An Illustrated History of Old Sutton in St.Helens

Part 12 (of 41) - Sutton Manor Colliery Part 2 (1960 - 1991)

Researched & Written by S.R.Wainwright ©MMX Contact Me

Sutton Manor Colliery Photo Album #1 | Photo Album #2 | Photo Album #3 | Photo Album #4

Sutton Manor Colliery History Part 1 Header image: Sutton Manor Colliery headgear winder

Sutton Manor Colliery St.Helens sign
Sign at the entrance to Sutton Manor Colliery (Frazer Nairn Collection)

By the beginning of the 'Swinging Sixties', Sutton Manor Colliery was in a strong position with 1600 men on its books and output rising. Now under the control of the National Coal Board (NCB) since the nationalisation of the industry in 1957, the colliery was annually outputting over 300,000 tons of coal and seemed to have a rosy future. They could even afford to knock down and rebuild part of their new social club because there wasn't enough elbow room in their snooker room!

Sutton Manor miners welfare club newspaper report

The Sutton Manor Welfare Club had been built in 1959 from a grant from the Lancashire miners' welfare fund. The NCB contributed halfpenny to the fund for every ton of coal produced at Lancashire pits. However, soon after construction, the miners began complaining of cramped conditions inside the snooker room. The club's committee limited the number of spectators, rearranged the furniture and even bought shorter snooker cues. But it was all to no avail and so three walls of the newly-built club were knocked down and it was rebuilt. The story of 'Miners Snookered!' even made it into the Times!

During the early '60s, the Coal Board began a study of the industry's pits, assessing their long-term economic viability and cost-effectiveness. In October 1965 as a consequence of their controversial 'streamlining' initiative, the NCB made the decision to close the adjacent and apparently uneconomic Clock Face Colliery. However, Sutton Manor with its record-breaking production figures seemed to have a more secure future. Having surprisingly placed Sutton Manor in the 'jeopardy' class of at risk pits, the NCB removed it from their list and began an advertising campaign to recruit boys to both Sutton Manor and Bold collieries. In adverts placed in the St.Helens Reporter during 1966, 15 year-old school leavers were promised a job for life:

Coal mining offers Apprenticeship and a Lifetime's career....boys entering coal mining today can look forward to a lifetime in the industry.

Sutton Manor tallies issued to each miner as a safety check - they were surrendered prior to
disembarking down the cage, then returned when the miner surfaced

Fresh young recruits were promised "good pay right from the day you start". If they chose to work underground they'd receive a weekly wage of £7 3s 6d a week. The wage on offer for a 15 year-old surface worker at Sutton Manor was only slightly less, at £6 9s 6d. Employment benefits on offer included access to the canteen, pit-head showers, club and sports facilities.

underground locomotive in sutton manor colliery
Albert the underground loco at Sutton Manor Colliery (contributed by Les Dunning / Ian Lally)

Ex-miners were also targeted by the National Coal Board as part of their recruitment campaign using the headline 'Come Back Into Mining'. They were promised better pay than before plus "permanent employment and a secure future". The strap-line of the ads used uppercase to emphasise the longevity of employment on offer:

Britain will need coal and mines for a LONG, LONG TIME

(St.Helens Reporter advertisement 29/10/1966)

Sutton Manor Colliery, St.Helens in British Coal's in-house magazine 'Sutton Manor Magazine'
The colliery portrayed in British Coal's publication 'Sutton Manor Magazine'

Miner at Sutton Manor Colliery St.Helens

In the Spring of 1968, Sutton Manor Colliery was reorganised and coal production ceased in no.1 pit as the management believed that there were more economic seams contained within pit no.2. As a consequence, there was a reduction in the workforce of 481 men, leaving 937 men still on the books. Shaft no.1 was still used by the colliery, however, for essential ventilation and winding operations.

In 1974 a new 10 ton triple drilling rig was introduced that was said to resemble a mechanical octopus and 2 years later an untapped coal field was discovered just south of Sutton Manor at Barrows Green. A scheme was proposed which would involve driving two underground roadways of 1,150 yards in length through a major geological fault.

The Colliery Manager Peter Male was quoted in the St.Helens press as saying that this boded well for the future:

Sutton Manor has been in jeopardy for some years because of a shortage of results from the coal face and we have lost some money. But this new field opens up new roads for the future and there are reserves of coal to last the pit for up to thirty years.

mining families on a trip to russia 1974

Coal was also being obtained from the two faces in the Higher Florida and Wigan Four Feet seams and marketed locally to industry, power stations and the domestic market. Although Sutton Manor now had a slimmed down workforce, there weren't as many accidents and the colliery seemed to have a good future. One miner's family was also able to enjoy a free trip to the Soviet Union!

