My name is Peter Hunter. I’m a Coventry Society member with an interest in all things Coventry and a passion for running. I try to combine these two activities by taking in places of interest whilst out jogging. I’ve written a few pieces over the years entitled “the Old Guy goes jogging”. This latest piece combines an area in which I enjoy running, my interest in local history and my family history.
The focus of this piece is Craven Colliery, the site of which lies between Henley Rd. and the River Sowe – one of my regular running routes. To identify the mine’s location with reference to the modern landscape, I’d suggest the easiest thing is to find the location of Screwfix just to the south of Henley Rd. and you’re pretty much there. The Colliery occupied much of the space between Henley Rd. and the river in this location. Today there is no indication on the ground that the mine ever existed.
Below is a copy of the 1926 OS map of the area – so empty and so different to today. Henley Road is Craven Colliery Lane.
Craven Colliery closed in 1926/7 following the general strike. The Warwickshire Coal Company which owned the colliery by this time also operated the new Coventry Colliery at Keresley. This had opened in 1917, but production there was steadily increasing and when Craven Colliery closed, many workers from there transferred to Keresley.
This is where the research starts to become personal for me, when I realised that two of the men who transferred were my grandfather and my wife’s grandfather. We’d hardly realised that over a hundred years ago our grandfathers had been working at the same mine. My grandfather, Sam Stafford, was working in the Craven Colliery offices and my wife Meryl’s grandfather, John Hewitt, had been working down the pit. We have no way of knowing now whether they knew one another.
This recent revelation has started me on a quest to find out more about the mine, it’s operation and the people who worked there. So if any of you out there have information, I’d be delighted to receive it.
Getting back to the basic history of the mine. I’ll start by admitting that there is a research paper by Mike Kinder, published by the Nuneaton Local History Group that researches the history of this mine and others local to it. I haven’t managed to get hold of a copy yet, but I believe it is still in print. When I get hold of that I’ll provide an update to this piece.
Where does the story begin? A.W.A. White in “Men and Mining in Warwickshire” published in 1970 identifies mining activity very close to the Craven Colliery site between 1636 and 1639, a venture undertaken by the Earl of Dover. There follows a lengthy history of small-scale mining operations mining the same coal seam running northwards from the Craven Colliery site through Aldermans Green, Hawkesbury, Exhall, Bedworth and subsequently towards Nuneaton over at least a 300 year period.
My research suggests the final version of Craven Colliery commencing production in around 1854, with the mine’s owner being the Harris family, with the mine staying in the family ownership until 1906 when it was taken over by Wyken Colliery Co. which was subsequently taken over by the Warwickshire Coal Company.
I’ve seen one photograph of the mine site which I’ve not been able to reproduce yet, however, the photograph below, taken from Mike Kinder’s book which I mention above, shows a coal truck belonging to Craven Colliery probably around 1920.
There is much more to tell about the Craven Colliery, but first I’d like to do briefly introduce the two grandfathers.
Sam Stafford (below) worked in the offices at Craven Colliery and subsequently transferred to Keresley Colliery where he had a long career with responsibility for coal sales and dispatch. Sam was born in Bell Green in 1900 and went to school at Foleshill C.of E. School and subsequently Longford Park (Windmill Rd.) Sam was a bright lad. He wrote well, spoke well and was good with numbers and he was well set up for his office based career.
In the Victorian period and well into the first quarter of the twentieth century, there were two main focal points for society in working areas and in the north of Coventry in particular. They were the chapel and the public house. By the 1920s when Sam and John were working at Craven Colliery there was a remarkable number of non-conformist chapels and public houses in the north of Coventry and out into the countryside beyond. The number of chapels and pubs was particularly notable as the population of these areas was not large.
Sam was very chapel focused and had distinct Tory leanings although not being particularly active in politics.
John on the other hand was pub focused. His father had moved to the Hawkesbury area from Cheshire where he’d worked in agriculture. John was born in 1887. Well before the 1920’s he’d married into the Beasley family who were famed in the north of the city for their running of several pubs, the pride of which was the Greyhound at Sutton Stop. John was living at the Greyhound during WW1 with his wife Laura Beasley. The pub was still run at that time by the well – known local matriarch, Mary Beasley. Despite having married into a family with resources, he clearly still had to earn his money the hard way working down the mine. Also by 1920, John and Laura had 5 children, again all living at the Greyhound.
We never knew John, he died in the 1960’s. He was thirteen years older than Sam and from his photograph from the 60’s it looks as though his life had been far harder than Sam’s. He worked for many years underground at Keresley Colliery. Fittingly, we think that the photograph of John was taken in the Boat Public House on Grange Road which was demolished for the building of the M6 motorway.
We have no idea whether John and Sam knew one another. They almost certainly met at work at the Colliery.
I’m going to break off this introduction to Craven Colliery and Sam and John at this point. In the next installment in a few weeks time, there’ll be
- more information on the operation of the mine
- personal recollections about life at Craven Colliery a hundred year ago which were recorded in interview with Sam in the 1980’s.
- Some thoughts on how the General strike of 1926 would have impacted on Sam, John, Craven Colliery and the local community.
As I mentioned previously if you have information about Craven Colliery or particularly if you have family links to miners who worked there, I’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch by e mail, info@coventrysociety.org.uk.