1921 COAL MINER’S STRIKE & UNDERGROUND EXPLOSION PHOTOGRAPHS

Kodak “Eton” Album (17.5x14.5cm) containing 35 silver gelatin prints (c7-10cm) mounted on card leaves. Generally annotated in a contemporary hand these photographs show scenes from the Staffordshire coal field. The album begins with what is presumed to be a union meeting titled ‘Firemans Meeting’ - rather a pleasant scene of well dressed men sitting in a garden. The rest of the album is much more hard edged with 7 images from the strike of 1921 which includes ‘Strike Volunteer 1921 Hamstead’ - a group of men sitting with shovels; the other strike images show groups of men. Interspersed with these are 5 images showing the aftermath of an underground explosion at Hamstead Colliery - ‘Bottom London Haulage after Explosion Hamstead Nov 1921’. The rest of the album is made up of external images which include ‘Meadow Sidings No 17 Pit’ (image of goods wagons), generators and pit head winding gear including ‘Crackley (Chesterton) After Smash. Pulley Displaced’ and a sequence of images from the Cannock and Leacroft Pit beginning with the Winding gear for ‘Flat Rope Reels’, ‘Upcast Enginehouse’ and ‘Upcast New Engines’.