Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 17 February 1893
Machine Shop Feast
Now that the work of reaching the coal at the new Cadeby Colliery has been accomplished it was meet at such a matter should be marked in a truly English manner of rejoicing by having a feast. The feast in the upper room of the machine shop on Saturday was a feast, the like of which the sinkers may no secret of saying they and never seen before. All present thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and, as is customary, reviewed in all gladness the difficulties they had encountered, and congratulated each other as soldiers after a great victory.
And it was a great victory entailing as much struggle, pluck and generalship as is shown in a battle, and only the presence of all those qualities resulted in reaching the coal at a depth of 751 yards after four years toil. Three of the four years only resulted in the 130 sinkers reaching a depth of 250 yards, and it seemed as if the huge streams of water would defy the ablest engineer with all his generalship.
How Mr Chambers overcame the difficulty is now a matter of history and will be recorded as one of the greatest feats in mining engineering. When the water was brought under control the work was comparatively easy, and 500 yards was sunk in the next 12 months. The total cost of the undertaking has been estimated at £200,000 – a positively appalling figure. The confidence which the shareholders must have had in their directors – particularly Mr Buckingham Pope – and the manager must have been unlimited especially when we reflect that a little over a year before the completion of the work, when three fourth of the money had been expended, the most experienced of the sinkers were inclined to desert the job as hopeless.
What was the reason for it all? – will be a question that will come to the lips of many of the persons who have read what has appeared at various times on the matter. They will say, why sink a pit so near Denaby, if it is true that some of the workings in the Denaby pit proceeds as much as two or 3 miles in other directions?
The reason why the Denaby workings have not been able to go more than halfway towards Cadeby is that there have there come across a “fault.” A volcanic action has so far altered the level of the coal bed that it breaks off under the glass work at Conisborough and is only found again at a further debt of 300 yards. The lower seems to be, if anything, the better bed, and soon we may expect a colliery working that will excel even Denaby, although at that place the wage sheets total up to about £3,000 a week.