Description:The men is this picture are using hand tools to remove coal from the rock face and are loading it into a wagon. As you can tell from the picture mining was hot, dark and claustrophobic work and the risks of poisonous fumes, explosions and roof collapse were never far away. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries many men and boys were lost in pit disasters across the Potteries.
This image is reproduced by the kind permission of the British Coal Corporation.