I’d hazard that most Yorkshire families don’t have to search too far before family members emerge with the tell tale blue scars that reveal their ancestors worked in t’ pit. Or lived in or near a colliery – they were everywhere! One day there will surely be an almighty thud and large areas of Yorkshire will sink below sea level due to the burrowing activities of generations of tykes with picks and shovels.
Thorp’s
The Thorp mining activity begins with this bloggers name sake, Robert Thorp (b 25 Oct 1848 – The Year of the First Paris Commune!). Robert was the son by a second marriage of a direct descendent, Henry Thorp. Robert began work underground at 12 years of age near Gomersal. Robert move east and lived in Lock Lane, Allerton Byewater and for some inexplicable reason added ‘e’ to the family name. History does not reveal (yet) which pits he worked, whichever they were, in 1861 first son William Henry (18) and James (16) had become Coal Miners to be joined later by Thomas aged 16 and Peter 14.
Coal Miner’s Daughters
The males in the maternal line spent much more time underground – mostly.
Thomas Cooper, Mary’s father, hailing from Darlaston, Staffordshire is listed in 1901 as a Coal Miner – Hewer, residing in 9 Beaumont Yard, Primrose Hill Ward Wakefield and probably worked at Park Hill Colliery, although other pits were available.
The 20 year old Mary Cooper married the 21 year old George W Fynn in 1913, a Barnsley lad from a coal mining family. How he got to Wakefield is unknown, he may have been drawn by the bright lights of the “Merry City” and stayed. They spent what they had of their brief married life in Brick Yard, Primrose Hill and George may well have followed Thomas to Park Hill.
Following George’s death at Loos en Gohelle in 1915. Mary married Edward Hinchliffe in 1917 – a miner. Originally of Darton but in 1911 residing at Spring Terrace, Ossett Common. (Ossett Spa – Spring Mill?) and most likely worked at Roundwood Colliery but again there were several other pits. In 1929 Mary and Edward left the old shallow pits and shoddy housing of Ossett for the modern Harworth Colliery finally opened in 1924 and followed with a new housing estate 1925. Harworth was typical of the move east: new deep pit with a new housing estate often in fairly isolated rural areas, sometimes near an older small village. Housing, schools, institutes etc all followed.
Of Mary’s 4 sons who reached working age 2 followed Edward: Jack (Roundwood, possibly Manor, Wakefield) and Ernie – the youngest who followed his sister Irene to Bircotes (Harworth Colliery) and became a Bevin Boy before joining up.
Mary and George’s only child Irene (my Grandmother aka Nana) married John Peters who variously worked at Harworth and probably Roundwood in Ossett and Brodsworth.
Paddy Peters – Jim Mincher
Genealogical Jigsaw 