Killed in a Coalpit – revisited

I was recently contacted by Andrew Plaster, a fellow member of Bristol & Avon FHS who, via the Facebook Group (Bitton, Hanham, Longwell Green & Oldland Memories, (administered by Julie Johns) discovered a reference to William Phelps, who preceded William Joyner Ellis as Coroner for South Glos. I used WJE extensively in Killed in a Coal Pit – The Lives of the Kingswood Colliers but had not come across Phelps before. After much patient sleuthing (the reference number and venue had changed) Andrew tracked down the document to Gloucester Archives under Ref No. D9125/1/1224.

The item proved to be William Phelps’ record of his expenses during 1772-1793. Nothing pertaining to coalmining appears before 1786 which gives me hope there may be more info lurking about somewhere. Andrew checked with my book and sent me a list of the unfortunate coalminers over whose inquests Phelps presided. Details were minimal and simply state ‘killed in coal pit’. I have added a few comments to Andrew’s list; the new entries are picked out in bold type. ‘NCD’ stands for ‘No cause of death stated’ in the particular parish register where burial took place which accounts for their omission from the book. The two final names Joseph & Stephen Britton do not appear to be ‘killed in coal pit’ but Andrew is particularly interested in the well-known Britton family, a surname which most of us Kingswood district people find multiple times in our family trees.

The two Brittons may not have worked in the pits, but many of the Britton men were Kingswood colliers.  The gravestone of Stephen Britton, who died in 1792, can be found in Bitton churchyard plus other early burial stones. Andrew is comprehensively re-researching and re-writing G. Britton Spilsbury’s book, ‘The Brittons of Kingswood Chase’, a mammoth undertaking which he tells me is ‘progressing’. The late Gladys ‘Judy’ Spilsbury was a good friend of mine.  Her seminal work was done ‘by hand’, and foot slogging round church vestries and archives before modern aids were available, just like much of my own stuff. We were once told off in the Bristol Archives by ‘a serious researcher’ for giggling, but as this was upwards of fifty years ago, we were too young to know better!

Andrew also shared the following:

A Peter Britton (b.1805 at Kingswood) migrated to USA, and founded a coal-mining place in Iowa called Petersburg after his own name which was renamed ‘What Cheer’ following his death. ’What Cheer!’ seems to me to be in the tradition of the excited, optimistic, names chosen for mines in Kingswood, Sound-well, Speed-well, Made for Ever &c, and I wonder if these type of names are indigenous to Kingswood or do they exist elsewhere? ‘What Cheer’ has been around since the 15^th century and was obviously corrupted into the still common ‘Wotcher?’.

A different Peter Britton, 1814-67, went from our area to Yorkshire in 1867 along with another local man, forty two year old George Burchill, to work in the Silkstone mine in the West Riding. One week later they were ‘accidently crushed to death’ in the pit by a fall of stone from the roof. George Burchill’s nephew Charles Garland survived the accident and gave evidence at the inquest. As my paternal grandma was a Burchill and great grandmother Hetty Garland, both from Mangotsfield coalmining stock, I can’t wait to research both George & Charlie. Watch this space.

With many thanks to Andrew Plaster and to Ian McEwen who drew the picture of the coalminer.

(A version of this article will appear in the SGMRG newsletter.)