In 1882, the Staveley Coal and Iron Company sunk the first shaft of a new colliery near Duckmanton in Derbyshire. The mine was named after Charles Markham, the managing director and chief engineer of the company. A second shaft was sunk in 1886 that was run as a separate mine with its own workforce and management and was known as Markham Number 2.

The coal industry in Derbyshire was shaped by the railways. Rail companies demand for coal drove the expansion of the Derbyshire coal industry in the nineteenth century and railways provided access to London, the main market. In the 1880s, Derbyshire provided forty per cent of the coal that arrived in London by train.

The Staveley Coal and Iron Company was a paternalistic company. Providing housing for mineworkers was necessary, as existing housing was inadequate for a growing workforce. The company also contributed money for chapels and other local facilities and had a reputation for providing slightly better conditions than other local mines. Nonetheless, the company remained strongly anti-union.

The Derbyshire Miners’ Association was formed in 1880, after the Staveley Company had taken a lead in fighting earlier attempts to form mining unions. The company continued to take an aggressive approach towards trade unionism. During the 1926 miners’ lockout, they reopened Markham Number 2 in June. Workers responded with a substantial protest – 5,000 people and a brass band.

In 1934, a new invention – the Ringrose lamp that automatically detected gas – was trialled at Markham. Although it had been known as a relatively safe pit, there were two catastrophic explosions in the 1930s. On 21 January 1937, nine men died in an explosion at Markham Number One. The following year, on 10 May 1938, as the night shift was going home an explosion killed 79 men.

Markham Colliery 1992 (Photograph by Dun.can)

On 1 January 1947, the coal industry was nationalised. Markham was no longer part of the Staveley Company, but the East-Midlands area of the National Coal Board.

In the decades that followed Markham underwent considerable restructuring. In 1967, Markham 1, 2, and 4 - were merged into one pit.

By the 1980s, Markham was not a particularly militant pit. In the 1983, ballot only a third of NUM members at Markham voted yes in the national ballot against pit closures. The colliery was divided during the 1984/5 Miners’ strike, while some miners remained out until March 1985, many others returned to work.

In 1987 the National Coal Board had been renamed British Coal and after the election of John Major’s Conservative government in 1992 the industry entered a further wave of colliery closures. The last coal was brought up from Markham in June 1993. The colliery was put on care and maintenance, but formally closed the following year. The closure of Markham marked the end of mining in the Derbyshire region.

Walking Together Mining Memorial (Photograph by Grace Millar)

The site of Markham colliery is now a warehouse, just off the M1. The Miners’ welfare in Duckmanton is still open. The mining history of the area is remembered by a sculpture ‘Walking Together’. Eventually the route from Duckmanton village to the mine entrance will be lined with figures - one for each man who died in the 1938, 1974 and 1978 mining explosions.

This profile was written towards the beginning of our project, further material about Markham colliery is available at our exhibtion website.