contract of service at one colliery and which had to be produced before he could be engaged at another. Suspended in 1896.
‘Doggy’	See Corporal.
Door trapper	A boy (or girl) working underground responsible for opening and closing ventilation doors.
Drawer	The Lancashire (mainly) version of a Hurrier, Putter, Trammer or Hurrier.
Faceworker	A modern term for a miner who regularly works at the coalface.
Farrier	A person responsible for the stables of horses above and below ground. Traditionally shoes horses.
Filler	A man working with a collier to manually load coal into tubs or on to conveyor belts.
Fireman	See Deputy.
Fitter	A qualified man responsible for the repair and maintenance of underground machinery and equipment.
‘Gaffer’	Used especially post-1947 (nationalisation) for a manager or other senior official.
Getter	A man employed in breaking down or detaching coal after it has been ‘holed’ or undercut. Also see Collier, Getter and Hewer.
Gummer(man)	Person employed to remove the small coal and dirt from a worked area such as a hand-got or mechanised coalface.
Hanger-on	or Hooker-on. The man employed to hang corves or tubs on to the rope/cage in the pit bottom or at levels via an endless rope haulage system.
Haulier	See Pony Driver.
Hewer	See Collier.
Hitcher	See Onsetter.
Holer	A man employed to manually undercut the coal prior to extraction or shotfiring. Also see Collier and Getter.
Hooker-on	See Hanger-on.
Hurrier	See Putter.
Hutch Runner	Scottish version of a Drawer, Hurrier, Putter or Trammer.
Jigger	Underground haulage engine operator.
‘King Edward’	A term used in humour, especially in Yorkshire, to describe a miner who spends too much time working underground, doing overtime etc.
Linesman	A man responsible for laying out survey lines underground.
Manager	A qualified person in charge of a coal mine, answerable to the Inspector of Mines.
Master Sinker	See Sinker.
Miner	See Coalminer.
‘Nipper’	A boy miner, especially in Yorkshire.
Official	An experienced and qualified Deputy or Overman.
Onsetter	or Hitcher. Person in charge of the shaft signals and loading/unloading of men and tubs or skips in and out of the cage in the pit bottom.
Ostler	The person in charge of the underground stables and horses. Also known as a Stableman. Also see Farrier.
Overlooker	See Overman and Back-overman.
Overman	An underground official intermediate between a Deputy and an undermanager, usually responsible for more than one district of a coal mine. Also known as an Overlooker in some coalfield areas.
Paddy mail driver	Underground worker responsible for the safe operation of of a man-riding vehicle or paddy train, taking miners to their places of work.
Platelayer	See Blocklayer.
Picker	A man, woman or boy who picks dirt and debris from the coal on the pit-top picking tables/screens.
‘Pit-brow lassie’	A female miner working on pit-top jobs, including tiplers, most notably in Wigan and Lancashire.
Pitman	Generic term for a coalminer; more specifically a man who examines or inspects the shafts or was in charge of the pumps in the shaft.
Pony driver	or Pony-putter. A boy or young miner responsible for moving empty or full tubs with the help of a pony or horse. A general Haulier.
‘Powder Monkey’	A person who assists a shotfirer.
‘Prop Bobby’	A miner who checks that props are sound and that they are are in the right place.
Putter	or Trammer or Drawer or Hurrier. A man or boy (and before 1842 a girl or woman) employed in pushing or pulling full and empty tubs (or sledges, or corves) along underground roadways by hand.
Roadman	See Block-layer.
Ripper	A skilled underground miner who enlarges and supports the roofs or roadways.
Shotfirer	A suitably qualified person (appointed by the colliery manager) who fires shots of explosives in a heading, stone drift or district. Often a prerequisite to becoming a Deputy.
Sinker	A specialist miner, part of a team, employed for the sinking of shafts from the surface to the pit bottom, a Master Sinker in charge.
Stableman	See Ostler.
Stallman	A Collier who works in a stall or face.
Stone Duster	A man employed to distribute stone dust along the roadways in order to reduce inflammability.
Sub-contractor	See Buttyman.
Timberman	A person responsible for preparing and conveying wooden props to the coalface and roadways.
Trammer	See Putter.
Under-manager	An intermediary between the colliery manager and officials, responsible for the underground operation of the mine; and deputizing for the manager in his absence. Known as ‘Under-Viewers’ in the nineteenth century.
Under-Viewer	See Under-manager and Viewer.
Viewer	Nineteenth-century name for a mine manager.
Winding Engineman	or Breaksman. A skilled man in charge of the steam or electric winding engine at a colliery, particularly its operation.
