The descendants of generations of coalminers of Bedminster and Ashton gathered for a special ceremony at the weekend – the unveiling of the very first metal miner memorial in Bristol.
There are around 40 of the 7ft tall silhouette sculptures dotted around Somerset’s historic coalfields – from Radstock to Pensford – but there has never been one erected in Bristol to mark the city’s long-lost coal mines, until now.
And the great-great-great grandchildren of those miners who worked underground in unimaginable conditions in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries gathered next to the aptly-named Jolly Colliers pub in West Street, in Bedminster, for the grand unveiling.
The miner is accompanied by a ceramic plaque which acts as a memorial to ten miners who died in the last great pit disaster in Bristol, which saw ten miners on a night shift at the Malago Vale pit killed in an explosion in August 1891.
At its height, there were 1,200 miners living in Bedminster and Ashton and working underground at dozens of pits, which opened and closed sporadically.
The four biggest and longest-lasting were the Dean Lane pit – whose covered-over pithead is now the bandstand in the centre of Dame Emily Park – Ashton Vale, South Liberty Lane and the vast Malago Vale pit, which was located behind what is now Tesco on West Street.
Tina Huckle is the great-great-great-granddaughter of Willam Garland, one of the most prominent miners of his day back in the late Victorian era.
Tina Huckle, whose great-great-great grandfather was William Garland, a Bedminster coal miner, at the unveiling of the first metal miner memorial in Bristol, near the site of the Malago Vale pit off West Street in Bedminster(Image: Bristol Post)
She, Stef Brammar and Gary Atterton formed the Bedminster Coalminers Heritage Group to research and gather together the family trees of the miners, and found there were two main families – the Bolts and the Garlands – whose fathers and sons, brothers and cousins, provided generations of miners to the South Bristol pits.
The statue has been affectionately named William Garland, although he wasn’t killed in the Malago Vale disaster, he was a key starting point for the research.
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“I’ve met various other people that I’m related to through this project, so still living here in the area, the sense of community that we’ve built, and raising the awareness, has been amazing,” said Tina, who said the area is in danger of forgetting its mining origins and history, as the old Bedminster families move away through the wider economic factors that are changing the demographics of BS3.
“It’s really important, especially now where we have quite a gentrified area, with Southville and Bedminster,” she said. “I think it’s important for those people to understand what actually Bedminster was built on, literally the bedrock of what we’re standing on now.
At the unveiling of the first metal miner memorial in Bristol, near the site of the Malago Vale pit off West Street in Bedminster, descendants of the coalminers of Bedminster(Image: Bristol Post)
“We’ve worked with Compass Point School – the children there physically held bits of coal and they’ve learned all about fossil fuels. So it’s super-important that we ensure people remember the people – especially the ones that died – their contribution to society.
“It wasn’t just about mining. They set up the first co-operative, the gospel school, all sorts of things – there was a real sense of a strong community,” she added.
The last pit in South Bristol to close was South Liberty Lane, in 1925. In Somerset, the pits closed in the 1970s and there are still many men who worked in them still around now. Two members of the Somerset Miners Welfare Trust, which has worked tirelessly around the pit villages of Somerset to raise awareness of the history, were on hand to mark the first Bristol monument.
At the unveiling of the first metal miner memorial in Bristol, near the site of the Malago Vale pit off West Street in Bedminster- left to right, Cllr Tony Dyer, Tina Huckle, Cllr Christine Townsend, Cllr Ellie Freeman and Cllr Emily Clarke(Image: Bristol Post)
Local councillors Ellie Freeman and Emily Clarke worked with the group to get the various permissions to install the statue and the plaque, and council leader Tony Dyer – himself a descendant of South Bristol’s miners – was also in attendance, along with fellow Southville councillor Christine Townsend.
South Bristol MP Karin Smyth planted a ‘miner’s merlot’ plant near the monument, before everyone went into the Colliers for refreshments.
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Among them was Mike Beese, who proudly showed anyone who wanted to look, a photo of his great-great-grandfather Thomas Bolt – one of the ten killed in the Malago Vale pit disaster of 1891.
“The ten men are part of probably more than 150 coal miners who lost their lives in Bedminster’s pits,” said historian Garry Atterton, who helped form the heritage group. “They were the fathers, husbands, sons, brothers and neighbours of the people of Bedminster.
At the unveiling of the first metal miner memorial in Bristol, near the site of the Malago Vale pit off West Street in Bedminster, Mike Beese with a photo of his great-great-grandfather Thomas Bolt and his wife Jane. Thomas was one of the miners killed in the 1891 Malago Vale pit disaster(Image: Bristol Post)
“This memorial will pay homage to past generations, but also allow – and this is a key thing for us – the present and future generations to have a greater awareness and a greater appreciation of the heritage of Bedminster’s coalminers.
“Everywhere you look around us there are reflections of the past. With so many Bedminster coal mining family members here today, it’s quite emotional,” he added.