| AdminHistory | Water management has always been an issue for mines, which have to deal with the drainage of water, both from the surface and underground as they are sunk and expand their operations, extracting the coal underground.
By the end of the nineteenth century flooding from older collieries and abandoned mines posed a real threat to neighbouring parts of the South Yorkshire coalfield. In order to safeguard workable coal, the South Yorkshire Coal Owners’ Association agreed in 1918, to take over the pumping and water drainage system which Earl Fitzwilliam had previously managed for his own collieries around Elsecar and Rawmarsh, but which were due to be abandoned. The South Yorkshire Pumping Association was formed, a voluntary body, consisting of the 15 collieries most directly affected by the problem of rise water. The Association purchased a network of pumping stations and drainage channels from the Earl, including the old Hemingfield Colliery, the Elsecar Newcomen-type engine, and the Westfield pumping station sites.
In 1929 the Association became the South Yorkshire Mines Drainage Committee, an official scheme under the Mining Industrial Act 1920, which operated until the nationalisation of the coal mines in 1947.
(Source: The Friends of Hemingfield Colliery, 'South Yorkshire Pumping Association - origins') |