Miner-related
Allowances	Extra pay allocated for extreme work, e.g. wet conditions.
Backshift	The afternoon or evening shift, used for pre-production preparation, including repairs and maintenance. Also see Shift.
Bait	See Piece and Snap.
Bannickers	Short work trousers worn just below the knee.
Beat Knee	(or elbow or hand) A common occupational ailment. Bursitis (painful swelling of the knee) caused by kneeling and crawling.
Bond	The legal agreement by which the miner was bound to his master/employer for a set period, usually a year (especially in Northumberland and Durham, and Scotland).
Bull Week	Two weeks of intense and/or prolonged work so as to earn as much as possible before Christmas.
Check	A numbered brass (usually) token issued to prove the presence of a miner in the pit. Normally hung in the lamp room. Also known as a Tally.
Clogs	Sturdy leather footwear with wooden soles and attached iron grips or studs.
Contraband	Illegal materials (especially combustible) found or confiscated before going underground.
Drawers	Miners’ shorts or knickers worn when working in hot conditions.
Dudley	Metal, ‘clock-shaped’ drinking water container carried by a miner underground. Capacity of 2, 4 pints or more.
Hand-got	Coal extracted manually, mainly by pick, wedge and shovel.
Hoggers	A footless stocking, usually worsted.
Holing	Manually undercutting a coal seam, the miner often laying on his side to do the work: ‘to hole’.
Jack	Tin drinking water bottle with a cork stopper.
Mandrel	See Mandril.
Mandril	or Mandrel. A miner’s pick (Welsh).
Man-riding	Miner riding on an underground rail via a moving tub or set of tubs or on a moving conveyor belt.
Miner’s phthisis	See Silicosis.
Moleskin	Hard-wearing and warm material often used for miners’ trousers.
Nystagmus	Painful miners’ disease characterized by oscillation of the eyeballs.
Piece	See Snap.
Pneumoconiosis	Respiratory disease caused by the long-term inhalation of dust in mines. Also known as ‘black lung disease’. Also see Silicosis.
Price List	Piecework pay-rates agreed by the miners/unions and the management/owners, published in the form of a small booklet, usually for a particular colliery.
Shift	A set period of work, usually expressed as ‘days’ (morning/early afternoon); ‘afters’ (afternoon/early evening) and ‘nights’ (evenings/early mornings). Also see Backshift.
Silicosis	A disease of the lungs caused by prolonged inhalation of silica dust. Also known as miner’s phthisis and ‘black spit’; and is a form of pneumoconiosis.
Sliding scale	Variable miners’ pay-rate according to the selling price of coal.
Snap	A miner’s portable meal/snack, often contained in a tin. Also known as his Bait and Piece in Scottish and northern coalfields.
Stint	An amount of work by one man in a shift.
Tally	See Check.
‘Tipple Tin’	Small, usually round and numbered, metal container used to contain a miner’s pay and issued i.e. tipped out, on pay-day.
Tommy Box	A small container, usually metal, used to store a miner’s lunch. Also see snap.
Tommy Shop	A shop owned by a colliery owner or butty where pay credits or tokens were exchanged for goods under the Truck System.
‘Trammer’s Scab’	Bruised and rubbed vertebrae as a result of the miner catching his backbone along a low roof during tramming.
Truck System	Payment of wages in kind.
Vesting Day	Official date for the nationalisation of coal mines: 1 January 1947.
‘Yorks’	Leather straps tied around each trouser leg below the knee. Allegedly to keep the trouser bottoms dry; or keep them out of boots; or stop vermin crawling up the leg – or all three!
Colliery-related
Adit	A tunnel driven into a hillside for working the coal and/or transport and/or drainage. Also see Drift.
Afterdamp	Deadly mixture of non-inflammable gasses after an underground firedamp explosion.
Blackdamp	Suffocating gas heavier than air, which may also be poisonous. Also known as Chokedamp.
Blower	A sudden outburst of gas from the coal seam or surrounding rock, say from a crack of fault.
Box-hole	Underground cabin used as an office.
Cage	A colliery carriage or lift for ascending and descending a shaft. Can be single or multi-deck. Also known as a Chair.
Chokedamp	See Blackdamp.
Chocks	A system of timber or steel roof supports (known as Cogs in some regions) for use at the coalface. Hydraulic steel versions are the most modern.
Coalface	Underground area of a mine where the coal is exposed and extracted.
Cogs	See Chocks.
Corfe	(or Corve) A hazel basket in which coal was carried from the face to the surface. Later used to describe a small Tub or Tram.
Cupola	A ventilation furnace chimney.
