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01 Elrington CollieryHunter Valley2017
ISO 1001/3f/9.020mm
Series · 66 prints
Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap
Elrington Colliery was a BHP coal mine near Kearsley and Cessnock in New South Wales, on the South Maitland coalfield. Sinking began in January 1925, and the colliery closed in December 1962. It was established to supply coal to BHP's Newcastle steelworks. Its two shafts were 18 feet in diameter and lined with concrete throughout, where other collieries in the district were lined with brick, and coal was struck 1,195 feet down on 15 December 1927. It was planned to produce 3,000 tonnes a day and never did.
BHP Collieries Pty Ltd, in which Hebburn Ltd held shares, owned Elrington Colliery and a holding of 3,900 acres. BHP meant the mine to pioneer modern methods of coal extraction, and in 1935 its jubilee review found 'an early impression of modernity' in surface buildings of brick and steel. The Greta seam was worked by bord and pillar, and 8-ton battery locomotives hauled trains of three-ton steel skips on 3 ft 6 in gauge track to the No. 2 shaft.
Before the Coal Commission in November 1929 the manager said Elrington Colliery should have been raising 300 to 500 tons a day but had never exceeded 40, and blamed labour disputes that had cost 460 working days since sinking began. In June 1954, when the Newcastle Morning Herald said it produced some of Australia's best gas coal, 20 mineworkers were to be laid off, and in 1957 its 245 mine workers were on strike for six weeks.
By late October 1962 the closure of Elrington pit, with 250 mineworkers, had been announced for the end of the year, and more than 1,500 people met at Weston in protest. The miners were dismissed on 20 December 1962. From 17 June 1964 Elrington Engineering Pty Ltd gave the surface facilities 'a new lease of life'; it later became Elrington Industries, and by June 1997 a council report referred to the former Elrington Industries. The photographs show the engine house, workshops, washhouse, lamp cabin and two-storey pay and manager's office, heritage listed since 3 November 1989 and now within Cessnock LEP 2011 item I215.
Newcastle Sun (16 December 1927), Tribune (31 October 1962), Ross Mainwaring (2009) and The BH Review (1935)
Hand-signed and numbered, printed from the original RAW file. Open editions in the two smallest sizes; limited editions of 100, 50 and 25 in the three larger, never reissued once they sell through.
Made to order by Brett in Sydney, from the original RAW file. Each print is hand-signed and numbered before it ships.
Paper
Ilford Galerie cotton rag, 310 gsm. Acrylic on metallic gloss, 260 gsm.
Lead time
Unframed: 5 to 10 business days. Framed and acrylic: 10 to 20.
In 1935 BHP's fleet burned about 112 tons of bunker coal each steaming day, and The BH Review reported that a large proportion of it came from Elrington Colliery, the balance from the John Darling or Burwood collieries. The company's steamers also carried cargoes of Elrington coal to Port Pirie and Port Augusta, then loaded ironstone at Whyalla for the voyage back to Newcastle.
When coal was struck at Elrington Colliery in December 1927, three shifts of men had been sinking the colliery around the clock for more than 12 months. The second shaft was then down 1,145 feet and still some weeks from the coal, and a railway from Weston to the new pit was being built.
On 1 May 1951 the Newcastle District Committee of the Amalgamated Engineering Union decided to withdraw its members from all collieries in the North as far as Muswellbrook except four, after an electrical fitter at Elrington Colliery was suspended for refusing to do turning work. The South Maitland branch secretary said members had repeatedly been suspended over 12 months: 'Turning was not the work of an electrical fitter; it was the work of a fitter and turner.'