Mining collection in need of local help

By clunn

I WONDER if your readers can help me with my hobby, which is collecting brass embossed colliery lamp checks or tokens and tallies, as they are sometimes called.

These are brass discs with the name of the colliery on them as well as the miner's number. The miner would draw this check along with his lamp from the lamp room before going down the mine.

I am trying very hard to obtain some lamp checks from the many collieries that once operated in the Tamworth area and North Warwickshire coalfield.

I have listed below the names of some of the collieries I am trying to obtain a lamp check from. They are; Amington Colliery, Alvecote Colliery, Glascote Colliery, Pooley Hall Colliery, North Warwick Colliery, Griff Clara Colliery, Griff No 4 Colliery, Birchmoor Colliery, Haunchwood (Tunnel) Colliery, North Warwick Colliery, Arley Colliery, Ansley Hall Colliery, Kingsbury Colliery, Wyken Colliery, Craven Colliery, Stockingford Colliery, Binley Colliery.

I would very much like to hear from any one who once worked at and can remember these collieries working, and any help they can give me in trying to obtain any lamp checks from them would be very much appreciated.

Peter Wall, 5 Cherry Grove, Norton, Stourbridge, West Midlands, DY8 3YL.