Day Hole	A small Drift mine.
‘Dosco’	Trade name for the large cutting machine used underground on longwall faces.
District	A defined or recognised area of a colliery for ventilation and daily supervision (by one or more officials such a Deputy or Overman.
Downcast Shaft	The shaft through which fresh air passes into the workings of the mine. Also see Upcast Shaft.
Dram	A term used in some areas, for example in Wales, for a wheeled tub.
Draw	A term used in Scotland and Lancashire for tramming. Also see Putter; and used in the context of the winding engine, for a descent/ascent of the cage.
Drift	A mine driven from the surface, accessed by an inclined tunnel rather than a shaft. Also see Day-hole and Adit.
Endless Rope Haulage	The use of two rail tracks, one for empty tubs and one for full tubs travelling inbye and outbye simultaneously on a flat or nearly flat gradient.
Firedamp	Inflammable gas whose chief constituent is methane, much feared by miners.
‘Goaf’	See Gob.
‘Gob’	Also known as ‘Goaf’: an area where waste material is lodged.
Headgear	or Headframe or Headstocks, the timber (or steel) structure erected over the mine shaft, with pulley wheels and ropes for raising and lowering the cages.
Heading	A drivage or roadway through rock and coal in advance of a coalface, in order to ascertain the conditions prior to working the coal. ‘Hedin’ in Wales.
Hoppit	Large iron bucket used by pit sinkers. A smaller version is known as a Kibble.
Inbye	Towards the coalface. Also see outbye.
Inrush	A sudden flow of water into a mine or underground workings.
Joy loader	A mechanical coal-cutter for continuous mining on a longwall face, named after its American inventor, in c.1920.
Kibble	See Hoppit.
Level	A main underground roadway.
Locker	See Sprag.
Longwall	A system of working coal originating in Shropshire where a number of men work along a coalface, with no supporting pillars needed. Widespread usage in modern-day mines.
Man-hole	Narrow recess in side of a haulage roadway so as to allow a miner to shelter during passage of hauled tubs.
Outbye	Away from the coalface. Also see inbye.
Pack	A wall of loose stones packed with debris, erected for support of a roof in longwall mining.
Paddy mail	Underground miners’ train operated by a specialist driver.
Pan	A section of a chain conveyor.
Pillar and Bord	See Pillar and Stall.
Pillar and Stall	A system of mining a seam of coal via parallel stalls advancing onwards, leaving pillars of coal to support the roof. Also known as ‘pillar and bord’ mining. Each stall was manned by two miners.
Pit	Another name for a coal mine or shaft.
Pit Bank	The colliery surface, especially around the shaft(s).
Pit Bottom	The area at the base of the shaft where the cage ascends and where men and materials are loaded under the supervision of the Onsetter. Usually a very cold workplace.
Pithead Baths	Purpose-built building where miners change and wash, established mainly through the Miners’ Welfare Scheme.
Prop	Wood or steel roof support, set manually or hydraulically.
Roadway	Underground passageway driven through a mine, used for access or exploration.
Safety Lamp	Approved lamp used by miners, originally invented by Sir Humphrey Davy in 1815 but there were many other versions.
Screens	Place on the pit-top where coal is sorted (originally manually) according to size and dirt/debris removed. Part of the coal preparation process.
‘Shearer’	Large coal-cutting/power-loading machine that makes a vertical cut in the coalface during modern longwall mining. Developed by James Anderton from c.1954 and generally known as the Anderton Shearer Loader.
Skip	A large rectangular (usually) steel container used to carry mined coal when which is then wound up the shaft.
Sprag	A temporary short roof support or prop, made of timber; also a term used for short piece of timber (sometimes called a ‘locker’) placed in the spokes of a tram or tub to stop it running away.
Stemming	Clay and/or other material used to ram into a shot hole after explosive has been inserted prior to firing.
Stopping	A barrier built across a roadway to prevent air flowing beyond it. Used to block dangerous gases, especially after an explosion or potential explosion.
Tippler	A mechanical appliance on the pit bank for emptying coal from a tub or dram above the screens of a colliery. Operated by ‘pit brow lasses’ at some collieries.
Tram	See Tub.
Tub	A wheeled carriage or wagon used to transport coal and other materials on an underground railroad.
Upcast Shaft	A shaft carrying an ascending air current. Also see Downcast Shaft.
Windlass	A man-operated winding device at the top of a shaft.
Whim Gin	A horse-driven drum and rope winding device used at the top of shafts on early mines. Also see Whimsey.
Whimsey	Another term for a Windlass but later also used for a Whim Gin.