The Kintyre Forum

Hi

i am trying to find out more about the Coal mines at KilKivan around the 1800s if thats possible.My Familly originates from there and were miners,id love to find out more about the history of the mines.

Matt

There is a bit of information on historical coal mining activities around the Drumlemble area in Meanders in South Kintyre by James McNeill, first published in 1953 and republished in 1997 by the Kintyre antiquarian and Natural History Society. This small book is a mine of information (forgive the pun) on the history and past lifestyle of the Machrihanish and Drumlemble area. I don't know if this book is still available at present, maybe somebody could advise if it is available in the town? There is also some information on coal mining in Kintyre Country Life by Angus Martin, which I believe is currently available.

The pit flooded in Feb.1835 and was closed for 16 months, until a new pit opened in 1837 near the canal and a tramroad was built to carry the coal 627 yards from pit to canal. In 1841 the pit manager John Howie died and the operation was thrown into confusion.

Thank you for the replys,my Great GGGGG grandfather,was a coal miner there and is buried at the old Kilkivan church yard,are there any references to when the pit at drumlemble was first dug?

Hi Matt !

You just beat me to this post, I was about to ask a similar question. Emdee and Red's replies are certainly interesting.

Like you, my GGG Granddad James McArthur was a miner at Drumlemble, as was nearly all his children and grandchildren. Even my father was down the same pits some 50-odd years ago…, and he's still alive !

I found your posting accidently by Googling "drumlemble coal mines," and this post is the first of the URLs. (just goes to show the security of everything that is mentioned on this site ) Anyway, Googling the words will give you dozens of interesting sites.

Also…, if you enter the RootsWeb site, (http://freecen.rootsweb.com/cgi/search.pl ) and with a little luck, you just might stumble over your ancestors.

Firstly, in the first box, click the year 1841. (these are census periods…, with 1841 being the first) Of course, your ancestor must be alive on this year.
Then fill in the document and click "find." If you get a negative feed-back, go back to the document and delete, one-by-one, the less important details. (profession for example)

If you get a short list of names…, choose one from Campbeltown. With a bit of luck, your coal-miner ancestor probably lived in Drumlemble or there-abouts, and on clicking on "see who's next door," you can search the whole village.

PS If there's any genealogy McArthurs out there, please let me know ! (or Blacks)

My family were from Drumlemble and most of them were miners, from my father's generation and further back... Not sure if this is of interest to but I made a film about Kintyre's last coal mine, The Argyll Colliery - although it concentrates on the period from 1947 - 1967 there is a bit about the historical context of mining around Drumlemble and Machrihanish...
The film is called the Road to Drumleman and here is a link to it:
http://www.jannimmo.com/TRTD.html