The growth of Cotgrave, half a century ago, from a village of around 750 people to a town of well over 5,000 was because of coal. There had been mining in the area before but not on the scale of this colliery, built in the ‘60s to supply coal to fuel the Ratcliffe on Soar power station. Hundreds of experienced miners recently laid off in Wales, Nottinghamshire and the North East, relocated with their families to the swiftly growing town. Large housing estates were established, a shopping centre, pubs and the Miners’ Welfare Club were built.
The colliery itself was modern and efficient, and safety was an important concern in this highly dangerous industry. One everyday aspect of the work was the use of “Pit Checks” or “Tokens” to keep tabs on who was in the mine at any given time. In the two-check system at Cotgrave each face worker was issued with both a circular and a square token. Anyone going underground would give the square tally to the banks man when entering the cage. On coming out of the mine they gave the round tally to the banks man. The checks were then sent back to the lamp room and put on a board where the workers would pick them up for their next shift.
When the colliery was decommissioned in the ‘90s most of the pit checks disappeared in various directions and, since an electronic card system superseded the checks and few mines remain, have become an interesting relic as well as a collector’s item.
So there was a degree of surprise when a lady in the USA contacted the cotgravecolliery.co.uk website offering her collection of pit checks to Cotgrave. Catherine Jacoby, a Chicago artist, had acquired them to use in an art project but no longer had use for them. A confessed Anglophile, she wanted the checks to be appreciated by residents of the town from where they came and returned them via the website manager, Russ Hamer. She told Russ, “I bought the checks from an antique dealer in Chicago in around 2005. At the time, I didn’t even know what the word colliery meant to be honest. I always thought they would end up in a piece of artwork. Fast forward to a good studio clean-out, and I found them again and looked them up to see where this Cotgrave place was. … So thrilled they’ve found themselves a permanent home.”
Catherine donated and posted 43 brass checks, predominantly square, and all stamped for Cotgrave Colliery with individual numbers ranging from 204 to 3037. It’s hoped that there are miners still living that can identify their own check. Maurice Brown at Cotgrave Colliery Club has organised a display case for the checks along with an explanation of their original purpose. They will be handed over to the club shortly. Hopefully they will then be seen by many, impart a little historical information and help to keep alive the memory of Cotgrave Colliery which was such an important part of the town’s history, now gone with little trace.