About 1974, miner Tommy Ludden and wife Mary, a former Sutton Manor pit brow lass who then worked at the colliery as a cleaner, travelled to Russia with daughter Jane on a three week all-expenses paid holiday. This was as a result of an arrangement between the super-power's Miners Union and Britain's National Union of Mineworkers. It was a wonderful opportunity to get away from the dirt and grime of the pit in the company of fifty other mining families from all over the UK. This group picture is taken in a Black Sea resort, with 11-year-old Jane on the front row (3rd left) next to her mother and enjoying three weeks off school! Manor miners were selected from a rota and had to be union members to qualify. (Picture contributed by Jane Mines)

In 1982 the colliery announced its intention to sell surplus methane gas to the ICI Pilkington Sullivan works at Widnes. A 5 mile-long pipeline linked Sutton Manor with ICI and over 5 million therms of methane - equivalent to 3 million gallons of oil - was pumped through it. Cooling, distribution and pumping facilities were sited at the colliery and filtration and metering equipment at ICI. The scheme cost £3 million and began on July 14th, 1983.

Sutton Manor Colliery in St.Helens
Photographed in August 1986 the new no.1 headgear and no.2 headgear (Mel Moran Collection)

In December 1983 the National Coal Board announced a £14 million investment in Sutton Manor which they predicted would provide a "kiss of life" for the "viable" pit, converting it into one of Britain's most modern collieries. The St. Helens Star began its report of the cash injection by saying:

Happy days could be here again for pitmen at one hard-grafting colliery (St.Helens Star 15/12/1983)

The 1984 strike was a particularly difficult period in the colliery's life. However, it is remembered by many as a time of great generosity for the miners and their families who were denied state benefits. There were gifts from many sources, especially from people in Liverpool and Sutton Manor's Brian Mitchell and Jim Smith took a brightly painted Play Bus into the city each week. People would come out of their homes and donate whatever they could to them and there were also collection centres in Hardman Street and at the Liverpool Seamans' Offices.

For almost a year the Printers Union took Sutton Manor miners to a local cash and carry to buy fruit, bacon, eggs and vegetables. Every week a man, who no one knew, turned up at the institute with a large bag of carrots and one of onions. For the children of the strikers, the free school dinner was a lifeline as their main meal of the day and the community ensured that they had their annual Christmas party.

plan of Sutton Manor Colliery, St.Helens
1) Forest Road 2) Colliery canteen 3) Main gates 4) Manager's block 5) Pit baths clean side 6) Pit baths exit
7) Pit baths dirty side 8) Surveyors office 9) Toilets 10) Engineering workshops 11) Lamproom (pic Ian Lally)

In 1986 the NCB's successor, British Coal, shocked Sutton Manor mineworkers by announcing that they were going to make 250 redundancies. The pit was now considered uneconomic and was losing £25 for each tonne of coal that it produced. Jack Evans of British Coal told readers of the St.Helens Star that in his opinion some members of the workforce weren't grafting hard enough:

Despite our best efforts to make the pit a success, there is an apparent reluctance on the part of some members of the workforce at Sutton Manor...Its future is in the hands of the men

(The St.Helens Star October 9th, 1986)

Sutton Manor Colliery, St.Helens output table January 1990

The redundancies left just 425 men on the colliery's books and by February 1990 with a downsized workforce, matters seemed to be improving. In the 5th edition of in-house publication 'Sutton Manor Magazine', then Colliery Manager K.A. Leech praised the men for breaking 3 output records since the previous edition of the 4-page newsletter.

For week ending 20/01/1990, total weekly output had been a record 15,096 tonnes and the colliery results for the month of January 1990 were shown as an operating profit of £157,000, with net profit after capital charges of £46,000.

Miners at Sutton Manor Colliery in Sutton St.Helens
A photograph which appeared in 'Sutton Manor Magazine No.5' (February 1990)

Happy mineworkers posed for a photograph (above) propping up a board which detailed their record breaking activities, subtitled as 'Manor Men Are Back Again' . The caption underneath the picture in 'Sutton Manor Magazine', referred to the output levels as a "grand achievement". Colliery Manager Mr. Leech in an article entitled 'Well Done!' explained that "work is well underway" on a new coal face.

By December 1990 the Colliery Manager was P.G. Redford and in the Christmas edition of 'Sutton Manor Magazine (no.9) he informed the pitmen that in the quarter that ended in October, output had gone down. He claimed that British Coal had lost money and so Sutton Manor had been put back into the 'Reconvened Review Procedure'. However, the colliery manager also revealed that since October, the week by week tonnage was starting to rise and there was some cautious optimism for the future with Redford also referring to planned development work.

