The human race has long had a love affair with coal. Coal is a fossil fuel that started forming in the Carboniferous Period 359 million to 299 million years ago during the Paleozoic Era.
Stone and Bronze Age flint axes have been found embedded in coal, evidence that people were using it for fuel long before the Roman invasion. In the 13th century, coal seams were found along shorelines of northern England, and settlers dug them up then followed them inland under cliffs or hills, the earliest beginnings of drift mining. But with the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, coal mining exploded, providing fuel for steam engines, transportation, and home heating.
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Taller ponies and horses worked thicker coal seams with higher ceilings, and smaller ponies worked the seams with low ceilings.
In the early years, men, women and children worked the mines until laws were enacted to protect females. As productivity improved and underground haulage needs increased, horses and ponies filled the need.
“The first records of ponies being worked in mines was in the north of England around 1750,” says Wendy Priest, Horse Keeper Supervisor at The National Coal Mining Museum for England. “Horses were used on a large scale after the 1842 Mines Act that abolished the underground employment of boys under 10 and all females.
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Taller horses would become injured by scraping their heads or backs on the low-ceilinged roadways.
“People who visit the Museum are under the impression that Shetland ponies were mainly used as pit ponies. In fact, all sizes were used, from Shetlands to Shires. In different parts of the country, the width of coal seams varied considerably. Thick coal seams meant high [ceiling] roadways. Large ponies and horses could be found working in these mines. Small ponies such as Welsh ponies and Shetlands [in England] worked in small seams with low tops. Many scraped their heads as they worked as the roadways were so low. Welsh mines commonly used larger Welsh cobs, around 15 hands.”
In ex-miner Ceri Thompson’s book Harnessed: Colliery Horses in Wales, he documents the widespread use of small Shire horses in the main roadways in the mines. Animals larger than ponies were used because the drams held up to a ton and a half of material compared to the smaller half-ton tubs in most English coalfields.
Horses and ponies were integral workers in coal mines, not only in England and Wales, but in Canada and the United States.
