Hamstead Colliery in Hamstead, England, was operated by the Hamstead Colliery Company and produced coal between 1878 and 1965.
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It was situated on the north west border of Birmingham. In 1928, due to boundary changes, it became part of West Bromwich[1]. In 1876 the Hamstead Colliery Company bought land at Hamstead from G.C. Calthorpe of Perry Hall and began to sink mine shafts[1]. The first coal was not extracted until after 1878 due to unexpected geological problems and water ingress. The coal was at a very deep level of almost 2000 feet. It still produced coal profitably until 1965 when the mine closed and housing built on the site of the colliery and surrounding area[1].
At one point the mine was the deepest in the world. The experience gained by the mining engineers was put to good use in the English mining industry and their expertise was so world renown that the American Government requested assistance from the engineers that had solved many of Hamstead Colliery's problems, to establish deep coal mining in America, this enhancing the growing co-operation in science and technology between the two countries.
The disaster of 4 March 1908 was a national tragedy with 26 men killed in one day.[2][3]. When the fire broke out there were 31 miners in the pit, 6 escaped before poisonous fumes built up in the roadways. Rescue teams from Hamstead, Tankersley and Altofts in Yorkshire, made many attempts to reach the entombed men.[4] It took a week after the fire for the mine to clear of the fumes. On the 11 March, 14 bodies were recovered, and 6 more were recovered the following day. One of the victims was a member of the rescue team from Altofts, John Welsby. A memorial was created at Hamstead village in 2008 and there is a small museum display at the local library in the Tanhouse Centre, Great Barr.