So there was some bewilderment when just weeks later British Coal announced that the pit was unviable and scheduled for closure in June 1991. They claimed that Sutton Manor Colliery had lost £23 million over the previous five years and a British Coal spokesman was quoted by the St.Helens Star on May, 30th 1991 as saying that "The pit was losing money and not hitting output targets". It finally closed on the 24th May, 1991 with 40 years of coal still underground.

St.Helens newspaper cutting on the closure of the Sutton Manor Colliery, St.Helens.
St.Helens Star report on the closure from May 30th, 1991

There is so much heritage in the Sutton Manor site. Not many know that it was the last colliery in the country to employ a steam winder as the St.Helens Reporter reported thirty years ago:

The sounds and smells of steam engines have left the railways and the factories but they still hang over Sutton Manor Colliery. For steam power is alive and well and putting in a 24 hours a day shift...every year visitors come from all over the country to take a look at one of the last refuges of the steam age. (St.Helens Reporter 14/7/1978)

Sutton Manor Colliery (St.Helens) – the remants of shaft no. 2.

During its latter years, the colliery was unique in possessing one of the newest winding engines in the country as well as (pre-1986) one of the oldest in the steam winder. This was used for winding both men and materials and the same company which built the engines for the ill-fated Titanic, also manufactured the steam winder's engine.

The old National Coal Board gates in Jubits Lane and the remnants of the pit shafts (see right - pit no.2) are all that’s left to remind visitors of the site's illustrious past. Due to their depth, a decision was taken not to fill in the shafts. Instead two concrete plugs, about three yards thick, were lifted into position over the twin shafts with venting pipes provided for the methane. From being a productive colliery with enormous slag heaps, the 230 acre site is now a Forestry Commission-managed woodland and grassland perfect for walking.

The people of Sutton haven't forgotten the site's illustrious past and, hopefully, the old NCB gates will remain as an ever-present physical legacy. In 2009 a number of heritage seats were installed on the site, courtesy of nearby Sutton Manor Primary and artist Bernadette Hughes, and a heritage art trail will be installed in 2010. Former miners have considerable affection for their former workplace and quite a number have had their ashes scattered or interred there.

A number of former pitmen have become councillors or civic leaders such as Harry Williams who worked at Sutton Manor for 50 years as a foreman in the power house. He held the distinction of being the Mayor of St.Helens in 1973, its final year as a borough council prior to becoming a Metropolitan Borough under Merseyside. Former Sutton Manor pitman Brian Spencer was until 2010 the Leader of St.Helens Council for several years and Mike McGuire became MP for Ince from 1964 to 1983 and for Makerfield from 1983 to 1987. Dr. Ken Moses CBE from Thatto Heath became General Manager at Sutton Manor Colliery and later a senior executive at British Coal.

Another with a distinguished Sutton Manor service record was Noah Lamb (1898-1990) who spent 50 years down the pit. Noah is pictured sitting on his bed at 30 Chester Lane where he was born (contributed by Jim Lamb). Being a miner for half a century didn't do him any harm, as he lived to the ripe old age of 92. However, working down Sutton Manor was not easy. Ex-miner Gary Conley described the conditions on BBC North West Tonight on March 4th, 2009, in a report that commemorated 25 years since the start of the 1984 strike:

It was hotter than the flames of hell in some sections and cold as the Antarctic in others

Despite the often harsh conditions, the bonds of friendship between the workforce, in what's been called a family pit, were very strong. Almost twenty years since the closure, many mineworkers still have a considerable connection to the site. On May 31st, 2009 as part of the Big Art Project, a work of public art called Dream was officially opened at the apex of the former colliery's spoil heap, which rises 270 feet above sea level. This artwork towers over the M62 and was designed by Catalan artist Jaume Plensa both to serve as a memorial for the site's heritage but also to look forward to the future. Appropriately, former Sutton Manor pitmen have played a pivotal role in commissioning this monument to the blood, sweat and toil that took place underneath the statue for eighty-five years of the twentieth century.

Sutton Manor Colliery mineworkers in 1980s (Mel Moran Collection)

Next: Part 13) Clock Face Colliery; | Research Sources, References & Bibliography

          Click Here for Sutton Manor Colliery Photo-Album #1   (46 pictures)    Slideshow
          Click Here for Sutton Manor Colliery Photo-Album #2   (45 pictures)    Slideshow
          Click Here for Sutton Manor Colliery Photo-Album #3   (38 pictures)    Slideshow
          Click Here for Sutton Manor Colliery Photo-Album #4   (26 pictures)    Slideshow
          Click Here for a plan of Sutton Manor Colliery (courtesy Mel Moran)

I am continuing to research Sutton Manor Colliery. If you have any
further information or photographs do please contact me.

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